Chapter One:
April
didn’t use the doorbell anymore, not since I had given her a key. At ten
after seven, she let herself in after two quick, shy knocks.
Who is THAT? I thought in the
millisecond before I remembered she was my girl. April had changed her
hairstyle, framing her face with chin-length braids in the front, elegantly
styled into a shorter page-boy style in the back. Her haircut made a
dramatic shift on her face, from cute and girlish to queenly. For a year
solid, I hadn’t touched anyone else. Monogamy was the last thing I’d
expected in this lifetime.
My girl.
My girlfriend. My life had a new vocabulary.
April
undressed herself bit by bit as she crossed the room toward me; her jacket
on the coat rack, her hat on the sofa. April’s ivory sweater, stretched
tautly across her bosom, made me wish we were on our way upstairs. April
docked herself against me. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. Her lips brushed too
quickly across mine. “You won’t believe...”
I
interrupted her, holding her still for a kiss with a little flavor. Her lips
relaxed, offering nectar. Then she pulled away shyly, as she always did when
Dad was nearby. April was smiling, but she wasn’t planning to stay. I could
see it in her eyes.
“So get
this: The brother’s car blew up,” April went on. “They chase him for nearly
eight miles, and his Ferrari flips into a ditch. This poor old lady he
broadsided on La Cienega might not wake up, but of course he walks away
without a scratch.”
April’s
stories from work made me feel tired. After staring down a gun-barrel in the
desert that day, I felt no schadenfreude.
But April hadn’t been with me in the desert. She was a police reporter, and
death entertained her just fine.
“They’re
lucky nobody got killed,” April went on. “These police chases are out of
control. Yeah, he robbed a bank, but sometimes guilty people go free. Deal
with it.”
“Saw it
on TV,” Dad called from the kitchen.
Dad had
hooked April up with police sources more than once, old buddies from his
Hollywood division, many of whom had risen high on the ladder and were
willing to speak off the record. Retired Captain Richard Allen Hardwick and
April Forrest were becoming a formidable team.
“Where’s
Chela?” April asked me.
“Chess
club, ‘til eight-thirty. She said not to wait.”
April
lowered her chin, skeptical. “Chess?”
“I
bribed her into giving it a try.”
“How
much of a bribe?”
Dad
wheeled himself into the dining room, a large plate of warm nachos on his
lap. Suddenly, I was surrounded by observers.
“An
iPhone,” I said. “Let’s eat.”
“Plainfoolishness,” Dad said, or something like it. With words at easy
disposal, Dad would have been ranting. A nascent rant glimmered in his eyes.
April sighed, too. Tag-team.
The fact
was, it was Chela’s second chess club meeting in a month, which was more
commitment than she had given the drama club. Chela needed to buy into
something new, and chess had a nice ring to it. Better, by far, than her
former hobbies. Besides, Chela hadn’t come around to liking April yet, and
wasn’t sorry to miss Thursday dinner.
For now,
separate corners worked best.
Dad
mumbled grace too low to hear, the only time he spoke at length without
self-consciousness. We couldn’t quite make out the words, but the gratitude
in his voice needed no translation.
“Amen,”
he finished.
April’s
face lit up. “Oh, Ten, don’t forget—the Tau fund-raiser is tomorrow night.”
I
searched my memory, and came up dry.
“The
scholarship fund, remember? You signed up for the celebrity booth. People
come up and take pictures with you. The committee chair loves ‘Homeland,’
and she was so excited when I said you’d come. Give me the dates for your
episodes, and she’ll have all our sorors Tivo you.”
I’d
forgotten all about the fund-raiser. When April’s work week ended, her
community work began. Her exhausting schedule was one of the reasons we saw
so little of each other.
“So
you’re tied up tomorrow night?” I said.
“But if
you’re there with me...” she said playfully, and grinned. Her dimples
wrestled the disappointment right out of me.
“Okay.”
It was hard to say no to April, another growing problem.
I felt
Dad beaming silently across the table. He must have thought he’d arrived in
Heaven early. If police captains had the same powers as ship captains, he
would have married me to April on the spot. He'd just heard me commit my
Friday night to a scholarship fund-raiser hosted by one of the country’s
most prestigious black fraternities, Tau Alpha Gamma. Dad was a Tau, too,
but I had refused to pledge during my year in college, mainly because I knew
how badly he wanted me to. Dad never left the house except to see his
doctor, so I knew better than to invite him.
“Thanks,
Ten.” April draped an arm over me when she kissed my cheek, which gave me
hope that she might come upstairs after dinner. “Guess who else committed
today? T.D. Jackson.” Her voice soured. “He must be on a goodwill tour
before his trial. You know it must be for a good cause if I can stand to be
in the same room with him. I’ll have to meditate first.”
T.D.
Jackson. Fallen football and action star, accused of murdering his ex-wife
and her fiancé. Despite a mountan of physical and circumstantial evidence,
he'd been acquitted in the criminal trial six months before. No surprise
there. The rich and famous rarely go to prison. Justice would have another
crack at him, though: The civil trial would begin in a week.
Twenty
years before that, T.D. Jackson lived in my dormitory suite for about three
months while I was at Southern California State. He was a star from the
moment he set foot on campus. What I remember most was the parade of girls
to and from his door. Once, I ran into him in the bathroom as he flushed a
condom away at six in the morning. The lazy sneer on his face said:
Most of you losers aren’t even out of bed
yet, and I’ve already been laid.
T.D.
Jackson made April crazy. The thought that he had gotten away with abusing
and finally killing an upstanding sister seemed to keep her awake at night,
as if his very existence set back the progress of civilization. Her teeth
were already grinding.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” I reminded her.
Dad and
April both made comments, but they kept them under their breath. The guilt
or innocence of T.D. Jackson and what his case did or didn’t say about the
roles of race and gender in the criminal justice system had already spiced
our dinner conversations.
But I
was glad I would run into T.D. again. I didn’t expect him to remember me,
but I looked forward to shaking his hand and staring into his eyes. Wondered
what I would see there. If I was right, T.D.’s eyes would probably broadcast
the same thing April had just told me herself:
Sometimes guilty people go free. Shit happens.
Deal with it.
© Copyright 2008 by Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes
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