“A cab? The cabdrivers around here try to rip a sistah off. The last time I took a cab, bro man almost hit a truck, ran three lights, and then had the nerve to demand a tip on top of the eight-dollar fare.”
“Dang! You’re lucky you got home,” Tempest giggled. “Did you give him a tip?”
“Hell, yeah! I told him he needed to learn how to freakin’ drive. That was his mofo tip.”
Tempest and Janessa both snickered while Tempest picked up a box of instant oatmeal off the shelf and read the label. They only had one brand, a generic one, and Tempest decided against it, since Quaker Oats were her favorite.
“Besides,” Janessa continued, “Momma only gave me about twenty bucks for ninety dollars worth of groceries, so I had to come up with the rest.”
“That’s messed up.”
They went down the frozen food aisle, and Tempest was disappointed again to find out they didn’t sell the low-fat frozen dinners she liked.
“I wouldn’t mind if the food was for my parents, but Fred and his crew of fart-infested friends eat up the majority of the food at the crib.”
“Damn, not fart-infested?” Tempest chuckled.
“Mega-fart-infested!” They both fell out laughing. “I don’t see how in the world the sistahs they date deal with their funky asses. If they were smart, they wouldn’t let them mofos eat anything gaseous within two hours of bedtime.”
“What about Fred?” Tempest asked, already assuming the answer. “Does he have a woman?”
“Hellz naw! What kind of woman would date a skank, crater-skinned, elephantine, stinking troll like him?”
“Damn, sis!” Tempest shook her head, wondering how Janessa and Fred managed to reside in the same house without killing each other. “You sure are hard on your brother!”
“He did have a woman once, but that was way back in the day.”
“Word?” Tempest tossed a loaf of wheat bread in the cart. She’d never heard of the brand, but bread was bread, and she was down to the ends of the loaf at home. “I’ve never seen Fred with a woman, or maybe I just don’t remember her.”
“Well, I’ll never forget the desperate hoochie.” Janessa picked up a package of pecan twirls and threw them in the cart. Tempest wanted to tell her that eating sweets after a workout was defeating the purpose but decided to let it slide. She was just glad Janessa had been going to class and keeping her company. “She was about four-foot-nine, 360 pounds, high yella like me but she had freckles, an orange hair weave and more teef than a set of quintuplets.”
Tempest slapped Janessa lightly on the arm. “You’re so stupid!”
Tempest headed to the checkout line and got behind a woman in the express lane who was well over the limit of ten items.
“Is that all you’re getting?” Janessa inquired. “Why the hell did we come in here? We could have gotten a loaf of bread at 7-Eleven.”
Tempest put the two items on the belt and threw a copy of the National Inquisiter in for good measure. She was surprised they even carried tabloids. “Yep, this is it. I’m scared to eat half of the generic stuff they have up in here. Plus, I don’t like the way that woman was eyeing us. I’m not about to give this place a bunch of my money.”
“I heard that!” They waited patiently for the cashier to ring up the customer in front of them. “Tempest, by the way, I want to run something by you.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve made a decision.”
“What type of decision?”
“After what happened on New Year’s Eve with Dvontè, I realize I’m concentrating on the wrong things in life.”
Tempest put her arm around Janessa’s shoulder and gave her a loving hug. “That’s a good thing. What do you plan to concentrate on?”
“School,” Janessa blurted out. “I’ve decided to apply for the fall semester.”
Tempest squealed, and suddenly all eyes were on them. “That’s spantacular! What school?”
“I’m thinking about Howard, if I can afford it.”
“I have some information about scholarships at my office. We can stop there on the way home and get them.” Tempest was so excited, she wanted to jump up and down and do cartwheels. Janessa going back to school had always been a dream of hers, but it had never been Janessa’s dream. Not until now. “This is so cool!”
“Thanks, sis!”
The cashier started ringing up their three items. “What are you going to major in? Have you decided?”
“Pharmacy,” Janessa replied. “I’ve always wanted to be a pharmacist, ever since we were little.”
“I never knew that.”
“That’s because I never told you, dufus!” They both giggled and chided each other until they got outside.
Tempest started pushing the cart back to the lock-up. “Whatever happened to the cart you took home?”
“Fred gave it to one of his homies, Benito. He uses it to collect soda cans.”
Tempest wondered why a man Fred’s age would be collecting soda cans. “Dang, is he homeless?”
“Naw, he’s shacking with his girl, but he doesn’t work. Trifling ass!”
“So he uses the money from the cans for food?”
“Naw.”
“Drugs?”
“Naw.”
“Then what?”
“Niagra.” They both cackled. “He must have that limpdickitus,” Janessa added.
Before Tempest could push the cart back on the rack, they heard someone shout, “Hey, gurls!”
Both of their eyes almost popped out of their sockets when they spotted Janessa’s grandmother, Mrs. Porter, approaching them, all hugged up with a man.
“Hey, Grandma!” Janessa exclaimed, immediately giving the man in the burgundy polyester slacks and black leisure jacket the once-over.
“Hello, Mrs. Porter,” Tempest said once they got within a few feet of them. She also looked the man over and decided he was attractive for his age. He looked to be considerably younger than Mrs. Porter. She had at least twenty years on him. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Why’s that?” Mrs. Porter asked. “Senior citizens have to eat, too.” Everyone laughed except the man on her arm. She realized she was being rude and started the introductions. “This is Mr. Roscoe Munroe,” she said, caressing his forearm seductively. “Roscoe is one of my neighbors.”
Tempest and Janessa both gazed at him with pasted-on smiles.
Mrs. Porter pointed at Janessa. “Roscoe, this here is one of my grandbabies, Janessa, and her best friend, Tempest.”
Roscoe flashed his dentures. “Nice to make the acquaintance of you lovely young ladies.”
There was a bunch of nervous energy while everyone just stared at each other and the customers walking in and out of the store.
Janessa broke the silence. “Grandma, I was just telling Tempest I plan to go back to school in the fall.”
Mrs. Porter let go of Roscoe’s arm and flung her own arms around Janessa. “You’re going to college?” she asked proudly. “That’s wonderful, baby!”
Tempest noticed Mr. Munroe continuously glancing down at his watch. “Claudine, we better get on in here and get the whipped cream,” he insisted, giving Janessa and Tempest a little more information than they cared to know. They both almost freaked when he added, “We can still make it to the video store before all the special movies get checked out.” Mrs. Porter blushed and giggled, and Janessa had to fight the urge to go upside the man’s head. “You know most of the good ones go fast on the weekends.”
Mrs. Porter noticed the killer look on Janessa’s face and Tempest’s agape mouth and decided it was time to part ways. She held her hand out. “Roscoe, give me a quarter for a buggy.”
Tempest pushed her cart toward them. “Mrs. Porter, you can have this one. Save your quarter.”
“Thanks, baby,” Mrs. Porter said, still blushing as she took ahold of the cart.
“Nice meeting you,” Mr. Munroe proclaimed, walking off through the automatic doors of the store.
“Same here,” Tempest uttered, her mouth immediately falling back open the second the words left her lips.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Janessa lit into her grandmother. “Grandma, is that your boyfriend?”
Mrs. Porter threw her humongous purse in the upper part of the basket and snickered. “Let’s just say that dildo you gave me awakened feelings in me I thought were long dead.”
“Oh, my!” Tempest whispered, trying not to let images of Mrs. Porter fucking herself with a dildo flash through her head.
Mrs. Porter laughed. Janessa leaned up against one of the columns and took in air like she was sucking it through a straw. “Like I said before, it’s just like riding a bike.” She winked at them and reiterated. “Just like riding a bike.”
They watched her saunter off, switching with a pep in her step they didn’t recognize.
“Damn, your grandmother’s been getting her freak on!” Tempest exclaimed.
“Big-time,” Janessa agreed, walking off to Tempest’s car.
Tempest squinted into the store and spotted the two of them walking down one of the aisles. She shook her head when she saw Mr. Munroe slap Mrs. Porter on the ass. “That’s too deep for me!”
CHAPTER 19
the baby’s here
tempest slammed on her brakes, barely missing the trash truck in front of them. She adjusted her rearview mirror so she could peek into the backseat.
“You okay back there, Kensington?”
Kensington reached over the seat and yanked on Tempest’s hair. “No, I’m not okay!” she screamed out, another contraction kicking in.
“Damn,” Tempest stated to no one in particular. She made a quick assessment of their situation. Traffic was at a complete standstill. There was road construction about a mile ahead, and two lanes were closed, forcing everyone to merge into one.
Kensington yelled out again. “Please hurry, Tempest! I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it in!”
Tempest giggled slightly. Didn’t Kensington realize she couldn’t keep a baby inside when it was ready to come out?
“Just hang in there with me, Kensington. We’re almost there,” Tempest fibbed. They were still more than four miles from the hospital. “Just take deep breaths.”
Tempest grabbed her cell phone off the passenger seat again. Just like before, it gave two short beeps when she hit the power button, letting her know the battery was low.
“Shit!” Tempest was bordering on a panic attack.
“Why are you cursing? I’m the one in labor,” Kensington managed to utter between breaths.
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Tempest demanded to know. “Why’d you wait until you were so far along?”
“I wasn’t sure it was labor!” Kensington snapped back at her. “My water never broke!”
Tempest rolled her eyes in disgust and clamped her hand over her mouth. She felt like screaming, but realized it wouldn’t resolve anything. She was just glad Kensington had phoned her at all. It showed a degree of trust, and it meant Kensington had grown to depend on her. She wouldn’t let her down. She couldn’t.
“Kensington, lay your head back against the door and elevate your feet on the seat,” Tempest instructed. She pulled the car over into the closed-off lane nearest to the curb, put it in park, and opened the driver’s-side door. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” Kensington yelled out after her, all the while obeying the instructions she was given. Another contraction kicked in, this one stronger than the last. She yelped out in pain.
Tempest ran up to a group of men standing on the sidewalk. It didn’t take a genius to deduce they were slanging dope.
“Listen, I need your help,” she blurted out.
“With what?” one gold-toothed nucca in a three-hundred-dollar jacket and a two-hundred-dollar pair of basketball shoes asked out of curiosity. He looked her up and down, sizing her up. “You’re not 5-0, are you?”
“No, I’m not 5-0,” Tempest hissed at him.
“Don’t get bitchy with me,” was his only reply. He reached up and scraped something off his gold tooth with the nail of his pinky finger—the nail bamas always keep long so they can pick their noses.
Tempest wanted to curse him out but opted for the polite approach. She scanned the other faces in the group. All babies, she concluded. None of them looked a day over twenty-one. Two of them were twins.
“Look, guys,” Tempest began, trying to sound as pleasant as possible. “I have a young sistah in the back of my car about to have a baby.”
“Oh, shit!” one of them exclaimed.
“Word? Fa real?” another one shouted.
“So what you want us to do?” Gold Tooth asked, making his way over to Tempest’s car to take a look-see. He glanced back at his friends. “Damn, she’s not lyin’ homies.”
“I know one of you has got to have a phone,” Tempest pleaded. She knew good and damn well drug dealers didn’t bother with pay phones anymore.
Miraculously, every last one of them pulled out a wireless phone. Tempest clasped her hands together and looked up at the sky. “Thank you, Lord!” She looked at Gold Tooth, since he seemed to be the leader. “Can you call 911, please? We need an ambulance.”
“Sure,” he quickly agreed. “But if you think they’re going to send an ambulance out here anytime soon, you can forget it.”
They all chuckled.
The statement confused Tempest. “What do you mean?”
“Take a look around you, sistah,” one of the other ones stated. “This is Dodge City, not Georgetown.”
Tempest did take a quick look around. They were standing in one of the roughest parts of D.C. If rumors were true, the response time on 911 calls was pathetic.
“Well, call anyway,” she insisted.
Gold Tooth sucked his teeth and started dialing. “Okay, as you wish.”
The other one continued his soliloquy on emergency services while Kensington let out another scream from the car. “If this were Georgetown, you could open your front door and find the police and fire department standing there,” he stated avidly, following Tempest back to her car. “Around here, you have to wait damn near an hour for them to show.”
Tempest swung the back door open and almost lost her stomach contents. Blood was everywhere, mixed with a clear liquid. “Shit, her water broke!”
“Tempest, please help me,” Kensington begged.
“They’re on their way,” Gold Tooth announced. “For what it’s worth.” He cut the phone off and glanced at his watch. “I’m timing these mofos, too.”
Tempest couldn’t believe that none of them seemed the least bit frazzled about the blood. Then again, they were probably used to the sight of blood.
“Looka here, I have an idea.” Gold Tooth pointed to the twins. “Ronnie and Ray-Ray both got bikes.”
“Bikes?” Tempest asked incredulously.
“Yeah, motorcycles. They can cruise right through all this traffic shit.”
Tempest spotted two Harley Davidsons leaning up against the side of the building. “You’ve got to be kiddin’?”
“Hey, I’m just making a sug-ges-ten. It’s up to ya’ll. Wait around here for another two hours. Up to you.”
Tempest had to make a split-second decision. She surveyed the traffic. It hadn’t budged. The trash truck had moved maybe fifty feet.
“Kensington, listen to me,” she said, trying to remain calm while she pulled Kensington out of the backseat, legs first. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Tempest, I can’t ride on the back of a motorcycle,” Kensington blurted out in agony.
“You don’t have a choice,” Tempest proclaimed. “I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”
Gold Tooth gave swift instructions to the twins. “Yo, go get the bikes, man!”
By the time Tempest got Kensington out of the car with the help of Gold Tooth and one of the others, the twins were waiting right beside the car, mounted on their bike
s.
“Be careful,” Tempest pleaded while they lifted Kensington onto the back of one of them. Ray-Ray was spray-painted on the side of the engine casing. “You be careful with her, Ray-Ray.”
“I will,” he replied, taking off with a jolt in the direction of the hospital. Kensington was holding on to his waist for dear life.
“Not too damn fast, man!” Gold Tooth yelled out.
Tempest hopped on the back of Ronnie’s bike. “Hurry! Please hurry!”
• • •
Tempest’s legs felt like they were about to fall off as she wobbled out of the recovery room. They’d delivered the baby girl by cesarean section less than ten minutes after they’d arrived. They were just in the nick of time, too; the cord had been lodged around the baby’s neck.
Tempest waited in recovery with Kensington until she woke up. Kensington was in great spirits. She was just glad it was all over. So was Tempest.
She asked a passing lab technician for directions to the nursery and wobbled down there to see the baby. Much to her astonishment, Gold Tooth, the twins, and the rest of the crew were all gathered around the window, tapping on the glass and cooing at the babies.
“I don’t know how to thank you guys.” Tempest hugged them all one at a time like they were long-lost relatives. “We wouldn’t have made it in time without your help.”
“Don’t mention it, sistah,” Gold Tooth said, cracking a smile. He pointed to the tiny baby wrapped in a pink blanket, lying in a bassinet marked Baby Sparks. “That little honie in there was well worth it.”
Tempest pressed her face up to the glass. Kensington’s baby had smooth, caramel skin and a head full of black, curly hair. “She’s beautiful!”
Ray-Ray agreed. “Yeah, her daddy’s gonna have to beat the lil’ knuckleheads off with a stick when she gets older.”
Tempest grimaced. What damn daddy?
“We’re about to roll out,” Gold Tooth announced, looking a bit teary-eyed.
Suddenly, it hit Tempest. “Oh, no! My car! My purse! They’re still out on the street!”
“Naw, it’s all good.” Gold Tooth dangled Tempest’s keys in front of her face. “I drove your ride over here. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”