Then he rests his hand on my lap, opening up his palm for me to take. We hold hands until he has to make a left turn down Joy Road.
At home, I have homework, and dinner to make, and dishes to wash. But I could spend the rest of the afternoon, and evening, and night sitting in this car with Kasim.
“I gotta go work the evening shift,” he says as he parks on American Street and turns off the engine. “But you could come do your homework at the café.”
“No,” I almost whisper. “Can we save a little bit of this for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that?”
“A’ight,” he whispers, and leans over to kiss me.
Then I take his hand, the one that gave me his heart, and kiss it.
I don’t let him get out to open the door for me. But he grabs the back of my skirt as I’m getting out of the car. I gently tug it away. He’s smiling big and I almost don’t want to close the door on him.
“Tomorrow,” I say.
I spot Papa Legba on his bucket, smoking his cigar. I think he tips his hat at me. But I’m not sure. Maybe this is Papa Legba’s way of saying this is good. This is very good.
TWENTY-ONE
SOMEONE IS POUNDING on the front door. It eases into my dreams at first. Chantal steps over my body on the air mattress to get to the door and I’m pulled out of sleep completely. My cousins are whispering to one another at the top of the steps. No one turns on any lights. There’s more banging on the door and I go over to the window to look outside.
“Fab, get away from that window!” Chantal whisper-yells. “Stay in here and mind your business!”
I duck down and let the curtain fall closed, but still I listen, confused.
“Why the fuck would he bring those two goons with him?” Pri says. “The one time Ma goes out is when this nigga decides to show up. Punk ass.”
“Shut up!” Chantal says.
I listen as my cousins open the door. I thought it would be Dray, but it’s not his voice that yells, “What the fuck y’all got me waiting out here for all this time?”
I don’t listen to Chantal. I tiptoe to the top of the stairs, lying down on the floor to make sure I’m invisible. The single streetlight from the corner shines on the three men in the doorway. I don’t recognize any of them—two tall and wide, and the one in the middle is thin and old, older than Matant Jo.
“We didn’t know it was you,” Pri lies.
The older man chuckles. “After you done looked out the window and saw my car, you didn’t know it was me? Get outta here with that bullshit, Pri.”
All three of my cousins back up into the living room as the three men step into the house. They shut the door and someone turns on the lights. I inch back away from the stairs and hope that no one calls me down.
“I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for weeks now. You been ignoring my calls. Same thing you’re doing to Dray, Donna,” the man says.
He sounds calm and smart, like a teacher. He’s wearing a nice long black coat, and I can see dress pants and shiny shoes peeking out from underneath it. The other two men are not dressed up, so they look like bodyguards.
“Q, we just been lying low these past couple of months. That’s all. The news, the cops, all that shit got us hiding out,” Pri says.
Chantal tugs Pri’s arm. Then she says, “We just don’t want anything coming back to us or to you, Uncle Q.”
I’m not sure if I hear correctly, so I turn my ear downstairs.
I search my memory for this Uncle Q’s story—his name has come up several times before but I’ve never met him, never seen him, until now. From Kasim’s story: Uncle Q bought the tickets to that dance show; Uncle is like a father to him; my uncle Phillip took a bullet for this Q. And from Dray’s story: he owns the club with the purple door where there’s a gun and dogs and secrets; Uncle Q threw a party for my aunt’s fortieth birthday. Q is a drug dealer. Q is Dray’s uncle.
“I’m here to collect, ladies. It’s payday. It’s a damn shame I gotta come all the way out here,” Q says, as cool as rainwater.
“We need more time, Uncle Q. We had to toss all of it. We’re not trying to sell some messed-up batch,” Chantal says.
I hold my head up. The wood floor beneath the carpet squeaks under my weight. I freeze. My eyes burn because they’re open so wide. I don’t blink. My heart races and the air around me is not enough, so I breathe slowly, trying to calm down because that older man is Q, and my cousins need more time, and they were supposed to sell something. But what? What?
“Not my fucking problem. Twenty Gs,” Q says.
“Wait a minute,” Chantal says. “We only got fifteen worth. Where’d that extra five come from?”
“Interest. Insurance. To cover my ass for whatever the fuck y’all just did over there in the Pointe to get that white girl killed.”
The words swim in my head. White girl killed. My cousins. My cousins got that white girl killed.