Shattered (3 page)

When Harold was done, I got up and went to the bathroom. I wasn’t even in the mood to finish dancing. I popped the X pill I had in my bag and swallowed another shot of Grand Marnier. Nah, fuck that. It was money in this suite. I wasn’t leaving ’til I got what the fuck I deserved. I let the music and the pill work their magic, and then I went back out to the living room with Meeka’s double-sided dildo in my hand. I joined her freak fest and gave them niggas the best show of their lives. By the end of the night, we walked out of there with all their money. I had eleven hundred dollars and Meeka one-upped me with twelve hundred. Even Harold paid his entire tab plus some and had the nerve to ask me for my number, talking about he wanted to take me to dinner. Nigga, please. Business is business.

W
ell, I know I flunked that one,” I said, closing the book. After comparing the answers I remembered marking for the medical terminology test I just took to the actual answers in the textbook, I knew I ain’t pass. “I should’ve fucking studied.”

Meeka puffed her cigarette and leaned against the bus stop. We both had to catch the train home, but we wanted to smoke before we went inside the Silver Spring station. I had to return the rental car cuz it was getting way too expensive. Me and Mommy was gonna buy a car together Saturday. Well, it was gonna be my car, but it was gonna be in her name. If she ever needed it, I would take her wherever she wanted to go. It was the best I could do since I wasn’t paying that fine on the Acura.

“What you doing this weekend?” I asked before I took another puff.

“Girl, I promised Quentin I’d take him and his cousin to Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Oh no. Not with all them wild, bad-ass kids running around,” I said, laughing.

“Exactly,” Meeka said, shaking her head. “But that’s my baby.”

I looked at my reflection in the glass on the bus shelter. “Ugh. I need to get my fade right.” I had this bangin’-ass hairstyle Peaches hooked me up with, but she wasn’t no barber. One side was tapered down low, like a boy, but the other side was long and multilayered, golden and feathered. I needed somebody who was nice with some clippers to edge up the other side. We both smashed out our cigarettes and headed to the train. Meeka transferred to the Green Line at Fort Totten, while I rode on until I got to Rhode Island Avenue–Brentwood. I walked down to Rhode Island Avenue and caught the bus, which was getting so old.

I stopped at the barbershop on North Capitol Street and told one of the barbers what I wanted him to do. He was cute and even asked me if I wanted a part or two etched above my ear. Not a bad idea.

“Can you make it go all the way down, though?” I asked, looking in the mirror.

“Like racing stripes?” he asked.

I nodded. It should be fly. He sat me in his chair and put the cape around my neck. As soon as he switched the clippers on and tilted my head to the side, I saw a familiar face sitting in a chair across from me. He smiled when he saw me. That same Cat in the Hat smile I remembered from years ago.
Dizzle
. Wow.

“How you doing?” he asked. He hadn’t changed, just looked a lot older.

“I’m all right.”

“You look good.”

I smiled. It was weird. Before Nut controlled my life, there was Dizzle. He was the same person who took my virginity, who took me off the street and turned me out at the same time. The person who introduced me to shrooms, Ecstasy, weed, and liquor. And there I was smiling at him instead of spitting fire. His barber handed Dizzle a mirror, then unbuttoned his cape and brushed his shoulders off.

“You want to catch up later?” he asked.

I thought about it for a second. I mean, I really did want to know what happened the day we was forced to go our separate ways. Plus, I could use somebody watching my back out here cuz I was still doing what I needed to do to make money, but something wasn’t right about it. I told him I’d call him, but I knew I wouldn’t. His trifling ass preyed on runaways. He couldn’t be trusted.

“You know you still my favorite,” he said, winking. Dizzle was a genius at mind games, at least with girls who was eleven and twelve. He ain’t deserve to know how I turned out or that I was still doing what he taught me to do. Surviving. I sat there thinking about those days. A lot had happened, and he still seemed like the same person, only much older. I watched him walk out the door with the same bouncy stride I remembered. Two girls came in the shop not long after Dizzle left. One was a bombshell with a boy haircut but was in bad need of a shape up. The other was an albino. She was tall and had a body like she played basketball for the Mystics. She had such an eye-catching face, tiny blonde cornrows hidden underneath her fitted cap, and a pair of cute shades covering her eyes. I watched her take a seat and wait for her friend to get in the chair she wanted. Every time my barber spun my chair around, I could feel the albino staring at me, even though she had a magazine in her hand. I looked down at my phone and sent Peaches a text to see if she needed me to work later.

“What kind of phone is that?” the girl in the shades asked.

“Oh, it’s a Palm Pre.”

“You like it?”

“It’s all right, except the keyboard is jive cramped.”

“You mind if I see it? I’m thinking about upgrading my phone,” she said.

“No. Here you go.”

The girl walked over and took my phone. I could see her playing with the keyboard and scrolling through the menu screen.

“It’s nice, but I think I’ma go ahead and get another iPhone.” She handed it back to me.

I smiled.

“I think you gotta new text. I felt it vibrate,” she said.

“Oh, okay,” I said, looking at my phone. I laughed when I saw that she was the one who actually typed a message that was still on the screen. It said:
YOUR SEXY ASS NEED TO MAKE IT YOUR BUSINESS TO CALL ME. I’M AUDRI. 202-555-2131.
She was bold as hell. Her girl was sitting right next to her. That shit turned me on for some reason. I saved her number in my phone, then sent her a text:
I’M KIKI, AND I MIGHT OR I MIGHT NOT.

“You’re all done, beautiful.” The barber handed me a mirror. “You like it?”

“Yeah, it’s real cute.”

He took off my cape and wiped off my shoulders. I paid him and walked out without even looking at Audri. I mean, that was just too much for one day. First Dizzle, then her going hard in front of her boo. Shit was crazy. I waited for the next bus to take me back up the street. I thought of just going over to Mommy’s later so I wouldn’t have to wake up early in the morning. When I hopped on the bus and got settled in a seat, I saw Audri come out the barbershop. She was grabbing something out of her burnt-orange Challenger. That shit was hot. A black racing stripe went down the front, and it sat on twenty-two-inch rims. I might have to call Audri after all.

The next day me and Mommy met this girl on Orleans Place to look at her white 1996 convertible BMW. She was a student at Gallaudet University, the top college for deaf kids. She was trying to get rid of it for some quick cash. I mean, it looked all right for it to be so old, except for the duct tape on the convertible part. The best part was she only wanted two thousand for it. We did a test-drive up Florida Avenue, down West Virginia, and back. I couldn’t believe how clear she was able to talk to be deaf. She said it was cuz she had cochlear implants since she was little. I had never heard of that, but Mommy said the surgery was too expensive for her and that a lot of the kids at Gallaudet had it. It made me feel bad for Mommy cuz this girl sitting behind us could hear so well. She ain’t need to read my lips or see me sign for her to understand me. I mean, for real, I couldn’t hardly tell that she was deaf, except some of the words she said wasn’t pronounced real clearly.

When we got back to Orleans Place, I talked the girl into going down to seventeen hundred dollars since the side mirror was cracked and cuz of the torn convertible cover. Mommy’s name went on the title.

“Do you get jealous of those kids, Mommy?” I asked when we left.

“Dat’s a hod queshun to ansur. God gave me dis life,” she said smiling, but her eyes looked sad.

I wished he hadn’t.

“Things aren’t so bad,” she signed.

I shook my head cuz it wasn’t fair. We had to leave the car with the girl until we could register it and get paper tags. I caught the bus with Mommy to her house since I ain’t have no plans for the day yet. When I walked in, Yodi was lying on the couch watching TV. My niece and nephew played with toys on the living room floor. I went straight to the kitchen to get something to drink. All of a sudden, Ryan came out of the back room mumbling something under his breath, and then he stormed out of the apartment.

“What’s his deal?” I asked.

“Who knows with his weird self. Ain’t like he ever talk to nobody.”

She right about that. Ever since we had been back together as a family, something about Ryan had changed. He stayed quiet and to hisself mostly. None of us could read him. Besides a sideways look every now and then, nobody knew what was really on Ryan’s mind. Guess I couldn’t blame him about being overprotective about us. He was the man of our house. I always felt like he was just a little extra protective over me. The few friends Ryan had always said I was the prettiest of all his sisters. His boys stayed, calling me the one with the cat eyes. Some said I looked like I could be a model. Whether I believed it or not was a different story, but Ryan never played that shit with his friends who tried to holla at me every chance they got. I knew Ryan hated that shit, and one thing he made sure me, Yodi, and Toya knew was that we better never mess with any of his friends.

My phone started ringing Wale’s “Chillin,” which meant whoever was calling wasn’t saved in my phone or maybe it was Kareem calling me from jail. I started not to answer it, but since I was bored, I did. “Hello?”

“This KiKi?” the person said.

“Who this?” I asked, not recognizing the voice.

“Audri.”

Oh, the girl from the barbershop. “Oh, hey. This ain’t the number you gave me yesterday.”

“I know. That was my friend’s phone number.”

What? Not the girl who was in the shop with her? “Oh, so that wasn’t your girlfriend?”

“Nah, but I see if it was, you ain’t give a fuck.”

She caught me there. I sat down at the kitchen table. “I mean, I figured she must not be doing her job if you giving me your number.”

Audri laughed. “You something, I see. What you doing later? I’m tryna see you.”

“Hmmm…Depends.”

“What it depend on?”

“It depends on what you wanna do.”

“I’m saying, we can go get something to eat or we can go shoot some pool. I don’t know. I just wanna see you.”

That made me feel good. I smiled and said, “Okay.” I told her to meet me at my apartment at six. I never really dated girls. I mean, I did whatever when I was working. That was different. But a relationship? Never. Unless you count Nausy back when I was little. Audri seemed like a challenge. Maybe it was cuz she was an albino. I don’t know. I was just curious. Toya always said that was my problem. That I’d try anything once. But that bitch could suck a dick for all I care.

I told everybody bye and dipped cuz I had to catch the bus home to get dressed. I thought about what I was gonna wear. It was between the royal-blue Dolce & Gabbana silk shorts and matching top with the YSL heels Trina Boo sent me for my birthday or the sleeveless super-short nude Marc Jacobs dress I got from Lord & Taylor with my Gucci pumps. I mean, every girl gotta have some elegant fly shit for their first date. Not the cheap stuff you mix and match later. Audri needed to know what I expected her to help me maintain if we was goin’ be goin’ on more dates in the future.

Later, when Audri showed up in front of my R Street apartment building, I stepped out the door in my royal-blue outfit. I ain’t wanna hurt her too much with the nude dress. My hair and makeup was flawless, too. Audri looked cute in her black Lacoste polo, some jeans, and some fly Jordans. Her Nationals cap was cocked. She raised her shades for a second, like she was getting a better look, and then she smiled. She closed her phone, then said, “Hey, you.”

“Hey,” I said, getting inside.

“You look good.”

“Thanks. You do, too.”

“So you wanna get something to eat first?”

“Yeah.”

I listened to music as she drove, not knowing where she was taking me, but we ended up on H Street in Chinatown. Audri parked, and then we squeezed inside Matchbox, which always stayed crowded. It was a long wait to get a table, and it was too many people there to really talk, so we ate without saying much. I couldn’t believe she still had her shades on inside the restaurant, but I ain’t mention it. When we was done eating, she asked me if I knew how to shoot pool.

“No, but I can learn.”

Audri smiled and led me to the parking garage. In the car, she asked me how old I was, where I worked, and how long I been single. She told me she lived uptown on Kenyon Street, that she was twenty-two, and that she worked in a mailroom downtown.

We ended up at a pool hall on Benning Road. I had seen it before when I used to live on Nineteenth Street, but I ain’t never go inside. Audri seemed like she been playing for a while, the way she lined the balls up and sharpened her stick. When she cracked the balls apart with her first hit, two balls went flying down holes. I was impressed, especially after she got the next three balls, too. The fourth ball went in and out.

“About time I can get a chance to play.”

She laughed, then tried to show me how to do it.

“When you gon’ take your shades off? I wanna see your eyes.”

She smiled and backed away. “Nah.”

“Why not?”

“They’re medicated.”

“No, they not.”

“Yeah, they are. All my shades are.”

“Why?”

“I got bad eyes.”

I mean, I guess I had to believe her, but until I saw her eyes for myself, I ain’t know if she was gonna look crazy or what. We played a couple rounds of pool. Of course, Audri beat me each round, and then she asked if I wanted to hit a lounge on U Street. I said okay. She bought me a Grand Marnier mixed with pineapple juice, and then we sat on a plush sofa in a corner. Some people danced around us, but it was more people chilling, drinking, and talking, listening to Maxwell- and Chrisette Michele–type music. I hadn’t been to a place like this in a long time.

“So what’s up with you?” Audri asked.

“Nothing.”

A dude I recognized from a party waved at me. I waved back. I felt my phone vibrate and decided to sneak a peek to check who it was. I smiled when I saw Camille’s picture pop up. I hadn’t talked to her in a minute, but I couldn’t answer it now.

“You wanna get that?” Audri asked with a little attitude.

I slipped my phone back in my clutch, then took another sip of my drink. I guess I was being rude. Audri looked disappointed for a while, and then she said she was going to the bathroom. I sent Camille a text that I was on a date and that I’d call her back. When Audri returned from the bathroom, she said she was ready to go. I followed her out of the lounge, then down the street to her car. Inside, she said, “What made you give me your number?”