Scandalous Heroes Box Set (55 page)

She had to explain that her mother didn’t work her second job Monday or Tuesday but that he was welcomed to come over any of the other days. She figured that it was probably wrong to wish that her mother would stay away every day…yeah that was definitely wrong.

She opened two cans of Beefaroni and grabbed the wonder bread. They ate quietly while Scotty’s brow furrowed in concentration and while she peeked at him feeling like she was in seventh heaven.

Scotty came over to Vanessa’s house whenever possible. He finished his homework and then rode her back down the hill to her aunt’s apartment. Sometimes he would manage to read a few chapters of a book that was a classroom assignment. Vanessa would become curious as he fell into a deep quiet, his eyes riveted to the pages. And then she would begin asking him questions like why was the book called the Red Badge of Courage. What is a shrew and how did you tame it? Is that English you’re reading?

He liked her curiosity and didn’t mind being interrupted in order to explain something to her. Best is when she had trouble with math and he was able to make her understand how simple her problem was. It didn’t bother him at all when she drew him out of his studies to ask him a question. She was smart and he liked talking about more than drugs, drinking, or being a hoodlum. Those two weeks that he spent doing homework at Vanessa’s house gave Scotty an opportunity to be more than the trash that most people from the bottom of the hill thought he was, or the drug dealer that he had become at school.

~***~

It became the elephant in the room. During the weekend neither Leelah nor Vanessa talked about her mother’s second job. In fact, Vanessa didn’t talk about anything. Leelah couldn’t say that she was disrespectful. The little girl still said good morning and good night every single day. If asked a question she responded readily, but then she went upstairs to listen to her radio or she asked to go outside and didn’t return until the streetlights came on.

Leelah knew that she had to talk to her daughter about what she had revealed to her earlier the week before. She knew that she should have stayed home with her while her baby sorted it out. But she just couldn’t face her child knowing that her ‘job’ went against every single thing that she wanted her daughter to ever know.

They were so close to their dreams. Just one more year and she could put enough down on a house so that she could afford to work just one job—one job that her daughter could be proud of.

Every night when she picked Vanessa up from Callista’s or as they sat down to eat dinner, Leelah wanted to say these things to her daughter. She wanted to say; ‘I did not endure all of those years doing a job that no one could know about, only to stop when we are so close.’ She wanted to say, ‘Stay with me for a while longer. I promise it will be worth all of our dreams and then…well then we can try to put that life behind us.’

But even when she opened her mouth to say the words, she knew that Vanessa would not buy into that lie because it was her own dreams that she could not deny. She knew that Vanessa had no complaints about living on the top of the hill and her daughter’s eyes would speak some truth that Leelah was not ready to face. ‘I can not be proud of you.’ Leelah wasn’t sure if she would prefer an angry pre-teen that wailed out I hate you vs. the quiet child who radiated the thought in the silence that stood between them.

Vanessa had avoided the kids in the projects of Winton Terrace by escaping to her own home, but she couldn’t pretend not to see the whispers and pointed fingers and the snickers of kids that she barely knew. It was true that she wasn’t receptive to any of her mother’s explanations because there were only two things that she cared about; that her friends from school never found out what her mother did with men for money and Scotty.

The more she compared their circumstances, the more she knew that she wanted to be like him. Scotty walked through life as if his circumstances did not define him. He was confidant and didn’t shy away from people who called his mother trash, or that called him trash. He didn’t take crap from anyone. Even while wearing the fading bruises he had looked fearless and she knew that whatever had caused them did not detract one bit from his strength. She would have to be like that now.

Mother and daughter went through the motions of living. They listened to the stereo, watched television, went shopping for boots, went out to eat, or cooked dinner, but mostly the two individuals just waited for the dam to break.

That would happen one Monday, three weeks after making her discovery. Vanessa had been walking in the main building with her classmates heading to lunch. She saw her once-upon-a-time friend, Kaneeja who upon seeing Vanessa quickly whispered in the ear of the girl walking next to her. Both girls looked at her and snickered and Vanessa quickly looked away, feeling her face growing hot. At lunch someone yelled out, “Your mama’s a ho!”

The friends she sat with looked around trying to see who the culprit was and who they were talking about but Vanessa just kept her eyes on her pizza burger. Even though it was her favorite hot lunch she could barely swallow the two bites she had taken.

As she was leaving the cafeteria, Kaneeja confronted her.

“I know why we don’t see you after school anymore.” The girl walked away with what appeared to Vanessa to be a vicious grin. “But you can’t avoid us forever. We gonna get you!”

Vanessa looked around to see who had heard the threat. Everybody was looking at her. It worried her who Kaneeja was referring to when she said; you can’t avoid
us
forever…Who was
us
?

When her mother picked her up after school, Vanessa was glad that she wouldn’t be walking with Jalissa to the projects. She now knew that Kaneeja had been laying in wait for her in order to finish what had been started. It hadn’t even been her fight, Vanessa thought to herself. It was unclear to her why Kaneeja now despised her but she could see it in the way the girl had looked at her.

Vanessa silently blamed her mother for what was now happening to her in school at the same time that she wished her mother would just go off to work so that she could find comfort in Scotty’s presence.

The phone rang while she was doing her homework, jarring her out of her confusing thoughts. Mama very rarely spoke on the phone. Vanessa didn’t think her mother had any true friends, however she seemed to want it that way.

She was in the kitchen doing her homework at the table when her mother began to curse. Her mother did not use curse words—at least not around her. Vanessa walked into the living room curiously only to see her mother pacing back and forth, twisting the phone wire angrily.

“This is pissing me the fuck off! I can pick her up when I pick up Vanessa. I don’t want either of them down there! Vanessa’s been sneaking her ass up here, like I don’t know when she’s been cooking food so Jalissa can come up here with her. Sis, I don’t know.” There was a pause in which Leelah and Vanessa’s eyes met and the girl looked down in embarrassment at her sneakiness…or lack thereof.  “We’ll work something out. Yeah. Alright, love you sis. Bye.”

“Mama what happened?” Vanessa asked while a hollow fright began to fill her.

“Jalissa was jumped after school.” Leelah slammed the phone back on the hook.

“Is she okay?” Vanessa’s eyes began to sting and she could barely breathe. Jalissa was not just her cousin but also her best friend, and over the last few days she hadn’t been a true friend. She’d never even told Jalissa about her discovery. Her cousin would have never seen what was coming for her!

“Yeah, she’s going to be okay.” Leelah lit a cigarette and Vanessa saw her hand shaking. Her mother uncapped the wine bottle and poured herself a full glass. “Is that why you’ve been coming up here everyday?”

After a pause she nodded and her mother shook her head but mostly to herself. “Can I call Jalissa?”

Leelah shook her head. “No, not right now. You can later tonight.” She buried one hand into her curly Afro and sighed angrily and then she quickly looked at Vanessa.

“I’m going to tell you something. This is real talk right now. You understand?”

Vanessa nodded her head and then sat down at the bar next to her mother. Leelah reached for another wine glass, filling it half way. Vanessa’s eyes quirked upward in surprise that she was getting her own glass of wine.

Leelah sniffed and blew her smoke upward, away from Vanessa. There was a grim set to her mouth. “Knowledge is power, baby girl. I’m about to lay some knowledge on you.

She turned in her seat and looked at her daughter. “You asked me if your daddy was a trick.” Vanessa’s mouth parted at her mother’s use of the slang. “No baby, he was no trick. Your Daddy’s a pimp.”

Chapter 13

Vanessa’s eyes grew wide at those words. Her daddy had gone from being a Knight in Shining armor to a trick and now a man that pimped women…no not just women but her mother.

“You have…a pimp?”

“No. I’m my own boss. And for the record I was in love with your father and as far as I knew he loved me too. But we had a plan and that plan was not going to work once I had you. Once I had you the only thing that mattered is you.” Leelah looked down but Vanessa saw the hint of a smile on her face. And something happened to her. A light shined on in her head and she realized that she was the most important person in the world to her mother…but also to herself. That meant that she was the star of her own story and everyone else were just props. Although she didn’t understand the thought completely it gave her a sense of power.
I am the star of my own story.

Wanting to know her true story Vanessa spoke and her mother heard the difference in her voice. She looked up in surprise at her daughter.

“Tell me about my Daddy. How did you meet him? Is he dead?”

Leelah shook her head slowly. “No your father is alive. He’s in jail, though.” Leelah took a drink of her wine and then Vanessa did the same, her stomach warming instantly as the sweet wine went down her throat.

“Your grand mother doesn’t know about this—not any of it. I met your father when I still lived with your grandmother. I wanted to move out once I graduated high school but I wasn’t making enough money working at restaurants.  My mother would have helped me go to college but I wanted the fast money and I was done with school. So I knew a girl that had some fly clothes and a cool style and I decided that I wanted that too.” Leelah paused to look at Vanessa. “She introduced me to a guy; your father. His name is Juan Carlos.“

“My father is Spanish?”

“Mexican American. He calls himself Chicano. But…no, your father isn’t black. He’s half white and half Mexican.” Mama reached up and cupped the side of her face. “There is no shame in that and I’m sorry that I never told you. There would have just been so much more to explain and…well.” She lowered her hand and continued her story. “Carlos was a pretty bad cat back in the day. He drove a nice car and lived in a condo. He was fine to most women that looked at him, which is why he did well pimping.

“Carlos didn’t work on street corners. He said the real money is in something called; Call Girls. Call girls have a clientele who make appointments with them.” She took a long draw from her cigarette. “And that’s what I became. Only your father began having feelings for me, and long story short I gave into my feelings for him. I made the mistake of treating a pimp like he was my man.”

She gave Vanessa a brief smile. “Shame on me. So I took my baby and lived off my savings. I got a spot in Winton Woods and then later I got a job at the telephone company. When…well when money got tight I knew what to do to bring it in.” She shrugged. “And I decided that this was no life for us. First I thought just moving up here would do it but it’s still the ghetto. I decided that we were going to get clean out of this.” She took one last draw from her cigarette. “It’s just a means to an end.”

Vanessa listened quietly. Juan Carlos. She tested the name mentally, repeating it like a mantra. “What’s his last name?”

“Tremont.”

Vanessa almost blacked out. She literally came to her feet and stumbled. Her mother’s arms were there to capture her before she fell against the bar or hit the floor.

“Are you okay? Did you drink to much wine?”

She stared at her mother in shock. “Scotty? Scotty Tremont?”

“You know Scotty? Yeah, you probably would. They still live down in the old spot. Your father was married to Scotty’s mother—still is I suppose. Back then when you were a pimp marriage vows didn’t mean anything. No vows mean anything to a pimp. I learned that rule up front.”

Scotty. Scotty. Scotty.
Vanessa was squeezing her mother’s arm as she listened and everything became surreal.

Scotty Tremont is my brother
.

~***~

Mama put her right to bed. She didn’t even make her take a bath. She said that there would be no school tomorrow and that she was going down the hill to pick up Jalissa in the morning. “Then we’re going to have another real talk, baby girl.” There was a hard look on her face when she said this. Her pretty mouth wore a grim line.

Scotty was her brother. This is a world that she could never have imagined in her wildest dreams; a terrible and scary world that she would never find her place in. But then she looked at her mother’s face and the fierce expression on it. Leelah White was more than just her mother. She was a fierce survivor and her mother would make sure everything was all right because she was the most important person in her mother’s life.

Vanessa tossed and turned for most of the night as her mind recounted all of things that she had learned. She had been harboring some secret hope that Scotty had been so nice to her because he was secretly in love with her, too. She had convinced herself that Scotty could have done his homework anywhere: with Anthony, at his school, at the neighborhood library. But he had come up here just to be with her because he liked her just as much as she liked him.

But no, the only reason he came around is because he had known the truth; that he was her brother. He had just kept up the pretense out of respect for her mother…who had been very kind to him.