Oh yes, my uncle has a beeper for a reason. He’s an architect, blueprints cover the kitchen table. See, they have a marble foyer with a coat rack. Now, if I can sneak to the bedroom everything will be right with the world. The TV’s on in the living room. Sounds like Wheel of Fortune.
“She’s back.”
It’s my uncle’s voice.
“Rika, could you come here?”
Oh no.
“What?”
Gotta get to the third door on the left. Lock myself in, wait them out. Here they come. Uncle Jack, gray-haired but quick, pushes me aside and blocks the way. Must have been playing tennis at Dorsey, still in his sweat-stained whites. Mother looks shocked as usual. My fat auntie leads us into the living room, nice view of the Hollywood Hills but the setting sun is still too bright. I need my shades.
“You left again,” Uncle Jack says.
“You can’t leave,” my mother says. Her eyes, red and desperate.
“Where did you go?” my aunt asks.
I don’t say anything. I smile.
“Jesus! She’s high again.”
Mother stands and runs to the other side of the room and starts crying. I start for the bedroom but my uncle is forcing me down into a bean bag. I make a big slosh as I land. He’s so mad he’s sputtering.
“Do you know what you’re doing to your mother, us? We are trying to help you. And you go out in your robe and slippers wearing a rag on your head like you’re some kind of cheap hooker on Normandie.”
I don’t look at him. Instead I look at my slippers. What’s wrong with my slippers? They’re clean.
“We took you and your mother in because she needs help. We’re going to give her that help. If we can’t help you here we’re going to have to commit you. But you’re going to get help.”
He keeps saying give, get and going. Maybe I should get going.
“Don’t you have something to say?”
I shake my head.
“Where did you go, to the jungle to buy crack?”
“I did not!” I say but a scream comes out. Everybody jumps. I try to struggle out of the bean bag but I tumble over. My mother rushes over, grabbing me, holding on like I’m going to run.
“Baby, baby, were you with that boy? You weren’t with him, were you?”
With him? Wow, I thought she knew.
“I saw him but I wasn’t with him.”
They’re looking at me, all in my face.
“I thought you promised me you wouldn’t see him after all he’s done to you,” Mother says, tears rolling down her face. She cries even better than before.
“I wasn’t with him. I saw him … from a distance.”
“I bet he’s the one who gave it to her,” Jack says, positively irate.
Auntie throws her hands up and goes for the phone. “I’m calling. There’s no way we can handle this. This girl needs professional help.”
Mother pulls me out of the bean bag, with one hand, just yanks me up.
“See, she’s making the phone call. We can’t handle this. We can’t watch you twenty-four hours a day.”
Funny, they keep saying the same things.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Me?”
Jack grabs me by the arm and drags me to the room I was trying to get to in the first place. He pushes me in, Mother watching.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Mother comes in and gives me a hug. She’s wearing Chanel. “We love you. You’ve got to try …”
I wait for her to complete the sentence. Fill in the blank. To get ahold of myself. To control myself. Not hurt myself.
“Jesus. She’s laughing again. She’s not listening to anything.”
“I’m listening!” Another scream.
Mother almost jumps off the bed. Uncle Jack shakes his head and leaves.
“You really are sick,” Mother says, whispering like she doesn’t want me to hear.
“I’m okay.”
“You need so much help.”
“You should get a cut like mine. It’s very summery.”
Mother draws back. Pulls my hand from her hair. She should get it dyed too, I don’t care for all of that gray. Now she’s holding on to me crying again. Softly, so Uncle Jack can’t hear. He’s so full of himself.
“Rika. You got to promise me not to see that Doug again.”
“Mother, I thought you knew. Doug’s no longer with us.”
“What?” she says, her blue eyes streaked with red.
“He’s gone to his reward.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes, Mother. They buried him today.”
“And you went to the funeral in a bathrobe?”
“I didn’t get out of the car. It was okay.”
“Are you sure …?”
Mother’s so happy. She doesn’t want to believe me.
“Yes, I’m very sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell us? It explains so much.”
“I thought I did.”
“Oh, baby. I really didn’t know.”
Again, she wraps her arms around me and cries, tears drip onto my cheeks. It’s embarrassing.
“Mother, you should go and get some rest. I’ll be fine.”
She looks at me, what’s the word? Forlorn, forlornly. I’ve made her so sad.
“I am tired.”
She kisses me and heads for the door.
“If you need me …”
I nod. She tries so hard. I hear Uncle Jack at the door locking me in. I hope nobody’s smoking in bed! What’s on the tube? I turn it on and turn down the sound. Who needs the words and lie back. What time is it? Eight-thirty. Much too early to go to bed. But I am tired too.
What I don’t understand is how I feel. Suddenly everything changes. I don’t feel good at all. Comes in waves, my good humor washing away like sand castles. Isn’t that it. That nothing lasts, nothing keeps, specially a buzz. I’m not like you, though. You’re the kind of man that would make his woman sit in a car; yes, it was a Benz but so what, and for how long? Once, I sat in that leather-lined pimpmobile for four hot hours, getting out only once to use the bathroom. Knocked on the door of that run-down house and there you were, with your associates, four or five very dumb-looking future felons watching a basketball game in a smoky living room. Then it was only the smoke of the best Ses but soon we would all be smoking the roach powder. You actually looked pissed as though I had no reason at all for interrupting the festivities, even if I did have to go in the worst way. You looked at me like I was the stupidest, the ugliest bitch in the world but you failed to notice the way your associates were ogling me. You saw me like everyone first saw me, a fine, high-yella bitch, who looked like a model with good hair and green eyes. Wasn’t I a trophy? I had to be stuck up, I had the look of someone who had to be stuck up. And you had to have it. You had to train me because I needed to be turned into a obedient bitch, and because I have certain problems I went along with the program. But you didn’t know then, that because you made me sit and fetch and wait on hot leather seats for master to bring me a bone, that I wouldn’t forget, that the bitch would bite that bone.
Let me turn out the light, turn off that TV, this room looks like an ugly motel, cottage cheese ceiling, hot green, oversized couch—where did they get this stuff? Better in the dark, cooler.
It didn’t start that way. You came into the Speak Easy like you were going to yank some girl off the dance floor and take her to the car and do a Ted Bundy on her. I’m sure you thought you were the most dangerous player there, bigger, younger, better looking. But baby, baby, nobody was fooled. The girls there knew, knew you had the wrong zip code, even if you have a fat wallet. Too, too wet for a girl who wanted a legitimate money man, that’s why you didn’t get much play. You were in the wrong neighborhood. I saw you coming but you know, right then, you were just the thing for me, what I was looking for. I really hate to be bored. More than anything, more than getting slapped by a man who doesn’t know he’d prefer a boy or driven up the coast and left to find my way home. See, all of that wasn’t fun, but baby, I wasn’t bored and I got their numbers, paid them back in kind. So when I saw you, a young buck-wild businessman, I just knew you were the ticket to go places I’ve been and wanted to get back to.