Heartbreak of a Hustler's Wife: A Novel (9 page)

And that was the end of the call.

Joyce took her eyes off the road for a split second, peeking at her granddaughter. “That was your daddy talking shit. That joker always got some slick shit to say. Make me want to smack the hell out of him.”

Desember went along with the flow. All her life, all she ever wanted to know was the identity of her real daddy. Eighteen years was a long time … a long time not to know who her father was.

When Desember was three years old the man she believed to be her daddy decided he wasn’t too sure about paternity. A DNA test made what he suspected a reality. It played out like a Maury Povich show: “You are not the father!”

“What does he look like?” Desember asked.

“Who … Des?” Joyce asked, taking another quick peek at the navigation screen. “He looks a whole lot like you,” she said. “Except you’re a lot prettier than he is.”

As far as Desember was concerned, the jury was still out on her grandmother Joyce. Just a minute ago she was on the phone cussing Desember’s could-be father out in one breath. Now here she was in the next breath telling Desember how pretty she was—Joyce wasn’t exactly what she had imagined a nanna to be.

The only grandmother that Desember had ever known was Lizabell, her mother’s mother. Lizabell and Joyce were as different as water and wine. Lizabell was soft-spoken, loved to bake, was religious and had never uttered a cuss word in her life. She
also never stood up for herself or raised her voice to anyone. And she raised her daughter, Angie, to be the same way. Joyce was nothing like either of them. But that suited Desember just fine, because neither was she.

Desember looked over at Joyce, giving her a discreet once-over.
Wasn’t grannies suppose to wear muumuus?
Desember asked herself, observing how Joyce was dressed to the nines in a jean suit and blinged-out flats. Her hair was fried, dyed, and laid to the side.

Desember’s vision of a granny was hardly the lady who had picked her up three hours ago. Though Joyce had to be pushing at least seventy, she looked damn good for her age. If it was true that black don’t crack, Joyce was a living testament. Her skin was smooth as the face of a porcelain doll. She cursed like a drunken sailor when and to whom she felt like. The woman was a pistol and Desember was sure she packed one too. It was hard to imagine anyone trying to run over her.

If Des proved to be her daddy, and the jury was still out on that, maybe she had gotten her spunkiness and heart from Grandmother Joyce. After all, Desember’s mouth had gotten her in and out of trouble more times than she cared to count or remember.

Joyce broke the silence. “What’s on your mind, young lady?”

“I was just thinking.” Desember looked out the window, watching the white lines blur by on the black pavement on the other side of the window.

“About what?” Joyce asked. “You can share with me if you want. I’m a good listener and I can keep a secret.” Joyce gave her an infectious smile.

“You ain’t lying about the secret.” Then Desember sighed and answered Joyce’s initial question. “About everything.”

“Well, young lady, everything can be overwhelming for anybody to try to carry around. Maybe you should try lightening your load,” Joyce advised.

“I’m not sure I did the right thing by leaving North Carolina,” she admitted. “I mean, I’m kinda happy to finally meet my real dad. But …” Desember paused.

Joyce urged her to go on. “But what, baby?”

Desember sighed again. “I’m going to keep it real with you. My boyfriend, Fame, got shot just three days ago. I was in the car with him and for the most part I don’t think I should be allowed to feel happy while he feels nothing but pain.”

“Why would someone shoot your boyfriend?” Joyce kept her eyes on the road as Desember thought about the question. “Is he a bad person … or the victim of a bad person?”

Desember thought about the questions. Fame had damn near robbed every big-name drug dealer in North Carolina and was good at it. She smiled to herself thinking about the time Fame’s partner backed out on the score they’d planned on a dope boy that owned a strip club. “One monkey don’t stop no show,” she’d said to him, “take me with you.” And he did.

Fame dressed up like a chick, even got hit on by a couple of dudes, but with Desember’s help, took care of the business. They got over two hundred thousand in cash before making their way out the back exit, leaving the guy and his bodyguard tied up and pissed off. Better to be pissed off than pissed on.

“Well, baby?” Joyce said, interrupting Desember’s thoughts.

“To be honest,” she said truthfully, “probably a little bit of both. He’s a good person, but sometimes does bad things. Does that make any sense?”

“All the sense in the world, baby.”

The answer put a slight smile on Desember’s face as she looked out the window up at the gray sky. She had mixed feelings about going to live with her supposed father and his wife. Regardless of the danger involved, she didn’t want to leave Fame, her first love, fighting for his life, even if people were looking to kill her. She didn’t care because Fame was her world and being with him fulfilled her in ways she was unable to explain.

But from his hospital bed in the ICU, Fame insisted that she leave town until he was better and could protect her. She followed his wishes, and that was the only reason she went along with her mother’s plan to move her in with her father.

The only good thing that may have come out of this was the possibility of having the one dream granted that she ever really had—to meet her real father. She just hoped Angie was telling the truth and this wasn’t some bullshit concoction to get her out of town. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time her mother had plugged a man into her life playing daddy, and once the paternity test came in, none of them were who she claimed them to be. But this time, maybe just this one time, it might be true.

After a while, Joyce drove into a long, circular driveway and stopped in front of a huge home. Desember could not believe her eyes. The house looked like paradise. Though she knew that she shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, most of the time it was all she could judge it by. Her mother had always provided a nice place for them to live, but never anything as lavish as the house she sat in front of now.

Even in the winter, there were at least two acres of some of the greenest grass Desember had ever seen. It surrounded a
house that had to be at least ten thousand square feet of stunning architecture. If the exterior was this incredible, she couldn’t even imagine what the inside looked like.

“Finally,” Joyce said, relief evident in her voice. “We’re here. That ride kicked my butt. And now I gots to pee.”

Desember was still staring at the house.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? Yarni, your daddy’s wife, helped with most of the design. The builders had to have her approval on every little thing, from the marble and hardwood floors to the custom-shingled roof. Drove those poor damn workers crazy.”

During the ride in, Desember had asked Joyce several questions about Des. And Joyce seemed to love talking about her son and other granddaughter, Desi. But this was the first time that Desember inquired about Des’s wife. “Do you like her? My father’s wife, is she pretty cool people?”

“Well, in the past her and I didn’t and still don’t always see eye to eye, but for the most part, she’s a good person. High maintenance. Likes nice shit, you know.”

“You look like you do too, Ms. Joyce,” Desember said, basing the comment on her could-be grandmother’s Louis Vuitton bag, designer outfit and top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz.

Joyce blushed. “Oh hell yeah. But she’s a lawyer with a real good heart. Over the years we had our ups and downs. I mean we battled.” Joyce paused in thought as she reminisced over her and Yarni’s stormy relationship. “But we not talking about me. I do love her. Don’t tell her I said it, but I love her like I would if I’d given birth to her myself.”

“So she’s nice.”

“Sweet as pie until you do her wrong.” Joyce shot Desember
a look. “Don’t get on that woman’s bad side, because she will have some shit for ya ass, now,” Joyce warned Desember. “But you know what I love about her most? She loves your father and he loves her. Them two stick together like peanut butter and jelly. Always got each other’s back.”

Impressed, Desember nodded her head, thinking of her own relationship with Fame.

Fame and Desember had not been together even a year, but they had been through so much. The two of them had robbed, fought like cats and dogs and gone to jail together. It was only fitting that if he had to get shot, it would go down while they were together.

Joyce interrupted her thoughts when she noticed Yarni’s car and said, “She’s home, that’s her car.” She pointed to the platinum-colored GT Bentley.

But Desember’s attention was on the chocolate-skinned guy at the door. He was handsome and dark-skinned with thick wavy hair. “So that’s what I would have looked like had I been a boy,” she mumbled, noticing that Des had some of the exact same features as she did.

Joyce heard Desember’s comment and then followed her eyes to Des standing in the doorway. “Told you, you are the spitting image of him.”

Des walked down the steps of the porch to the back of the Benz. She thought he would have spoken to her but he seemed to be focused on getting the bags in. He tapped the trunk with the heel of his hand, so Joyce would pop the latch from the inside. Once it rose, he grabbed two of the half-dozen pieces of luggage and headed inside the house.

A little girl ran past Des as he was hauling the first load of bags inside. She took off running toward Joyce, yelling, “Grandma!”

Joyce gave the little girl a huge hug, picking her up from the ground. Desember knew this had to be Desi, her baby sister.

“Ya-Ya!” Desi called out.

Joyce gave Desi a kiss on the forehead. “Girl, you getting heavy. Ya-Ya not gonna to be able to pick you up if you keep growing like a weed.”

“I don’t plan to stop growing anytime soon. Mommy says I’m going to be taller than her,” Desi informed her grandmother.

“Hi, Desi,” Desember greeted, and she felt a connection the moment their eyes locked.

“I know who you are,” Desi said, pointing to her older sister.

“Who am I?” Desember asked with a wide smile.

“Your name is Desember, like the month.” Her eyes danced. “And you might be my big sister.”

Growing up an only child, Desember always imagined what it would be like to have a brother or sister. “That’s right,” she said, “I might be your big sister.”

“Desi, come in here with no coat on,” Yarni yelled from the doorway. When Desi hesitated, Desember whispered, “Do what your mommy tells you,” she instructed her sister.

“I will show you where your room is,” Desi said, then took off skipping into the house. There was a vibe in the air that let Desember know that house rules as she knew them were about to change. She was no longer living with a passive mother who let her have her way. Her room? Baby sister? Dad? Stepmonster? She had a lot of things to try to get used to.

DNA

When Desember walked inside the house, it didn’t disappoint, the interior was like an episode of
MTV Cribs
. There were two separate spiral staircases, columns and a colossal fireplace, burning what looked like a half a tree chopped up in four pieces.

“Hi, Desember, welcome to Virginia. How was your journey in?” Yarni was trying to be nonchalant but cordial. But it wasn’t easy downplaying how much the girl indeed resembled Des.

“The ride and company were cool,” Desember answered, somewhat uncomfortably. But she really didn’t know what else to say. She was trying to ear-hustle the conversation that Joyce and Des were having in the foyer, but from the great room, where she and Yarni were, it was next to impossible to do.

“Do you have to be cold?” Joyce asked her son.

“I don’t know the girl,” Des said defensively, “What do you expect?”

“Act like you care. That’s what I expect. Make the chile feel warm in your house.”

There was a moment of silence between Joyce and Des, and during it Yarni asked, “Would you like some hot chocolate?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.” Desember took her coat off. “It’s cold as hell out there.”

“It’s cold as what?” Des said, dropping the last of the bags in the foyer.

“My bad. Didn’t mean to cuss,” Desember apologized. “It’s a bad habit of mine.”

“Not everybody in here is grown.” Des gestured toward Desi. “That’s our daughter, Desi, and I’m Des—from what I’ve been told, I could be your father.” Des nodded toward Yarni. “And you’ve met my wife. This is going to be kind of awkward for us all for a while, you, me and Yarni. But we gon all figure it out and be one happy family, if you’re truly my daughter.”

Yarni intervened because she wanted this transition to be as comfortable and easy as possible for both Des and Desember. She knew that Des was playing it low key for her sake, so she decided to take on the role of peacemaker. “Before we get into all that, do you need me to show you to your room to get comfortable? Or you want to just chill out here while I make the hot chocolate?”