Synergy (33 page)

“
What party games
you have for a three year old
?” J asked,
looking up from his pile.

“
Pass the parcel,
pin the tail...Oh, a piñata
!” Dee
remembered, writing down another note on her ‘to do’ list.
“
That’s gon’ be another thing I gotta
buy
”

“
Can’t you make
your own Piñata
?” Kiki
asked.

“
Yeah man, Paper
Mache and shit, I could do dat
” J said,
looking pleased with himself.

“
Would
you
?” Dee asked, happy she could cross
something else off the buy list.

“
Yeah man, what
lil dude like
?”

“
I don’t know,
spiderman, or animals or something, he loves tigers and
monkeys
”

“
He sits and
watches animal planet
” Kiki laughed, and
at that, Tushaun heard the word and looked up from the
TV.

“
Aminal
channel
!” he shouted. Though he got the
letters mixed up, Dee knew that was his way of asking for an animal
show to be put on.

“
Ya never know, he
might end up like a vet or some shit, lil dude
clever
” J said.

“
I
know
” Dee beamed. “
My lil’ brain box aren’t you baby
?”
she asked Tushaun rhetorically, getting up to use the remote and
see if there was anything on for him to watch. She couldn’t believe
he’d be three in a week’s time.

For the
rest of the afternoon, the trio worked on ideas for Tushaun’s
party. They finished up the invitations, thought about food and
drink to buy, and J decided on what Piñata to make, and decided on
what tools he’d need to make it. He said he’d do it just a few days
before to keep it nice but also in case it didn’t work out. By the
time Monique came back from work, almost everything was organised
for the party, and Dee put Tushaun to bed while her mom cooked
dinner. The four of them sat round the table to eat together, which
was mostly nice, despite the odd comment from Monique aimed at
Kiki. She’d accept it eventually, but right now, it was
new.

After
dinner, Dee’s phone began to ring in her pocket, and as she viewed
the caller ID, she saw it was Jason.

“
Thought you was
calling me this afternoon
” she answered,
and Jason was taken aback by her greeting.

“
I’m sorry; I
ended up being real busy. Are you mad
?” he
questioned, guessing by the greeting she was.

Dee scoffed. “
Nah, I ain’t mad. Was
just saying
”

“
Oh, Ok, that’s
good
”

Dee saw
her family looking at her as she spoke on the phone and started to
feel watched, so she stood up and left the room as she continued
with the phonecall. At first, she wandered into the back garden and
started to search her pocket for something to smoke until she
realised she couldn’t, and instead, settled for a garden
chair.

“
I called you last
night actually, but you must have been asleep
already
”

“
Yeah, I didn’t
hear it at all, only saw the call this morning
”

“
You must have
been beat
”

“
Yeah. I feel pregnant
now”

“
Only a couple of
months to go
.”

“
Tell me about it.
Just been organising Tushaun’s birthday party
”

“
It’s his
birthday
?”

“
Yeah, next week.
The 24th
.”

“
Is he
three
?”

“
Yeah
”

“
Wow, you gotta be
excited
”

“
I’m kinda sad
too, my baby growing up
”

Jason smiled, though Dee couldn’t see it.
“
Am I invited
?”

“
What, to his
party
?”

“
Yeah
”

“
If screaming kids
if your idea of fun, sure
”

Jason chuckled. “
Not really, but, I
just wanna be involved, you know
?”

“
Okay”

“
Do you need help
with anything
?”

“
Not unless you
can bake
”

“
I definitely
can’t do that. I know a couple women who can
though
”

“
You’re not asking
your mom or your nan. How they gon’ get it over
here
?”

“
You’re talking
about a cake, right
?”

“
Yeah
”

“
I’m sure I can
arrange something
”

“
Don’t be going to
no trouble
”

“
Don’t
worry
”

“
So how you
feeling about your sister
?” Jason asked,
waiting to gage her reaction before he said anything of what he was
thinking.

“
It’s crazy. I’m
kinda mad ‘cuz she’s too smart to do that but, it’s done
now
.”

“
You think they’ll
be good parents
?”

“
Kiki will. I hope J do the right
thing and stick by her, you just never know”

There
was a pause on the other end before Jason spoke.

“
Dee. I didn’t
know whether to bring this up or not, but now I’m thinking it’s
better to say something rather than it coming out years later or
something
...”

“
What is
it
?”

Chapter 30 – No Apologies Given

Dee
waited for Jason’s answer, wondering what he wanted to say. She’d
never heard him sound so serious before, and the tone of his voice
worried her slightly. The fact he was having some sort of moral
dilemma about it too made her even more worried. She waited quietly
until Jason spoke.

“
You know the
night of your cousin’s engagement party
?”

“
Yeah
” Dee replied, waiting to see
where it was going.

“
I was outside
with Tip, and he went back in. Then I heard yelling and I saw Kiki
and J arguing
.”

“
So
?” Dee questioned, wondering why
he was making a deal of it, after all, everyone
argues.

“
He had her pinned
by her neck
”

“
What?
!” Dee exploded, the words
hitting her as soon as they were said.

“
Please don’t
freak out. He left as soon as I stepped in but, I was just a little
worried that it wasn’t a one time thing
”

“
Don’t freak
out
?” Dee spat angrily, hardly hearing
anything else he said.

“
Dee. Listen to
me. I spoke with Kiki and she said that it’d never happened before
and he wasn’t like that but obviously, I don’t know him. I don’t
want to speak out of term and get involved with something that’s
not mine to get involved with, but
...”

“
But you
did
” Dee butted in.

“
But I couldn’t live with myself if it was an ongoing thing
and I could have stopped it. Especially now there’s a baby in the
picture.”

There
was a pause on the other end of the line, though Jason could tell
Dee was still there. He was starting to regret saying something
over the phone, and knew he should have waited until he was with
her in person, though the thoughts were nagging at him all the
time, and he knew he had to say something soon. He’d wondered ever
since the party whether to say something to Dee, after all, if it
was a real domestic violence case then it was his responsibility as
a civilian and a fellow human being and do the decent thing and
raise alarm. However, if it was a one time thing of teenage love
getting out of hand, then he didn’t want to cause anything
unnecessarily. He’d thought about it ever since the party, and
though he’d told Kiki he wouldn’t say anything, he couldn’t help
but feel he had a horrible secret he needed to tell. He decided in
the end that the pros outweighed the cons, after all, he could
apologise for saying anything out of turn, he couldn’t however,
apologise about lying to Dee and her family. When Dee had told him
the night before about Kiki’s pregnancy, Jason knew this couple was
in each other’s lives for good, and with a baby on the way, he
needed to be sure that what he saw wasn’t anything more
serious.

“
I’m gonna fucking
kill him
” Dee said, breaking the silence
on the other end. Jason’s heart pumped loudly in his chest, the
coldness of her sentence filling him with a sense of dread. What
would she do?

“
Dee,
please
”

“
Don’t fucking
‘please’ me
” she replied.
“
No-one puts their hands on my
family
.”

“
Don’t do anything
you’ll regret
” he told her, worrying that
she was about to leave the conversation, and he wasn’t wrong.
Seconds later, she told him she would call him later and ended the
call. He could hear the anger in her voice, though it was almost
too calm for his liking. If she was shouting and crying, he felt he
could have talked her down, but her cool, calm tone suggested she’d
already made up her mind. Instantly, he tried calling her straight
back, hoping there was still a chance to calm her down, but the
call just kept ringing, before sending him through to voicemail. In
his hotel room, he sat worrying, waiting to hear back from
her.

Jason
had seen Dee angry before, and frankly, it had scared him. He’d
never seen such a look of anger in a woman before, and especially
as the things she’d been mad about weren’t even all that bad. He’d
later learnt things about her, like the fact her brother taught her
to fight as a young kid, and she’d been in her fair share of
fights. It surprised him, because when she wasn’t mad, she had a
sweet sounding voice and she was so unbelievably beautiful. You
just don’t associate beauty with aggression, and it was hard to
accept that she had two sides to her.

As Jason
sat and waited to hear anything, he remembered a conversation he’d
had with Dee one night about the first time they met in the club.
She’d laughed about a customer she’d punched in the face on the
dance floor when he got a little too friendly. It surprised him how
she spoke about it, that it was pretty normal and even
humorous.  It was hard to believe that the same night he’d
taken her to his hotel room; she’d broken some guys nose. Knowing
that she was capable of doing that to a stranger, it made him worry
about what she might do to somebody who hurt her family. He
desperately wanted to know what she was going to do, but from the
other end of the phone, he was no help. All of a sudden, he was
regretting his decision to say anything in the first
place.

Once Dee
ended the call on her end, she stomped back into the house, her
eyes seeing nothing but red. She was like a bull in a china shop,
reading to stomp on anything that came into contact with her. She
threw her phone down onto the kitchen counter and made her way to
the front room. She saw nothing in her path other than her main
goal, J. As soon as her eyes made contact with his across the room,
she spat at him to stand up. Confused and possibly a little tipsy
from Monique’s wine, he stood up.

“
What the
fuck
?” J asked, seeing the look of anger
on Dee’s face. She was like a tiger in the jungle that had just set
its eyes on its prey. She could see him, and she was ready to
pounce. In a few short strides she was in front of him, and since
he only stood a few inches above her, she didn’t have to reach very
far to punch his face with her all strength. It was over before
Kiki and Monique could even react to what was happening. Soon
enough, the women jumped up from their seats and raced over to J’s
aid. Blood gushed from his nose and down to his lips, and now Dee
had backed him into a corner of the room.