A Street Girl Named Desire: A Novel (23 page)

“Desire, I don't want to hear you talk like that 'bout yo sister no mo. You hear me, no mo!” Hattie Mae screamed. “Now, she's ya sister, and she just made a damn mistake!”

That was what Desire had always loved about Hattie Mae. Grandma always wanted to see the good in everyone, never the bad. Desire winced as she thought about the fact that all of her nice things seemed to come from Whip, at his discretion. Here she was, pushing a status whip and rocking designer gear, and she couldn't even buy Hattie Mae anything, because she and Chanel rarely saw liquid cash. Every time she questioned Whip about it, he told her not to worry, that money was coming soon.

“Grandma,” Desire asked softly, “is everything all right, is there something else you not telling me?”

There was a long pause.

“Grandma, you still there?”

“Yes, baby. I'm sorry for yellin. I just miss you and want to see you.”

“I'll be home tomorrow, and I'll make you my first stop when I get off the plane. I miss you too.”

Desire could sense Hattie Mae's smile beaming through the phone.

“Praise Jesus, I knew you wouldn't let me down. I just wanna see both my babies together again. It's … it's just that I don't wanna see you and ya sister not talking to each other. Y'all gonna need each other. So promise me when you come home you also go see about her.”

Desire rolled her eyes. She had decided to let her worries about Tiah go. She knew that Tiah knew the streets as well as she herself did. Her sister would survive.

“Grandma, I'll do what I can. But I'll see you tomorrow. Love you!”

Those were the best words Hattie Mae had heard in a long time.

“I love you too, baby,” she responded.

When Desire returned to her table, she could not help but notice the unusual stares cast upon her by everyone in the room. She turned and faced Sterling, and suddenly the music stopped playing. Sterling rose to his feet.

“Desire, I want to ask you a question, and please don't lie to me.” Desire's palms began to sweat. She stared into Sterling's eyes.

“Do you love me?” he asked.

“Yes, Sterling, of course.”

“Well, if you truly love me, you would … marry me!” Sterling
reached in his pocket, pulled out a ring box and handed it to Desire, who was speechless. She gasped when she saw the size of the diamond.

After getting over the initial shock, Desire emphatically said yes, over and over again. Everyone in the room started clapping, and suddenly Whip allowed all the photographers into the room to take pictures. Desire was overwhelmed by the number of them.

On the way to Atlanta's sprawling Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Desire used her cell phone to call her grandmother. There was still no answer. She had been calling the house since early that morning, to let Hattie Mae know exactly when she'd be home. Desire had not seen Hattie Mae in so long, she had almost forgotten her face. She couldn't stop fidgeting on the plane because she was so nervous with excitement. She couldn't wait to tell Hattie Mae about Sterling, and wondered what Grandma was going to cook that night, since she always had warm soul food waiting. As soon as her plane touched down at LaGuardia Airport in New York, Desire and Chanel went to the waiting limousine. The driver dropped Chanel off at the Greenwich Village apartment, and then hit the West Side Highway to take Desire straight uptown. Desire called Hattie Mae's apartment again as New Jersey and the Hudson River flew by. When they reached the 125th Street exit, which would lead them into Harlem, Desire suddenly felt more at home than she had in months. The cars, shoppers, stores and restaurants of 125th Street seemed much more welcoming than they had when she'd actually lived on the street. It was as if her whole perspective had shifted.

Oddly, Hattie Mae still hadn't answered her telephone, even though Desire knew that she
must
be expecting her. When they arrived at Hattie's building on 131st and Lenox, Desire asked the limousine driver to wait. She had long ago misplaced her keys to the apartment. The lock to the entry door was broken as usual so Desire entered the building. Fearing something was wrong with Hattie Mae, she dropped her luggage and ran into the apartment. In a panic, she ran into every room and yelled for Hattie Mae. No one answered.

Desire went across the hall to Ms. Benny's apartment. Desire banged on the door, kept banging until Ms. Benny answered.

“The ambulance come get Hattie Mae late last night, say something wrong with her heart or something,” Ms. Benny told Desire. Desire's own heart was pounding as she thought back to the conversation she had shared with Hattie Mae the night before. She wondered if Hattie Mae had some sort of premonition and had been afraid to tell her.

“Where they take her?” asked Desire.

“They took her to St. Luke's, over on—”

Desire ran down the stairs, yelling to the limousine driver that they had a new destination.

For Desire, hospitals were nothing but miserable reminders of all the pain and suffering she had endured in her life. She was unable to think straight as she walked through the entrance of St. Luke's. The sanitary white cleanliness of the hospital blinded her as she walked through all of the maze-like corridors and hallways in order to reach the intensive care unit. She had called both Sterling
and Whip, but neither of them had answered, or called her back, despite the fact that she had left messages for each, stating that something was wrong with Hattie Mae. Desire recognized several of the women from Hattie Mae's church. They were huddled together, in prayer, with doctors and nurses surrounding them. Desire was caught off guard when she saw Lil Dollar leaning against a wall. Even from the back, she could see he was crying. Desire burst through the crowd and placed her arm on Lil Dollar's shoulder, turning him around to face her. He pulled her into his arms.

“Desire,” he cried, “Hattie Mae is gone …”

The words hit Desire straight in the chest, and if she hadn't been in Lil Dollar's arms she probably would have fainted. She was totally and completely numb, unable to shed even one tear for the woman who had saved her life when she was just a newborn baby. Her mind swirled as she thought about all the time that had been lost while she was out doing her own things, trying to forget where she had come from, climbing to the top, all while neglecting and disrespecting the woman responsible for her life. No amount of fame or fortune would ever fill the hole that burned through Desire's heart that day.

H
undreds of people had come to Bethel A.M.E. Church to show respect to Hattie Mae Evans on her final journey home. She had been a pillar of the Harlem churchgoing community for decades. That entire week, Desire was devastated and took her anger out on those closest to her. As she sat in the front row with Sterling and Chanel, she wept silently. Whip had had too many meetings to make the effort to attend. Carvelas sat quietly in the back pews with other church members who had known and loved Hattie Mae. Desire's celebrity didn'tmean a thing to all the people who had come to celebrate Hattie Mae's homecoming. It had quickly spread throughout Harlem that Desire and Tiah—of the Desire, Cream, and Dream singing group—
had lost their grandmother. Sure enough, a crowd of people collected outside the church just to see if they could get a glimpse of the stars. Once Chanel caught wind of this selfish plot on the part of fans to exploit Hattie Mae's passing, just for a photo or an autograph, she called in bodyguards to keep the crowds at bay. The people outside were only interested in seeing the famous Desire, but those inside the church saw the real Desire, Hattie Mae's beloved granddaughter.

Just as the junior choir started to sing the song that would introduce the pastor's eulogy, a tear-ridden woman nobody recognized came into the church and walked down the aisle toward the altar where Hattie Mae's casket lay. Her clothing was tattered and dirty. She had a grotesque, twisted-looking jaw, which had clearly been broken at one time and hadn'tmended well.

One by one, as the woman got closer to the casket, people began to recognize her—it was Tiah. The gossip spread fast, as those filling the pews began to point and whisper. Some even laughed. A member from Desire's entourage knelt beside her to give her the heads-up, but Desire refused to even look at her sister. She was ashamed and embarrassed by what Tiah had become. Plus, she couldn'timagine what Tiah smelled like now that she was most likely using on a regular basis. There was no way Desire was going to let Tiah dishonor Hattie Mae's legacy by sitting in the first pew, an awful reminder that not all Hattie Mae's good deeds had turned out good.

“Get y'all hands off me, that's my grandmother lying there!” Tiah said to one of the pallbearers attempting to restrain her.

“Just calm down, Tiah,” the man said in a hush. “Desire said there's no more room up front. Why don'tyou sit in the back.”

Tiah looked over at Desire, and all the people she didn'teven know sitting in the pew reserved for family members.

“I ain'tsitting in the back,” she said. “That's my grandmother, and somebody is gonna hafta get up.”

She glared at Chanel, ready to fight her if she had to, just to claim her place with the family. Tiah tried to brush past a pallbearer, but he and two other men stopped her. She struggled to get past once more, but they wouldn'tbudge. She began punching the men as they restrained her.

“Desire…Desire, tell them I'm family. Tell them I got a right to be here.”

Her pleas fell on deaf ears as Desire ignored her. Tiah's sadness gave her ferocious strength that she had been unable to harness the day Whip and his henchmen had given her a beat down. She struggled free from the men as if they were weak schoolboys. To the choir and the funeral attendees' dismay, she paraded to the front of the church, as if caught up in her own private service. Tiah looked at the casket and walked toward it. The only woman who had ever loved her unconditionally was gone. Tiah got on her knees and prayed the way Hattie Mae had always told her she should. She regretted the fact that she hadn'tdone so in years, until now. She broke down and cried for a brief moment. Then she realized the best way she could honor Hattie Mae. She stood and began singing her grandmother's favorite hymn, a spiritual that Hattie Mae would often hum while cooking, sewing, or just when she wanted to show she was in a good mood. Though Tiah's voice was hoarse, cracking, a fraction of what it once was, she still moved people in the crowd to tears. Chanel was overwhelmed with emotion and buried her face in her hands. Desire could not
stand to see a visual representation of all that could have been, and how all that was hadn'tbeen enough to save Tiah. Desire walked to the back of the church with her head held high and was blinded by fans' flashing cameras the minute she walked out of the church doors.

Over the next few months, Desire totally submersed herself in her work and finishing her solo album, to ease her mind over Hattie Mae. The whole experience of her grandmother's death, the strain between her and Tiah, the constant battle with Whip over her contract. All of the drama and instability eventually took its toll on Desire. Sterling was on the road with his team, and she found herself exiting the studio and going straight home, to spend her nights smoking weed and flipping channels. It was like she was able to create her own little dream world, where she had no problems, no obligations, no one to satisfy but herself. And in this dream, she had everything she wanted without having to work as hard as she was now working to get it.