Getting Played Read online

  I almost never use the back stairs. They lead to the pantry, and when the door is closed and the lights are out, it’s creepy walking down into complete darkness. But since my grandmother turned the light on and opened the door, I’m cool. I go downstairs, and by the second floor landing I smell bacon and sausage cooking. My stomach grumbles. She was right. I am hungry.

  As soon as I get to the pantry, I hear laughter. It’s familiar. The kitchen door is cracked, and I open it all the way to see Jalisa at the stove turning the sausage links, Diamond pouring batter into the waffle iron and Jade pulling biscuits out of the oven. Damn, it is so good to see them. My grandmother is sitting at the kitchen table with the front page of the Washington Post in front of her, supervising. I walk into the kitchen smiling. It is the best company I could imagine. “What are ya’ll doing here?” I ask happily.

  “Girl, you know we had to come over after we heard about that craziness last night,” Diamond says.

  Jalisa nods. “I still can’t believe it happened.”

  “Are you okay?” Jade asks.

  I nod. “Yeah, I am now.”

  “All right, ladies, mind what you’re doing. Watch the sausage and check the waffles. I smell something cooking too hard.”

  Jalisa immediately grabs the tongs, turns to the pan on the stove and rolls the sausage to check for doneness. Using the tongs, she pulls the sausages out and places them on the paper towel-lined platter beside the crispy bacon.

  “Wow, everything smells so good,” I say sitting down.

  “Up you go,” my grandmother says. “Grab some plates and silverware. Your job is to set the table. And don’t forget the napkins.”

  I get up instantly and go to the top cabinets to get what I need to set the table. But I see that everybody is looking at my grandmother. I guess they thought she was going to take it easy and baby me or something. Wrong. That’s definitely not her style. Actually, it feels pretty good to be around my family and friends doing something constructive together.

  We eat brunch in the dining room ’cause we can’t all fit around the kitchen table. The whole time I’ve been here, I don’t ever remember eating in this room. First of all, it’s enormous with a high ceiling and a major crystal chandelier. It has four huge windows that go from the floor all the way to the ceiling and some serious solid wood furniture. There is the table that seats ten people and the massive built-in side table and a china cabinet filled with the good stuff for special occasions. But there never are, so the special china just sits there. And it’s funny that with all the fancy stuff in the room, the chairs are still covered with plastic.

  We put the food on the table, then sit down to eat. Grandmom says grace, and we dig in like it’s the last meal on earth. I can’t believe how hungry I am. We talk and laugh as we eat. We tell Jade and my grandmother about LaVon’s party Friday night. My grandmother tries not to laugh, but we know she is loving the story.

  We talk about school. Jalisa and Diamond have funny stories about Hazelhurst, and I tell stories about being at The Penn. Then Jade talks about being at Penn Hall and now what it’s like being in college. Then we start reminiscing about growing up and all the fun we used to have. That’s when my grandmom starts telling us about what it was like when she was in school and what the neighborhood was like back then. It is actually interesting to hear the stories.

  After breakfast, Grandmom says she’ll clean the kitchen and tells us to go out and enjoy the day. Jade heads back to school because she has a big exam, and Jalisa, Diamond and I decide to go to Freeman to hang out.

  “I didn’t bring my dance stuff,” Diamond says.

  “Me, neither,” Jalisa adds.

  “You know what? I don’t feel like dancing anyway. Why don’t we go and just hang out?”

  So that’s what we do. We walk over. We pass Ursula’s house and I wonder how she’s doing. We decide to stop and see. Her mom answers the door and sends us up to her bedroom. I knock on the door, and she yells, “I’m busy.”

  “Ursula, it’s me, Kenisha. Jalisa and Diamond are with me.” I hear her hit the floor and walk to the door. She opens it and looks at me. “Hey, are you okay?” She doesn’t say anything. “We’re going to Freeman to hang out. Why don’t you come with us?”

  “I don’t dance there. You know that.”

  “We’re not going to dance. We’re going to just hang out in one of the private rooms on the top floor.”

  “Nah, that’s okay. I’ll see you later,” she says.

  “Okay, we’ll see you later,” I say. We leave without saying anything more. When we get to Freeman, the door is open and Ms. Jay is just about to teach a beginner class. We ask for a key to one of the upstairs rooms. A few minutes later, we are just sitting on the floor talking, first about Friday night again, then about breakfast and then about Ursula. “Did she get hurt?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I say, trying to think if I remember her getting hit or something. “They pushed her into the front window.”

  “That whole thing must have been surreal,” Diamond says.

  “I can’t even imagine going through something like that,” Jalisa adds.

  “It was crazy. It still feels like a dream.”

  “You mean a nightmare,” Diamond corrects.

  “I guess you’re not going back there to work ever.”

  I shake my head, no. They both nod, agreeing with me. “You know there’s always another pizza place around.”

  “I wanted to cut my hair off last night,” I say quietly, completely changing the subject. Jalisa and Diamond look at me, questioning. “That’s how he held me still and made me walk to the back with him. He grabbed and held my hair the whole time.”

  “That is so shitty. I hate that. I hate him.”

  “I know, right, bullies do shit like that and hide behind masks stealing money from people.”

  “Wait, ya’ll heard about the ski masks, too. That part wasn’t even on the news. How did ya’ll find that out?” I ask.

  “Li’l T,” both Diamond and Jalisa say.

  I shake my head and roll my eyes. “I should have known. That kid knows everything. Seriously, he’s like super spy,” I say.

  “After we heard about it, we wanted to see you. Then your grandmother called my grandmother and asked if we could come over for the day,” Diamond says.

  I had no idea my grandmother asked them to come over. “I’m glad ya’ll came. I feel so much better.”

  “Friends for life, girl,” Jalisa adds. “That was the plan, right. We said it downstairs when we were four years old.”

  Diamond and I nod. That was our pledge. “Friends for life.” I stick my hand out like they do on television. Diamond puts her hand on mine, and Jalisa puts her hand on Diamond’s. We keep topping each other’s hands until we fall over laughing. “Friends for life.” Then, just as I say it, there is a knock on the door. We turn. Ursula peeks in the small glass window. She nods. We wave for her to come inside. She comes in and walks over to where we are sitting at the back of the room by the mirrors. “Hey, you came.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t mean to interrupt. If this is private…”

  “No,” we all say.

  “No, stay,” Jalisa adds.

  “Thanks.” She sighs heavily and sits down on the polished hardwood floors with us. “I swear, I just couldn’t stay home any longer. My mom was driving me crazy at home. She’s hovering like a wet blanket. I can’t breathe. Every time I open my bedroom door, she’s there asking me if I’m okay or if I need anything. She must think I’m gonna explode or something.”

  We start laughing. She joins in.

  “So, how are you doing?” I ask her.

  “I still have a headache.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” I say.

  No one says anything for a while. Then out of the blue, we just start talking about homework, school, clothes, music, guys, sex, parents, food and anything else not related to what happened. Suddenly everything else fades into the backgroun
d. After a while, we are all laughing like crazy at stories Ursula is telling us about when she was growing up. We get up and start showing Ursula some of our dance moves, and she even tries a few. She isn’t bad at all.

  We stay in the room for almost two and a half hours just talking about different things. When we finally leave, we walk Ursula back to her house, then Jalisa and Diamond come back to my house. My grandmother made brownies. We each grab one and go outside on the back step and eat.

  I take a bite and say it. It was on my mind all day and I just have to get it out. “I think I know who one of the guys was who did it.”

  Jalisa and Diamond look at me. “What? Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” I say.

  “You think so?” Diamond prompts.

  “Are you sure?” Jalisa asks.

  I shrug and half nod. “I wish I wasn’t and I definitely wish I didn’t see what I saw, but I did.”

  “Whoa, wait. How are you so sure about this? What did you see?”

  I take a deep breath and release it slowly. “I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t want to, but I don’t want you to get in any trouble. There were four guys there last night, one in the back with the two cooks, and the other three behind the counter with me, Sierra, Ursula and Giorgio.”

  “And…”

  “They had us facing the wall. When the one who had my hair was yelling, I turned around and saw a tattoo on the other guy. I know that tattoo.”

  “Are you going to tell the police?”

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “What? Why not? ’Cause snitches get stitches?” Jalisa asks.

  “Yeah, but he could have done anything and he’s still out there,” Diamond says. “Maybe you can do it anonymously.”

  “I can’t because it would get someone I know in trouble.”

  My grandmother calls to me. We get up and go to the living room where she is. There are two men with her, one white and one black. “Kenisha, I’m Detective Clark and this is Detective Wilson. We’d just like to ask you a few more questions about last night.” Then they look at Jalisa and Diamond.

  “These are my girlfriends. They have to go anyway,” I say. I turn and nod to both, and they nod back. I know they’d never say anything about what we talked about. We hug and they leave.

  “Kenisha, come have a seat next to me,” my grandmother says. I do. The police sit down on the chairs across from us.

  “Kenisha, can you go over the story again, telling us exactly what you remember?”

  I nod and tell them what happened. I still leave out the tattoo part. “Is there anything you remember at all about them?” one of the cops asks.

  “Anything at all, maybe something so small you think it’s not really important.”

  I shake my head and shrug. “They argued a lot.”

  “Really, tell us about that,” the first cop says, writing this down. I tell them about Giorgio getting hit the second time and how one of the guys didn’t like it. They both start writing. “Did they use any names or gang signs or anything else?”

  “No. But I think the one grabbing my hair was the leader.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “He was the one ordering the others around. They seemed scared of him.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Whenever he said something, they jumped and ran.”

  “Good, this is very good. Can you think of anything else?”

  “No.”

  They stand up. “Okay, thank you for your time, Kenisha, Mrs. King. I know it’s probably an inconvenience to come to you on a Sunday evening, but we like to talk to witnesses when things are fresh in their minds.”

  “We understand.”

  “If you can think of anything else, just give us a call.” He hands me and my grandmother each a business card. “Good night.”

  My grandmother walks them to the front door while I stay in the living room for a while. She comes back a few minutes later. “Did you have a good day?” she asks.

  I smile and nod. “Yes, I did. I didn’t think I would this morning, but I’m glad I did.”

  “Good.”

  I get up to head upstairs. “Thanks for calling Diamond’s grandmother.”

  She smiles knowingly. “You’re welcome. Rest easy with pleasant dreams,” she adds.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

  CHAPTER 16

  Was That Me?

  “Screaming isn’t an option, but I want to do it anyway. I hear myself in my head, screaming as loud as I can, but nobody else does. I’m screaming. I’m screaming. I’m screaming. Hey, wait a minute, I’m okay. Never mind.”

  —MySpace.com

  The next day, Monday morning, I see Dr. Tubbs. He already knew what happened. My grandmother suggested I see him and then called him. I go just to see what he’ll say. Surprisingly, today he isn’t his usual reserved and blasé self. He’s anxious and concerned. I’ve never seen him like this before. Of course, I’ve only been coming here for about a month or so.

  We start out talking about school and me staying at Penn Hall. I tell him about my dad’s money problems. He scribbles that down in his notebook quickly. Probably to make sure he sends the bill to him as soon as I leave. Then we talk about my family and friends and what’s happening with me.

  “Now tell me about what happened to you,” he starts.

  “The place I worked at got robbed.”

  “I’m sure there was more to it than that. How do you feel?”

  “Tired of people asking me how I feel,” I say, more like my old self. He nods and half smiles, I guess seeing the same thing. I am my old self still. “Yeah, I’m still the same smart-ass I was before, just with a lot more drama in my life.”

  “Yes, drama, you’ve had quite a bit of drama in your life lately. Just a few weeks ago with you and your friend in his room and then…”

  I quickly interrupt. “No, he was definitely not my friend. His half sister is my friend and she hates him. We were kicking it for a while, but that’s it. I thought you wrote all this stuff down. It looks like you’re slipping,” I challenge. He smiles again. I do, too. I think that’s why I like coming here to see him sometimes. I can say whatever to him and it’s all good. He doesn’t care. In here, we’re equals.

  “I stand corrected. Tell me, do you feel put-upon?”

  “Put-upon?” I repeat.

  “It means targeted, victimized or exploited.”

  “Yeah, I know what it means. It’s just so old and outdated.” I shake my head hopelessly. “Doc, seriously, you need to renew your subscription to Ebony and Essence magazines. Nobody says put-upon anymore.” He chuckles this time. I swear, in all the times I’ve been coming to see him, this is the first time I’ve seen him even attempt to laugh.

  “Perhaps you’re right. Do you feel targeted?”

  I think about it for a few seconds before answering. He is right. There have been a lot of things going on in my life lately. Some I can control and some I can’t. “You know what? No. I didn’t feel victimized. I do feel unlucky sometimes.”

  We talk some more about general stuff going on in my life. Then we talk about me working again and not feeling the stress of being robbed again. “How do you feel about that?” he asks.

  He’s always asking me how I feel about something. But I’m getting used to it. “I feel like I need to get a better job next time,” I joke.

  “I need you to be serious this time, Kenisha. I don’t want this very random experience to torpedo your desire to be self-sufficient.”

  “I know,” I say seriously, “and don’t think it has. I think I just need to find a job better suited for me anyway, maybe in retail or maybe dance.”

  He nods. “Good, excellent,” he says with ease. “You sound good.” He scribbles in his notebook.

  “What are you looking for exactly?” I ask him.

  He looks up at me. “I’m looking for signs that you’re not coping with this situation well,
particularly after the last situation with your not-friend.”

  “I know neither of the things that happened was my fault. Both times it was somebody else’s stupidity interrupting my life.”

  He nods. “Exactly,” he says, smiling wide this time. “You have an excellent grasp of reality. I wish some of my other patients were as clearly focused on discerning the ills of life as you are.” He scribbles like crazy this time.

  “I have a question for you. If I told you something, would you go tell the police with what I said? Would you tell?”

  “If it would endanger you or someone else, I would be morally obligated to seriously consider it.”

  I roll my eyes. A simple yes or no would have done the trick. “So that’s a yes, right?”

  He doesn’t respond. “Do you know something you should have told the police about the robbery?”

  “If I do I’ll get someone in trouble. In more trouble than they’re already in.”

  “And if you don’t they will be in even more trouble eventually?”

  “No, I won’t let that happen.”

  “You may not be able to prevent it.”

  I think about what he said for a minute. Maybe I can’t prevent it or maybe I can. “I have another problem.”

  “Sure, go ahead. Tell me.”

  “I’ve been getting these phone calls from this girl.”

  “And…” he prompts.

  I take a deep breath, ’cause all of a sudden it seems weird to talk to him about this. I look at him. He is watching me patiently, waiting for me to say something like he always does. “It’s no big deal, really, it’s just that she keeps calling and saying I have something and she wants it back.”

  “What does she think you have?”

  “Money.”

  “I see. Do you indeed have her money?”

  “No, no, definitely not. I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t have her money, I don’t have any money. The only money I think I have is my mom’s money and I can’t get to that. Jade told me everything’s set for college with mom’s insurance policies, but that’s it. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “Did you tell her this?”