Secrets of a Side Bitch 2 (16 page)

About an hour before leaving work, I locked my office door and began to search online for 3D ultrasound pictures that I could manipulate and print on the glossy paper that I bought from Office Max on lunch.

I was
desperate. This pregnancy scheme was unraveling along with every other lie, scheme, and move I’d pulled.

After searching Google, I
was presented with hundreds of pictures that I could manipulate to my liking. All I needed to do was change the patient’s name and doctor’s name, after finding one that was the same amount of weeks that I was supposed to be.

Talking to Omari
that morning caused an epiphany to hit me. I realized how I could successfully carry this pregnancy out and produce a baby. I just needed to come up with a plan to make it so that Omari missed the delivery.

I wasn
’t about to let things fall through the cracks. I had done too much to get where I was. I was his woman. I was the only woman. I wasn’t sharing him with anyone. I had the position that I always wanted, and I wasn’t about to let it go. Not for Aeysha. Not for Dahlia. And definitely not for Chance. So after successfully using Photoshop to add my information to the ultrasound picture, I printed it. Then I finally returned Omari’s text from about an hour ago, asking how I was doing. I text messaged back, saying that I was sorry for taking so long to get back to him. I added that I was in the clinic with no reception since my doctor called and said that she was in town and had an available appointment for this afternoon if I wanted it.

I knew that he would be
upset for missing yet another appointment, but I planned to go home and give him such a dick sucking spa treatment that he would forget all about it. Yet, fear that I wouldn’t be able to continue to dance around these appointments gave me chills.

Of all the
lies I’d told, of all the secrets I’d had, this was the most wretched and outlandish of them all.

Before slipping the ultrasound picture into
an envelope, I looked at it and wished desperately that it was really Omari’s baby that I was laying eyes on. However, I knew that I’d come up with the picture perfect plan to give him the baby that he was expecting.

I
’d bought myself a little more time with that ultrasound. I felt much better than I did this morning sitting at the vanity literally with the bubble guts as I felt the walls crashing in on me. I was now leaving the office and heading to the parking lot feeling slightly better.

Full relief would come once I got Chance the fuck out of the picture. Like the baby, I had a plan in the works to accomplish that as well
. So I headed towards the spot in Riverdale.

I text messaged Chance on my way
there to make sure that he wasn’t there. Then I confirmed that Omari was at home. Twenty minutes later, I was pulling up in front of the house. Fred, one of the block boys, was posted on the porch. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand how these little boys stood outside in twenty degree weather all day.

“What
’s up, Simone?”

“Hey
, baby.”

“
Omari isn’t here.”

“I know. I just wanted to grab some more of his things since I was in the area.”

Fred opened the front door for me. I hurried inside as the biting cold felt like it was damn near chasing me.

Paula
was in the kitchen bagging mollies, weed, and heroine.

“Hey
, Paula. How you doin’?”

“What
’s up, Simone? What are you doing here?”

“Grabbing some of Omari
’s things. I won’t be long.”

“Yea, you betta get outta here. Your
bougie ass don’t belong in no trap, baby.”

We both giggled as I headed down the hall. I bypassed what was Omari
’s old bedroom and slipped into the pantry. I took my heels off in order to be as quiet as possible and disappeared into the back of the pantry. In the furthest corner was a lose floorboard that I opened. In the floor was Omari’s drug stash. I took three bricks from the stash and put them in my Celine tote. Then, while on my knees, I crawled to the front of the pantry to make sure that Paula was still posted at the kitchen table. She was, so I crept out of the pantry and headed into the bedroom to grab what of Omari’s things that were still there.

“What’s up, Capone?”

“We got a problem,
boss.”

I wasn
’t in the mood to hear no shit like that. It was too early in the morning for dumb shit.

“What
’s the problem?”

“
We have a thief in the crib.”

“A thief?
Which crib? What’s missing?”

“Three bricks
are missing from the spot in Riverdale.”

My stomach did three summersaults so serious that I got a little sick. Three bricks
was worth at least ninety-thousand dollars on the street.

“Somebody broke in?”

As Capone replied, “Hell naw,” I went ahead and got out of the bed. It was obvious that I was gone have to hit the block much earlier than usual. “When Chance told me that the count was off, first thing I assumed was Ching. But them niggas wouldn’t come in here for three bricks.”

“Hell naw they wouldn
’t.”

“You think
Chance grabbed them?”

“Hell naw, man. You don
’t come off to me as that type of dude.”

“
Paula?”

“She
swears to God it wasn’t her.”

I moaned and groaned in frustration
as I climbed out of bed. This shit wasn’t cool. It put me in a fucked up position because whoever stole the shit had to get dealt with. The only nigga I was focused on dealing with at the moment was Ching, who was still somewhere hiding. He hadn’t been to any of his spots. Black, Smoke, and Burt ran most of his errands. Ching had disappeared.

Ching wasn
’t a punk. He wasn’t a runner. He wasn’t the type of nigga to just let me get away with shooting at him and stealing from him. I knew at some point he would resurface. I had to find him before he found me.

“You at the spot?”

“Hell yea.”

“Be there in a minute.”

I hung up, threw the cell on the bed, and just paced with my head in my hands. I did not want to deal with this shit. Everybody that worked for me, I fucked with heavy. I trusted every block boy and every hype with my life. They were loyal.

But
they knew me not to be some crazy trigger happy savage. So it was possible that one of them was taking my kindness for weakness.

“What
’s wrong, babe?”

Simone came into the room wearing a black long
sleeve sweater maxi dress that fell to her ankles and over a pair of Christian Louboutin boots that cost me three thousand dollars. Her pudgy stomach stuck out of the cashmere.

She really wasn
’t on my good side either. She went to the doctor without me again, and it really pissed me the fuck off. She was treating me like I was some nigga too busy to be a part of my child’s life, when she knew that I would go over and beyond to do every and anything for my children.

She watched me pace curiously.

“Somebody stole some work out the spot,” I told her, answering her curiosity.
Her eyes bucked as she took her usual seat at the vanity. Her hair was already done. Now she was doing her makeup.

“Who do think did it and when?”

“Ain’t no tellin’. We only go in the stash when we gotta make more packs.”

“Your people wouldn
’t steal from you.”

“I didn
’t think so, but apparently somebody did.”

“Maybe it was Tiana.”

Though they had ruled out abuse and stopped investigating Tiana and her boyfriend, I still hadn’t been fucking with her. I heard from her brother, Fred, that she felt some type of way about that. But he was so loyal to me that he was also mad at Tiana for having that dude in my crib anyway.

I pondered over the thought as Simone continued to convince me. “She still has a key.”

“It would honestly make me feel better if she was the one that did it. At least it wouldn’t be one of my people turning on me.”

I felt weird as hell looking at Lexington House. I hadn’t seen it since I left for transitional housing last year. It’s funny how sitting in that parking lot felt like being at home.

Back then, I hated being there. I hated my life. I was lost.

At that moment, I would have given anything to go back to that place in life. Now I was realizing that my past was a cakewalk compared to the shit that I was facing now.

Ever since leaving Lexington, I had hit roadblock after roadblock.

The biggest boldest dirtiest roadblock in my life came walking towards my car in a black sweater dress. I noticed that she was either pregnant or had gained some weight.

When she opened the door and sat in my car, the smell of Aqua Di Gi
oia overpowered the smell of weed that Capone left in there earlier that day.

“Here,” was all that
she said as she handed me a plastic bag. It was heavy. I looked in it curiously and immediately recognized the bricks.

“Tuh,” I
grunted. This chick was unbelievable. “So you the one who stole them bricks.”

“Yes, for you. That
’s worth almost a hundred thousand dollars. Now you can leave.”

I wasn
’t excited. Had she bought these bricks with her own money, this would be great. If I took these three bricks and left town, I would never be able to come back to Chicago due to the price on my head that Omari and Capone would put there because they would assume that my disappearance was due to me stealing from them. I couldn’t just go to Minnesota either. I would have to go so far that word of my come up and whereabouts didn’t make it back to the Chi.

“Was Omari at the spot when you left?”

I shook my head, barely paying attention to what she was saying because my thoughts were taking over.

“Where is he? Do you know?”

“He and Capone moved all the product out of the spot on Riverdale. They takin’ it out south.”

I sighed heavily as the bricks lay on my lap.

Simone saw me contemplating. “Chance, this isn’t money, but this is your opportunity to leave and start all over. You can work for yourself. You don’t have to stand on some block all winter anymore.”

I didn
’t want to leave. I liked my life. I had done some pretty terrible things, but I finally liked my life. I liked my homies. The thought of just walking away from Gia tugged at my heart, but knowing that I was also walking away from that pussy damn near brought a tear to my eye.

Noticing my reluctance, Simone began to beg me to leave.
“Please, Chance.”

She slipped her hand softly on my thigh. I immediately smacked her arm so hard
that her hand flew off and she screeched out in my pain.

“Nigga…”

She called herself getting hype, but my anger far surpassed hers. I was damn near in the passenger seat with her as my rage poured out of me like smoke as I pointed aggressively at her face.

“You lyin
’ ass, bitch! You can stop playing these fucking mind games! Don’t fucking touch me!”

Simone just sat there,
coolly and innocent, as always.

Finally, my anger subsided. Reluctantly, I
put the bricks in the backseat on the floor. The happiness in Simone couldn’t be hidden, no matter how hard she tried to act nonchalantly at my conceding to yet another one of her devious moves.

“Get the fuck out of my car, Simone.”

“Are you leaving?”

“GET THE FUCK OUT!”

The audacity of this bitch sent my anger off the meter. I reached over her, opened the door, and started pushing her so hard that she had to get out of the car before she fell out. It took everything in me not to beat the shit out of her like I wanted to. She had taken everything from me and still was. I was still a pawn in her game just to get another man.

I was mad at her for being a conniving bitch, but I was angrier with myself for being
so weak.

I was putting the car
in reverse before she was even able to slam the car door. Then I sped off and out of the parking lot. I never wanted to see that bitch again.

I let out a big sigh of relief as I watched Chance speed out of the parking lot.
I didn’t give a fuck how mad he got, he needed to leave town. Though he didn’t tell me that he was leaving or when, I knew that he was. He was young, but he was far from stupid.

Now that Chance was out of the way, I had one more trick up my sleeve before I head
ed home. I noticed how much better I felt as I drove towards the suburbs. Getting Chance out of Chicago had been such a burden. However, the burden was lifting rapidly by the second.

When I pulled up in front of the house in Riverdale, I spotted Fred on post.

I rolled my window down and asked, “Is Paula in there?”

“Yea, Simone.
She in there. What’s up?”

“Tell her to come here.”

Then I hurriedly rolled my window back up to block out the cold. It was almost April, but it was still barely the high forties during the day. It always took Chicago a long time to convert from winter to spring.

About a minute passed before
Paula came bouncing out of the house. Her hair had grown longer, but it was unkempt. It was dirty blond hair that fell almost to her butt, but it was literally dirty and appeared to be greasy. She was an older hype. Paula had to be in her forties. Because of the drugs, she looked to be in her late fifties. Skin that was once clear and pink was now filthy with needle marks, bruises, and deterioration from the drugs. Her body was frail and looked weak and sickly.

When she got in my car, I could smell the funk all over her. She probably hadn
’t showered in days. I rolled down the window with my nose turned up.

“Hey, Simone.”

She shivered from the cold. She didn’t even have on a coat. She had on the same worn and dirty Abercrombie hoodie that she’d worn all winter.

“I have a job for you.
You aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, are you?”

I was the one that put Omari up on
Paula. I often times saw her begging downtown around my condo. One time, I even saw her going through the trash. I knew that she was on drugs, so when Omari needed the trap out south cleaned, or any other odd job, I told him about Paula. Then she eventually started cooking and cutting heroin for him, amongst other things.

The pay was lucrative for her, but hypes did shit like disappear without notice. They fell off the map here and there, ran away, or got themselves clean out of
nowhere.

“I don
’t plan on it,” she said with a laugh. “What kind of job?”

“I need you to help me steal a baby.”

Paula laughed initially, but when she saw that I hadn’t cracked a smile, she took me seriously.

“What the fuck?”

“You heard me.”

When Omari told me that his sister was having a c-section, that
’s when it dawned on me. I could take Erica’s baby. They were siblings, so, hopefully, the baby would look similar to Omari; hopefully even having those genetically strong gray eyes.

I had it all planned out, so I shared with
Paula the plan that I had been weaving together for weeks. Since Erica was scheduled to have her c-section in a few weeks when she was seven months, I would tell Omari that I was scheduled out of town for a speaking engagement with my job far away in Texas somewhere, too far for Omari to get to in time when I called him frantically saying that I was going into premature labor. Instead, I would be in Indianapolis, waiting on Erica to leave the hospital with her baby. Then Paula would car jack her, taking the baby with her.

Given the distance in Erica and Blood’s relationship, I
assumed that I could pull this off. I didn’t even know if Erica knew that I was supposedly pregnant. The way that things were playing out, she and Omari would never see each other again, so I could get away with this if I played it ever so carefully.

I know I sounded insane and irrational. Even
Paula looked at me like I was a lunatic. I kinda had gone insane. Trying to come up with a way to get myself out of this impractical ass pregnancy lie that I had spun was driving me absolutely crazy. But the more Omari lovingly touched my belly and called me the mother of his child, I could not bear to take another child from him by lying and saying that I lost this baby because I would not be able to realistically produce one.

“You are crazy as hell, Simone,”
Paula replied shaking her head and nervously looking out of the window.

I grabbed her arm and snatched her towards me, making her give me her full attention.
My eyes looked beady, scary, and obsessed. I knew it, because Paula was cringing in fear.

I needed Paula’s help because I
definitely couldn’t pull this off on my own. Erica would spot me for sure. But she would never know who Paula was. I wasn’t scared of Paula telling. She loved that dope too much to risk losing her spot in Omari’s kitchen.

Holding her arm in my hand and digging my acrylic nails into her weakening skin, I threatened her. “
Crazy or not, you will help me, or I will tell Omari that I saw you stealing those three bricks.”

Paula
gasped. “No, I didn’t!”

“As far as I know, you did.”

I aggressively released her arm and she rubbed it in agony. “Okay. All right. I’ll help you.”