The Coldest Winter Ever (26 page)

“Winter, please,” she begged me. “I just want to help.”

“Oh no, you tryna take me to Souljah’s house like I’m some kind of charity case. A homeless runaway or something. You can forget it, girl. I ain’t gonna do it.”

“Winter, seriously though. Do you have somewhere else to go?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t like her self-appointed mother role. “You already live in a girls’ home. You already don’t have no family.”

“I got family bitch, you bugging. I got mad family, you don’t know the half.”

“If you got family, Winter, so much family, why don’t you live with them? Where are they? You can’t come back to the House of Success. It wouldn’t be safe. And you don’t have to live at Souljah’s. Just chill for a few days while we figure out what to do next.”

“We!”
I screamed, throwing my hands up in the air. “Now all of a sudden it’s
we.”

“Fuck you, Winter!” Rashida screamed back at me. “That’s it. I try to do the right thing and look at you. You don’t even realize when somebody’s tryna help your ass.” As Rashida cried, I laughed. My laughing threw her off. She stopped crying. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You don’t even know how to curse right. You sound funny. You don’t curse.” She got back at ease and led the way.

“Her house is right up there. Just do me one favor, check it out before you just flat out say no.”

Two big cemented roaring lions sat on opposite sides of the cement steps leading to the place. The door was made of solid thick glass, framed by maple wood with all kinds of carvings. Behind the solid glass was a black designer gate, an expensive and fancy way to say “keep the hell out.” The building was one of Harlem’s Sugar Hill brownstones with five floors. What really caught my eye was the money-green Mercedes Benz illegally parked in front. A little black, ugly girl answered the huge door. It was so wide and heavy that it opened slowly.

“How are you, Rashida,” the miniature lady asked. Once inside the door we were faced with another door, lighter in weight, that the girl swung right open. Parquet floors with color designs. I caught my breath and reminded myself that months ago I lived in a place three times phatter than this, so no need to get excited. While the troll interrogated, “Rashida, did you let Souljah know you were coming today?” I checked the next spacious room behind two more opened wooden doors, which revealed a winding staircase leading to the second floor.

Now, art, I don’t follow that shit, but there was enough paintings on the wall. Of what? Don’t ask me. African titties everywhere and wooden mask carvings. There were big pictures with big frames. The kind I hated, that were supposed to be a portrait of a person. To me the person was painted to seem alive, but almost always looked dead.

“No, I didn’t tell Souljah I was coming, but I know it’s not a problem because she told me if I ever needed …” The short girl disappeared into the darkened huge room before Rashida could even finish. From what I could hear she was talking on the phone for three seconds. She came back out and said, “You can go on up, Rashida.”

It was like walking through a museum. There were huge ivory
tusks that had to be straight off an elephant, carefully placed in a sitting room with huge windows. Chess pieces, marble tables, statues, heavyweight curtains, and plants everywhere. The plants were like decorations as the designer or whoever hooked this place up had them draped over each window and outlining the walls up at the top near the ceilings, then cascading down to the floor.

On the third floor were doors closed tightly as though something top secret was done in there. Each corridor on every floor was elegant with marble stools for sitting and plant holders with more plants.

By the time I reached the top floor, I calculated twenty-seven hours since I had slept. My heart was racing out of the normal rhythm. Now, what was bugged about the fifth floor was it was huge and clean, with tall windows and beautiful wooden floors like the rest of the house. But it was as if the designer decorated the whole place, got to the fifth floor and just quit.

“This is it,” Rashida said. “There is where Souljah is.” She knocked lightly on the half-open door and pushed her way in like she lived there. “You can sit there.” She directed me to a basic wooden chair near a small table. Rashida exited the room where I was seated. She walked through a small kitchen, the fourth one I had seen in this house, and into another room. I watched everything as Rashida began to talk to someone who was concealed behind the half-open door.

“Souljah, I have a sister out here who’s a good friend of mine.” And that’s all I heard because Rashida stepped into the room and closed the door. She probably purposely lowered her voice so I couldn’t hear her begging. She better not be begging.

The room I was waiting in was like a library. There were two wide and towering sets of bookcases that went from the floor to the ceiling. There must have been at least a thousand books on those shelves, big, small, every color, old, new, hard, and soft. Some of the books had papers hanging out of them. One shelf had magazines and newspapers only. The windows in this room had no curtains even though the people in the brownstones across the street could look right in. How did I know, because that’s what I was doing, standing in the window looking in their house. But their windows had curtains.

The kitchen was clean, but nothing was in it. Curiosity made me open the refrigerator just enough to look in. Water, salsa, and ginger ale. That’s it.

I heard a slight movement and closed the refrigerator door real
quick. Souljah was taller than I thought, about five-foot-six. She had big brown eyes, long lashes, and chubby-type cheeks. Her hair was shining like it just got done. It was a flat twist style, kind of original. She was a typical uptown girl: big ass, wide hips, and, nope, not a flat belly. She still needed to do those sit-ups. Nothing to say about her clothes: blue jeans, white shirt, and, wait a minute, a pair of skips. Nondescript sneakers, skips, like she was from one of the Long Island flea-market towns.
No she didn’t,
I thought to myself.

The thing that stood out most about her were those eyes. She was staring right into me. She didn’t try to hide it or even look away when I looked at her. I wasn’t gonna stare back at her ’cause what was all this about anyway. She walked over toward me. As far as I’m concerned, she was standing way too close in my face. You know people need personal space. You’re not supposed to tell them that. They’re just supposed to know.

First thing she said after long, uncomfortable moments of saying nothing, was, “You are so pretty.” I turned my head to look behind me. But I knew she was talking to me. What was I supposed to say in response to that? “Where are you from?” she asked.

“Long Island.” It just dropped out of my mouth. Less is better. I wasn’t gonna tell her all my business. There is no telling what Rashida had already told her, but I would fix that.

“No, I meant what country?”

“What?” I said, thinking to myself,
What the hell is she talking about? We all come from right motherfucking here.

“No, I was thinking maybe your family is from Panama or Trinidad, or one of the Islands maybe?”

I gave her a one-word response, “Nah.” Then I continued to push for what I wanted. “Rashida said that you know my cousin, Midnight …”

“Yeah.” She answered with one word. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t know what Rashida has told you. She doesn’t know me very well.” Rashida rolled, then cut, her eyes at me.

“Anyway, you know how family moves around a lot. I grew up with Midnight. After he was about sixteen, we just lost track of one another. My mom doesn’t have long to live. I’d like Midnight to see her before she dies. He would hate himself if she died without him being able to say a few words. We were close like that. Well, anyway, Rashida mentioned that you know my cousin. She said you’d probably be able to give me his phone number or address.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your moms. Midnight calls me every now and then,” she said casually, “like maybe once a month. But I don’t call him or have his number.”

“How about an address?” I pushed.

“No, not even that,” she said, smiling politely. “Rashida said you need a place to stay?” she asked, still looking into my eyes. But my dad taught me how to have a poker face, so I put one on.

“No, not really,” I answered her. Rashida exhaled, threw her hand up and said, “Winter!”

“Winter,” Souljah repeated. “That’s a different kind of name.”

“See, that’s what I was telling you. My friends call me Sasha, but Rashida wouldn’t know that.”

“So Sasha, you’re not having any trouble like Rashida said?” Souljah asked, her eyes leaving my eyes and landing on my bedroom slippers.

“It ain’t nothin’. Just some jealous girls at the place where I stay. They don’t matter though, ’cause in two months I’ll be eighteen and then I can get my own place.”

After a pause, Souljah said, “The only problem is that in New York, beef between young sisters living in the same space can end up so many different ways. It could be a small thing. Or it could be murder. Jealousy is a dangerous emotion. Jealous people are usually so intensely dissatisfied with themselves that they have a burning desire to destroy anyone who has something they want, but feel they can’t have. You can stay here if you want. You don’t look like the type to stay too long. But since you are family with Midnight, I don’t mind letting you stay until he calls. Then you two can hook up and take it from there.”

I liked the way she put it. So I agreed to stay. Rashida just said things all wrong all the time. She acted like she had one of those red flashing ambulance lights right over her head. She was always too eager.

We went to the bedroom where I would stay. The place was real plain. But there was a big mirror and two comfortable-looking beds. “My sister, Lauren, stays in that bed,” Souljah said, pointing to the right side of the room. “Watch out for her. She’s a trickster. She should be home now. But she’s not, whatever.” Those were the last words I heard because I lay on the available bed in my clothes and twenty-seven hours of sleeplessness kicked in.

Around midnight, my eyes reopened. For three brief seconds I tried to figure out where I was. It was the pink slippers on my feet that shook my memory into place. The quiet argument going on outside of my door got my blood going and I listened in.

“I thought I told you if you were gonna go out and stay out overnight, you should call me.”

“I didn’t know I was gonna stay out,” the unfamiliar voice shot back.

“How does someone not know they’re going to stay out for two nights in a row? Now you explain that.”

“I don’t really want to explain nothing. I just want to get some sleep.”

“What you need to do is have some respect.”

“You’re not my mother, you’re my sister.”

“It doesn’t matter that I’m not your mother. I’m your sister, I’m the oldest and I take care of you. That’s enough reason for you to give me your respect.” Then she sucked her teeth.

The door to the bedroom swung open, I jumped to sit up. She clicked the light on. I could tell she was surprised to see someone in her room by the look on her face. She closed the door back immediately.

“Who’s that in my room? Or should I even bother to ask.”

“Her name is Sasha. She’ll be staying for awhile.”

“Well, what’s the deal?” she asked.

“What deal?” Souljah responded.

“The 411,” I heard her sister say.

“Nothing, she’s cool,” I heard Souljah say. “She’s Midnight’s cousin.”

“Ooooh ooooh ooooh,” the sister said, while I sat there wondering what all that meant.

Tall and slim, the sister who was named Lauren looked like a brown China doll. She was the model-looking type of girl. I couldn’t call her a fashion model ’cause she had no fashion. She had nice hair, but with too much gel in it. She had cheap shoes—which I figured runs in her family—knock-off earrings, and a little Joyce Leslie–Sears–Lerner’s type of outfit. I always said it don’t mean shit if you don’t know what to do with it. She came and introduced herself. Her eyes bounced around the room while she talked. I guess she was checking to see if I messed with any of her shit.

“So what are you in for?” Lauren asked.

“What?”

“What’s your problem. Everybody who stays with Souljah got some kind of problem. That’s the only kind of people she likes.”

“Then what’s your problem,” I asked her.

“My problem is that I’m related. And, of course, my problem is like everyone else’s problem, “cash flow.’ I work for Souljah answering the phone, when I’m here.”

A soft knock at the door and then a push. “Sasha,” Souljah said, “my sister Lauren can tell you the house rules. She knows them, even though sometimes she doesn’t follow them. Tomorrow we can arrange to pick up your clothes.”

“No, that’s alright. I’m gonna go shopping for some things tomorrow.”

“Oh, you do have money?” Souljah asked.

“A little something,” I said, smiling.
Yeah, that’s right, I ain’t no charity case. I got my own loot,
I was thinking to myself.

A loud bell chimed throughout the house.

“Could you get that?” Souljah asked, calling from the bathroom across the hall from our room. The shower was running. “Lauren, can you get the door for me?” she asked again.

“Are you going out?” Lauren yelled back into the bathroom.

“Yeah,” Souljah said. I watched as Lauren lay down on her bed.

“Sasha, can you get the door please? I’m tired.” I knew her type. Everything was a test. I’d play her little game for a minute.

When I got downstairs finally, I pulled back the curtain on the lightweight door. I couldn’t see the face ’cause the porch light was off. But the streetlight off to the side lit up the red Range Rover double-parked on the side of the money-green Benz. The rims on this Rover were so hot I wanted to fuck the truck.

“Are you gonna let me in or what.” Now I stood face to face with GS, one of the top hip-hop artists in the music industry. With one 2-karat diamond in his ear, my mouth hung open. Now, there’s not much shit that could surprise me, but right now I was stuck guarding the entrance to the door. Shocked, I could not move. I had seen all of the top artists in concert, even GS. Nobody could of convinced me that we would ever be standing one on one in the same house.