White Lines (40 page)

“When are you two getting married?” somebody called out.

Dorian smiled at the idea, and looked at Sunny. “As soon as she has this baby, and the diva can fit into some tight-ass dress, we’re gonna do it,” Dorian announced. Everyone reacted with shouts and applause at this announcement. Sunny proudly flashed the huge ring on her left hand for emphasis.

Born stood beside Jada, and nudged her when he heard this. “Make sure you catch the bouquet at their wedding,” he said. “‘Cuz we’re next.”

Jada smiled, and her eyes twinkled at the thought of being Born’s wife. He kissed her, and for a moment she forgot all about her addiction and her secrets. Everything was going to be alright, she told herself. Everybody was used to hearing the doorbell by then, with guests arriving every few minutes like clockwork. But when the doorbell rang at that moment, it was like a bell tolling for things to come.

Dorian and Sunny continued to take pictures, until he saw Olivia standing near the door with the girl who had been checking coats. It looked to Dorian like Olivia was upset, and was trying to avert a commotion by not allowing someone to enter the house. Olivia was in somebody’s face, denying them access to the party. He saw who it was, and walked toward the door.

“Raquel, what’s your problem? You know better than to come to my house. What do you want? D.J.’s with my mother,” Dorian hissed at her, careful not to speak too loudly and alert Sunny.

Raquel looked at him like he had lost his entire mind. “What the fuck you mean, I know better than to come to your house, Dorian? I’m your son’s muthafuckin’ mother! I can come over here anytime I want, and—”

“Yo,
what
do you want, Raquel?” Dorian wanted her gone! He didn’t want anything to upset Sunny in any way. Not when she’d come so far along in her pregnancy without complications.

“I came to drop off a gift, damn!” She chewed her gum, angrily.

“Where’s it at?” Dorian looked around. He saw a box in Raquel’s hand, but she had it behind her back.

“Let me in like everybody else.” She looked him dead in his eyes. Her eyes looked different to Dorian, though. He remembered times when he’d looked into them and saw a woman who loved him. He had once seen someone who would do anything in the world to please him. Now he saw Raquel as someone who was tinkering on the thin line between love and obsession. She looked as though the love she was feeling for him had become dangerous. Like she thought nothing had changed between them when everything had changed. He dismissed the thought of
Raquel being obsessed with him, for the first time in his life ignoring his gut instinct.

He laughed at her, and turned his back. Born was walking his way, coming to tell him that Sunny wanted to take more pictures. Dorian looked at him and nodded toward Raquel. “Get the gift she brought, and get her outta here, please.”

Born headed toward Raquel as Dorian headed back toward Sunny.

“D, come and take a picture with Sunny!” somebody yelled from the living room.

Raquel craned her neck to see inside the house. She caught a glimpse of Sunny, with her long brown hair flowing down her back. Born saw the expression on Raquel’s face change from a frown to pure pain. She began to cry, and Born felt bad.

He said, “Don’t cry, ma.” Born looked in the air, as if to say, “Why me?” as Raquel became absolutely hysterical, crying. He saw her reach into her bag, and he thought she was probably fumbling around for a tissue. Her makeup ran all over her face, and she was still crying steadily. Born turned for a split second to look over his shoulder, and that second cost all of them dearly.

Raquel pulled out a black .32-caliber gun. She charged past Born unexpectedly, and he grabbed for her. But it was too late. In his momentary loss of focus, he had underestimated Raquel and the determination of a woman fed up.

Raquel ran into the house, with Sunny in her sights. She aimed at the pregnant beauty as she stood posing for a picture with Dorian kneeling before her, holding her belly. His head was resting against Sunny’s womb, as he knelt on one knee. Cameras flashed as Raquel came charging in. Everyone’s attention was captured then, and they all began to run for cover. By then Born had drawn his own gun, and not wanting to kill Dorian’s son’s mother, he shot Raquel in the leg. Raquel fell to the floor and raised her arm, still crying.

She aimed at Sunny’s belly, and Dorian rushed toward Raquel to stop her. He stood to his feet, and as he rose, Raquel fired. The bullet hit Dorian directly in his Adam’s apple, barely missing Sunny and her unborn
child. Sunny’s father grabbed her quickly out of the line of fire as Dorian fell to the floor, gurgling on his own blood.

Horrified, Raquel and Sunny both screamed from the bottom of their souls. Sunny tried desperately to get to Dorian, who lay on the floor in a bloody pool, but her father held her tightly and wouldn’t let her move from where he had her shielded, between the wall and the china closet. If Raquel came for Sunny, she was going to have to shoot him first.

Raquel stood up uneasily, with the gun still pointed at any and everyone. She was clearly in pain from the shot to the leg she’d sustained. She let out a scream that sent chills up all their spines, and she cried. Raquel had never meant to hurt Dorian. She just wanted Sunny dead. Sunny and her baby. That was all she had wanted, to see them dead—not Dorian. She looked at Dorian, put the gun in her mouth, and then closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger.

The shot went off just as Sunny broke free and ran to Dorian’s side. He lay on the floor, his eyes open, looking like he had so much to say. But no words were possible as the blood poured from his throat. Marisol came and held a towel up to the wound to try and stop the bleeding as Jada frantically dialed an ambulance. Born sat on the stairs with his gun in his hand. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. He felt responsible. He had turned away from Raquel for the briefest moment, and this was all his fault.

“Get her outta here, please.”
That’s all that Dorian had asked him to do, and now he lay dying on the floor. Born felt like shit. Sunny was hysterical.

Anarchy erupted in the house that had once been filled with so much joy. The setting that was supposed to be one of love, happiness, and the celebration of a new life had turned into a bloody den of death, as Raquel lay sprawled across the floor. Cradling the love of her life in her arms, Sunny cried harder and harder. “I love you, Dorian,” she told him. “I love you, baby. Please don’t die. Please, Dorian. Don’t leave me, baby.”

He wanted to tell her that he loved her, too. That she was his everything, and that he was sorry. But the bullet wound in his throat continued
to gush. He stared into Sunny’s eyes, and tried to convey his love for her that way. She looked so beautiful, even as she cried, he thought. Dorian breathed his last breath in Sunny’s arms, looking into her eyes, and a part of her died, too. She wouldn’t let go of him—not even when the paramedics and police finally arrived. She stayed there on the floor, cradling Dorian’s lifeless body in her arms until her family pried her away. Dorian was dead, and she may as well have been dead, too.

Sunny was a wreck. She stood hollering at the casket, where Dorian lay stretched in an Armani suit and silk tie. It was a hustler’s reunion, as every bailer in Brooklyn, and several from the surrounding boroughs as well came to pay their respects to Dorian Douglas. The November wind whistled outside the church, as mourners poured in by the dozens. Diamonds sparkled, platinum gleamed, furs and leathers mingled as everyone put on their very finest to commemorate their friend. Whispers about his baby’s crazy mother and the murder/suicide that had taken place at Sunny’s baby shower filled the room, as Sunny all but fell out at the altar.

Sunny’s mother and father stood on either side of her, as she broke down in gut-wrenching sobs at her beloved’s side. Her belly swollen with their unborn child, she was on the verge of a complete breakdown. They led her reluctantly back to her seat, and the church nurses came over, fanning her and offering water. They wiped her forehead with damp cloths, and tried to calm her down. Her grief was shared by every woman in the room who had ever been in love, by every woman who had ever had a broken heart and a child to provide for all alone. Sunny was distraught.

Born sat with Jada by his side, and he wept. He felt so responsible, so guilty for taking his eyes off of Raquel. He hadn’t known how crazy she was, how insanely in love with Dorian she had been. No one had expected
her to try to kill Sunny and wind up killing Dorian instead. But Born still felt responsible. He felt that he had let his friend down. He remembered the times that Dorian had had his back. The situation with Celly, when Dorian had warned Born that he was about to be ambushed. The countless other times over the years when Dorian had watched out for him. And the one time Dorian had needed Born, he was unable to protect him. It was all too much for him to digest. Jada sat, gently rubbing Born’s back and telling him that it was alright. He knew it wasn’t, though. His best friend was gone, and he felt responsible. He felt terrible for Sunny and her baby, who would grow up without a father.

Born looked over at D.J., who sat crying in silence beside Dorian’s mother, Gladys. D.J. looked completely lost and alone, with no mother or father to care for him. Born vowed to himself that he would always look after the boy. He felt that that was what Dorian would want him to do.

Born was so overcome with guilt and grief that he took off his medallion, and placed it in the casket with Dorian. Fuck it. It might as well be buried with him. Born was finished with the crew as far as he was concerned. He was unworthy of the honor Dorian had bestowed upon him when he’d given him that ring.

After the service and Dorian’s burial at the cemetery, everyone gathered at Gladys’s house for the funeral repast. Sunny sat in a corner with Jada all night, crying softly on her shoulder. Born couldn’t face her, couldn’t help breaking down whenever he talked to Sunny, who had lost the love of her life all because Born had slipped. He sat with his friend Zion and Dorian’s brothers. He talked to D.J., and reassured the young boy that anything in the world he ever needed or wanted would be his if he called his uncle Born.

Sunny found Born sitting alone, gazing silently out of the window in a corner by himself. She walked up to him, with her eyes red and puffy from crying. “Born,” she said. “I need to give this back to you.” She held her hand open, and in it was Born’s medallion. The ring was supposed to have been buried with Dorian, so Born was surprised to see it in Sunny’s palm. He frowned and looked at her questioningly. Sunny answered what he hadn’t even asked.

“I saw this laying beside him today, and I couldn’t let you do that. Dorian would want you to keep this, and to rep for him, since he can’t be here. The night he gave you this, he was so happy to have you on board. Don’t play yourself and start feeling guilty or responsible in any way. The only one to blame for this is Raquel. And by now I hope she’s burning in hell.” Sunny’s eyes filled with tears. It killed Born to see this woman, who was usually so tough and strong, now broken and destroyed by grief. She tried to compose herself, and said, “Take the ring, and don’t ever let go of it. Consider it a little part of D for you to keep with you always.”

Born heard the pain in Sunny’s voice as she spoke. He took the ring from her, and placed it back on his finger. Sunny managed a weak smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Dorian loved you. He really did.”

Born hugged Sunny tightly, and wished that he could take away her pain somehow. Her pregnant belly was between them, as he held her, and she cried. He couldn’t find any words to say to her. But his hug spoke volumes, as she cried on his shoulder.

By the time Born and Jada left Brooklyn that night, Born was convinced that life would never be the same for any of them. Dorian was gone, leaving Sunny behind, along with two fatherless children. Sunny was alone in the world, living with her family, because she couldn’t walk into the house she had shared with Dorian without being overwhelmed by grief. Jada was feeling alone without her road dog Sunny, and she was forced to watch Born mourn his friend in silence, since Born wouldn’t talk about it. Things were no longer as good as they had once been for their crew, and Born wondered what would happen next.

Zion put him in touch with another supplier, and Born managed to keep his hustle afloat. But he had lost the thrill that he had had with Dorian behind him. It wasn’t the same anymore, and he began to consider getting out of the game for the first time since he had gotten into it.

However, there was a situation that required his attention more than the possibility of retirement. Jada was acting strange, and he couldn’t figure out why. Jada called Sunny from time to time, and they would talk. But Sunny was in another place in her life. She didn’t have time for anything
but her baby, and Jada understood. She let Sunny mourn Dorian in solitude, and she spent most of her time at home, or with Born. She was depressed, though, and so was Born. He had lost his best friend. And Jada felt like she had lost hers, too. Jada understood her friend’s grief, and gave her the space she needed to finish out her pregnancy in peace. Sunny was resting at her mother’s house in Brooklyn, and wouldn’t take visitors or phone calls. She was so depressed that her doctor ordered her on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy, and her family wanted to protect her. They kept her secluded, and they convinced Sunny to live. She had felt like dying when she lost Dorian. Sunny’s family made her see that her baby was a gift from Dorian, her very last piece of him. She stayed in seclusion until she gave birth. From that point on, Sunny shut the world out, and it was all about her baby. Jada understood this. But she was alone now, with no one to keep her company, and a terrible secret that Born knew nothing about. Jada was an addict.

She started going out by herself, to the local clubs in Staten Island. Sometimes she met up with new friends she had met, and with some old pals like Shante. Born didn’t like what he was seeing, and he wondered how long his relationship with her would last. They hardly had sex anymore, and Jada seemed distant, and somehow changed. He wondered if she was reacting to his depression over Dorian’s death, or if she was lonely without Sunny and bored with nothing to do to keep her busy anymore. But whatever it was, he was starting to see Jada in a different light. A voice in his head warned him that it could be something far worse than what he hoped it was.