Читать книгу Make It Last Forever - Gwyneth Bolton - Страница 9

“Woowee… I haven’t seen this in ages. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t sharp when I put this on. Girl, you should have seen me back in the day wearing this dress!” Amina Sunyetta held up an African-print micromini dress in front of herself and did a little wiggle.

Karen Williams looked up from the dusty corner of the attic. She had been doing her best not to sneeze as she helped her friend decide what items to take with her when she moved and which items to give to Goodwill. The attic in the Prospect Heights brownstone was cramped and cluttered with so many boxes that she doubted they would be done by nightfall. And with only two people there doing the work, being done by the end of the weekend seemed like wishful thinking, as well.

Amina held up a dress that almost looked like some thing the super-skinny 1960s supermodel Twiggy might have worn, if Twiggy had been a black nationalist, that is.

Amina’s petite frame had clearly picked up a little weight over the years, but it wasn’t too hard to imagine the short, dark-chocolate woman sporting the unique minidress in the past. In fact, from what Karen knew of Amina’s exciting life, Karen would have been hard-pressed to pick anything she couldn’t imagine Amina doing. The term wild child came easily to mind. She envisioned the woman, who now wore a pair of cherry-red sweatpants and a long black T-shirt with red rhinestones, sporting the little minidress.

Karen moved two of her long locs, which kept escaping from the scrunchie meant to hold back her multicolored locs and hopefully keep them from getting too dusty. She didn’t have time to help her friend all weekend and also wash and retwist her hair. There were only so many hours in the day. And it was really important to her to help Amina. So the soothing ritual of washing, oiling and palm rolling would have to wait until next weekend.

Most of her locs—she refused to call them dreadlocks, because there was nothing dreadful about her hair in its natural state—were a deep, rich auburn color. But, mixed in here and there, she had splashes of other brighter, vibrant colors of copper, bronze and even one lone blond loc. Looking at her hair was like looking at fire, an element she felt strangely drawn to, at least figuratively. She didn’t have a desire to be too close to real flames. But she felt like fire was the core of what a person needed to have in order to be able to enact change in the world.

Karen laughed as she stood, stretched and dusted her backside off. She gave Amina a smirk. “You actually fit into that little thing?”

Amina cut her eyes playfully. “I told you I was a stone-cold fox back in the day. Neat, petite and oh-so-sweet! I had all the conscious-’bout-it brothers after me trying to get me to make warriors with them for the revolution.”

“All right now! What did sista Sonia tell us? ‘Fucking is not a revolutionary act,’” Karen playfully recited her favorite phrase from one of her favorite poems, Sonia Sanchez’s “Queen of the Universe.”

She had a deep fondness for sista poets from the 1970s, even though most of that stuff had been published before she was even born. She found the anthology Black Fire back when she was in high school and had searched out more women poets like Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni, devouring every line they ever wrote and moving on to Mari Evans, Carolyn M. Rodgers, June Jordan, Audre Lorde and countless others. A lot of times she felt like she was born a generation or two too late. At thirty years old, she often felt strangely connected to times that were before she was even born.

Amina guffawed. “And Sonia Sanchez ain’t neva lied!” Amina put the dress down and stared at another box for a long time before she finally moved it over to Karen.

Karen glanced at it and knew that it must have been a box of Shemar’s things. It had been six years since Amina’s son and Karen’s best friend, rapper Shemar Sunyetta, had been gunned down and murdered at the prime of his career. And it was still hard for either of them to deal with. That was part of the reason why Karen was there helping Amina clean out the attic. Amina still couldn’t bring herself to deal with the loss of her only child, and going through his things was difficult.

“Thanks for spending part of your weekend helping me, Karen. I appreciate it. I really needed to get rid of some of this stuff before I move to South Carolina. I think I’m becoming a pack rat in my old age.”

“With all this accumulation, I’m gonna go out on limb here and say you were a pack rat in your younger days, as well.” Karen laughed. “Since I can’t talk you out of moving to Myrtle Beach, I guess I can help you pack.” She tried to keep an upbeat and playful tone.

Amina had always been like a second mother to her growing up, and she knew she would miss her. Since her only family had moved back down South to be closer to her mother’s aging parents in Savannah, Georgia, she didn’t have much family left in Brooklyn. She had lots of friends and a few stray cousins, but when it came to people who knew her in that way that only real family could, Amina was it. So Karen didn’t want Amina to move. But she knew that Amina needed to finally get away from the house and the place that would always remind her of her dead son.

“Think of it this way. You’ll have another fun place to visit. A place on the beach,” Amina offered teasingly as she closed the box she’d been going through and pushed it near the other stacks of boxes she planned on donating to Goodwill.

“I just might take you up on that.” Karen picked up another dusty box and started going through it. It looked like more of Amina’s 1970s gear. There was a black leather jacket and a black beret along with some more funky minidresses and nice black patent-leather platform boots. The clothing appeared to be a few sizes larger than the tiny minidress Amina had been holding up. “I think I found some more of your clothes from back in the day. But they look a lot bigger than that little thing you were holding up before.”

Karen picked up the red minidress with black-and-green zigzag stripes going up and down and around the material. Even though contemporary minidresses weren’t her usual style at all, this retro minidress spoke to her. She could even visualize herself in it. And she had to admit she looked darn good in her head.

“This is cute. And it looks about my size. I could totally rock this! The retro look is back, you know.” The dress had that classic 1970s look with the tapered waist and quarter sleeves that were flared at the end. She loved it.

Amina looked up, and a somewhat sad smile crossed her face. “That was my sister’s. That must be a box of her things.”

Karen picked up the jacket and tried it on along with the beret. “She must have been about my size. Was she a revolutionary back in the day also? What are you going to do with her stuff?”

Amina walked over. “Yes, my big sister was the one who brought me into the Black Liberation Army. I miss Karla something fierce! She passed away many years ago, but sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

“Karla? You mean she didn’t change her name like you did, Becky?” Sensing the sadness creeping into Amina’s voice, Karen teased her friend and playfully ducked the swing of Amina’s arm that she knew was coming.

“My name is Amina. Didn’t nobody get off the boat from the motherland named Becky or Karen for that matter. And no, Karla never changed her name. She kept it in honor of our father. His name was Karl, and she had been named for him.”

Karen noticed the sadness that was starting to overcome Amina and tried to lighten the mood. “I think this minidress would look nice on me.” She held the dress up in front of herself and gave a little shake. She was right. The dress seemed like it was made for her. She had never had one of those experiences her girlfriends talked about where an article of clothing or a fierce pair of shoes supposedly “spoke” to them from a catalog or store window and said “take me home” or “buy me.” But that was the only way she could describe how she felt about the retro minidress. She wanted it. It was hers.

Karen smoothed the material of the dress and smiled. “As a matter of fact, this leather jacket looks nice on me, too, now that I think about it.”

Amina started looking through the box. “You’re welcome to anything you want in here. I still can’t fit in Karla’s clothing. She was always taller and thicker. As a matter of fact, she was about your size. But I have never seen you in a minidress. As a matter of fact, you rarely wear anything short. You wear those long crunchy granola crinkle skirts all the time or jeans and them damn Birkenstocks and those political T-shirts. I swear you must have a T-shirt for every political cause known to man.” Amina rolled her eyes dramatically.

Karen looked down at the black T-shirt she was wearing that had her favorite Rebecca West quote from 1913 on it in purple letters. The T-shirt read “I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” She smiled because she was also wearing her favorite purple Converse sneakers, not Birkenstocks.

Karen held up her leg and wiggled her foot.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to add your collection of colorful Converse sneakers to your wardrobe selections. Oops.” Amina laughed. “This should be good though… Make sure you take a picture of yourself if you ever wear that minidress out someplace. This is something I have to see!” Amina started laughing.

“How you gonna call my clothes crunchy granola, and I’m helping you clean out your attic?” Karen sucked her teeth in feigned outrage as she put the minidress, leather jacket and black beret in her keeper pile along with an old sterling-silver name ring of Shemar’s from back when they were in high school and neither one of them could afford the nice flashy gold ones with diamonds in them. She remembered when she and Shemar purchased the name rings the summer before her freshman year.

She kept digging through the box to see if any of the other clothes caught her eye and pulled out a book wrapped in kente cloth. The cloth was nice and thick and had an authentic feel to it. It felt old, not like the mass-produced stuff she purchased from the Harlem Market when she was feeling particularly ethnic. She unwrapped the cloth and found an old, worn, leather-bound book inside. It seemed to be older than the cloth. She flipped through it and noticed various handwritings throughout. It appeared to be a diary of some sort but one that different people had used.

She ran her hands across the leather. It had that soft, smooth, buttery feel that only really used leather could attain. She wanted to just put it in her keeper pile and not say anything. But something as personal as a diary or journal was probably not something Amina was going to want to get rid of. And it was really too bad because something inside of her was telling her to take the journal, to just put it in her keeper pile and take it home.

“Man, I haven’t seen that thing in years! I remember when my sister, Karla, found that thing at a rummage sale. It was right before she met the man she called the love of her life, her soul mate.” Amina gave a sarcastic chuckle. “As if such a thing even exists. And if they do exist, I’m doubly pissed off because I haven’t found mine yet.”

Karen laughed at Amina’s suddenly disgusted expression. “So this journal belonged to Karla?”

“Yeah, she found it at a rummage sale at one of the churches where we held our free breakfast programs. I can’t remember which one, though. I just know she started writing in it all the time after she met Daniel.” Amina smiled and smacked her lips. “Now that was one fine man! He was one of those hustlers with a heart. Used to give money to the Black Liberation Army, give away turkeys in the hood to needy families during the holidays, toys to kids at Christmas, that kind of thing… Real smooth brother… Used to say he couldn’t get all the way down with the revolution because those berets would cramp his style.”

Karen smiled and tilted her head to the side. “Um, seems like you had a little crush on your sister’s man.”

“Girl, every woman with blood pumping through her body had the hots for that man. But once he met Karla, he only had eyes for her. I’ll tell you what, if soul mates do exist, those two were certainly soul mates. Once they got past their differences, they were inseparable. Heck, they were damn near magical. Made me sick!” Amina started laughing again.

“Sounds romantic. I’d sure like to find me a superfine, supersmooth brother to be my soul mate.” Karen realized that her voice was getting wistful, and she actually meant the words she was saying.

Where the hell did that come from?

She frowned and rubbed her hand across the soft scuffed leather again. The last thing she needed was a soul mate. A soul mate would mean a relationship. And a relationship would mean time away from her beloved youth center. And all her time and energy was wrapped up in her “hood work,” making the neighborhood a safer and more productive place for the youth. She didn’t have time for love or a relationship. And she certainly didn’t have time for any kind of soul mate.

Perish the thought!

So why did she all of a sudden want one more than she wanted the money to buy all new computers for the technology room in the Shemar Sunyetta Youth Center?

She scrunched up her face as she continued to rub the journal and let the leather lull her into thoughts of finding the one. “What are you going to do with her journal?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right to just give it to Goodwill. Karla found her man after she found the journal. I had that thing for years after she and Daniel were killed in that freak automobile accident back in 1980.” Amina shuddered and closed her eyes for a moment. She frowned as she stared at the journal before shrugging and continuing.

“The journal didn’t bring me a soul mate or even a halfway decent man to warm my bed at night.” Amina rested her finger on her chin in contemplation. “In fact, since she died and I took her book, all I got was eight years of Reagan, four years of Bush, the end of the Black Liberation Army, the blissful, almost willful ignorance of the Clinton years, a revolutionary’s worst nightmare in eight years of W and the murder of my only child. That journal has probably been jinxing me! Nothing has gone my way personally or politically since I took it. I don’t know where that journal is going, but it’s not going with me to South Carolina and messing up my new start. Call me superstitious if you want!”

“Hey, but we have change we can believe in now. So maybe the tide is turning, at least politically.” Karen shook her head and laughed. Then she realized that if Amina didn’t want the journal, maybe she’d be willing to let her take it.

“I could take the journal off your hands. I want to read all about your sister’s love affair with her soul mate.” She flipped through the pages, noting the different handwritings and the hearts drawn on some of the pages throughout. “It looks like a lot of different owners have written in it. Maybe I can live vicariously through them, because Lord knows I don’t have time to have a love life.”

“You can have the journal. Maybe it’ll bring you a man.” Amina twisted up her face and stuck out her tongue. “Because Lord knows you need one.” Amina laughed and ducked when Karen threw the kente cloth at her.

“Girl, you better go on and get you some love! Don’t wake up my age and alone. It’s not a fun place to be. Whatever happened to that Saul guy you met in college that used to work with you at the center? Didn’t you and he have something going on? What happened with him?” Amina frowned. “I never really liked him, but he seemed like he was stuck to you like glue.”

“Saul finally saved up enough money to take a trip to the motherland. You know he was Mr. Africa via Alabama.” Karen laughed. “But we weren’t a good match. He needs his African Queen, and I hope he finds her over there. I just miss the fact that I could really count on him to help out at the center. And the sex wasn’t bad when I had an itch that needed scratching. He was all right as an FWB.”

“What the hell is an FWB?”

“A friend with benefits!” Karen chuckled.

Amina paused, and her eyes widened when Karen told her what it meant. “Girl, he was just taking up space and keeping you from finding the man you were supposed to be with. But I might have to look into this FWB thing a little more.” Amina laughed. “You wait and see. I’m gonna call you from my house on the beach and tell you all about the fine young hottie that’s gonna fall in love with me and knock me off my feet. I’m gonna get me a young tender roni.”

“Watch out now, cougar! I see I’m gonna have to keep you away from the youth center. You might start scoping out the youth to give them more than just a little hope and inspiration.”

Amina laughed. “I like them young, but not that young! They have to be at least drinking age. And since I’m a black woman, that would be panther, not cougar. Get it right, girlfriend!”

Both women cracked up then.

“You’re a hot mess, Amina. A hot mess!”

“And don’t you forget it. Come on, girl. I need some lunch if I’m gonna tackle the rest of this. Let’s go downstairs and eat. I know you’ll be talking about how I worked you to death and didn’t feed you.”

Karen got up and followed Amina down the stairs. But their conversation about love struck a chord. She had just turned thirty. Was it time for her to find a man? She shook off the thought.

“You know me so well. I sure will talk about how you worked me like a slave and didn’t offer me a sip of water. Not to mention it’s hotter than hell up in here. You would pick the start of summer to want to clean out your attic and move down South. Only you, Amina, only you!”

“Girl, stop complaining and come on!”

They laughed and continued walking. Karen barely realized that she still had the journal in her hands.

Darius “D-Roc” Rollins stood in the finished basement of the home he’d purchased for his grandmother, not really listening to the chatter that was going on around him. He still couldn’t believe that his younger cousin—his only cousin, who had been just like a little brother to him—was dead.

He had dispensed with his normal entourage for the funeral and was thinking about taking a break from his boys for a little longer. He just needed a change. He needed a break from everything that had kept him away from his family for years.

And the way he was feeling about the loss of his cousin, he really didn’t want a large group of people just hanging around him following his every move. The group mentality had lost its appeal. Most of his core entourage were his homeboys anyway, so they took the respite as a chance to visit with their own families.

He looked around the room. The newly finished room had state-of-the-art electronics, a minitheater, wall-to-wall cream carpet, plush rust-colored sofas and light olive-green paint on the walls. The large mahogany sofa tables, end tables and table and chairs off in the corner tied the entire room together. It was actually his first time seeing the room since it had been remodeled. He was glad that he had surprised his grandmother by paying for it and hiring someone to make sure no detail was left to chance. The large space was now a family recreation room that was perfect for entertaining large groups. He’d had it remodeled a year ago for his grandmother’s birthday, thinking it would keep his cousin home more. He had no idea then that they would be standing in the same room mourning the loss of the boy.

How could you account for an eighteen-year-old college student with his entire life in front of him being gunned down in a neighborhood that he no longer lived in but couldn’t seem to stay away from? How did a person come to grips with the fact that no matter how much money he sent home to get his family out of the hood and keep his cousin out of the streets, the streets still managed to claim his cousin?

He looked around at all the faces standing around the basement, eating the food he’d had catered for the repast. The sad thing was that most of the people there probably couldn’t care less about Frankie. Most of them were only there to get a glimpse of “D-Roc.” Some had even asked for autographs and some had snapped pictures with their cell phones.

Pathetic. He didn’t regret his celebrity by any means. But he did regret the way people behaved because of it.

“It’s good to have you home, son.” His grandmother came and stood by him.

The tall, bronze-complexioned woman with her salt-and-pepper hair curled softly around her face looked older than she ever had. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and he could tell she’d been crying again. It broke his heart to see her so torn apart. She’d raised him after his mother was murdered, and when her youngest daughter had gotten pregnant as a teenager, she’d essentially taken on raising that child, too—Frankie. Burying Frankie probably felt as bad to her as when she’d buried Darius’s mother.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come home more often. Maybe if I had—”

“Don’t you go blaming yourself, Darius! Wasn’t nothing you could do to keep Frankie out of them streets. Lord knows we tried. He just wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t have listened to you either.”

“How you know that, Mama? He might have. He looked up to Darius.” His aunt Janice was only six years older than him. She’d had Frankie when she was eighteen. She was also tall with a bronze complexion and looked like a younger version of his grandmother. She wore an expensive weave with jet-black hair hanging well down her back. Despite her tears and sorrow at the moment, she was still in her typical perpetually angry state of being.

Unfortunately, this time she had a right to be angry with him.

Darius knew he should have done more to make sure his cousin stayed away from dangerous situations. It took more than buying a nice big house in New Hyde Park and moving the family to the safer Nassau County suburb. It took more than footing the bill for private school and guaranteeing a full ride to college.

Neither he nor Frankie had ever had a father figure—just Grandma and Janice. What Frankie needed—hell, what the little thug who had shot and killed Frankie probably needed, for that matter—was someone there who understood what it meant to be a young man in the hood, someone willing to be there and talk to him and talk him out of foolishness.

All the money in the world didn’t make up for time. It was funny how it took tragedy to bring some lessons home. For the first time in his life, he knew more than ever that nothing beat time. The death of his cousin brought that lesson home with enough poignancy to last several lifetimes.

His chest felt heavy. So much pressure was building up; it felt as if it was going to cave in and all of his insides would be exposed. Something had to give, and he had to let it out or he knew he might just explode.

He tightened up, holding it in. He couldn’t break down. He had to be a rock for his grandmother and aunt. He let out a stuttered breath and then another.

Frankie was dead.

It was his fault, even if he hadn’t held the gun. He needed to own up to that and not cry over it like a little boy.

Man up!

That’s what he needed to do. At thirty years old, he was the man of his family. He needed to start doing more than throw his money around to prove it. He loosened his tie. The central air was blasting, but he still felt closed in wearing the suit and tie he’d worn to the funeral.

“You’re right, Janice. I should have been here for Frankie. He needed me, and I failed him.”

“I’m glad you know it! Too bad it’s too late.” Janice glared at him before cutting her eyes.

“Janice, stop that! This child is grieving just like we are. It’s not fair for us to put this all on him. It’s not fair, and it’s not right. He did all he could for Frankie. We all did.” Grandma’s voice cracked, and she started sobbing again.

Darius wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried. He held her together and tried to keep everything he felt inside from tumbling out.

He could just see someone with a fancy cell phone or digital camera shooting a video of him breaking down. And he could just see the video showing up on YouTube if he gave in to what he was feeling and cried—if he let the pain take over.

The tenuous street cred he had as a so-called positive rapper-turned-Hollywood-movie-star would be gone if someone caught him slipping and he ended up bawling like a little baby on the Internet.

He shook his head and frowned.

Street cred.

That’s the reason Frankie was dead. He hadn’t wanted to leave the hood behind. He’d wanted to show that he was still down. There had to be a way to be down and not end up in the ground. Hell, he didn’t want to forget where he came from any more than his cousin had. He’d given back financially to lots of good causes and charities in the hood.

He threw money at the hood, the same way he’d thrown money at his cousin.

“Can’t talk now, Frankie, I’m on set about to shoot a scene. I’ll call you later. Hope you like the new wheels.”

“Gotta hit the studio, man. Tell your moms and Grandma I said hi. I’ll try and call y’all this weekend.”

He wasn’t even going to think about all the times he’d let calls from his cousin go straight to voice mail because he was busy with a sexy model or Hollywood starlet. He had dropped the ball, and his cousin had paid the price.

“I’m going to stick around for a little while. I’m between films, and I can put off the studio for a min—”

“Oh, don’t stick around now! We don’t need you now! Go back to Hollywood. Go back to your busy life!” Janice choked out in an angry hiss. “Frankie needed you. You couldn’t make time for him….” Her voice trailed off and she bit back angry tears.

He wasn’t mad at his aunt. She needed someone to blame. Hell, even he blamed himself. So why should he expect any different from her?

“I’m thinking about devoting some time down in the old neighborhood, some time in East New York. There are a couple of youth centers. I could spend some time… I could try and honor Frankie’s memory.”

He had to do something.

“Oh, son, you don’t need to be down there. It’s dangerous. Anything could happen. You should just go on back to your life where it’s safe.” The worried expression on his grandmother’s face tugged at his heart.

He knew the last thing she needed to worry about was the possibility of burying yet another child.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Grandma. I’ll be fine.” He wanted to say that he wouldn’t be involved with the kinds of things that his cousin had been involved in. But he knew that would have set his aunt off unnecessarily.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what Frankie had been involved in. Darius had failed him.

“The old neighborhood? Why would you want to be down there? No one wants you down there. Go back to Hollywood, Darius! I can’t believe you’re going to use my child’s death as a part of some bullshit publicity stunt!” The ugliness of his aunt’s voice and the distrusting glare in her eyes shook him to his core.

When had it gotten this bad? When did his own family actually forget who he really was? The fact that his aunt could even accuse him of such a thing let him know that he had really dropped the ball where they were concerned.

“That’s not what I’m doing, Jan… You should know that. In spite of everything… You should know…” He shook his head. The basement was starting to close in on him and that sinking about-to-cave-in feeling in his chest had him thinking if he didn’t get out of there soon he really would end up broken down and sobbing on the floor. He took a deep breath. He needed air, so he walked away from them.

“Son, don’t go. Don’t let Janice upset you like this. We know you, son. We know you! We love you.” His grandmother’s voice trailed off as he walked up the stairs.

Even though he knew he could never make things right for his cousin, the tragic loss demanded that he try, demanded that he do something.