White Lines (32 page)

Sunny could tell by the look on Jada’s face that she wanted some. Jada all but salivated at the sight of the cocaine, and she instinctively looked around for Born, half expecting him to walk into the men’s bathroom at any moment. Sunny saw Jada look around, and she smiled once more. “Girl, relax. Ain’t nobody coming in here. I locked the door.” She saw her friend stare at the white line again, saw the look of pure longing on her face. Jada’s eyes were focused on the powder diamonds lying invitingly across the surface of the mirror. She saw the little crystals in it, looking like tiny shards of glass, and she knew that this was the good shit. “Look at you fiendin’,” she said, jokingly. “I can tell by the look on your face that you indulge. Help yourself.”

Jada felt a tug-of-war in her heart. She considered telling Sunny that she was a recovering addict. She considered saying no, and just leaving the bathroom. But standing there in front of the drug unsupervised by Born for the first time since she left rehab, Jada wanted nothing more than to feel the euphoria that cocaine brought her. She salivated at the thought of experiencing that feeling again. She looked at Sunny, and her friend smiled, encouragingly. Jada told herself that this wasn’t crack. She could control
this
urge, she reasoned. The high wouldn’t be as noticeable. This was something she could handle. This would be different. She could keep this a secret. As if reading her mind, Sunny said, “I won’t tell Born as long as you don’t tell Dorian.”

Jada closed her eyes, sweat forming on her face, and swallowed hard. She looked at Sunny, and then at the line of white powder, and she inched closer to it. Standing directly in front of it, Jada’s gaze was fixed. She leaned over, and snorted the rest of it, instantly feeling the effects. This was some good shit!

Jada stood up tall and straight when she was finished, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her pupils were dilated, and she felt a surge of energy. It was an amazing rush. Jada felt instantly at home. She felt alive again, and the euphoria was so familiar. It felt so perfect, just like old times. She relished the feeling, since it had been so long since she’d
experienced the wonders of a cocaine high. Sunny smiled, just as zooted as her friend.

“Come on. Now the party will be way better!”

They emerged from the men’s bathroom undetected and blended back into the crowd. They wandered toward the far side of the club, where there were more people dancing and enjoying themselves than standing around staring. There they danced, in a place all their own. For over an hour they danced and mingled with a handful of Born’s friends from around the way. Chance noticed that Jada was a lot more talkative and energetic than usual, but he figured that was because she was drinking and enjoying herself. Sunny was her usual ball of energy, and they all hung out enjoying themselves, until Chance and his boys wandered off. Finding a table on the opposite side of the party from where Born and Dorian were holding court, Sunny and Jada sat and enjoyed the rush of their respective highs. And just as Sunny had predicted, the party was way more enjoyable for both of them.

After another half an hour or so, the feeling wore off, and Jada sat back, feeling like her old self again. Sunny snapped her fingers and sang along with Lil Kim. “Get money!” She looked over at Jada and smiled at her friend. Jada smiled back.

“I’m so glad I got a friend who parties,” Sunny said. Jada caught her meaning of the term “parties,” and smiled. “I always take a twenty or a fifty of Dorian’s shit for myself. You don’t steal bags from Born when he bags up?” Sunny asked, amazed.

Jada felt tremendous guilt then, at the mention of Born’s name. Damn! She was instantly filled with regret. What had she done?

Jada shook her head. “I don’t think I could bring myself to steal from Born.” Her tone of voice was sad and filled with remorse.

Sunny pursed her lips. “Shiiiit! I don’t consider it stealing. What’s his is mine, you know what I’m saying?” She crossed her legs and continued snapping her fingers, dancing in her seat, clearly unfazed and not feeling the same guilty torment that Jada was enduring.

Jada looked around the party and saw some familiar faces from her days living in West Brighton. She spotted Phillip, a guy she had messed
around with when she and Shante were being scandalous for crack money. She remembered fucking Phillip for ten dollars back then. Thinking of the fact that she’d just gotten high again, she cringed. Jada silently assured herself that she would never stoop that low again. She was in a loving relationship with a man she respected. She had money and status, and if she wanted to party with Sunny from time to time, she figured there was nothing wrong with that. She wasn’t going to be a crackhead again. But looking over at Phillip, she recalled how that had been one low point that she had enjoyed one hundred percent. She pointed him out to Sunny.

“That nigga right there has a dick the size of Shaquille O’Neal’s foot!” Sunny laughed and slapped Jada five in a congratulatory way.

“Wow. That shit must have been good,” Sunny said, staring at the gangly, brown-skinned brother. “He ain’t too cute, but that shit makes up for it.”

“It sure does.” Jada laughed, and nodded in agreement.

Suddenly there was a commotion on the dance floor. Sunny and Jada seemed to notice it first. Their senses were heightened after getting high. The crowd parted, and Sunny and Jada both stood on their seats trying to see what was going on. They caught sight of two guys fighting in the center of the crowd, as the bouncers rushed in to break it up.

Everything was at a standstill as the fight was broken up and the two individuals involved were thrown out. The music stopped, the lights came on, and the sound of people complaining and talking filled the club.

Everybody waited to see if the music would come back on, if the lights would go dim once more. But after ten minutes of nothing happening, Born and Dorian maneuvered their way through the throngs of people and came to Sunny and Jada’s table.

“Let’s get up outta here,” Born said. “This shit is over.” He shook his head in frustration. Parties in Staten Island always seemed to end in a fight that caused the whole party to be shut down. It was one of the many reasons why he rarely went out in his home borough. Usually Manhattan and Brooklyn were where he spent his downtime.

They all headed for the exit, past the envious stares of some partygo-ers. It sounded like a high school cafeteria in the club, filled with angry, drunk black people and no music to calm them down. He caught a glimpse of Jamari looking at him and Jada as they left, and Born scowled at him and kept on moving. Jamari couldn’t help but stare at both the man he admired to the point of envy and the woman he wanted for himself. Born held Jada at the small of her back, gently guiding her through the sea of people. As they made their way outside, Jada saw Phillip again, and Sunny saw him, too. They smiled at their private joke.

Born found Smitty outside, and he bid his friend farewell as they left. They all climbed inside Dorian’s BMW, with Born sitting up front and the ladies lounging comfortably in the backseat. They pulled away from the club and drove down Bay Street toward the expressway. When they had driven close to five blocks, all the occupants in the vehicle were shocked to hear sirens directly behind them. Police in an NYPD van were behind them, signaling for them to stop. Dorian pulled the car over and wondered what was happening.

Sunny and Jada turned around in their seats and saw the police van pull up behind them. Four officers got out of the van with their guns drawn, and approached Dorian’s car on either side. A separate squad car screeched to a halt behind the van, and Jada and Sunny sat nervously in the backseat. Both of them were already paranoid, and this only made it worse.

“Putyour hands up!
” the officer closest to the driver’s side yelled, nervously. Dorian put his hands in the air, and looked at the cop, hoping he didn’t have an itchy trigger finger.
“License and registration! Now!
”

Dorian looked at the white man in the uniform, and held his gaze. “Alright,” he said, calmly. “I’m gonna roll the window down. Then, I’m gonna reach inside my pocket and hand you my wallet,” he said. He slowly pressed the button, lowering the power windows, and handed the cop his license and registration.

“Who’s car is this?” the cop asked, while his partner had his gun pointed at Born, sitting idly in the passenger seat. Two other cops stood by both Sunny and Jada’s doors. Jada looked at the cop who stood next
to her window, and he stared back at her with a fixed expression on his face. Born wasn’t dirty, but Dorian was. He had several fifty-dollar bags of fish scale in his sock. He had brought it along to sell at the party, and now he hoped this was a routine traffic stop. But judging by the looks of the cops and their visible weapons, it didn’t seem very routine. Sunny, meanwhile, sweated bullets, knowing that she had two bags of Dorian’s drugs in her purse. If they found it, not only would she go to jail, but she would have a whole hell of a lot of explaining to do to Dorian.

“It’s my car, officer,” Dorian said, and knew that police hated nothing more than seeing black folks driving fancy cars legally.

“Where do you work?” the cop asked.

Dorian stared at the man, wanting so badly to say something smart, but knowing that doing so wouldn’t be wise. “I’m a bricklayer,” Dorian said. Born smirked at his friend’s wit.

The cop looked at Dorian directly. His expression was blank. Jada was in the backseat, wondering why the cop outside her window was staring at her so intently To her surprise, he opened her car door and ordered her out of the car.

“Miss, can you step outside of the vehicle, please?”

Jada looked around. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Step out of the car.”

Born protested. “Why she gotta get out of the car? She ain’t driving.”

“Shut up!
’“the cop barked.
“Step out of the vehicle, ma ami”

Jada did as she was told, and got out of the car. The officer led her close to the trunk of the car, out of earshot of the other passengers. The other three cops kept their guns pointed at the remaining three occupants in the car. The squad car that had pulled up after the van emptied out, and two more white male officers approached.

“What’s your name?”

“Jada Ford.”

The cop looked toward the car, and then back at Jada, checking her out from head to toe. “You have any I.D.?”

She fumbled in her Gucci bag, and handed him her driver’s license.
She wondered if this was payback for her getting high that night. Why had the cop singled her out?

“How do you know these men?” the cop asked, searching her eyes for signs of deception. Jada knew that she had to be convincing in order to prevent the situation from escalating. Jada shrugged, frowning. “They’re friends of mine, officer. What’s the problem?”

Ignoring her question, the red-haired cop probed further. “Where did you all go tonight? You seem pretty dressed up.”

Jada looked at the three uniformed overseers before her, and she felt angry. But keeping her emotions in check, she said, “We went to a party.”

“Where?”

“At a club on Bay Street.”

“Which one?”

Jada hesitated, unsure. “Gutta.”

“Where are you going now?”

“He was taking me home.”

“Where do you live?”

“Brooklyn.” Jada scanned all three of their pale faces. “Did something happen?”

The red-haired officer nodded. “There was an incident nearby, and we’re investigating it.” He looked at Jada, quizzically. “So, these guys were with you all night? You’re vouching for them?”

Jada looked at the man, wondering what was really going on. “Yes, sir. They were with me all night, and I’ll certainly vouch for them.”

He handed her back her identification, and she followed him back to the car. He looked inside the car, where Dorian and Born sat with blank, expressionless faces. Sunny was chewing her gum innocently, her face almost angelic. “You can go,” the cop said. “Thanks for your patience.”

Dorian waited until the officers headed back to their cars before he pulled off. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief as he drove away.

Born looked at his baby girl. “What did they ask you?”

Jada shook her head. “All kinds of shit!” She recounted the mini-interrogation she’d just endured, and they all concluded that it was another
case of racial profiling. Black people and nice cars were presumably a mismatch.

Dorian drove Born and Jada back to Born’s apartment, and then he and Sunny went home to Brooklyn. Born noticed Jada seemed bothered by her encounter with the cops.

“Cat got your tongue?” Born asked.

Jada snapped out of her trance, her thoughts on the terrible regret she felt over getting high that night. She felt so guilty, almost like she owed Born an apology, even though he had no idea what she’d done. She shrugged. “Nope.”

They got off the elevator and walked down the hallway to the place they called home. And the minute they got inside, Jada made love to Born with a passion unmatched. She went at him like a woman gone mad, blinded by her feelings of guilt and regret, channeling that energy into ferocious lovemaking. She sucked him eagerly, and sexed him wildly, and afterward she lay in his arms, drifting softly to sleep, still telling herself that she had everything under control.

December 1996

Sunny and Jada were high once again, sitting in the brand-new house on Westwood Avenue in Staten Island that Born had purchased. He was ecstatic that he was a homeowner before reaching his thirties, and he was happy to see Jada enjoying the decorating process so much. On this day Sunny had come over to help Jada hang her drapes and to find the perfect spot for all the artwork she’d bought to adorn the walls. But Born was out handling business as usual, and Dorian was off somewhere doing the same. So Sunny and Jada had seized the opportunity to test Dorian’s newest batch of coke, some of which Sunny had swiped when her man wasn’t looking. They snorted his new shipment of fish scale, and they weren’t disappointed. Now they were insanely high, and euphoric.