Dating Games Read online

  Rafe turned, and was ready to bolt when he heard, “C’mon, don’t leave, Rafe. Give it a chance.”

  Hearing his name, Rafe stopped his forward movement and stood on the porch, knowing that now his mother knew who was out there.

  “Who did you say?” Rafe’s mother said, slowly stepping toward the door.

  “Raphiel. Your son.” Smoke’s voice sounded even cheerier now. “Ma, Pops, your son is home now.” Smoke walked up between the two, placed his arms around each of their shoulders, and said, “Now we’re a family again. Finally.”

  Rafe opened the screen door and stepped into the house. He saw the surprised and anguished looks on both his mother’s and father’s faces. His mother took a step back, bumping into Smoke, as if she was seeing a ghost.

  Reading the expression on her face, Rafe asked, “What’s wrong? You aren’t happy to see your son?”

  She said nothing, so Rafe looked to his father. “How about you, Pops? You got anything more to say to me now that I’m in your house, and you can’t just hang up the phone on me like you did when I was in prison?” Rafe’s voice shook with emotion because of all the times that he tried to reach out to his parents, and was ignored.

  “Son,” his father said, carefully extending a hand, as if to calm a rabid dog about to attack. “Now you have to understand. We were—”

  “You were what!” Rafe yelled, slamming the inside door as hard as he could. “What were you so damn busy doing that you couldn’t come to see me, couldn’t write me back, couldn’t even take my fucking calls!”

  “Don’t you use that language in my house, son,” his father scolded.

  “Or what, Pops? What the fuck are you gonna do? You gonna put me out your house? You gonna fuckin’ disown me? Too late for that. You been doin’ that for the past two years.”

  “Raphiel,” Rafe heard his mother say. “How else were we expected to react? We were grieving for our son.”

  “And what about me?” Rafe said, looking up at his mother, a tear spilling down his cheek. “Don’t you think I was grieving for my brother? Don’t you think I was dying just like you were because he was killed? You two had each other, but who the hell did I have to help me get through Eric being killed? I was relying on the two of you, but I had no one. No goddamn body!” Rafe yelled. “Because you didn’t want to see me.”

  “Because it was your fault,” Rafe’s father exclaimed, stepping forward in front of Rafe’s mother. “You were out there slingin’ that shit, wearin’ those fancy clothes, comin’ in here with fistfuls of dollars, and your little brother was taking all that in, wanting to be just like his big brother Rafe. If you had never started doing that, your brother would still be alive. We’d all still be a family. But we aren’t. And there ain’t nobody to blame for that but you.”

  Rafe shook his head and started to chuckle sadly. “You blame me for Eric’s death because I was slingin’, making that money …” He chuckled again, raising a finger to wipe the tear from his face. “But where did all this stuff come from Pops?” Rafe said. “You win the lottery or something? You win some kind of lawsuit? Where you get the money to afford all this fine-ass furniture and that Cadillac outside, Pops?”

  His father didn’t say anything.

  “What! Cat got your fucking tongue, Dad?” Rafe said, taking steps up to his father, then walking past him over to the entertainment center, thumbing through the extensive collection of DVDs.

  “You talkin’ about the fistfuls of money I influenced Eric with, but what about you, Pops? You knew where I got that money. You knew who I was hanging wit’ to get that money. But now I get out of prison, and I come over here, and Smoke calling you Pops, calling her Ma. You talking to Smoke like he’s your new son. Ma is over here giving him hugs and shit, callin’ him baby and shit, and I’m thinkin’ the only reason that ya’ll so happy to see him is because he paid for all this. That motherfucker,” Rafe said, stabbing a finger in Smoke’s direction, “bought you all this shit.”

  “Hey, hey,” Smoke cautioned. “We’re all family here. No need to talk like that.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Smoke,” Rafe yelled, then turned his attention back to his parents. “Am I right about that, Pops? Is he giving ya’ll money?”

  His father didn’t say, just dropped his head low.

  “Ma, what is it? Are you takin’ money from this man, or what?” Rafe demanded, extending a stiff arm in Smoke’s direction, jabbing a finger at him.

  “Yes,” Rafe’s mother answered shamelessly. “But it ain’t the same money. Smoke is clean now, and what were we supposed to do!” she spat, trying to step toward Rafe, but held back by his father. “You were in jail. Eric was dead. We didn’t have anything. We had no money. We had nothing. And then Smoke was good enough to come along and tell us how sorry he was that Eric got killed and that you were in prison. He said he wanted to help us, because he was your friend, and because of what had happened to Eric. Were we supposed to turn him down?”

  Rafe looked at his mother, shaking his head at how disgusted he was with this entire situation.

  “Answer me, Raphiel,” she said, still pulling to get loose from his father’s grasp. “He was offering us money that we desperately needed, but we were just supposed to tell him no? I wasn’t going to do that. We had nothing else. Both my sons were gone, but at least I’d have money,” she said, tears running down both her cheeks. “It couldn’t compare to getting my sons back, Raphiel, but it was something. God-dammit, it was something,” she said, turning and falling into her husband’s embrace.

  Rafe could no longer bear to look at her. He hated her, hated them both right now for how they had treated him, and for taking Smoke’s money, even though they’d condemned Rafe for working for it so many years ago. It was different money, his mother claimed now, but she was taking it from the same man.

  Rafe scanned the room again, took in all the things that Smoke’s money had bought them, then looked at his parents. They had not changed. They were the same two people they were when they lived in the badly furnished, paint-chipped house from years ago, and he wondered if they thought selling the memory of his little brother was worth an Italian sofa.

  “Good-bye,” Rafe said, and he knew those would be the last words he would ever speak to his parents.

  “MAN, I’M really sorry, Rafe. If I knew it was going to go down like that, I would’ve never brought you over there,” Smoke apologized to Rafe. They were parked in front of Rafe’s house, the car running. Smoke had made several attempts to speak to Rafe on the way there, but Rafe didn’t respond until now.

  “What are you doing calling my parents that?” Rafe said, finally turning to look at Smoke.

  “Remember when we shorties, when my folks would be gone for days, sometimes even weeks? When they wouldn’t leave no food in the crib. Remember that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember when you told me to come to your house, when you let me eat there, and then your folks let me sleep there with you and Eric? They asked me once what was going on at home, and when I didn’t want to tell them, remember what they said to me?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Rafe said, nodding his head.

  “They said, don’t worry about it, Samuel. Whatever’s going on, it’ll be okay, but ’til then, you can stay with us. They didn’t have to do that, but they did. They was more mother and father to me than my own folks was. My people didn’t care about me, but your folks did!” Smoke said, emotion in his voice. “You was my brother, and that meant your family was my family. So when you went away, when little Eric got killed, what the hell else was you expecting me to do?”

  Rafe didn’t say anything, just turned away, looked out his window.

  “Look at me, motherfucker!” Smoke said, snatching Rafe by his shirt, forcing him to pay him attention.

  “They gave to me when I was down, when I had nothing, so I was doing the same for them. They treated me like I was they family, so now I’m treating them like they mine.”
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br />   Rafe just stared at Smoke, not speaking a word.

  “What?” Smoke said.

  “You done now?”

  “What you mean?”

  “You don’t got to give to them no more. Their son is out. Their real son.” That remark seemed to hurt Smoke. It was intentional. “So you can just keep your money from now on.”

  Smoke shook his head. “I can’t do that, brotha. They need that shit, man. I been giving them money for two years now. They depend on that now.”

  “You said you owe me. Pay me back by stopping what you’re doing,” Rafe said.

  “Tell them to tell me they don’t want it no more. Then I’ll stop.”

  Rafe looked at Smoke, hatred starting to grow inside him for the man. “Whatever,” Rafe said, jumping out of the car.

  “Rafe,” Smoke called out of his window. “Don’t be like this, man. You know how long I been waiting for this day?” He stepped just outside his car, so Rafe could hear him as he continued distancing himself from Smoke.

  “I’m only doin’ it for you, man,” Smoke yelled. “I love you. Believe that!”

  FOURTEEN

  HENNESEY told herself she would check out the two children’s books the little girl just handed her, and when she was done, if the guy at the back of the library was still staring at her, she would say something to him. Exactly what she would say, she wasn’t sure. Maybe something like, “Hey weirdo? Would you mind keeping your eyes on what you’re reading, or getting the hell out of here?” Or maybe she’d just go over to the dozing gray-haired security guard and tell him to put the thug who kept peering over his book at her out on the street.

  She assumed he was a thug with his hair all braided up like that. He had a hardened look about himself, like he could’ve killed a man, knocked off a bank, or spent years in jail. Henny laughed to herself, thinking that it was probably all three.

  She stamped the two checkout cards with the return dates and slipped them back into the little girl’s books. She handed them to her and said, “You enjoy those now, okay?”

  The little girl took the books and smiled back up at Henny. “Okay,” and Henny couldn’t help but see herself in that girl.

  Now Henny would see what was going on with this man. She pretended to be busy behind the counter, and then all of a sudden, she quickly looked up, directly at him. Just as she had thought: he was gazing at her again, but he quickly ducked behind the big book he was reading, hiding his face.

  Henny laughed again to herself, thinking no man is strong enough to look directly into the eyes of Hennesey Rodgers and not be changed, not be seduced, not be transformed into the whimpering, slobbering puppy dog that he truly is. He wants me is what it really is, Henny thought to herself. But then again, who the hell was she fooling? Was there ever a man who truly wanted her for more than getting an inside shot at her sister, Alize? No.

  Henny was the smart one, the one who wore glasses, sweatshirts, and jeans. Ally was the seductive one, the one who traipsed about in high heels and thongs. That guy was probably staring at her because she had something in her teeth, or maybe her hair was sticking up, making her look like a cockatoo.

  Who knew, and what difference did it make anyway? He was a thug, and that definitely wasn’t Henny’s type. But he was kind of cute, she told herself, sneaking a peek at him now as he went about writing something on some paper.

  Just forget about it, and do your work. You have your entire life to think about some man, she told herself. She’d shifted her thoughts to the stack of books in front of her when her sister walked in.

  “What’s up, bookworm?” Alize said, flopping her purse on the checkout desk. She was popping gum in her mouth, and her hair was all done up, wrapped and curled and spritzed in some way that led Henny to believe that she had just left the salon. She was wearing lowcut jeans that damn near exposed her ass crack and another one of those shirts that exposed her pierced navel.

  “Came to check out a much-needed book on fashion, Ally?” Henny said, smiling.

  “Cute, sis, but the only help I need would be from a book about how to stop being so damn fine.” Ally chuckled and did a little dance, ending it with a spin. “You like my hair? Just got it done.”

  Henny gave it a quick look to see if it had changed any from a moment ago. “It’s interesting. That’s all I can give you,” she said looking back at the library’s computer screen.

  “Whatever. Why don’t you check out, or punch out, or whatever you do around here, and let’s go get something to eat and see a movie.”

  “You know I don’t get off for another three hours, Ally.”

  “So. Leave now. You always talking about how you want us to spend more quality time together. Here’s your chance.”

  “I got to work,” Henny said, stamping some recently returned books, and placing them in a stack to get reshelved.

  “You trippin’. You up in here makin’ probably four dollars an hour, when you about to go away to school in less than a month. Quit this job, and let’s hang. Stop being such a stick up the butt. Damn, you only got one life. Have fun with it.”

  Maybe she was right, Henny thought. Not about quitting the job, of course—she had two more weeks here, and she wouldn’t abandon old Mrs. Pembleton like that. But maybe she was right about having more fun, about living life more fully, and the first thing that popped into her head was the man who had been eyeing her. As she had so many times before, Ally must’ve been reading her twin sister’s mind, because just at that moment, she heard Ally say, “Oooooooh, giiiirrrrlllllll,” turning around to face Henny, and sliding halfway down the front of the checkout counter, as if her knees were weak from what her eyes just beheld.

  “Who is that fine-ass nigga over there?”

  “Who?” Henny said, playing dumb. “What fine-ass nigga are you talking about?” she asked, trying to mimic her sister’s speech, but the words sounded stilted, awkward coming out of her own mouth.

  “That nigga back there.” Ally tilted her head in the man’s direction.

  “I don’t know who he is. Why would I know who he is?” Henny felt both intimidated and defensive.

  “That’s right. Please forgive me. Forgot who I was talkin’ to. Fine-ass man sittin’ around, probably been here for hours, and why would I think my sister would know who he is. But don’t worry because I’m about to find out.’ Ally dug into her purse, quickly pulled out a compact mirror, popped it open, checked her face and hair, smacked her lips, then shut the compact. “How I look?”

  “What are you going to do?” Henny asked, feeling very threatened now but not understanding why.

  “What you think I’m about to do? ’Bout to go over there and take care of my business. Now how I look?”

  “Fine,” Henny said, halfheartedly.

  “I know that. Just wanted to hear you say it.” Ally smiled, confidently turned around, and swished her round ass down across the library floor, through the tables, and toward the man who had been eyeing Henny for the past hour.

  Ally was strutting confidently on her high heels as if she didn’t have to second-guess a single thing in the world, and all Henny could think was, Fall, fall Ally. She wanted Ally to have a misstep, get her feet all tangled up in those heels, and land right at the feet of that man. Then she’d be so embarrassed that all she could do was crawl away. But that didn’t happen. Ally didn’t fall, and Henny watched as she spoke to the man, as the man spoke back to her. She saw Ally pull out a chair, sit in it, and scoot up, almost in between the man’s knees. She saw the man laugh a little, saw her sister laugh a lot, flirtatiously place a hand on his knee, and then Henny had to turn away.

  Although this wasn’t Henny’s man, she still felt slighted now that Ally was over there talking to him. Things never changed, she thought, and remembered the countless little boyfriends she thought she really liked and thought really liked her. But then she would walk down one of the dark hallways of their building, and find them kissing Ally, or the elevator doors would
open in front of her, and she’d find Ally and one of the boys on the elevator floor, her sister’s shirt pulled open. And how could she forget, last year, when Ally was screwing one of those boys right on the living room couch.

  That was Henny’s last boyfriend, and when she saw that, it almost didn’t even register. She simply walked past them to her room and said in an unaffected voice, “If you get stains on that couch, Mama’s going to kill you.”

  It was what she’d grown to expect regarding Alize, but now, for some reason, she truly felt betrayed.

  Henny didn’t know how much time had passed—five, maybe ten minutes—but when she looked up again, Ally was standing in front of her, gasping for air, as if she had run around the perimeter of the library, before making her way back to that very spot.

  “So how’d it go?” Henny asked, but she didn’t have to, judging by the huge smile on Ally’s face.

  “The boy is fine, and I’m feelin’ his ass tonight, sis,” she said, waving a torn piece of paper with the guy’s number scribbled on it. “You slipped on this one, Henny,” Ally said, grabbing her purse off the counter. “See you later,” she said, and then clip-clopped her butt up out of there.

  She was right, Henny thought. She did slip on this one. But it would’ve only been for a minute. She was just about to go over there before Ally came in, but now … Yeah, she’d slipped. But once again, Ally made sure that she fell. Henny banged angrily at the keys of the computer, and this time when she looked up, the man was standing at the counter in front of her. Henny stumbled back, almost fell, but regained her balance before that happened.

  “May I help you?” she asked, composing herself, pushing her glasses back up on her nose.

  The man said nothing, just smiled, and Henny hated herself more because he was a lot cuter than she originally thought. But cute really wasn’t even the word. Maybe handsome? No, something deeper. Something very close to beautiful. It was in his eyes, something so deep that Henny couldn’t put it in words.