Synergy (4 page)

“Well
 
I’ve been working to provide for my son, so don’t start
talking shit about I’m a bad dad
” Trey
shouted. This time the girls could hear what was being said on the
other end of the phone.

“
What you been
doing to provide
?” he questioned.
“
Being a fucking slut, showing yourself to
strangers? Yeah I know what you been doing Dee, so don’t play that
innocent card
.”

Dee
tried to protest over his shouting; she wanted to tell him that she
knew for a fact he wasn’t working and to stop lying, but he only
spoke louder.

“
I’ll see Tushaun next week, and
I’ll talk to you then. I ain’t arguing with you.”

With
that, he ended the call.

In
anger, Dee flung her phone across the room, and it smashed off the
wall opposite, landing in pieces on the floor with a smashed
screen. Keisha leapt to Dee’s side to comfort her as Jenai went to
pick up the pieces of the phone, and began to put them back
together.

“Ignore him Dee, he’s talking shit
.”
Keisha said, as she put her arm round her friend. Dee silently
fumed as she took some deep breaths, attempting to slow her heart
rate. Her hands still shook in her lap, and she knew she had to get
herself under control. She had always struggled with her anger, and
it had often gotten her into trouble. She thought it sounded
clichéd to say she saw red, but something definitely happened to
her in these moments. It was like she wasn’t in control of her own
body; it was just pure reflex. She would throw things, sometimes
punches, and it was up to whoever was on the receiving end to get
out of the way. She and Trey had that in common and it had resulted
in them both sporting black eyes at some points during their
relationship.

Dee got
pregnant with her son at nineteen. It wasn’t a particularly planned
pregnancy but they weren’t exactly taking all the right precautions
either; a kind of act now and think later situation. Unlike a lot
of people in her neighbourhood, she was actually with her baby’s
father when she got pregnant, in fact, they were pretty much
childhood sweethearts. Dee was fifteen when she started dating
Trey. They went to the same school for years and she had always had
a crush on him. He was always a troublemaker, getting excluded from
school and causing fights during lunch. He had this softer side too
though -  he was the class clown, always making people smile,
and his own smile was something that melted many hearts. He had a
reputation, even at thirteen, for sleeping with girls and not
looking at them the next day. Girls just flocked to him, and he
loved every minute of it.

When they were both fourteen, Dee and her group of
girlfriends became friends with Trey and his crew. The two groups
would hang out together during break and lunchtime, laughing and
joking, and smoking a sneaky blunt. It was clear even then Dee
and Trey got on well together; they were always flirting and play
fighting, and there was an instant aura of jealousy among the year
group. Trey didn’t instantly drop his player ways though, and he
found out the hard way not to mess with Dee when she found him
texting other girls after they’d slept together. When she punched
him in the nose in front of half the school, she definitely made
her point. She wasn’t one to mess with. Unfortunately, Trey wasn’t
a changed man for long.

At
seventeen, the two of them left school early with no
qualifications. It wasn’t exactly something out of the ordinary in
that school. It was a joint decision to leave, and though Dee would
never like to think she was persuaded into anything she didn’t want
to do, she did wonder if it was the right move, but she trusted him
when he said things would work out. Trey started selling weed at
sixteen and sometimes Dee helped. By the time they were seventeen,
Dee had a reputation in their area for selling the best quality in
the neighbourhood, and her looks didn’t hurt either.

Living a
life selling weed worked out for them for a while. They got their
own place together a few streets away from their parents, and Dee
even got some modelling work. It didn’t pay great but it was money,
and that was what mattered. Everything seemed fine, before Trey
started selling harder stuff. He began taking some of it too. His
lifestyle started to completely change; it was like she could see
him changing in front of her eyes. His cheeky smile had gone, and
he was staying out all night, coming in smelling of perfume and
liquor. One night she waited up for him and when he finally
stumbled in the door, he was mad that she’d waited up; he thought
she was ‘trying to catch him out.’ When she saw the red lipstick on
his collar, she launched at him, but his reflexes kicked in and she
was thrown across the room. She hit her face on the
wall.

It was
at a modelling shoot that Dee heard about a casting call for a girl
for a hip hop video. She’d often watched those girls and thought
she could do a better job, but she never knew how to approach
something like that. When she heard the name of the rapper it was
for, she felt ridiculous for even thinking about it, but she was
encouraged by some other models who were going to it. The next day,
she was queuing outside the casting building. When the video came
on TV with Dee as the main lady, people in her neighbourhood went
crazy. People had more respect for her than they had before, and
this time not just as their local dope girl. But while everybody
else raved about the video, Trey acted jealous. He didn’t like the
fact that men were ogling her on TV, or the fact that she had a sex
scene with a well known rapper. As staged as it was, it felt real
to him. He knew he couldn’t compare to some hip hop icon. When Dee
got her pay check from the job, he blew it all.

When Dee
found out she was pregnant it was a shock to the system for the
both of them. How were they going to afford it? How would they look
after it? They didn’t know anything about babies. They both walked
on eggshells at first, not sure what to say or how to feel, worried
about upsetting the other, but when they both went to the first
baby scan, and heard how it was healthy, things changed. Trey was
suddenly becoming the old Trey, the one she knew from school. He
treated her better, he stayed home more and he stopped taking the
drugs. Things were looking up, or so Dee thought. Once Tushaun was
born, the novelty wore off.

Jenai
looked up at Dee.

“Hate to say this, but your phone won’t switch on”

Dee pursed her lips in anger; it almost looked like a pout to
everyone else. It was her classic ‘angry’
face. 
“Fuck’s
sake.” 
She muttered under her
breath.

Keisha
waved her hand in dismissal.

 “
Forget about the phone, my
brother can get you another one. Let’s just forget about him and
get a drink”

Dee smiled at Keisha, and tried to forget as she suggested.
Her anger wasn’t going to help anything right now. With that, the
girls stood up and headed into the club.

Chapter 4 – One Night Stand

Dee

She knew it was a bad idea, drinking so much while she was
pissed off, but she did it anyway. When Keisha suggested the three
girls go get some drinks and have a dance, they headed straight to
the bar to see Paul, who poured around 20 shots and put them on a
tray, which they then shared out between them. Dee’s head was
spinning with thoughts of Trey and then of Tushaun. She wished it
didn’t have to be like this. She wished she could be one of the
happy ones, the ones that stayed together and did right by the
kids. She couldn’t help but wonder whether it was something she
did. Was she not good enough? Did she not treat him right? Maybe if
she wasn’t so moody, so stubborn, so God damn bitchy on the
regular...

“
Dee!
” Keisha snapped her fingers in
Dee’s face, causing whatever thoughts were spinning around to
suddenly evaporate. She blinked and let her eyes
focus.

“
You
okay
?”

Dee
nodded and forced a smile, before she knocked back the last
remaining shot and got to her feet unsteadily. Walking with a strut
in her knee high boots, she led the two girls into the middle of
the dance floor, which was now full of people.

It’s
funny how music can have such an effect on people, how it can alter
their mood, thought Dee.  She had always loved music, it was
her safe haven. No matter what life threw at her, she could always
put her earphones in after a hard day and let the music take her
away. During those moments, she was the girl the rappers were
talking about; she had a good, drama free-life with money at her
discretion; she wasn’t born and raised in the ghetto with an absent
baby daddy and a mounting stack of bills. That alternate reality
always had to come to an end, but for tonight, she was in it again.
She threw her arms up in the air as the music pounded through the
club, the beat vibrating through her body. She sang along at the
top of her lungs, knowing no one could hear and she laughed as
Jenai pushed away an over-eager customer.  She could lose
herself in this reality.

After a while, the effects of the Tequila shots started to
wear off and she was once again envisioning Trey and his words on
the phone replayed in her mind. 
‘What
you been doing to provide
?’ he spat. She
sighed as she thought of the next line he used
. ‘Being a fucking slut, showing yourself to
strangers.’ 
She tried to shake off
his words but she was starting to feel a little angry again, and
she needed to bring herself back down. ‘
Being a fucking slut’, 
his
words hit her again. In one swift moment, she shimmied past the men
behind her to leave the dance floor, not saying anything to the
girls, but as she passed in front of the men, she felt a hand on
her ass.  One of them had decided to slap it as she went past,
but then had grabbed it forcefully when she tried to carry on
walking. She spun around quickly, and saw a short bald man with a
grin on his face. She didn’t return the grin. Usually, her face
said it all for people. She had perfected her angry look, and most
who saw it would back off within seconds. This guy, however, had
clearly never seen the face before, or met Dee before for that
matter. The guy had no idea what he’d just gotten himself into. He
probably thought he could get away with it. Sadly, he was mistaken,
and as her fist flew up in record speed, he had barely any time to
react.

Unfortunately for Dee, another, taller guy who stood leering
next to the first guy had obviously spotted her face, and was
probably expecting her reaction. Moving at the same lightning
speed, he grabbed her arm, just stopping her fist from making
contact with short guy’s face. He held her arm tightly, his fingers
pressing down on her skin. His intention was clearly to protect his
friend from Dee’s wrath, not to cause injury, but the pressure on
her arm was unnecessary, she felt, and Dee was a fighter. This only
made her more determined to hurt somebody. Her left arm, which was
still free, flew up in reaction, making contact with tall guy’s
nose. She felt the soft cartilage shift under her knuckles and
simultaneously felt a sharp pain radiate up her hand.

As he
released her right arm from his clutches to grab onto his nose,
which was now covered in blood, his short friend made a move toward
Dee. In a flash, she moved toward him and kneed him in the groin,
causing him to stagger back in pain. While both men reacted to
their injuries, she moved swiftly off the dance floor and changed
her original destination of the bar to the staff room. She punched
in the code with her right, uninjured hand and let the door slam
behind her. Once she was safe behind the door, she slumped to the
floor holding onto her hand and winced in pain.

After a few short moments taking deep breaths, she braved
looking at her hand. Cradling it in her right hand, she saw broken
skin and red seeping through, plus what looked like the start of
some serious bruising. Though she threw an amazing punch with her
right hand, she had never before hit with her left, it was never
necessary - she had never missed with her right. After sitting
for another moment breathing through her teeth, she stood up and
braved the walk into the dressing area. She looked around the
corner and saw that it was empty. The dressing table was full of
lipsticks and hairbrushes, and the ashtray that was hanging on the
arm of the sofa was full of ash and stubbed out blunts, but no one
seemed to be there. As she moved fully into the dressing room, she
saw the tower of lockers to her right behind the toilet door. She
walked slowly to the lockers, heading for the one that matched her
in height completely, around 5”5. She always remembered her own
locker by this fact, not by the number. She could never remember
the number. Sliding her good hand down her top into her bra, she
felt for the small key at the bottom of her cleavage. Once she
fished it out, she put it into the locker straight in front of her
and retrieved her black handbag.

Dee wasted no time in finding her pre-rolled blunts in the
zipped pocket and lighting one up. There was a time when there was
a fire alarm in this room, and the slightest bit of smoke would set
it off. However, their manager, Evan, got sick and tired of
evacuating the club or running and shouting ‘
False alarm
!’ while desperately
trying to fan away the smoke with a towel. It was most likely
illegal to not have one in the staff area, but honestly, he just
didn’t care, and neither did the girls. As long as they could get
baked after their show or at least have a cigarette to calm their
nerves before the show, they were good.