Still Wifey Material (21 page)

I waited patiently for Nikki to answer her cell phone, but she didn’t pick up, so I left her a message. “Nikki! I know you aren’t trying to talk to me right now, but I need you to call me right back as soon as you get his message. It’s very important.”

K
ira kept calling my damn phone like I wanted to talk to her ass! I just wanted her to leave me the fuck alone. I had nothing to say to her. As far as I was concerned, she no longer existed. All the shit she had taken me through, she was lucky I didn’t go upside her motherfucking head. So the best thing for me to do was to stay the hell away from her. I didn’t care what she had going on, because it really didn’t concern me. I had my own life, and I was enjoying it without her drama.

What I should have done was tell that ho that I was sucking her fiancé’s dick. I knew that would fuck up her head. She would probably want to commit suicide, which would be a good thing, but I couldn’t take going to another funeral. And besides, I was truly not in the mood to buy another black dress, so I’d let her live. But what I would do was avoid her at all costs. No contact whatsoever from this day forward. As a matter-of-fact, I was going to change my number. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about her at all, which would make me so happy.

After numerous calls from Kira, she finally gave up, so I got on the phone and called my girl Carmen. She and I ended up getting together for lunch. We talked about all the shit that had been going on between me and Kira. But I never once mentioned that I was fucking around with Fatu. I knew she would tell Nate in a heartbeat. Not only that, I didn’t want to give her the impression that I was as sheisty as I was. Knowing her, she would probably cut me off from being her friend for fear that I would fuck her man. But I wouldn’t go there. He was not my type, and plus he was too arrogant. Not only that, they had a lot of drama, so I refused to let them bring their world into mine. It just would not work.

While we were having lunch Nate called, saying he needed me, so I got the rest of my food to go and told Carmen I had to slide out of there. She understood, told me to call her later, and then we parted ways. But I never did call her. Nate had me cornered in our bedroom and I couldn’t do anything else but cater to his every need. He wasn’t as good as Fatu, but he would do.

N
ikki never returned any of my phone calls. If she wanted to continue playing these stupid-ass games, I could do the same. I mean, damn, I was trying to look out for her silly ass. But if she wanted to end up one dead bitch, then I didn’t care. Now that I thought about it, maybe if she did die, I would be better off. One less drama queen I’d have to worry about, and she’d be out of my hair for good. Sounded cold, but I was just now realizing that this bitch was a thorn in my side, and this town wasn’t big enough for the both of us, so one of us had to go.

On the third day after my revelation about Fatu, I decided to go down to the shop because I needed to check on some things. It was a Monday evening around six pm, and the salon was closed. I drove around the block twice, just to make sure that Fatu’s car wasn’t parked on a side street. When I felt like the coast was clear, I parked my car and rushed inside the shop. I locked the door behind me and walked around to make sure everything was in place. I sorted through all the mail and grabbed a few things from my back office.

When I walked back to the service area I heard the doorknob rattling as if someone was trying to get in. I was terrified. And when I saw Fatu’s face through the window, my heart dropped. What was even scarier was that it had just dawned on me that I had given this nigga a key a couple of weeks after I got the locks changed, so my heart crashed into the pit of my stomach. I wanted to run out the back door, but my feet wouldn’t budge. All I could do was stand there in shock and fear and watch Fatu enter the shop.

“Kira, what’s the matter? Why have you been avoiding me?” he asked as he closed the door behind him.

I tried to respond, but my mouth wouldn’t move.

“And what’s up with that message you left me?” He continued to walk toward me.

I inched away from him, making sure I kept my eye on the baseball bat I kept beside my station.

“Fatu, a bitch called me and told me you are dealing with her,” I lied, trying to throw him off. I was alone with this man, so I couldn’t let on that I followed him to the house of the woman he had raped and murdered.

“Who is this woman?” Fatu growled. I could tell he was growing angrier and angrier by the minute.

“She said her name was Alana.”

“Kira, you are not telling the truth. I don’t know a woman with such a name.” Fatu frowned. I wondered if he knew that I knew the truth. We were both trying to read each other.

“Well, that’s what she told me.”

“When did she call you?”

“The night I was here working on a client, and you told me you were going to be at work.”

“She called here?”

“Yeah, she did. You can ask Rachael. She heard the entire conversation.” My eyes teared up. I hoped that it looked like I was getting upset at the thought that another woman who claimed to be involved with him called and harassed me. But really I was on the verge of crying because I knew my life was at stake, and I could not look that man in the eyes.

Fatu stood only about three to four inches away from me. “I don’t know who that could’ve been, because I have never cheated on you with another woman. I would die first before I hurt you.”

“Fatu, I don’t have to lie.” I threw out my usual attitude so he wouldn’t remain suspicious. A look of ease came across his face like he was starting to feel comfortable.

“Kira, believe me, those were all lies. I wouldn’t dare do such a thing. You are too precious to me. Now, if you are to be my wife, you have to trust me,” Fatu said.

Hold up! Did this fucking murderer just say the word trust?
“Fatu, I wanna trust you.” I acted like I was torn.

“Listen, meet me at my house tonight. I have something for you,” Fatu said invitingly.

I was afraid he would ask me to come over. But as scared as I was, there was one last thing I needed from his house before I could put my final plan into motion.

“OK, I’ll see you tonight. But no sex, Fatu. We have to talk about this other woman,” I demanded.

“That’s fine, baby,” Fatu relented. He kissed me on my forehead and left me standing in the middle of the salon floor. After he closed the door, I exhaled and thanked God for sparing my life once again.

I
’d been hanging out with Carmen, Xavier, and Nate on a regular basis since all that shit went down with me and Kira. I had to admit that I’d been really enjoying myself. The only thing that freaked me out was that every time I mentioned Neeko’s name, or asked Carmen if she’d heard anything about whether he was involved in the robbery, she always found a way to avoid answering my question. All she would say was, “I told X what you said,” and then she’d change the subject. She did this twice, so I vowed never to ask her about it again.

Fuck it! I didn’t care what X did to Neeko. At this point in the game, I didn’t even care about the jewelry I lost. To me it was just a drop in the bucket! I’d since replaced it, so I was done with that whole situation.

Aside from that, Carmen and X were cool! They weren’t your typical couple. They had really competitive natures and since Xavier made a nice chunk of change out there in those streets, they walked around like they were the Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee of the hood. They both had this aura about them that made the whole world think that they were rich, and no one could fuck with them.

Carmen really made it known that she was the queen around these parts because she craved the attention. Everything she owned had to be ten times better than the next person’s. I didn’t pay her ass any mind, though, because she was just one of those typical chicks who ain’t never had anything. You should have seen the way she rocked her Louis Vuitton bags and her iced-out bracelets. Every time I turned around, she was sporting a different style lace-front wig like she was some kind of celebrity. The jewelry her husband laced her with to replace the stones that were stolen from her at the shop was insane.

One day I met up with Carmen at her new hair salon off Ewing Drive and decided to take a ride with her out to Lincoln Park, which was a housing project located in the northeast part of Houston. X ran it like it was his very own community. Carmen told me that she had to pick up some money from him. When we pulled up outside the apartment building, X was standing by a telephone pole, talking to a couple of cats. Whatever they were talking about had all of them in an uproar. The closer we came to them, the clearer the conversation became.

“Come on, now, y’all know that nigga Kobe ain’t got shit on LeBron James! Y’all know LeBron walked all over top of that nigga and made him eat dick when he made that slam dunk.” Xavier demonstrated his words with hand gestures.

A couple of guys laughed while the others argued with Xavier. Carmen pulled curbside right in the middle of all the laughter and commotion. “Every time I turn around, y’all are always fussing about a game,” she said.

“Ain’t nobody fussing,” Xavier replied. “I’m trying to school these unknowledgeable niggas about what happened in the game last night.” He leaned into the car and kissed Carmen on the lips.

“Aww, ain’t that cute!” I commented.

Carmen giggled and wiped saliva from the corners of her mouth. She held out her hand to X. “You got that for me, right?”

“How much you need?”

“Give me what you think I should have.” X went into his pocket and whipped out a stack of hundred-dollar bills. He divided the stack in half, gave Carmen one of the halves, and stuck the other one back into his pocket. Carmen stuck her stack inside her handbag and thanked him.

“So where y’all going?” X asked.

“To the mall.”

“Weren’t you just at the mall two days ago?”

Carmen sighed. “Yes, I was. But while I was there I saw a couple things that I wanted, so now I’m gonna go back and get ’em.”

“I hope it ain’t another damn purse. You be killing me with all those damn purses.”

I chuckled. “Don’t be talking about purses. Purses are like a girl’s best friend.”

“I thought diamonds were a girl’s best friend?” Xavier asked and smiled.

“Trust me, they both go hand in hand.” I looked at Carmen for a cosign.

“She ain’t lying about that,” Carmen agreed.

The two of them talked for a bit more and then X told Carmen to go ahead and leave. After we pulled off, Carmen told me that X didn’t like it when she stayed out in the projects more than ten minutes. He said the streets weren’t a place for a woman, especially his woman. I took that as a cue to tell her how my life was back in Virginia. I didn’t go into lots of details about my case or the murders, but I did tell her that I was used to hanging out in that type of environment. I even told her about my two ex-boyfriends, Brian and Syncere. Carmen couldn’t believe that I used to live the same exact life she was living.

“No way!”

“Whatcha mean by that?”

“I just thought that you just started fucking with hustlers when you came to H Town. Shit, I didn’t know you had a track record and that you were a veteran at this shit!”

I smiled with pride. “Well, know you know. And you may not believe this either, but my last two exes had mad dough too.”

“What kind of dough are you talking about?”

“I’m talking million dollar status.” I lied a bit.

“Damn, your men were getting paper like that?”

“You damn right! I would not have accepted anything less.”

“So, why did y’all break up?”

“Well, see, me and Brian fell apart because the feds locked his dumb ass up. And with Syncere, it was a matter of him being so damn violent. He couldn’t keep his fucking hands to himself, so I had to keep it moving.”

“I would’ve killed his ass first, and then I would’ve jetted on him.”

“Don’t worry, he got what he deserved.”

“So, how was Kira living?” Carmen pried.

I could tell she would have rather talked about Kira instead of me, because Kira was a little more private and she carried herself like she had always lived a glamorous life. I was a little apprehensive about speaking on Kira at first, because I really wasn’t in the mood to big up Kira’s lifestyle. I mean, she wasn’t all that. Then I thought,
I can say anything I want, and Carmen won’t know the difference. How can she verify what I’m saying is true? I mean, it ain’t like she and Kira are friends.
So I started talking my ass off.

“Did Kira ever tell you she was married?” I asked.

Surprised by my question, Carmen said, “Nah, she never mentioned it. So when was the last time you spoke to her?”

“The day she put me out.”

“You haven’t spoken to her since then?”

“Nope.”

“You know that’s not right!”

“Girl, please! Kira can kiss my ass!”

Carmen burst into laughter. “Well, whatever happened to her husband? Where is he now?”

“He got killed while he was in jail.”

Even more shocked, Carmen’s mouth fell wide open. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, I’m dead serious.”

“What happened? Who killed him?”

“I was told that an officer on the inside did it.”

“But how?”

“Well, what I was told was that Kira’s husband owed some cats a lot of money, and that the only way they were gonna be able to get him was to pay somebody on the inside to clip him. And that’s what they did,” I exaggerated, because all in all, I didn’t want her to know that Kira had his ass set up to be killed by Papi and I knew about it. That would have made me look really grimey, and I could not have that.

“Oh my God! What did Kira do? I know she must’ve been devastated.”

“I think she knew it was going to happen,” I continued to lie. “There was a lot of word on the streets before all of it went down.”