Pushing Pause Read online

  “Wow, no more Metro train and Union Station, I’m seriously jealous.”

  “You should stop by Monday and check it out. My bedroom looks just like it did before. But check, the house is as old as the Pyramids. It’s like an antique warehouse.”

  “Cool, I will, although I can’t stay long, I have to work Monday night. You talk to LaVon lately?” she asked.

  “Nah, I tried calling him a few minutes ago, he’s not picking up. I’m getting seriously tired of his drama. He’s always acting like he all that, wanna be a player and he’s got all these hard-up skanks on his tail and loving it. He so full of it, his drama is played and I’m seriously ready to blow him off.”

  My second line beeps. It was LaVon. So I hung up with Jalisa and picked up.

  “Hey, I was gonna call you,” he said first thing.

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “What, you don’t believe me?”

  “Can we not do this, okay?”

  “Not do what?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

  “Nothing, never mind.”

  “Yo, I’m cool, you acting all stressed and all.”

  “So what’s up? What you doing tonight?” I asked, hoping that he’d come and keep me company my first night there.

  “Chilling, you know how I do.”

  “Why don’t you come over and hang out.”

  “Where you at?”

  “At my grandmom’s house.”

  “In D.C.?”

  “Yeah, in D.C.”

  “I ain’t driving all the way to D.C., shorty.”

  “Why not? You drive your butt over here all the time,” I said, then I heard muffled voices and he covered the phone to say something to somebody there with him. “What, you got company?” I asked.

  “Check, shorty, some of my boys just came by, I’ll holler at you later.”

  “What?”

  “I gotta go.”

  “I called to talk to you and you gonna go ’cause your boys are there. What’s up with that? Never mind.” I hung up.

  I lay across the bed trying to decide if I should call my dad again. Then I heard Jade in her room with music on, then her talking to someone on the phone. Then a few minutes later I heard her going downstairs. I guess I fell asleep ’cause it was the last thing I remember.

  CHAPTER 10

  Dealing with New Drama

  “This merry-go-round is getting monotonous, up and down, round and round. I keep getting knocked down by the same drama over and over again, time for something new.”

  —myspace.com

  I fell asleep in my clothes.

  I was in a different room in a different house in a different city and state, almost state. I got up, grabbed a quick shower and got ready to start my day. Of course I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing now. Talk about a fish out of water.

  Anyway, I went downstairs to check what was happening. I figured maybe I’d sit outside awhile, but just as I decided to do that, my cell rang. I checked the number before I answered. If it was LaVon, I was gonna cuss him out. It wasn’t LaVon.

  I answered. “What.”

  “Kenisha.”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “That’s not the greeting I expected.”

  “Too bad,” I muttered under my breath.

  “You need to correct your tone and your attitude.”

  Tsst, I sucked my teeth, seriously not in the mood to listen to his parental crap. “Oh, please,” I muttered again, this time loud enough for him to clearly hear me.

  “As I said, that’s not the greeting I expected.”

  “And this isn’t the bedroom I expected, but I have to deal with it, don’t I?”

  “I know this is difficult for you to understand, but it was for the best.”

  “Best for who, you?”

  “Your mother and I needed this time apart. We need to reevaluate our relationship and come to some reasonable conclusions. We had choices to make, they weren’t easy, but they needed to be made.”

  “Uh-huh.” I hummed, sounding disinterested.

  “I’m sorry if the decisions we made are unacceptable to you.”

  “Whatever,” I said, already tired of listening to his trash-talking.

  “Watch your mouth, young lady, I’m still your father.”

  “Since when?” I asked. He went quiet for a while.

  “We need to talk,” he finally said.

  “Are we moving back home?” I asked.

  “That won’t be possible.”

  “Then what do we have to talk about?” I hung up. His drama was getting old. That smooth-talking crap might have worked for those stupid women he surrounded himself with at work, but it didn’t fly with me. He was my father, yes, so big deal. My cell phone rang again. It was him. I just let it ring.

  I went downstairs to see what was going on in the kitchen, since I started smelling this awesome aroma. I didn’t know what it was, but it started to make my stomach grumble. I found my mom sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea and flipping through the Sunday newspaper. “Good morning,” she said.

  “Morning,” I said, then looked around for my grandmother or Jade.

  “Momma and Jade went to church. We’ll be going with them next week. I thought you might want to sleep in this morning. Are you hungry?”

  I nodded, realizing that I was. My stomach wasn’t growling or anything, but I could serious eat something.

  My mom got up and went over to the refrigerator and pulled out a dozen eggs, orange juice and some bread. I went over to the stove and check to see if the water in the teapot was still hot. It was. So I turned and looked around for a cup.

  “The second cabinet on the left,” she said, “first shelf right in front of you. Tea bags are in the cabinet next to them on the right.”

  So I got a cup and poured myself a cup of water, then added a tea bag and sugar, then sat at the table and started flipping through the same newspaper my mom had.

  “How’d you sleep?” she asked, adding bacon and sausage to my plate.

  “A’ight, sorry, fine, I slept fine,” I said, correcting myself and realizing that I was almost lying ’cause I completely knocked out last night. I didn’t even remember turning off the light. I remembered falling asleep and hearing voices, I think I heard my mom talking to Jade.

  “Good,” she said as she cracked two eggs into a frying pan and began to scramble then.

  “How’d you sleep?” I asked her.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I think I heard you talking to Jade last night.” She looked at me. “I don’t get it, what’s up with her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s always pissed, at least with me she acts pissed.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Did I do something to her?”

  She paused a second before answering. “No.”

  “So what is it, then?”

  “Jade didn’t have the advantages you had growing up, so give her a break, okay?”

  “You mean kiss her butt.”

  “I mean, give her a break. It’s not easy living here.”

  “I heard you say that you were proud of her.”

  “I am, I’m very proud of her, I’m proud of both of you. Do you have any plans for today?”

  “No, not really, I guess I’ll unpack some boxes, then I might check out the neighborhood, go for a walk and look around.”

  “Just be careful,” she said as she finished with my eggs, and the toast popped up just as she poured a glass of juice. I ate, listening to her talk about the good old days and how it was when she was growing up around there. “You know your grandfather was a preacher.”

  I look up, interested for the first time. “Where?”

  “The same church Momma and Jade attend.” She smiled and shook her head. “They loved him there, the man could do no wrong.”

  She stopped talking and just started staring. It was strange. “So he died, right?”

&nbs
p; She nodded. “He was killed coming home from church one night. The neighborhood almost rioted trying to find the fool who stabbed him for twenty-six dollars and nineteen cents. The thing was, he would have given the money up anyway. He was like that, always giving to someone else. His time, his patience, his love…” There was something in her voice that didn’t sound convincing, but I just let it go.

  Jade and my grandmother came home from church about an hour later. I was back in my room by then, going through my stuff. I looked up just as Jade walked past my open door on her way down the hall to her bedroom. She didn’t say anything and neither did I.

  Seriously, I had no idea what her problem was. She walked around the house, coming and going like she was queen of the universe. No one said anything to her and her snarly, condescending and uppity attitude was really getting on my last nerve.

  Jalisa called, we talked awhile, but still no LaVon. I was organizing my CDs when my cell rang again. It was my dad.

  “I’m sending a cab for you this evening. I want you to have dinner with me here, we need to talk,” he said.

  Usually it was no big deal for my dad to take just me to dinner. We did it a lot. But I seriously wasn’t in the mood to deal with him right then. He talked more and I finally agreed, then I went back to emptying boxes. Around five o’clock I showered, changed my clothes and went downstairs to wait for the cab.

  “Where do you think you going?” my mom asked.

  “Dad is sending a cab for me. He wants us to have dinner at the house tonight,” I said, “to talk.”

  “Oh, really, when did all this happen?”

  “He called a few hours ago,” I said.

  “And you’re just finding time to tell me this now?”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “Hell, yeah, it’s a big deal, you’re not going,” she said sharply.

  “I told him I would.”

  “Then tell him you’re not. You’re not going back to that house.”

  “Mom, I want to go, I want to hear what he has to say.”

  “No,” she said adamantly, and turned her head.

  “So what, you’re just gonna keep me locked up here in this house for the rest of my life? I can’t go anywhere just in case I might run into him or by some chance I see him in the street? What am I supposed to do if he calls me again, hang up on him?”

  “I didn’t say that. You can’t go to that house. You tell him to have your meeting someplace else.”

  “It’s already set for the house, he’s cooking.”

  “Your father doesn’t even know we had a kitchen. Believe me, he’s not cooking.”

  “Okay, then, he’s ordering out or something, what’s the big deal? We ordered out for dinner all the time.”

  “Change it.”

  “Fine, I’ll have the cab take me to a restaurant, he can meet me there.”

  “Call him now and set it up.”

  I called and got his voice mail. I left a message that I’d meet him at the restaurant off the parkway around the corner from the house. “Is that better?”

  “Don’t stay too long and don’t even think about going over to that boy’s house.”

  A car horn blew outside. I looked out the window; there was a cab in front of the house. “I have to go, bye,” I said. She looked at me and nodded without saying anything. So I went outside and hopped in and he took off. Thank God. I was sick of this already. I turned around to see my mom standing on the front porch.

  We got there quicker then I expected ’cause there wasn’t a lot of traffic late Sunday afternoon. We pulled up in front of the house and I sat there waiting, looking up at my old house.

  “This is it right?” the cabbie asked in broken English.

  “Yeah,” I said, “how much?” I asked, opening up my purse to get my credit card.

  “It’s already taken care of,” he said.

  I nodded, but I still didn’t move. I saw the cabbie glance at me in the rearview mirror. “Thanks,” I said, then finally opened the door and got out.

  So now I was back home, my real home, where I wanted to be. I walked up the front steps and the first thing I saw was that my dad had obviously moved back into the house, ’cause there were curtains at the windows again and new front door knobs had been put back on to replace the ones my mom took when we left. I walked up and used my front door key to get in, but it didn’t work. I rang the bell.

  Dad opened the door, smiling at me. I looked at him like he was crazy. What in the world did he have to be smiling about? He started talking all nervous and all like he wanted to say something but didn’t. I got ready to head upstairs when he told me to come into the living room and sit down like I was company or something.

  In one day there was new furniture already. But it was cheap and flashy like it was picked up at some cheesy bargain basement place. Okay, I knew my mom had designed and decorated the house before, but I had always assumed that my dad had some kind of taste. I guess I was wrong.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said, crunching the cheap material as he sat down.

  “So you want to tell me what this is all about?” I asked, getting right to the point before he started his trash-talking.

  “You look good,” he said, stalling.

  “Thanks.”

  “I can’t believe you’re getting so grown, look at you, you’re like a young lady now. I’m so proud of you.”

  “Then what did I do?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, do what?”

  “I must have done something for you to kick me out.”

  “No, nothing, sweetheart, you didn’t do anything.”

  “So what was this about?”

  “Your mother didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you should ask her.”

  “Mom’s not talking, so I’m asking you,” I said.

  He took a deep breath and sighed long. My dad hated confrontations, so usually my mom covered for him. That’s why he always had my mom tell me bad news, like that was gonna separate him from it and make him blameless or something. “People change, they grow apart, and your mother and I grew apart.”

  “I guess I grew apart from you, too, huh?”

  “It’s not like that, Kenisha.”

  “Then what is it like? I don’t understand. Fine, you and Mom break up, separate, divorce, whatever, why can’t I still live here with you?”

  “It’s just not possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not,” he said firmly.

  “Okay, so what about school next month?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”

  “No, Dad, that’s not good enough, I want to come home.”

  “I’m sorry, baby, but that’s not possible, at least not right now. Maybe in a while you can come and spend the night or something.”

  “Spend the night, what’s with that?” I asked.

  “How’s your mother?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Ask her,” I said.

  “How’s your mother, Kenisha?”

  “Fine, taking sleeping pills, muscle relaxers, anxiety pills, whatever, you know the drill.”

  “Listen, Kenisha, there are a few files I’m gonna need that were left in my office here. Your mother must have packed them, I need them back.”

  “Talk to her.”

  “I can’t do that,” he said. I shrugged. “Also, I was told that you had my client list on your laptop. I need that back, too.”

  “What client list on my laptop?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Not really, if you need something, you need to talk to Mom. She packed everything.”

  “That’s not good enough,” he said, then started talking this psychobabble stuff and I wasn’t really listening, then he stopped and looked behind me. I turned around.

  “Kenisha, you remember Courtney, don’t you?” he said.

  I looked at her standing t
here smugly with a Betty Crocker apron tied around her fat waist and a string of pearls around her neck and all of the sudden it made sense. She was the new woman in his life. We got put out of our house because of her.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t bring this skank in here,” I said, standing with my hands on my hips. She was standing there with this big-ass stomach, smiling at me. I started over to her, but my dad grabbed me back, blocking between us ’cause I was ready to get busy on her ass. Truth was I had never fought a day in my life, but then, that day, that minute, I was seriously ready to step up on her.

  “Excuse me, what did you just call me?” Courtney asked.

  “You heard me,” I said, leaning around my dad.

  “Listen, little girl, it wasn’t my idea to bring your ass back here tonight. If it was left up to me, you’d be…” she started, then stopped when my dad turned around to her.

  “What?” I said, “if it were left up to you, what?”

  “You need to show some respect,” she finally said.

  “Respect. Who, you, are you joking? You spread your legs for him, break my family up, move into my house and I need to show some respect for you? Please.”

  “My being here don’t have nothing to do with you, and for your information, I didn’t break up anything that wasn’t already broke,” she snapped back.

  “What are you, a moron? This is my house, I live here.”

  “Correction, this is my house, I live here now.”

  “Skank,” I said, ready to kick her ass again.

  “You want some of me, come on. You need to step off, you and your crazy-ass pill-popping momma,” she said, taking her apron off and throwing it on the floor.

  “That’s enough,” my dad said, pulling my arm and holding me back. I looked at him and laughed. He must have been kidding. He actually moved this skank into my house and kicked me out. So I was about to tear that place up and kick her back to wherever she came from. “Kenisha, stop it.”

  “Me stop it, what about her?”

  “Yes, Kenisha, you need to calm yourself down,” Courtney said teasingly.

  “Skank.”

  “Kenisha,” he said firmly.

  “What?” I looked at him like he was insane.

  “Courtney, would you please give me a minute with my daughter?” he said over his shoulder. She didn’t move. He turned to her. “Please, please.”