Heartbreak of a Hustler's Wife: A Novel (8 page)

“You heard about Chiquita just coming home from doing dem ten months dem peeps gave her, right?”

“I heard she was out, but you know you can’t believe half of what you hear.”

Shortee chuckled. “The word on the street is since she been out, she’s been spending a lot of energy trying to make up for lost time.”

“I’m not shocked.”

“How come you not shocked?” Shortee asked.

“I mean really, are you? Come on now—fuck milk, ten months clean in the county does the body good,” she joked, but was dead serious. “Because you know firsthand one thing about being locked down, you get plenty of rest and three meals a day.”

“Well, word is that after two hours of her being home, she had tricks throwing money. She always did know how to treat a dick. That girl is a beast.”

“Shortee,” Tangaleena interrupted. “I don’t want to hear all that.”

“I know, forgive me. A nigga in the pen gotta have some good thoughts from the streets. But anyways, let me get back to this worthless bitch. Well, within two weeks she was back getting high and I heard she’s been smoking—heroin mixed with cooked coke. Some folks call it dragon balls. When you smoke that shit you feel as if there’s nothing you can’t do.”

“So?” Tangaleena tried to get Shortee to the point. He could be really long-winded sometimes.

“I just want to give you a heads-up,” Shortee warned. “Just so you know what the word is on the street.”

After hanging up with her cousin, Tangaleena wondered why he had even called her with that senseless bullshit. Did he still love Chiquita? Whatever the reason was, she really didn’t connect the dots or care. She redirected her attention to the housework, washing dishes while Spumante sat on the couch drinking hot chocolate and watching
Shrek
for the hundredth time. The doorbell rang and Spumante came running into the kitchen. “Who’s at the door, Mommy?”

“I don’t know, baby, let’s go see,” she said as she wiped her hands on a towel.

She walked to the door and looked out the window. She saw a woman who resembled Chiquita too much not to be her. She was wearing a pair of supertight stretch jeans, black sneakers and a black leather coat.

It was definitely Chiquita, Tangaleena concluded, but what the fuck could she want? She didn’t look too bad; maybe Shortee was wrong about the drugs. Reluctantly and naively, Tangaleena undid the lock and opened the door. “May I help you?” she asked with less enthusiasm than she would’ve exuded for a vacuum cleaner salesman.

“Dang, gurl, you ain’t gotta act like that.” Chiquita and Tangaleena never really got along. Chiquita hadn’t liked the fact that Tangaleena was Shortee’s favorite cousin and they were close.

“What are you doing on my steps?” Tangaleena asked.

Spumante was on her knees on the sofa, peeking over with her round inquisitive eyes. She wanted to know who it was at the door. “Who is dat, Mommy?”

“Nobody, baby,” Tangaleena said, regretting that she had even opened the door for the woman. “Just keep watching the DVDs.”

“Is that Spumante I hear?” Chiquita said with a glassy look in her eyes. Before Tangaleena realized it, the crack-addicted woman had stepped into the apartment uninvited. “Oh my
God
, you done got so big,” she said once she saw the baby she’d abandoned three years ago. When she tried to get closer, Spumante ran and hid behind Tangaleena, the only mother she ever knew.

“How do dat lady know who I am, Mommy? I don’t know who she is.” Spumante shook her head from side to side and said, “I don’t talk to strangers, right, Mommy?”

“That’s right, that’s my smart little angel.”

Chiquita sucked her teeth. “Stop filling that girl’s head up with that nonsense, Tang. You know I ain’t no motherfucking stranger to her or to you. So gon ahead wit dat shit.”

“Bitch, the mailman is less of a stranger than yo’ missing-in-action ass,” is what Tangaleena had wanted to say, just before popping Chiquita’s selfish ass upside the head with a toaster or something. She didn’t, though. She didn’t want to create any more of a scene in front of Spumante.

Chiquita’s eyes tracked Spumante hiding behind Tangaleena’s leg. “I’m your moth—”

“Friend.” Tangaleena’s voice was louder and she spoke over top of Chiquita, saying “Your mother’s friend.”

“Yep. Me and your mother go back like jelly shoes,” Chiquita played along. Tangaleena was grateful for that.

Spumante looked confused. “Mommy, you had shoes made of jelly?” She laughed with a big adorable smile.

“I’ll tell you about ’em later, baby. That was a long, long time ago,” Tangaleena told her daughter. She then turned her attention back to Chiquita. “What’re you doing here anyway?”

“Exactly what it looks like—I’m visiting an old friend and seeing my baby girl.”

This bitch was definitely pushing her luck. “We’re kind of busy right now. You should’ve called first, girl. How about if you drop through some other time?” Hindsight is twenty/twenty, and she now knew that opening the door for this heifer had been the wrong move. She’d naively put her head in the lion’s mouth, now she was trying to carefully ease it back out without cutting herself on its teeth. But she could now see clearly that Chiquita was high as the rising price of gas. When she looked at her, she realized that more and more the bitch started to resemble the devil’s half sister.

“I ain’t trying to hear none of that shit you talking, you thieving-ass bitch. Acting all high and mighty like you really my daughter’s mother. Got her calling you mommy and shit. You ain’t none of her momma.” Before Tangaleena could react, Chiquita whipped out a big butcher’s knife. “How ’bout I take Spumante with me and call you when I’m ready to bring her back? Better yet, when I’m ready for yo’ stuck-up ass to see her?” And Chiquita reached for Spumante’s arm.

Spumante cried out to Tangaleena, “Mommy!” and tried to pull away.

This had to be a bad dream, Tangaleena thought. Was there really a knife-wielding crackhead in her house trying to take her daughter?

Instinctively, Tangaleena reached to pull Spumante away from this crazy woman. Chiquita made an arching sweep of her hand while holding the blade, drawing blood from Tangaleena’s arm. With the strength of a mother grizzly trying to protect her cub, Tangaleena disregarded her own safety and jumped on Chiquita. The knife bit her a few more times before they both went to the floor, tussling. It was on.

The effect of the narcotics made Chiquita fight like a madwoman. Her grip was viselike, too strong for Tangaleena. When Chiquita clamped her hands around Tangaleena’s neck, Tangaleena knew it wouldn’t be long before she passed out if she didn’t do something fast.

For a split second all she envisioned was herself passed out and Chiquita going out the door with Spumante in tow. In her head, she silently repeated the words
God help me!
God must not have been too busy because that’s when she caught sight of her brass duck ornament. It was just a foot or so away. Thank God it was close enough for her to reach. Tangaleena got her hands on the solid ornament and with all her might she slammed that sucker against Chiquita’s temple. Chiquita immediately let go of Tangaleena’s neck, clutching for the side of her head where she’d been hit. Blood was squirting out her clinched fingers.

That was all the time Tangaleena needed to jump up. Once she was on her feet, she ran in the kitchen and got the gun that Bug kept in the top cabinet.

“Play time is over, you crazy bitch. Get the fuck out of my house.” Tangaleena had the gun in one hand and her cell in the other dialing 911. Spumante had run for cover but she was crying,
calling for her mommy. That’s the part that broke Tangaleena’s heart. Ironically, the same time the police pulled up, so did her boyfriend, Bug.

When Tangaleena mentioned Bug’s name, that’s what snapped Yarni back to reality in her office and caused her to remember why she had thought about dropping the case before she had even gotten started.

“Sounds like you were lucky to not have gotten hurt,” Yarni said, knowing good and well that there was no way she could turn Tangaleena away even though she was still unsure of whether Bug remembered her or if he held a grudge for her giving it to him in the butt.

“When the police got to my house,” Tangaleena continued her story, “they had the nerve to charge me for being in possession of a gun, and assault. And that bitch tried to kill me and take my little girl. They locked us both up. It’s still hard for me to believe that shit.” Tangaleena said.

“I should be able to get the charge dropped to a misdemeanor,” Yarni said, now with a clearer understanding of what had happened. “The sentence will only be a slap on the wrist at best.”

“Yeah, but it’s not quite that simple. I got ten years suspended sentence over my head when I was eighteen for beating this other chick’s ass who cussed out my momma. See, don’t fuck with my family. I don’t play that. But if I get found guilty of anything,” she shook her head, “they gonna slap me with a probation
violation and then send me to the penitentiary. That can’t happen.”

Just then, Layla buzzed in. “Mrs. Taylor, Des called and said your mother-in-law will be at your house within the hour and that he’d meet you at home. You need to leave ASAP.”

“Thank you, Layla. I’m wrapping up this meeting now,” Yarni said.

“Well, I know I have occupied a lot of your day, and I thank you,” Tangaleena said in a humble tone. “I really feel that my boyfriend’s cousin was right.”

“Your boyfriend’s cousin?” Yarni questioned.

“Yes, he was the one who recommended you and I’m glad he did.”

“What’s his name so I can thank him?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but I will ask Bug,” she said. “Well, I’ll check in a week or so to see if there is anything you need me to do on my end to prepare. But can you think of anything now?”

“Besides keep your jabs to yourself?”

Tangaleena laughed as she headed for the door. “Oh, you really don’t have to worry about that.”

“Let’s definitely chat within the next two weeks, and thanks for coming by.”

Tangaleena exited the office, and Yarni began to gather her things to head home to meet her eighteen-year-old stepdaughter whom she’d known nothing about until less than twenty-four hours ago.

Once she hit the chirp to unlock her car, she noticed that Tangaleena had been outside waiting. “Do you need a ride?” Yarni asked.

“No, but thanks. My boyfriend should be pulling up any second.”

“Well, I’d feel better if you would wait inside,” Yarni suggested.

Just as she said that, a Q45 pulled up. Tangaleena’s face lit up. “Here he is.” It was her ride.

“Okay, great.”

Yarni went to grab the door on her car when the window of the Infiniti came down. “Yo, Mrs. Taylor, ’preciate you getting my girl out,” Bug said, still with no indication that he had any recollection of Yarni whatsoever.

“Not a problem at all,” Yarni flashed a fake smile.

She got in her car and pulled out from her parking space en route for home. She turned an old-school reggae CD up and tried to put her mind on cruise control because she had a feeling that between her new client and her stepdaughter, her life was about to get even more hectic than it already was.

Momma’s Baby; Daddy’s Maybe

“Yeah, we almost at your house now. How long before you get there?”

Desember ear-hustled as Joyce drove with both hands on the steering wheel of her Mercedes-Benz at ten and two as she spoke on the phone through her Bluetooth.

“Ten minutes?”

From the passenger seat, Desember watched Joyce glance at the built-in navigation screen. It read twenty-three minutes until arrival at destination.

“Good,” Joyce said, “you should beat us there. We about twenty-five minutes away. Did Yarni fix anything to eat?”

Judging by the expression on Joyce’s face, she must not have gotten the right answer. “What ya mean why we didn’t stop? Who said we didn’t stop?” She was twisting her neck now. “But
what the hell does that got to do with anything? I asked you did your wife cook anything at your house.” She listened for a brief second before responding, “Just make sure your smart ass be home when we get there.”