Scandalous Heroes Box Set (62 page)

He stopped and stared at her until Vanessa spoke shyly. “Hi Tino.” He stumbled a little as he entered the room and Vanessa figured he’d been out drinking.

“Are you moving in here?”

Vanessa looked at him in confusion. She shook her head. “No. I’m at my grandma’s house.” Tino blinked and frowned at her. After muttering something about 2-4-1-Kids he went into the kitchen. Ginger ignored him completely and Vanessa sighed and looked at her watch. Maybe Scotty would come home now.

A few minutes later the twins came in followed by Phonso who wheeled Scotty’s bike to its usual place against the wall. Each person looked at her curiously but didn’t speak as they headed straight for the kitchen for something to eat.

Ginger picked up the baby and carried him into the kitchen when the aroma of cooking food hit her leaving Vanessa on the couch alone. But that didn’t last too long. Tino came to the doorway of the living room and stared at her again while drinking a beer. Vanessa didn’t think he needed to be drinking a beer when he already appeared to be drunk, and his staring was making her uncomfortable so she gave him a half smile.

“Do you want something to eat?” He asked.

“No thank you.” She shook her head and Tino sat down next to her. He propped his elbows on his knees and then looked over at Vanessa. “I heard about your Mom.” Vanessa looked down at her hands that were folded tensely in her lap. “Juan is in jail and he ain’t coming out no time soon.” She met his eyes at the tone in his voice and saw that his brow was furrowed in a show of tenderness, which wasn’t a look that she was accustomed to seeing on his hardened face. “I’m still your family.” Vanessa felt her tears sting at those words. Family. Her mama was not her family any longer.

Big fat teardrops slipped from her eyes and she quickly wiped them away, having sworn to herself that she would never ever cry in front of people again. She did that enough each night when she lay in her familiar bed that now resided in her grandma’s unfamiliar spare bedroom.

She felt Tino’s touch on her cheek as he gently swept away her tears. “Don’t ever be scared. Don’t ever feel alone. I’ll always be here.” He wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder and she felt the tears coming faster and allowed herself to cry against his shoulder. He smelled funny, like he had been around burning tires or something. She didn’t like the smell but she welcomed the ability to release her tears while in someone’s caring arms. She’d done it enough with grandma, but grandma had cried her own solitary tears and it wasn’t fair to make her shed more. Maybe that is why she had wanted so badly to see Scotty. She remembered him holding her while she cried and sometimes she had to relive that memory in order to suppress the other images that tried to invade her mind.

Tino spoke gently to her allowing her to cry. “Don’t worry. You don’t worry about anything. You will always be taken care of. That is why I do the things that I do. You are all that I care about. It’s all for you. I’ll show you how to get by on the streets, how to stay alive, how to make money-”

Vanessa lifted her head and looked at him in confusion. What was he talking about? Seeing the questioning look on her face, Tino pressed his fingertips to her lips. “Don’t worry, just trust me,” he whispered. He kissed her once. “They call me Valentino for a reason,” and Vanessa recognized a sly tone in his voice that reminded her of the way Mr. Johnny was whispering to Jalissa one day. Vanessa had demanded to know what the man had said to her, but Jalissa just shrugged it off and said she didn’t know. She ignored his foolishness.

“Now you put your trust in me and I will take us places.” Tino continued. “You will be living even better than you remember up on the Hilltop. Will you trust me? Will you trust me?” He whispered sounding insane. She was scared now. He stroked her hair and said shhh even though she hadn’t said a word. Then he kissed her again and this time his mouth lingered and moved over hers and she realized that he was kissing her like the people in the movies!

She pulled back quickly, cringing from him.

“Trust me. Will you trust me?” He whispered staring deeply into her eyes.

“I…I have to go home now.” She whispered. But he wouldn’t back up and allow her to get up.

“Not until you say you trust me,” His hand gently stroked her cheek and Vanessa began to tremble in fear, thinking about what someone had done to her mother, what someone had done to a little girl in an abandoned building…

“Tino.” The older boy looked over his shoulder at Phonso who was watching him sternly. “Leave her alone.”

Tino laughed but backed down. “Just trying to make little sister feel better.”

The front door opened and Scotty was suddenly there. He looked at Vanessa in surprise where she sat cringing from Tino who was crouched a little too closely to her. Phonso was staring at Tino, and the little boy was holding a hammer in his hand! Suddenly Vanessa jumped to her feet and dashed past Scotty and out the door.

“Vanessa!” He followed her but she was practically running. Her hands were shielding her face as she hurried away. When he caught up with her he took hold of her arm but she screeched and jerked away. He let her go when he saw fresh tears in her eyes and that she was looking at him in terror. He watched her until she got to her aunt’s apartment and then he turned and walked home slowly.

He shut the door after him. Tino was sitting on the couch with his arms along the back appearing smug as if he owned the world. Scotty went into the kitchen where Phonso was leaned against the back door staring out into the darkness.

“What happened?” Scotty asked.

Phonso didn’t look at him. “Don’t let her come back here.”

Scotty’s head began to swirl. “Tell me what happened?” His voice sounded hollow in his ears and he felt like he might be here or he might just be watching this scene from a distant place outside of his body.

Phonso slowly met his eyes. “He was kissing her. Really kissing her.”

Someone could have walked up to Scotty and punched him in the stomach and he would not have felt any different than he felt upon hearing those shocking words.

Phonso looked like he was in physical pain. “Did he do that…to Beady? Was that why she had to leave?”

Scotty cupped the back of his brother’s head. “Go outside. And don’t come back in until I come and get you. If I don’t come and get you, then you don’t come back in. You got me?”

Tears appeared in Phonso’s eyes. “Scotty-“

“Take them and go.” His voice was calm and low and Phonso couldn’t bear the thought of his brother getting beat up again. He couldn’t listen to the sounds of the beating and he couldn’t watch as the two tore up the house going at it. He picked up Tyrone and ushered his silent and frightened brother and sisters out the back door. For the first time in his life he wished that he really was Mr. Johnny’s child so that he could go live with Beady’s grandmother.

Scotty waited until the kids were out before locking the door behind them. He saw the hammer on the table and picked it up.

What doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger. Time to pay the piper muther fucker!

Tino smirked at him. “You want to do this again, Scotty? You want to take me on, young blood?” Tino flexed his muscles and stood. “You can’t beat me, boy! I’ll never let you beat me in a fight! You hear me!”

Scotty strolled to his brother calmly. “We aren’t going to fight.” He drew his arm back and swung it with a strong force, hammer in his grip, allowing it to land with an audible thud right into his brother’s face. “I’m just going to kill you!”

Tino dropped back against the couch with a scream, covering his face with his hands. Scotty swung the hammer backhanded as if he was in a tennis match. The metal claw on the back of the hammer broke through the bones in Tino’s hand, simultaneously crushing them and pulling away chunks of flesh.  The third strike of the hammer came down right below Tino’s left eye. Bone and flesh gave way with the vicious strike.

An hour later when Scotty opened the back door Ginger ran in and hugged him. “Where’s Tino?”

Scotty met the older kid’s eyes. “He decided to move out. He doesn’t intend to come back.” He picked up Ginger and carried her through the darkened living room.

“Why is it dark in here?” She asked.

Scotty whisked her up the stairs. “Don’t worry about that. We broke the lamps but when you wake up in the morning it will all be cleaned up, okay?” Phonso put TyTy to bed and then Phonso, Scotty, Erica and Elijah all got busy silently cleaning up the bloody living room.

Chapter 19

~1982~

“It’s not fair!” Vanessa threw herself down on the couch, her pretty face pulled into a frown. “Grandma I sang it the best! You know I’ve been practicing that song for weeks.”

“Yes you have, baby.” Grandma agreed. “But why are you mad? Didn’t you say the part you got was the lead?”

Vanessa sat up and gave her grandma an incredulous look. “Yes, but I want to play Effie! She has all the good songs and I do them better than everybody else!”

Her grandmother gave her a stern look. “God gave you a beautiful voice but there’s no need to be prideful!”

Vanessa took a deep breath and calmed down so that she could make her grandmother understand how incredibly unfair it was to be cast as stuck up Deena just because she was thin with long hair. In her heart she was Effie White even if her body wasn’t large. Her heart felt every emotion that Effie felt; betrayal, loss, emptiness…It was discrimination against skinny girls!

“Grandma I was born to be in Dream Girls, I just know I was! And that’s why God made my name Vanessa White just like Effie White!”

“Girl, your Mama named you Vanessa White, God bless her soul, because she didn’t want you having the last name of a man that wouldn’t do right by her!”

Vanessa grew quiet. Grandma still didn’t know about her real father. She thought that her mother had fallen in love with a black man that had died before they ever got a chance to marry and since her grandmother had very old-fashioned opinions she felt no need to tell her otherwise.

“Now Vanessa, baby, this is your last big play and then you’re going to graduate. I want you to play the roll of that Deena better than anybody else in the world! I want you to make those songs as interesting as you made Effie’s songs. That’s a big school that you go to and all of those people that sing and act wanted a part in Dream Girls and out of all of those people you got the lead. Baby that is a wonderful accomplishment.”

Vanessa gave her grandmother a crooked smile and then hugged her. “Alright grandma. I guess I can go to New York and try out for the Broadway Cast as Effie.”

Grandma lightly pinched her arm. “You better eat some more fried chicken and biscuits and put some weight on those bones!” Vanessa giggled as her grandmother continued to tickle her.

Vanessa was seventeen but her grandmother knew just how to bring out the kid in her like nobody else. She went to her room and picked up the script scanning it with a frown. Tomorrow was the first reading and she didn’t know how she was supposed the read the parts of Deena with her unrealistic idealism. Vanessa knew that life was not like that. She understood the pain that Effie felt just because she looked different. She remembered back when she was a child how badly she had wanted to grow into a beautiful black swan instead of being stuck in the body of a scrawny duck. She knew that the world was cruel and how it could affect your heart and she longed to sing out the pain of a cruel world.

Vanessa jumped to her feet and looked at herself in the mirror. Sometimes she saw her mother’s face with the first glimpse of her reflection and that would send her heart racing in joy. She was thin but nothing could be done about that. She ate candy, and pork chops smothered in gravy but because she was always active it didn’t add weight to her tall frame. Her complexion had transformed from caramel to toffee, which had caused her some concern and for a while she had tanned like the white girls from school. Now make-up did a lot to help with that.

She had threatened to cut her hair into a hip bob, but grandma wouldn’t hear any of that. So now it ran down in dark waves to the small of her back when she cared to wear it loose. Otherwise she kept it in a messy ponytail at the top of her head, which was now her trademark look.

Since attending the Cincinnati School For Creative and Performing Arts, Vanessa had been approached more times than she could keep track, with offers to model. People said you have the look to be a runway model! But she would shake her head because fashion and modeling and fancy clothes did not appeal to her. She pulled her long hair back and dressed in jeans and t-shirts while her classmates were experimenting with how to be glamorous.

Vanessa didn’t have to be a psychology major to figure out that what had happened to her mother and childhood fears played into that. She got the creeps when guys flirted with her. When they said, Vanessa you are so pretty—she would hear a deep voice in the back of her mind saying;
Trust me. I’m going to take care of you. Trust me. Trust me…

She shivered and flopped back down on her bed. She picked up the script but instead of reading Deena’s parts she read Effie’s.

~***~

The next day Vanessa slipped on her baggie jeans and an oversized hoodie. Grandma hated when she dressed like that for school so she slipped out of the apartment and hurried down to her bus stop.

Grandma had sold her house in Kentucky and moved them to a nice place in Cincinnati once Vanessa had voiced her interest in attending the alternative performing arts school. She had watched a little girl on the news that could sing like a grownup. The girl said that she went to SCPA and Vanessa wrote down the number and had all of the information mailed to herself within the week. When the movie Fame came out, Vanessa had already been there for over a year and before she knew it schools like SCPA were all the vogue. It was hectic and fast paced and she was just happy that the movie hadn’t been made before she actually attended or she might have shied away from it.