ABOUT 30 DAYS ago, Nix and I officially became criminals. I like saying that word. Criminals. Criminals! We’re criminals who’ve actually committed armed robbery. A felony! Since that awesome day, Nix and I have spent time together spending our money and watching as our reputations grow. People don’t know anything, but then again, in Strawberry Mansion, nobody “knows” anything about what bad people do. “Knowing” something could get you killed, so everyone turns a blind eye, but deep down inside, we all are aware of what people do to survive inside Strawberry Mansion.
Not only have we enjoyed the nervous glares being thrown our way, we’ve also be thinking about what our next step will be. Fifteen thousand dollars split between two people doesn’t last all that long, so now it’s time to start thinking about what the next gold mine is. We’ve had a few talks and are already putting small things in motion. We did it once, so we know we can do it again, as long we’re as thorough and careful as we were the last time.
In the past month, I’ve also enjoyed quite a few days like today—days where Reina and I are able to spend time together, just the two of us. I can admit that I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to Reina, but there’s something about her that I just can’t shake. I’ve told her everything there is to know about me, and she even met my junkie mother this morning. The only other person on earth who I’ve introduced to Whitney is Nix, so the fact that I let Reina see her is a big deal for me. She gets it. She gets me. I didn’t think that was possible until I met her, so whatever this is between us, it’s not to be played with.
I’m not even sure Whitney really knew what was going on when Reina came to the door this morning. Before the doorbell rang, Whitney and I sat on the couch watching the news. My mother had her usual blank stare as she began rubbing her arm like she always does when she starts to get the itch for more “medicine.” She had a large blue sweater on that she swam in, coupled with black shorts that I couldn’t even see because the sweater was so big and long, and the shorts were so small. I sat next to her half watching the screen and half watching her body language change before my eyes as she started to ache and scratch her skin, the need to inject herself growing with every passing minute, and I must’ve told Reina to hurry up a thousand times in my head before she actually arrived. When the doorbell rang, I jumped up off of the couch and ran to the door, mainly so I could distract my mother from her addiction. Reina knows all about it, obviously, but she doesn’t need to see it. I shouldn’t even be seeing that.
“Whitney, I want you to meet someone,” I said to her as I started to pull the door open.
“What? Solomon, this isn’t a good time. I look like a mess,” she argued, but I didn’t care, because she always looks like a damn mess.
When the door opened, Reina stood in front of me with a sleek black jacket and thick blue jeans. Her blonde hair was beautifully wavy and resting over her shoulders perfectly. Those blue eyes reached out and stabbed me right in the heart as she looked up at me with a flawless smile and pearly white teeth. How could something so beautiful come to be on this ugly earth?
“Whitney, this is Reina,” I said to my mother, but I never took my eyes off of Reina, because why would I want to take my eyes off of Reina just to look over at my junkie mother, who I’m sure is only a few minutes away from her next hit of heroin.
Whitney looked up at Reina and I could see she was both impressed with the way Reina looked, and jealous at the same time. She looked her up and down in a way that made my skin heat up like I was standing next to an open oven, but then Whitney straightened her own hair with her fingers and stood up straight to extend her hand for Reina to shake. I watched the two of them in awe that the meeting was actually happening, but then I made sure to cut it short so Whitney couldn’t embarrass me with her nonsense or scratching. I told Whitney we had to go and that we were taking her car since she wasn’t about to use it, and she didn’t argue because she knew what she was about to do once we were out of her hair. Reina was polite and said goodbye just as I was closing the door behind me and breathing a sigh of relief that the whole thing was over without any craziness from Whitney. As we drove away, I let out a loud exhale, and headed for the highway.
“So what’s the latest on your little boyfriend?”
“Excuse me?” Reina snips, and I struggle to hold back a smile.
“Your little boyfriend. What’s his name? Charlie?” I suddenly feel Reina’s eyes burning into the side of my face as I drive.
“Do not call him my boyfriend. Ever,” she says in a low tone that sounds much more intimidating than I ever knew she could sound. I keep my eyes on the road, but the smile breaks through and lifts up the side of the mouth. Reina notices it, scoffs, and looks out her window as I feel the sudden shift in her mood.
“He, like everybody else who lives in Center City, is the bane of my existence. It’s hard dealing with him when my parents are always trying little sly ways to force us to be in each other’s company. They talk about how great he is, and he sticks his tongue between his fingers while glaring at me behind their backs. They don’t have a clue how horrible he is, then they force us to hang out together. Just two days ago he was at the house for dinner. While we ate, he tried to rub my leg under the table.” I suddenly feel my blood go from calm to boiling. Reina notices. “Don’t worry, I jabbed him in the hand with my fork and he stopped.”
“Interesting,” I reply, struggling to sedate my rage. “Sounds like I need to take a trip to your part of town.”
“No, Solomon. Center City is a hotbed for assholes who feel like they’re better than everybody. They’d spot you coming a mile away because you don’t look like anybody else in Center City. You probably couldn’t get a hundred yards in without someone having the police following you. I can handle Charlie. I appreciate you worrying about me, though.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“You tell me.” Once again, I feel Reina’s blue eyes burrowing into me, but ignore it and press my foot on the gas.
Forman Mills Mall isn’t a big one, but it has some nice stores in it, and I decided to bring Reina here since we’ve got nothing else to do. Reina’s outfit looks much too nice walking next to me with my black sweats, but I have a brand new black and green Eagles sweater that holds its own. Nonetheless, Reina still stands out, and as we make our way inside, I already see people’s eyes shifting over to us. One nosy person sees us, then nudges a friend, who looks over at Reina like he’s hungry for her. Reina’s talking to me right now, though, so I do my best not to let it distract me.
“Are you listening to me at all?” I hear her say, interrupting my train of thought.
“Of course I am,” I answer quickly, but she knows I’m lying.
“Right,” she says with a giggle. “I was asking if your mother was getting any better.”
I take a deep breath and let it out with a drawn out whoosh.
“Whitney can’t get better,” I tell her. “You can’t get better if you can’t admit something’s wrong with you. So, no, she’s not.”
“I see. She doesn’t know about Cash N Check?”
“Of course not,” I reply after a frown in Reina’s direction. “The last thing I need is Whitney stealing my money and using it to buy her medicine. She doesn’t know, and she never will.”
“She doesn’t go into your room snooping around?”
“What? No. My mother may be a junkie, but she knows who her son is,” I answer confidently as we turn a corner and enter a space filled with people.
“My parents know who I am too, but they still come into my room unannounced. I think they get a kick out of it. Especially my mom.”
“Yeah, parents suck and I don’t want to talk about Whitney and what the fuck are you staring at!” I cut off my sentence and yell at two guys staring at us as we walk past the food court. I can see that I startled Reina, but I held it in as long as I could. These two guys have been following us since we walked into the mall, and it’s obvious they don’t know me—a fact that helps fuel my anger. They both have clothes on that are twice their size and they’re probably only in their twenties, which is apparent from their smooth faces and carefree attitudes. Both of them are black—one light-skinned, one dark-skinned with huge earrings in his ears. I can spot drug dealers from a mile away, and these two fit the bill: baggy clothes, expensive Jordan brand shoes, cornrows, and tons of jewelry. Friends of Davon’s, perhaps? Cousins maybe?
“Who are they?” I hear Reina ask as I watch the two of them walk over to one of the many white tables in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken and sit down.
“I don’t know,” I reply, still staring at them as they glare at us, seemingly amused that we’re aware of their interest in us. One of them gets up and goes to order something from the chicken restaurant while Reina and I take a seat a few tables down from them. We’re surrounded by people eating their food and enjoying their time at the mall, but all I can see is these two guys who’ve followed us from the entrance to here. My vision is like a tunnel, and they’re the only two things at the end of the darkness.
This is one of the things I like about Reina. After spending quite a few weekends in a row down here with the peasants of Strawberry Mansion, she’s starting to take on qualities that remind me a lot of myself. She’s fearless, and doesn’t take any crap. Half the time, she handles issues before I ever have to, and I love that. Reina furrows her brown and glares at them just as boldly as I do. When the darker one comes back with their food, the four of us go into a drawn out staring contest, and it puts a smile on my face. Every day is fun in Strawberry Mansion.
“I should go introduce myself,” I say to Reina.
“I think they deserve to meet you,” Reina replies with a smile, before leaning back in her seat and getting comfortable like she’s about to watch a good movie. Could she possibly be any more perfect?
With a quick smile at Reina, I get up from my seat and make my way over to the table. My boots echo with each step and my confidence grows the closer I get to them. When one of them sees me coming, he tells his friend with the giant cubic zirconia earrings and they both watch me approach. I take a seat in one of the empty chairs next to the darker guy, then I reach over and pick up a piece of chicken from his plate and take a big bite out of it.
“Yo, what the hell, son?” the light-skinned one snips. “You trying to get killed, white boy?”
“Oh yummy. Now that is a tasty piece of chicken,” is my answer, followed by a full smile, showing all of my chicken-covered pearly whites. “You don’t mind sharing, do you?”
“Have you lost your mind?” the dark one snaps. I guess he really wanted that drumstick.
“Yes, I have! Is it that obvious?” I answer, still smiling. Then I yank my survival knife from my pocket and slam it on the table. The sound of it echoes over the scattered voices in the food court and the two wannabe gangsters nearly jump out of their skin as people at the tables closest to us start to watch. “How about now? Now is it obvious I’ve lost my mind?”
I see the light-skinned one moving like he wants to grab something in his baggy jacket that I can’t see, so I focus on him.
“By the time you pull out whatever it is you’re thinking of reaching for, I’m going to have sliced your friends throat wide open with this knife, and all the chicken he’s chewing right now is gonna come cascading out of the wound. And after I beat the living shit out of you, I’m going to make you finish chewing it for him.” Just like that, the light one stops moving and the fear that I love so much makes its presence known in his facial expression.
“Now I don’t know why you two have been staring at us,” I continue, keeping my hand on the knife and my eyes on the light one sitting across from me. “But if I look over here again and see you gawking, we’re going to have a very public problem.” The two of them look at each other and then back to me. I simply smile at them both before getting up and walking back over to Reina, never once glancing behind me to see if they’re watching. I know they are.
“Come on, let’s go get you something pretty,” I tell Reina as she smiles and gets up to follow me.
“You sure do have a way with people,” she says, grinning from ear to ear. I can tell she likes it when I put people in their place. I’m starting to think this girl is twisted. I like that.
“Yeah, I’m a people person,” I reply.
“Yeah you are,” she replies with a smile before turning around and yelling to the guys in front of KFC. “Enjoy your meal.”
I let out a loud chuckle that echoes down the hall, and I even exaggerate it just to make them feel even more like the cowards they are, before leading Reina away. I grab her hand as we walk, and it’s the first time I’ve ever held her hand in mine for this long. You’d think it’d feel strange or foreign, but you’d be mistaken. It feels like it was always meant to be this way. It feels like Reina belongs to me, so when she doesn’t let go as we leave the food court area and walk into a jewelry store, neither do I.
“Ooh, look at all the diamonds in this place,” Reina says, smiling like the happiest woman on earth as she skips from one glass case of jewelry to the next. The two blonde women behind the glass cases wearing gray pantsuits don’t look like they’re happy to see us in here, but if they knew the two of us at all, they’d know that neither of us cares what they think.
I let Reina hop around like a kid in a toy store until she finds something that catches her eye. I stand behind her with my arms folded as she bends over to look at something in the case furthest from me. One of the blonde-haired sales reps slowly makes her way over to Reina and asks if there’s something she’d like to look at, and I hear Reina dismiss her.
“No, it’s okay. I’m just looking. But this is really pretty,” she says. The saleswoman looks annoyed that Reina is window shopping and not making a purchase. That’s my cue.
“What’s really pretty?” I ask as I approach her. The saleswoman looks me up and down in the way that tells me she doesn’t think I can afford anything in this store.
“Look at this bracelet,” Reina says. “This one with the black and silver links. I like the black on it. It’s dark, yet elegant. Like us.” Something about the way she says it puts a smile on my face. There’s an us.
I let my eyes glaze over the pieces of jewelry in the case until the one Reina likes catches my attention. She’s right, it does look nice, and even though I like it, I think I like it even more because I know she likes it.
“We’ll take that one,” I say to the blonde rep, and her eyes bulge. Is it really so hard to believe that someone like me would be able to afford a piece of jewelry like that? Jesus McChrist, everyday it gets harder to deal with people!
“Sir, that bracelet is eleven-hundred dollars,” the blonde replies.
I let out an exaggerated gasp and throw my hand over my mouth in fake shock. “Eleven-hundred? Oh no! Whatever am I to do?”
“Solomon, what are you doing?” Reina asks with a giggle as I reach into my pocket and pull out a wad of cash clasped together in a silver money clip.
“Eleven-hundred you say? Maybe I should buy two,” I snip at the glorified cashier as I count out eleven-hundred dollars in cash. “Now. Open the case, before I break it.” I smile at the blonde just to make sure she doesn’t feel too uncomfortable, and she responds by snatching the case open and quickly pulling out the black and silver bracelet like she can’t get us out of the store fast enough.
“Solomon,” Reina says as the blonde rings us up and puts the present in a white box. “You don’t have to buy me this.”
“Sshhh,” is my only reply. I politely snatch the bag out of the cashiers hand after I pay, then hand it over to Reina as we walk away. I glare at the cashier over my shoulder as I lead Reina out of the jewelry store.
Once we’re back in the hall, I let Reina open the bag and jewelry box before taking the bracelet from her and clasping it to her left arm. It fits perfectly, and I instantly feel glad that I got it for her.
“It’s beautiful, Solomon. Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” I reply with a smile. “I’ve got something to talk to you about, too.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” she asks as she keeps her eyes glued to the bracelet, twisting her arm back and forth to make it glisten in the light.
“The bracelet really is beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It really is.”
“Yeah. What if you could have a few of those? For free.”
Reina looks over at me as we strut pass the food court. The two guys are still sitting there, but they don’t dare look at us.
“What do you mean?” she inquires.
“I mean Nix and I are planning something. Something that could be a whole lot of fun, and quite lucrative.”
“You mean the one you’re planning for next week?”
“No, no. That’s gonna be easy—candy from a baby. No, this one’s new, still a concept, but if we can pull it off, it’ll be huge. I’m talking monumental. It’s big, and I want you to help us with it. What do you think about that?”
As if she’s known all along how important her answer is, Reina replies, “I don’t think anything about it. There’s nothing to think. If you’re in, I’m in.”
Her words put a giant smile on my face, and for the second time today, my excited laughter echoes through the halls of Foreman Mills Mall.