Emma glanced from Deena to Caroline, tapping ash on the side of her dinner plate.
"If you don"t put that G.o.dd.a.m.ned cigarette out at your father"s table," Grandma Emma said through gritted teeth.
"Alright, alright."
With an exasperated sigh, Caroline stumped her Newport on the plate, ashes cascading into three fat pieces of catfish. She shifted in her seat and with two fingers, plucked the fabric of her dress from the wet folds beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"Listen," Grandma Emma turned back to Deena. "I gave them people my word that you gone do that hall, now you ain"t gone make no lie out of me," Emma said with the point of her fork. "You understand?"
Deena lowered her gaze.
"Yes ma"am."
Emma turned to her granddaughter, Keisha, Caroline"s fourth child. She was the same age as Deena.
"Now where"s that eldest child of yours at?"
"With his daddy," Keisha said as she poked at b.u.t.ter beans with a fork. "He"s the only one that really comes to see about his kid, you know? Snow"s a good dude."
Caroline nodded. "He"s got some ways about him, but he does handle his business."
Aunt Rhonda looked up. "So he still deals drugs?"
Deena grinned. She loved Aunt Rhonda. The woman was an oasis of sanity in the Hammond desert of madness. The youngest of Emma and Eddie Hammond"s children, she fled the Hammond household three months shy of her eighteenth birthday to pursue a nursing degree at the University of Florida. Now she worked in the maternity ward at Jackson Memorial.
"Not everybody can go to college, Rhonda," Caroline said with a roll of her eyes. "Like I said, he"s got his ways. But my grandson Curtis don"t never go hungry."
"Mhm," Rhonda said, lifting Coca-Cola to her lips. "But shouldn"t you thank the taxpayers for that?"
Deena giggled.
"And what the h.e.l.l are you laughing at?" Keisha snapped.
"Nothing." Deena lowered her gaze. "Nothing at all."
"Right answer." Keisha snapped.
The smell of weed met Deena from across the table. When she looked up, her eyes met Keisha"s, darker and flitting with scorn. Never had she been able to figure out what she"d done to earn Keisha"s wrath, but she"d owned it from the start. Memories of an eleven-year-old Keisha flaunting Deena"s wardrobe at school each day still ate away at her. The last gift of a once doting father, Keisha had taken Deena"s clothes with glee, relishing both them and the shock on her cla.s.smates faces each time she recanted the story of how Deena"s father"s had died.
"Bet if the church was payin" ya, you"d have time for the hall," Keisha smiled.
She plopped a sliver of cornbread into her waiting mouth and grinned.
"Mhm," her mother Caroline agreed.
Emma grabbed a few thick pieces of fried chicken from the tray and dropped them on her plate before turning a critical eye on Deena"s food. Collard greens, stewed okra with tomatoes and onions, b.u.t.ter beans and cornbread. No meat. Not a single piece.
"Chile what in the world wrong with your plate? " Emma demanded.
Keisha and Caroline snickered.
Deena glanced down. "Nothing. I thought I"d try to eat a little healthier." That, and she was saving room for dinner with Tak.
"Child, gimme that plate."
Emma produced a large, demanding hand. "You gone starve yourself listening to these white folks bout what you gots to eat. You gots black blood in ya. You needs to eat black folks" food. Simple as that."
Deena handed the plate over and watched in dismay as she dumped an a.s.sortment of chicken and catfish on it. Her gym"s treadmill didn"t have a setting high enough to run off all that fat.
Emma dropped the plate in front of Deena with a scowl. After succ.u.mbing to her stare, Deena reluctantly poked at a crispy piece of chicken thigh.
"Eat!" Emma snapped.
And with a sigh, she dug in.
"So," Aunt Rhonda said brightly. "What are you working on these days, princess?"
Deena was the only one she called princess, and the only one whose job necessitated variation.
"Renovations for a parochial school. I"m making it handicap accessible."
She tasted the collard greens. They were salty.
"So, basically you putting a wheelchair ramp in," Keisha said.
"Well, not exactly. There"s a complete re-envisioning taking place. We"re turning over every stone to make the place not just handicap accessible but handicap friendly, as well. Hallways are being widened, walls knocked down. We"re even putting Braille-"
"It"s a lot of crackers that work with you, huh?" Keisha said.
Deena froze. "What?"
"Crackers. White folks," Keisha rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Never mind."
Her mother laughed. "She ain"t notice them, girl. She one of them."
Keisha"s laughed reminded her of a siren.
"I"m black," Deena snapped. "Just as much black as I"m white."
But her aunt laughed. "Well, I can"t tell."
"She right, Deena, whether you like it or not. You ain"t got nothing from your daddy. It"s like that white woman just spit you out." Grandma Emma said. "White as snow, don"t "cha know. White as snow."
Deena lowered her gaze. It was always the same. She was Gloria Hammond"s daughter. White as snow, don"t you know.
CHAPTER FIVE.
Tak"s condo was a high rise on Ocean Drive, center stage on South Beach. "The Jewel on the Beach" was what they called the property, and from what he could gather, they took the claim literally. His loft, a three bedroom on the twentieth floor, had been purchased by his father at the vision-blurring price of 2.5 million. With it came private ocean access, a spa and fitness center and 24-hour white glove service. He was still trying to figure out what that one meant. Still, his place was a tattered old tent compared to the Mediterranean masterpiece his parents called home.
The Jewel was a thirty-story, sleek and lofty post-modern design envisioned by an M.I.T. professor who was once his father"s cla.s.smate. Tak remembered visiting the property as a potential buyer with his father and watching him scrutinize fixtures, pull out measuring tape and hara.s.s the real estate agent for blueprints. When he asked him just what he was doing, his father frowned with that all-too-common sneer of impatience and said, "Michael Cook was a B student. Any work by him needs to be double checked."
When Tak graduated from UCLA, there"d been no discussion about him remaining in Cali. His father simply told him that he was to pick a condo somewhere in South Florida and that would serve as his graduation gift. Had he been a different sort of father, Tak would"ve taken the gesture as an indication that his father wanted him near. But since he was Daichi, Tanaka he figured it simply never occurred to him to ask his son"s opinion about where he might want to live.
Still, the condo was beyond generous, and Tak couldn"t help but be excited about it. And though it was expensive, he could afford the property tax on it. Thanks to his father, he"d never had to prescribe to the struggling artist routine. A trust fund of upwards of twenty million released to him the day he graduated from college had ensured that Tak would never have to lift brush to canvas should he not desire to. But he enjoyed work and enjoyed earning his own income.
No one, it seemed, knew how much his father was worth. He kept his wife, children, everyone, save the IRS and a lone accountant, swathed in ignorance. For years, Tak ran a guestimate, tallying projects and expected payouts in the hopes of figuring out his father"s elusive worth. But when he gained access to his trust fund and found that it alone more than what he"d figured his father was worth, he knew that math wasn"t his field.
After graduation, Tak educated himself on market trends, invested his money aggressively and kept up the frugal spending habits he"d developed in college. The result was a net worth that swelled from twenty to twenty five million, and more importantly, the sense that he shared responsibility for his fate and success.
His first artistic triumph came as an undergraduate at UCLA after winning a citywide collegiate compet.i.tion. The grand prize was an art gallery showing with major press. From it, he was able to segue a short-lived fame into a full-fledged gallery deal, first in Miami, and then eventually in Manhattan.
He should"ve considered himself successful. Last year, he"d been commissioned to do an oil painting for the Miami Museum of Art and the earnings for it alone were stellar. Better still, his gallery showings were always well attended and always profitable. But his scale for weighing success was tilted and broken-after all, he was the son of Daichi Tanaka. Short of morphing into Pica.s.so, Van Gogh, or his father, his version of success was all but unattainable.
CHAPTER SIX.
Deena arrived at her grandmother"s house in time for breakfast. There were grits on the stove alongside sausage links, eggs, bacon and flapjacks. Coffee brewed in the percolator while orange juice waited on the table. But Deena could stomach no food. Not before what she had to do.
She stared at the flimsy slab of door that stood between her and Anthony"s room. White and peeling, he"d slammed it in her face in a thousand variations of exasperation, anger, annoyance.
What she wouldn"t give for him to slam that door once more.
Deena brought a hand to the bra.s.s k.n.o.b and hesitated. Never had she walked into Anthony"s room unannounced. There was something so final about presuming to do so, so irreversible, that her body seemed unwilling to do it. She turned the bra.s.s k.n.o.b and the door slipped open.
There.
It"s done.
The room was stale; the white curtains drawn and already gathering dust. Air Jordans were strewn about-an orange and red one near the entrance, its match near the window, a purple one at her feet, the other absent. Deena stared at those shoes, her brother"s pride, and a bitter sort of amus.e.m.e.nt washed over her. How many times had Anthony declared that his shoes were off limits, that they would be touched only over his dead body? How right had he been?
Deena moved to open the lone window. The heat and smell of old sneakers threatening to smother her. His window caught, refusing to open; and she abandoned it. Looking around, Deena realized she"d neglected to bring a box or bag for mementos. She headed for the kitchen and returned with a fistful of Glad bags.
Deena worked slowly, gathering and folding his shirts and pants, paying them the attention that he never did. Her mind was on autopilot, processing data and giving orders through the ripest pain she"d ever known. She bagged shirts, shoes and sneakers for Goodwill, before digging out a pair of Jordans for herself. They were his first pair, as gleaming as the day he"d bought them. Varsity red and white, the sneakers were a vintage tribute to originals released two decades earlier. Deena set them aside. They would join a fitted Miami Heat cap and a bracelet he used to wear, now in her closet at home.
She moved on to his dresser, an old oak hand-me down with five drawers and froze at the sight of his keys.
Air eluded her.
Silver and una.s.suming, the keys sat, forgotten.
Deena lifted them with trembling fingers and closed the keys in her fist.
He"d forgotten them that night, left there on the dresser as he went to his death. Would he have returned had he remembered? Would he have lived had he remembered?
She brought the keys to her heart. Choked on a sob. Never would they be used again. Not at her house or her grandmother"s or anywhere.
Ever.
In the end, it was the keys and that single, unforgiving word that brought her to her knees. Never would she see her brother again.
Ever.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
Deena reached underneath the leather bucket seat and felt for a lever. When she found it, she adjusted her chair so that the back was bone straight and knees brushed the steering wheel. With a deep breath, she turned and looked at Tak.
"You can"t drive like that," he said.
Deena frowned. "But, I want to be sure I can reach-"
He leaned over and yanked the handle. Her seat shot back.
"I said you can"t drive like that. It"s too close. Plus, you look ridiculous."
She pursed her lips. "Fine. But can I at least get close enough to reach the steering wheel?"
"Steering wheel, yes, headlights no."
She rolled her eyes. "You exaggerate, as always."
"Probably. Now come on. Hands at ten and two."
Deena swallowed. For a much-welcomed twenty-fifth birthday present, these driving lessons were causing her a fair amount of stress.
"Can you give me a sec? I mean, I"m wrestling with nerves here. You"re teaching me to drive in a Ferrari."