What's Real Read online

  WHAT’S REAL

  DAAIMAH S. POOLE

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHIING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One - Janelle Martin

  Chapter Two - Tanya Lewis

  Chapter Three - Natalie Martin-Grant

  Chapter Four - Tanya

  Chapter Five - Natalie

  Chapter Six - Janelle

  Chapter Seven - Janelle

  Chapter Eight - Tanya

  Chapter Nine - Natalie

  Chapter Ten - Janelle

  Chapter Eleven - Tanya

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen - Tanya

  Chapter Fourteen - Natalie

  Chapter Fifteen - Janelle

  Chapter Sixteen - Janelle

  Chapter Seventeen - Natalie

  Chapter Eighteen - Tanya

  Chapter Nineteen - Janelle

  Chapter Twenty - Natalie

  Chapter Twenty-one - Tanya

  Chapter Twenty-two - Janelle

  Chapter Twenty-three - Natalie

  Chapter Twenty-four - Tanya

  Chapter Twenty-five - Janelle

  Chapter Twenty-six - Tanya

  Chapter Twenty-seven - Natalie

  Chapter Twenty-eight - Janelle

  Chapter Twenty-nine - Natalie

  Chapter Thirty - Janelle

  Chapter Thirty-one - Tanya

  Chapter Thirty-two - Natalie

  Chapter Thirty-three - Janelle

  Chapter Thirty-four - Natalie

  Chapter Thirty-five - Tanya

  Chapter Thirty-six - Janelle

  Chapter Thirty-seven - Natalie

  Chapter Thirty-eight - Tanya

  Chapter Thirty-nine - Tanya

  Chapter Forty - Natalie

  Chapter Forty-one - Janelle

  Chapter Forty-two - Tanya

  Chapter Forty-three - Natalie

  Chapter Forty-four - Janelle

  Chapter Forty-five - Natalie

  Chapter Forty-six - Tanya

  Chapter Forty-seven - Janelle

  Chapter Forty-eight - Natalie

  Chapter Forty-nine - Tanya

  Chapter Fifty - Janelle

  Chapter Fifty-one - Natalie

  Chapter Fifty-two - Janelle

  Chapter Fifty-three - Tanya

  Chapter Fifty-four - Natalie

  Chapter Fifty-five - Janelle

  Chapter Fifty-six - Tanya

  Chapter Fifty-seven - Janelle

  Chapter Fifty-eight - Natalie

  Chapter Fifty-nine - Tanya

  Chapter Sixty - Janelle

  Chapter Sixty-one - Tanya

  Chapter Sixty-two - Natalie

  Chapter Sixty-three - Natalie

  Chapter Sixty-four - Natalie

  Chapter Sixty-five - Tanya

  Chapter Sixty-six - Natalie

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  Chapter Sixty-eight - Tanya

  Chapter Sixty-nine - Janelle

  Epilogue

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you Allah for this blessing.

  Okay, first and foremost I want to say thank you to everyone who has picked up, read, or told someone about Yo Yo Love and Got A Man. I appreciate the e-mails, letters, and love from everyone. I would like to thank all my family and friends for your continued support. All the readers, book clubs, African-American bookstores, Culture Plus, and A & B book distributors.

  To my family: my dad, Auzzie; my mom, Robin; my boys, Hamid and Ahsan; my sisters, Daaiyah, Nadirah, and Najah; my stepmom, Pulcheria; my grandmother Dolores Dandridge, and the rest of my family—thank you so much; I love you all. Thank you to Alvin Cooke, the Dandridges, Pooles, Wertzses, friends and anybody I forgot to mention.

  Thanks to Karen E. Quinones Miller (Ida B.) for always being there. Shawna Grundy (Gotta Have It), Nikki Turner (The Glamorous Life), Allison Hobbs (Insatiable), Camille Miller, Fatimah Lane, Bruce Seiber and Nancy Grant.

  Special thanks to my agent, Shashana Crichton. I would also like to thank everyone at Kensington Publishing: Karen Thomas, Nicole Bruce, Jessica McClean, and Lydia Stein.

  For everyone who wants to write, pick up a pen and get started. Dreams do come true.

  Thanks for the love,

  Daaimah

  Chapter One

  Janelle Martin

  “So that’s it? I can’t say anything to you? You’re going to go be a groupie for the weekend,” Sean said.

  “I’m not a groupie!” I yelled into the phone at work.

  “Any girls who follow rappers and athletes out of town are groupies!” Sean yelled back at me.

  “First of all, I’m not following anyone. Second, I don’t have to explain shit to you. You know what it is. Why don’t you just say you don’t want me to go?”

  “Okay, I don’t want you to go,” he said remorsefully.

  “I can’t do that, Sean. I already paid for everything and took off from work. I’ll see you when I get back. And as far as I remember, we are not together like that.”

  “Whatever, Nellie. If I really was a hater I wouldn’t have given you money to go,” he said.

  “You didn’t contribute that much. Bye, Sean,” I said and hung up. Men always want to be all up on you when they know somebody else wants you or you’re going out with your friends. If I was staying in the house doing nothing and asking him to go somewhere, Sean would give me fifty reasons why he couldn’t go. But since I’m going away he wants to act like he can’t live without me. I don’t owe Sean shit. He is not even my man. He has a lot of nerve asking me not to go on my trip. Sean is just my dog. We go to clubs and the movies together. He breaks me off when I need some. And he is there when I need somebody to talk to about my problems with a guy I’m dating. I’ve known Sean since high school. He was a senior and I was a junior. He used to like me, but at that time I didn’t date high school boys, so he wasn’t my type. We ran into each other at Pegasus Nightclub a couple of years ago. We were out of school and Sean looked good and had matured. We got together that night and it has been on ever since. I like Sean, but we could never be a couple, because he is somebody that is in transition. Transition, meaning he has great potential but has not tapped it yet. He’s twenty-five, hasn’t finished college, never had a job more than three months, but he says he’s going to be a millionaire by thirty. I wonder how. He’s cute and dresses stylishly. He was into button-down shirts, blazers, and ripped jeans before they were trendy. He is always superclean. I guess he is borderline metro sexual. He is funny, makes me laugh, and has goals, but he has no money. If he had the world, he would give it to me. But that’s the problem, he ain’t got no fucking money. He has visions for the future and a lot of good ideas, but no way to see them through. Our relationship is open, he can see who he wants and vice versa. We both try not to catch feelings when we talk to other people. We have talked about being exclusive, but we decided against it. Sometimes it’s hard, because like I said, he is my dog as well as my lover. I wish I would not go on vacation for his ass. I didn’t get mad at him when he went to All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles.

  I need a vacation from Sean, my job, and my family too! My mother and two brothers, Taron and Jamal, moved in on me about seven months ago. They were supposed to be staying with me for only a couple of months until my mom saved enough for another apartment or she found a job. Neither has happened and I am stuck with them. The public relations firm she worked at for eighteen years laid her off. She was a couple of years away from retirement. Th
ey were supposed to give her a pension, but instead they filed for bankruptcy and didn’t give my mom anything. She lost her apartment and her car was repoed. My one-bedroom apartment looks like a hurricane hit it because of them. I come home and there will be shoes, socks, and clothes all over the floor. My brothers leave the toilet seat up and don’t flush it. Taron is eight, Jamal is ten, and they are more than a handful.

  My mother cooks and won’t wash the pots she burns. And she burns everything, even rice. Then she tries to doctor the rice up with butter and seasoned salt like you can’t taste the burnt. As quickly as I clean up, they dirty up. I have stepped on race cars and tripped over balls. I am losing my damn mind. It’s so bad in my house that I’m ready to leave, but I don’t have anywhere else to go.

  My bills are kicking my butt. Everything is on the verge of being cut off. My electric is so high from my brothers staring at the damn X-box game all day. My cable bill is three hundred dollars from them ordering the same movies over and over again. My mother doesn’t click over when she’s on the other line and then she doesn’t give me my messages until two days later. I really am about to scream. I want to kick them out so bad. But it’s my mom and brothers, so I can’t. So I let them stay and I deal with it.

  I work at the Pique, a clothing store in the Gallery Mall in downtown Philly. I’m frustrated with my job because I am the assistant manager. I do everything the manager, Joan, should do. I do the payroll, inventory, dressing the mannequins, hiring, and firing. I close the store at night because Joan never has the time because she is too busy prancing her fat ass to Aunt Annie’s Pretzels at the other end of the mall. I have been in retail since I was about fifteen and it is getting on my nerves. I started out at the Gap; then I came here.

  I hate closing the store at the end of the night. Every time I close, I have to make sure all the clothes are put back, hung up, and all the hangers are straight and lined up. I hate cleaning out the dressing rooms. I also have to make sure the money is right and check all the employees’ bags to see if anybody tried to take home some free gifts from the store. The only good thing about working here is my 15 percent discount and being able to get first pick on any size 8 that comes in.

  It was almost closing time and there were still like twenty people in line. It was only me and the new girl, Shana, working. She’s a young girl who comes in after her classes at Community College. She’s like nineteen and a little ditzy but cool. Only problem with her is she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. Every other minute she has a void. So I have to clean up her mistakes all night.

  I was doing a return when Shana nudged me in the arm and said, “Janelle, that girl just put something in her bag!” I looked up to see what Shana was talking about. I saw the girl. It was now time to play security guard too! I walked over to a few feet from the petite girl who seemed to be helping herself to different color tank tops. Her bag was bulky. I watched her for a moment, then decided to approach her. First, I peeked at her through the jean rack and that’s when I noticed she had a baby stroller with her and no baby. Underneath the stroller was almost a whole rack of our jean shorts and cargo pants. I walked behind her and said, “What’s in your bag?”

  “What? Nothing’s in my bag!” the girl said as she turned around, startled and her eyes wide open.

  “Well, let me see for myself,” I said as I tried to take the bag from the girl.

  “No, get off my shit!” she yelled as she gave me attitude and tried to snatch the bag back from me. Customers were coming over to see what was going on. I could tell the girl was becoming embarrassed because of the crowd forming. I grabbed the bag again and it split open. Everything fell out. There were about a dozen shirts and aluminum foil on the floor. She looked down at the stuff and then up at me. Then I said, “Come with me.”

  She followed and said, “I got kids. Please don’t call the cops on me.” I kept walking to the front of the store. I felt sorry for the girl, but I had to call the cops. The aluminum foil let me know she knew exactly what she was doing. She was not a rookie. See, the foil deters our sensor system from going off. I grabbed the stroller and the rest of the merchandise. I asked the girl her name and was about to call the cops. Instead of obliging she ran out of the store. Shana called mall security. That was senseless because they were slow. They came about five minutes after she left. I didn’t bother chasing her. For what? They were not paying me enough for that shit.

  After all that drama we rang everybody up and emptied the store. It was a quarter to eight, the end of the evening finally here. I told Shana to hurry up and lock the door. As soon as she did a girl knocked on the door and asked if she could come in. I decided to let her in because she said that she only wanted to get one thing and technically we were not supposed to lock the door until five of eight. I said, “Okay, let her in.” Ten minutes later when I looked up, she was still shopping and trying clothes on. I told her that we were closing and she came out of the dressing room, said sorry, and paid for her things. Shana let her out and another woman tried to ask if she could come in. Nope, it was time to go home, I thought. I shook my head no. The woman said, “Please” and put her hands together like she was praying. I was tired and the store had to get clean. So I shook my head no again. She gave me an angry face and then said, “Your sign says you close at eight o’clock and it’s only seven fifty-five.”

  I looked back at her and said, “We’re closed!” She put her middle finger up and walked away.

  “Why didn’t you let her in?” Shana asked.

  “You saw what happened when we let the last one in. She didn’t want to leave. They know what time the mall closes. I have to count these drawers and get this place ready for tomorrow.” I went into the dressing room and found empty hangers and clothes everywhere. It kills me the way people trash dressing rooms. They try things on and just leave them on the floor without thinking about putting them back on the hangers. I guess if I didn’t work in retail I wouldn’t care either. Shana began vacuuming and I went around inspecting the racks. We didn’t finish cleaning the store until close to nine. I dropped Shana off at the subway, then went to the bank and made our deposit. I was so tired I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I was getting on my plane and heading on my vacation to Miami. A three-day weekend was what I needed. No ringing up anybody, no chasing people, no cleaning. I might even meet somebody down there. I heard all the men be down there looking good. I might get one and then I can drop Sean. My cousin Natalie and her friend Tanya are leaving today. I wish I could go with them, but I couldn’t take off Thursday and Friday. They needed me at the store because Joan wouldn’t come in.

  My uncle Teddy was going to drop me off at the airport so I wouldn’t have to catch a cab or the bus. He is my mother’s brother and always helps me and my mom out. We are very close. He helped my mom raise me. He never had any kids of his own. My mom said she doesn’t think he could have any. My real dad, Randy, was never there. I saw him every once in a while when he came to town. Randy just sent the child support check in the mail every other week. When my mother married my brothers’ father, my uncle Teddy was more of a father than their real dad, taking them to basketball games and jogging with them. Their father and my mom were married for ten years. They just got divorced about three months ago, but have been separated for six years. He don’t do shit for my brothers and only lives about six blocks from my apartment.

  I really can’t afford to go on this trip, but I need to go. I basically begged and borrowed to go. It’s a sad situation when you’re calculating your bills and you’re broke. But it’s even sadder to know when you get your next check you’re still going to be broke. I calculated I’m going to be broke three more paychecks until I pay everybody back who sponsored me to go on this trip. My uncle Teddy gave me money. Sean gave me a few dollars and my mom even chipped in and she doesn’t have any money. When you’re broke you learn how to make money stretch by any means necessary. I alternate months on paying bills. One month electric gets paid th
e next month the phone. It usually works. My car is another story. It is always breaking down. If it’s not the alternator it’s the brakes, fuel pump or a tune-up. It is always something and it always will be. That’s why I’m not worried about spending bill money to go on my trip.

  At least I’m going on vacation. Philadelphia International Airport, here I come. I can’t wait to get on the plane, sit on the beach, and drink a frozen lime margarita with a salt rim and forget all my worries.

  Chapter Two

  Tanya Lewis

  Last night I had a dream that Barry was still alive. He looked exactly the same way I remember. Same deep chocolate skin, tall, and a closely shaved brown bald head. He was on the run and I was with him. We were hiding out at a motel. We were lying in the bed talking when we heard banging on the door. Then I heard, “Open up! Police!” and then more banging on the door. We put on our clothes and escaped through the bathroom window. Barry kept saying, “Don’t call anybody, we got to keep a low profile. You can’t let anyone know where we are.” We checked in to another motel. We stayed inside about twenty-two hours of the day. We didn’t want anybody to know what we looked like in case the cops came around asking questions. “Don’t let anybody know where we at,” he repeated.

  We went to the movies in my dream and I remember I couldn’t concentrate. I thought the police were going to find us. I was worried that they were going to lock Barry up. Seeing and feeling Barry felt so real. Then I remember touching his face and saying, “Barry, you are dead. How did you come back to life?” He looked at me.

  Then that very moment I awoke. They say that when you dream about a dead person, that’s his way of making contact with you. If that’s true, Barry must know how much I miss him and how I think about him every day. How I wish I could have told him good-bye before he was murdered. Barry’s little brother Moe shot him in the head. They were both high, counting their money. Moe was playing with a silver revolver. He was always pulling out his old-ass gun on someone and pointing it. He picked up the gun and acted like he was going to shoot Barry and the gun accidentally went off. At least that’s Moe’s version of what went down. The police said Moe killed Barry over three thousand dollars and some crack.