Dime Read online

  I had. A few days before that first baby after Vonna went home to its own family. Janelle took other babies, lots of them. It got hard to sleep with her crying every night after one left and before the next one came. I didn’t win a spelling bee again.

  Trevor drummed my head a few beats with his rolled-up test. “You’re smart at reading.”

  “Too bad your English grades suck,” Dawn told me. All of our grades sucked.

  “At least we’re passing.” Dawn chewed her gum. “Look. One point away from a C.” I looked at the red 71 and the red D scrawled across the top of her paper, matching mine.

  I thought of that gold D on Daddy’s tooth.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  The scar splitting his eyebrow.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Trevor asked.

  “I’m tired.”

  “You must be partying too much.”

  Dawn rolled her eyes. It was good they had no idea what I was. It was essential. But then again, I didn’t like them making fun of me.

  Trevor was set to work for his father installing carpets. Dawn was going to babysit her nieces for the summer. “We’re doing basketball camp at the Y on Thursdays,” she said. “You should sign up too.”

  “Maybe,” I lied.

  “What do you have going on, anyway?” Trevor asked.

  I shrugged. “Reading, mostly.” But I wasn’t sure how I was going to read with no more school library; just the public ones, which would take away from my work hours if I wanted to go check out books.

  Chapter Eighteen

  IT WAS A steamy, slow night, almost dark, but not just yet. Brandy and I were walking the track up and down, up and down. She was telling me about her grandmother. “She had a picture of John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Junior and some lady on the living room wall.”

  “Who was the lady?”

  Brandy shrugged. “I don’t know. Some black lady.”

  “How long did you live with her?”

  “And she had this crazy money. Silver dollar. Two-dollar bill. Bicentennial quarter.” Brandy looked at me. “You know them?”

  I shook my head.

  “Dime, you looking fine,” someone called out to me. At first I thought it was Whippet, because he was always chasing me or Brandy. But it wasn’t. It was Stone. I hadn’t seen him coming. He stepped up from the street he was crossing onto the curb.

  “Turn around,” Brandy whispered, but by now she didn’t have to tell me. We spun and walked back down toward room eleven. It was just a run-down house. It didn’t even have eleven rooms in it, but ours was next to an old kitchen and the number on the door said II.

  “Get over here, bitch,” Stone called. “I got something for you.” He was up on our side now, taking fast steps with his short legs. I could almost feel him catching up to us.

  “What do he want?” Brandy asked.

  “I don’t know.” We walked faster. I wished L.A. would turn up. Stone was less likely to bother us if she was around.

  “Dime!” Stone called. “You better stop and face me when I’m talking to you.”

  If Daddy saw him calling to us, even if our backs were turned, he might think we were associating with Stone, and then there would be a price to pay.

  I was walking so fast, I was almost running. Brandy was keeping pace next to me. “Damn.” I heard her stop.

  When I turned around, she was skip-hopping because her thonged sandals had broken a strap. “Come on,” I hissed. “Forget the sandal.”

  Stone was catching up to us. A car slowed down with two johns inside. I ran to it, pulling Brandy with me. We jumped in without even naming a price. When I looked back, Stone was holding Brandy’s shoe.

  * * *

  “Daddy not going to like this,” L.A. said, shaking her head.

  He took our coins as the sun came up and was out so fast we didn’t have time to say anything to him. Now it was hot, late afternoon, but L.A. was making mashed potatoes anyway. Even with the windows open and the fans on, I was sweating at the small of my back and down my little cleavage. I kept adding ice to my water. Sometimes I would drink it, and sometimes I would drip it onto my skin.

  “We have to tell him, L.A.,” I made myself say. “Or else he’s going to make up some other story when he sees Stone has her shoe.”

  “Leave it, I said.” L.A. pointed the wooden spoon at me. “Stone ain’t even going to remember any damn shoe, much less show it off to Daddy.”

  I looked at Brandy. She was crossing her arms, fingers up in her pits, in that way she did when she was feeling nervous.

  “It wasn’t even Brandy he was trying to talk to,” I tried for the third time. “It was me.” I had to speak up. I didn’t want Daddy to hear about it and think we kept something a secret from him. He wouldn’t like that.

  “Well, if you didn’t open your mouth to Stone, then what is you so worried for?”

  “That girl, Shine,” Brandy answered for me. “She said Stone been talking about Dime. He want to take Dime from Daddy.”

  “Please.” L.A. sliced some butter off the stick into her pot. “Dime barely even making nothing for Daddy. What do he think he going to do with her?” She frowned. “Anyway, pimps don’t be discussing they plans for a ho. They just do what they do. That bitch, Shine, a liar.”

  “I still think we should tell Daddy what happened.” I looked at Brandy even though I was arguing with L.A. “People saw him chasing us down. Probably Whippet or George saw. Somebody is going to say it all wrong to Daddy.”

  L.A. pursed her lips at Brandy. “Stone trying to take you from Daddy with his junk?” She was thinking Stone was going to offer Brandy drugs for free. Except nothing is for free. L.A. was suspecting that Stone was going to make Brandy pick up again, get addicted, and then choose him over Daddy. I never thought of that.

  “I been clean for over a year,” Brandy said. She hadn’t had any of those nightmares again in all this time. “Everybody know what Daddy did for me. Everybody know I’m not trying to use.”

  “Then why he chase you?”

  “He was chasing me,” I repeat.

  “Dime right,” Brandy said. “We should tell Daddy.”

  “You not telling,” L.A. said. She dipped her finger in the hot potatoes and then licked it. “It’s my say-so, and I’m saying he don’t want to hear your petty shit. Leave it.”

  * * *

  It was late July, and the days were getting hotter and hotter. The nights weren’t much better. I sweated all the time, and the dates smelled fouler than ever. I wished so badly there was a way I could shower during work, but Daddy wouldn’t let us leave the track with all those johns wandering around in the heat, ready to pay money to be hot in a way that felt good to them. At home I showered after L.A. and Brandy since they had seniority, and the water was freezing by the time it got to me. That should have felt good, and in the first second it did, but then I would begin to shiver and shake, and before I could get as clean as I wanted, I would be too cold, and I’d have to step out onto the tile. So each day I felt hotter and then colder and then dirtier and dirtier, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Every few weeks, after I earned my quota, Daddy would take me. His room had an air conditioner, which was like a taste of heaven. But his smell wasn’t so good anymore, and I would be so tired. A few times I would say, “Could you just rest with me tonight?” Because even though at first I wanted him like that all the time, now I was so worn out. All I really wanted, maybe all I ever really wanted, was that being held tight to someone whose body was still and solid, who loved just being cuddled up to me, without wanting anything more. “Please?” I tried a few times. The first time he was quiet a split second and then he did things to me he thought I would like before he did things he liked, but I was hot and tired, so I guess I wasn’t very good. He didn’t hold me after, but sent me back to the alcove.

  The second time I asked, he punched me with his fist in my belly, and I thought I would
vomit from the pain. Then he told me he was sorry and that he hated to hurt me, but if I didn’t appreciate being with him like that, it was a damn shame. He didn’t send me back to the alcove, though. He spooned me close, instead. I tried to imagine the smell of barbecue potato chips, and I wondered for the first time ever, Where is she? Where is that woman who rocked me in her lap and tickle-scraped my shoulder, whispering, “Goodnight stars, Goodnight air, Goodnight noises everywhere”?

  * * *

  Two days after none of us said anything about Stone, Daddy came home holding Brandy’s sandal by the broken strap. He marched right over to her and used it to pop the back of her head.

  “The hell is this?”

  “My shoe.”

  He shoe-popped her again. “You got something to tell me, ho?”

  “No sir.” I’d never heard her call him sir before.

  “Stone say you been out of pocket.”

  “No sir.”

  I looked at L.A. She was the Bottom, and it was her job to set Daddy straight. But L.A. didn’t say a word.

  Daddy slapped the back of Brandy’s head with his palm this time. “Explain yourself, bitch.” I still wasn’t used to it, but somehow, in the past few weeks, bitch was mostly how he referred to us.

  “Stone was trying to talk to me.” I hated speaking up, but it wasn’t fair, otherwise.

  Daddy turned around. “What?”

  “The other day he was trying when I was out working with Brandy, and we were running away from him. Her shoe broke, and we left it and got in a car with some dates. We never talked to him. We never even looked at him.”

  Daddy eyed me for a long time. He dropped the sandal. “You expect me to believe that garbage?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Word,” Brandy added.

  “What do Stone want with you?” Daddy said. “You so fresh, you hardly know how to do nothing. You not making anybody’s quota. I’m the only fool who keep you.”

  “Ask L.A.,” I forced myself to say. Brandy crossed her arms and threw me a look to tell me to shut up. “We told her and she said not to tell you.”

  “What you knew?” Daddy asked L.A.

  “I didn’t know nothing,” L.A. said. “Did I, Brandy?”

  Brandy shrugged.

  “Better not have known and not told,” Daddy told L.A. “Or you in serious trouble.”

  “I didn’t know shit,” L.A. said. “Damn.”

  Daddy turned around and whomped Brandy again. She had to move her feet to keep from falling down, but she kept the tears in. “If I have cause to suspect you been out of pocket in any kind of way with Stone or anybody else, you better pray for your life.”

  He reached over and whomped me, too. “And that there for telling lies on Stone.”

  The back of my head hummed.

  * * *

  When he took me the next time, he was gentle. Gentle with his body and gentle with his voice. He held me close, using his remote to turn on slow, relaxing music and wrapping those liquidy sheets around us.

  “You the best,” he said. “You so fresh and beautiful. You smart and mature.” He kissed my forehead in that way I loved. “You going to have a big place with me, Beautiful.”

  “What do you mean?” I looked at his split eyebrow scar, wondering how he got it. “You always say that, but what does that mean?”

  He smiled because I almost never asked questions, and when I did he thought it was cute. He held me tighter, and that was all I ever wanted. “You going to see,” he said. “You going to see.”

  * * *

  There wasn’t anything to read because Daddy wouldn’t let me go to the library. I tried telling him that if I didn’t do the assigned summer reading for school and failed the tests in September, somebody was going to come looking at Janelle’s, and then there would be issues. I didn’t think this was true, but I hoped Daddy wouldn’t know. It didn’t work, though, because he said he’d let me check out those books later, right before school, when they’d be sharper in my mind, anyway.

  So after I woke in my sleeping bag, but before I slid out of it, I would try to remember a book I liked and read it again in my head.

  Chapter Nineteen

  L.A. GRABBED MY arm. “Come on,” she said. “We going home.”

  It was only eleven thirty. We weren’t even halfway into the night. “What for?”

  “Shut up and walk.”

  Nobody was there when we got to the apartment. Sometimes Daddy picked one of us up early and took us home to be with him for a minute. But never this early.

  “What happened?” I asked L.A. Where was Daddy? Where was Brandy?

  L.A. put the stove on for her tea, even though it must have been ninety degrees. “Brandy got herself locked up. Daddy left out. I got to change and go get her.”

  “Can I come?”

  “No.”

  “What did she do?”

  L.A. actually stopped to stare at me. “You stupid?”

  I guess I was. I knew girls were arrested. I saw it happen twice. And I saw them come back, too. I saw Stone and Whippet beat their girls for it. I saw George give one of his the day off. You never knew how your Daddy was going to react.

  “Stay here, and don’t go out,” L.A. said. “Make some food for when we get back.”

  I made roast chicken just like that first night. That was a long time ago. I made a cold string bean salad and some macaroni salad too. I kept an eye on that back burner. I mopped the kitchen and changed everybody’s sheets, except for Daddy’s. I dusted. I straightened up all the clothes boxes and L.A.’s dresser drawers. I didn’t touch Daddy’s room since we weren’t allowed in it unless invited.

  Then I sat on the couch and waited. I wanted something real to read so much, but there was nothing but an old People magazine and an Ebony magazine. I wanted a book. Something fat and long.

  When I finally heard the door, I jumped. It was Daddy. He was on the phone. “. . . got the other one coming soon. Going to have forty toes down. Nah. If that bitch rolls over, I’ll . . . What? Yup. Switch it to indoor is what I’m saying. New little one going to show . . . what?” He stopped talking long enough to motion to me to pack up some food. I packed it up quickly while he listened and then talked some more. “Russian bitches make you . . . That’s what I’m saying. . . . North Carolina and then we changing . . .” He took the bag I held out and grunted something, then tapped off the phone.

  “I’m out,” he told me. “L.A. going to call me when Brandy back home. Nobody leave. Not until I get back. Only you go out for food. Tomorrow at four. I got eyes watching you. Shop and home under a hour. Get enough to last three, four days. Understand?” He handed me thirty dollars.

  What about L.A.? “Why aren’t you giving L.A. the money?”

  “L.A. ain’t here, is she?”

  “No, but—”

  He tap-slapped my cheek. “Don’t give me no attitude. Just be happy I trust you and do what I say.”

  * * *

  Brandy couldn’t have gone back out to the track anyway. Her lip was swollen twice its size, and she had a black eye. She was walking funny too.

  “Cop,” she said. “Soon as we got in eleven, he put his stupid handcuffs on me, told me I’m under arrest for solicitation, and then did it to me anyway.” She shook her head. “Damn.”

  “Where Daddy?” L.A. asked me for the tenth time in under thirty minutes.

  “I told you. I don’t know. He said stay in three or four days and he’ll be back.”

  “What about food?” L.A. opened the refrigerator. “We got hardly nothing.”

  I didn’t want to answer that.

  “We supposed to starve?”

  Somehow Brandy knew. “He gave you coins?” she asked me. She spoke softly, but L.A. whipped around anyway.

  “He said I should go at four.” It was five thirty in the morning. Still dark out.

  “He gave you his money?” L.A. tilted her head at me. “He gave it to you?”

  I shr
ugged.

  “How much?”

  I showed her the three tens.

  “Why he gave it to you?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  L.A. slammed her bedroom door behind her.

  I made Brandy a plate of eggs. She examined her face in her round makeup mirror. “I need a shower.” She hadn’t sat down since she got back.

  “You okay?” She was standing strange. It hurt us sometimes, and I guessed with handcuffs on and a cop like that, probably it hurt more.

  She didn’t answer my question. “Why Daddy gave you the money?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He mad at me?”

  “I don’t know.” I trusted Brandy, but I didn’t trust anybody enough to repeat things Daddy said to me in private. I wanted to tell her about that Brother Down South and the Russians, but I was afraid he would know if I told. Daddy had some sort of magic like that: He knew everything.

  Instead I made myself eggs too. For Daddy’s sake, I called out: “L.A.!” But she didn’t answer or come out. So I didn’t make her anything.

  “This lady came,” Brandy said quietly. But not too quietly. She didn’t want L.A. to hear us whispering and think to listen, so she said it loud enough it was like regular conversation, but not so loud L.A. could hear the actual words. “A different cop brought me to her in some room. Cop was cool. The lady say they could give me a program to get me out of the life instead of a regular court date.”

  “A place to stay?”

  “Yeah. School. HIV test. A lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?”

  Brandy was eating standing up. She was leaning against the counter. “They don’t know, though. Daddy would find me. Probably kill me.”

  I thought about his guns. He had two. He said one of them was broken, but after George laughed so hard his beer sprayed out his nose over it, I thought Daddy just didn’t like how that one looked. It had a pearl handle and was small enough that he could hide it in his palm. He kept it in one of the shiny black drawers in his bedroom. The other gun was always on him somewhere. It was black all over. I thought it was a glock, but I wasn’t sure. He used it once to hit L.A., but I never knew what for. It left a bruise on her shoulder.