Chapter 22
When MJ tears out of the mall parking lot, she doesn’t go in the direction of Aurora Avenue, which I point out to her.
“That’s because I need to visit someone first.”
“Not Lux.”
“Hell yeah, Lux.”
“This is a really bad idea, MJ. For one, I gotta believe it violates the conditions of your bail. For two, Lux is kinda scary.”
MJ looks over at me, a second too long considering the speed she’s going, and says, “And I ain’t?”
“Oh, no—you’re really scary, especially right now when you’re going sixty in a thirty-five, which I’m certain is another violation of your parole and bail.”
That gets her to slow down, but she still keeps driving toward Lux’s place, which I see now isn’t too far from the mall because we’re turning into an apartment complex. MJ pulls in front of one of the buildings, parking in a numbered space. When I open my door to get out, she tells me to wait here, but she can barely get out of the car before some woman runs up on her. I get out, too.
“Look, heffa, you’re in my parking space again,” the woman tells MJ. I don’t know where this chick came from, but she must be like my neighbor Mrs. Jenkins, watching for people to park in her space just so she can run outside and go off on them. I don’t think she just happened to be leaving her apartment when we arrived because she doesn’t have a purse. According to Lana, the only women who don’t carry some kind of bag are hookers and joggers, at least in her experience.
“It’ll only be there for a second. My friend will move the car if you need the space,” MJ says, throwing me the keys as she continues toward the apartment building.
The parking space chick blocks MJ’s path. Oh, that isn’t good.
“That’s not the point. The point is that’s my space and I told you the last time that if you did it again, I was calling the police.”
“Excuse me, but the police wouldn’t write a ticket for this, since you’re on private property.” Both MJ and the pissed-off woman look at me like it’s their first time seeing me. “Um, I’m just saying . . .”
“I ain’t got time for this. Get the hell out of my way,” MJ says, shoving the woman. Okay, now the woman would have a reason to call the police since MJ’s shove might be construed as assault. Time for me to do more than just cite the law.
“Hey now, MJ. This nice lady isn’t who you’re mad at,” I say, stepping between them. I doubt the lady is all that nice given the teardrop tattoo under her right eye.
“Like hell. I’m mad at her too, now.”
“Well, she isn’t who you came to see. One issue at a time, right?”
“Yeah, you right. I need to stay focused so I can handle my business,” she says, leaving me and the angry woman on the sidewalk.
I get in the driver’s side of the car and back out of the woman’s space while she watches, hands on her hips and looking like she wants to hurt somebody. But by the time I parallel park the car in the fire lane right behind her parking space, the woman is gone. She’s like a spy in stealth mode with all the sneaking up on you and sneaking away. I get out of the car to see where she could possibly have gone in five seconds.
That’s when I hear all the yelling. I look up to see MJ outside Lux’s apartment door and from what I can tell, it’s Lux doing all the hysterical yelling. Maybe he isn’t as tough as I thought, although MJ has more than a few pounds and inches on him. Then she throws him up against the wall, her right forearm rammed up against his chest and dangerously close to his windpipe. That’s my cue to get up there before she commits about twenty violations against her parole and her bail.
I reach Lux’s door just in time to hear MJ tell Lux, “I’m gonna kill you.” I drag her away before she can.
I’m surprised to find Lana in the kitchen when I get home. Hopefully she won’t notice I’m still wound up from our visit to Lux’s place. Even though I didn’t actually fight anyone, I feel like I could have if anyone stepped to me. It’s sort of the way I always want to fight someone whenever I leave a Jason Bourne movie. I feel like I’m a badass just from watching someone else be one.
“You’re home early,” I say.
“I’m not really home yet. I was in the neighborhood running down a suspect and figured I’d grab some lunch—ham sandwiches. Want me to make you one?”
Speaking of badass. I know Lana’s been a cop for a long time, but it never stops sounding weird to have your mother say stuff like that—I was chasing a murderer, then thought I’d grab a sandwich. Although in this case, it probably wasn’t a murderer. Homicide arrests always require a boatload of paperwork and she probably wouldn’t be home until the middle of the night if she’d gotten a lead on a killer this morning.
“That’s okay. MJ and I just came back from Sonic.” No need to tell her what happened between the restaurant and home. “Kind of close to home to be making an arrest. What about your cover?”
“If I locate the guy, I’ll have a uniform make the arrest. So how’s MJ doing?”
“Um . . . she’s dealing with it as best she can.”
“It’s been crazy this morning, but when I go back to the department, I’ll see if there have been any new developments on her case.”
I just hope any new developments don’t include Lux charging MJ with assault, but I’m banking on the typical bad guy M.O.—that Lux has enough dirt to hide that he wouldn’t willingly get the police involved in his life.
Lana finishes making her sandwich but doesn’t bring it with her when she joins me at the kitchen table.
“Chanti, I really did hear what you said the other morning—that your father should know about you. You’re completely right about that, and he will, just as soon as I’ve checked him out.”
“What is it you have to check? You’re hiding something else, because I know you aren’t this worried about a sixteen-year-old B and E charge.”
Lana stays quiet, which confirms my accusation, but I’m still in the dark.
“Okay, if you won’t tell me that, I have another question about him, and it’s pre-arrest so you should be able to tell me.”
“What is it?”
“The few times you ever talked about him, you said it was just a one-time thing, that he was just someone you met at a spring break party and that you barely knew him.”
“Right” is all she says, but I read more in the way her body language changes. The story isn’t “right” at all.
“First off, that so isn’t you—meeting a guy at a party, hooking up with him like that. Even before you became a cop and trusted no one, that just isn’t you.”
“I was a girl, not the person you know now. You’re going to be a whole different person when you’re my age. You’ll see.”
“No, I don’t think so, but let’s say I give you the benefit of the doubt. We assume he doesn’t know I exist, or if he does know you have a kid, that he doesn’t know I’m his.”
“So?”
“So why is he is he trying to contact you? Why is he so persistent? I may not know much about boys, but I do know there probably isn’t a guy on the planet who will track down some random girl he hooked up with at a party sixteen years ago. Most guys would have forgotten you the minute he told his boys about you the next day at school and began his search for the next hook-up.”
“Right.”
“Would you please stop saying right and tell me something real, like if he was just some guy, why were you there when he was arrested? Or did that happen the same night y’all made me? Because that must have been one helluva night,” I say, not realizing my voice has gotten louder or that I’m growing as upset as I was when she first admitted my father doesn’t know I exist.
“I did meet him at a party. That part wasn’t a lie, and neither was the part about our being together for a short time. But it was for more than one night, and I fell hard for him. It was mutual.”
“So what happened?”
“A couple of months after we met, I found out about you and I was going to tell him. Then he was arrested and I never got the chance. It wasn’t like I was going to marry him. I was so young, I wanted to go to college.... Seeing him being put into a squad car just made it easier not to tell him.”
“I thought you fell hard for him.”
“I did, but by the time he was sentenced I realized I was just infatuated. I’m sure that’s all it was for him, too.”
“I want to know him, Mom. I want him to know me,” I say before I leave her and go to my room. I have more questions, but none that Lana can answer, like why he’s trying to contact us after all this time. To be honest, I didn’t spend much time thinking of my father until he resurfaced, and when I did, I spent it angry at him for not giving a damn. Now that I know Lana never even told him about me, I’m not sure what to replace the anger with. So far, the only thing I’ve come up with is curiosity—nothing more or less than that. But at least I’m not mad at him anymore.