I got on that airplane mad as hell. Steam was rolling off me and I had enough fuel running through my blood to fly that bad boy all the way to Hawaii and back.
G had pulled some low-down shit.
I should have known he was scheming like a demon. He’d been too damn nice. Had let me off the hook too easily for staying out while he was gone. Now I knew why. I had just finished packing last night when I called Jimmy in my room to sit on my suitcase so I could zip it up.
“Your gear ready?” I asked him. “You got enough medication for the whole trip?”
He couldn’t even look me in my face. “I ain’t going.”
“What?” I got up off my knees. “What you mean you ain’t going?
Jimmy mumbled something under his breath and shrugged. “I ain’t going.”
I broke. “Uh-uh, Jimmy. Hell fuckin no. Ain’t no way in hell I’m leaving you here for no ten days while I go way across the world to some damn island. How the fuck you sound, you ain’t going?”
“How the fuck I said it, Juicy? I ain’t going. You got any beef, see G.”
And that’s exactly what I did, too.
“G!” I bust into the bathroom while he was sitting on the toilet. “What’s Jimmy talking about he ain’t coming with us in the morning?”
That nigger pissed me off. He looked at me for a long moment, then spun the toilet tissue on the holder and bunched a wad of it up in his hand. I was tapping my foot and smelling his shit as I waited for him to answer. He took his time wiping his black ass, inspecting the tissue, then tossing it behind him into the bowl.
“Look,” he said finally. “I’m taking my son on vacation. He graduated from college and he deserves it. But Jimmy gotta stay here. I got some work I need him to do.”
Now my hand was on my hip. “G. You know Jimmy ain’t right. He can’t stay here for ten days all alone. That’s my brother, and somebody has to watch him so I guess I’ll be staying home, too.”
“Kill all that noise, Juicy. You making my ass hurt. I’m putting Jimmy down on a little job. He’ll be all right here. Pacho’s gonna sleep up here at night and Moonie can watch him while we gone.”
I just couldn’t resist it. “Yeah, just like he watched me, huh?”
A vein jumped on the side of G’s head. “You getting brand-new, Juicy. Brand-new. Don’t push your luck, baby girl, cause my patience is getting thin.”
I opened my mouth to talk some more shit, then closed it back. Damn. Motherfucker. This wasn’t fair. I didn’t feel good about going all the way to some damn Hawaii without Jimmy. This was some foul shit, and I made sure the look on my face told G just what I was thinking. Yeah, he could force me to go with him, but he couldn’t make me have a good time. I wasn’t gonna talk to his ass for ten whole days. Or to his stupid-ass son, neither. Dumb-ass niggah got a college degree just to come slanging and slumming up in Harlem. Fuck both of them.
I was so mad I slept mad. Our flight was leaving at eight A.M., and Pacho came to the door to take our bags down at five. I went into Jimmy’s room and sat down on the bed next to him. “Jimmy.” I shook his shoulder. “Wake up and tell me bye, Jimmy.”
He rolled over on his back. “Bye, Juicy. Go have fun. Bring me back an island girl with some big titties, okay?”
I punched him on the arm. “Boy, you just too stupid. All them big titty bitches in the Spot and you need me to bring one way from Hawaii?” He had me laughing and I felt a little bit better about leaving him. “For real though. You gonna be straight while I’m gone?”
“Damn, girl. You act like I’m a baby or something. It ain’t but ten days.”
I nodded. “I know. But that’s a long time.” I stared into his eyes to see could I catch him in a lie. “What kinda job G gonna have you doing while we gone?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged and looked toward the open door. “But I think I’ma be supervising some of the workers, or keeping books or something.”
Yeah. I knew it was more than that, but without any proof there was only so much I could bitch. “Aiight, then. Be careful, Jimmy. There’s some slimy motherfuckers out there.”
He laughed. “I ain’t worrying about nobody, Juicy. I’m down with G, and ain’t a nigger out there stupid enough to violate that.”
I kissed my brother on his cheek, then threw my arms around his neck. “Still. Be careful, Jimmy.”
He hugged me back. “You too.”
We were in the back of the limo about to pull off when Moonie rolled up.
“Hold up,” G told Pacho. “Lemme handle something.”
He pushed the button to roll up the car window, then got out and slammed the door. I was sitting across from Gino, and even though I felt bad about leaving Jimmy, I couldn’t help notice how good Gino looked. He was listening to a CD through his Walkman, and the look on his face told it all. He didn’t want none of this shit either. He felt me studying him and looked over at me like I was a booger on somebody’s fucking nose. “You got a problem?” I said.
“Yeah. You got one?”
I just crossed my legs and rolled my eyes. G finished handling his business and got back in the car. I looked out the window as we pulled away and locked eyes with Moonie. His face looked hard as hell, and before I could break my eyes away from him he nodded and turned away. I knew he was mad about me bringing G down on him and I prayed he wouldn’t take it out on Jimmy.
Hawaii was far! It took us six hours to fly to California, and after a three-hour layover we still had another five and a half to go. It was my first time flying and I was scared as hell. Gino tried to be nice when he saw how nervous I was. He told me he’d flown from coast to coast more times than he could remember and gave me some line about how flying was much safer than driving. I didn’t believe that mess for a minute, but I was glad he at least tried to make me feel better about being way up in the air without no parachute.
G didn’t even try to comfort me. He practically ignored me during the whole flight. As usual, we had stepped out in style. We were in the first-class cabin where they kept calling us ma’am and sir and we were chilling in some phat leather seats that were so wide and soft they felt like a bed. Still, G kept shifting and moving around, complaining that he wasn’t comfortable. He spent most of his time talking and kicking it with his son, and I was glad they were having a good time because it kept him from fucking with me.
Gino was on the end, G was in the middle, and I was in the window seat. I asked the stewardess for a blanket and wrapped myself up in it and kept praying the damn pilot knew what the hell he was doing. I had stopped at the airport bookstore and picked up a big bag of pistachio nuts and copy of Skyscraper by some chick called Zane, and I gobbled that book up in five hours flat. The story was so good I forgot all about being up in the air. All that fucking they had going on got my juices flowing and I waited until G and Gino shut up and fell asleep, and then I crossed my thighs and, fingering my nipples under the blanket, I got off right there in my seat and wasn’t worrying about crashing to the ground at all.
I fell asleep during the last few hours of the second flight and the next thing I knew the stewardess was waking me up so I could raise my seat up and put on my seat belt. I pushed up the window shade and looked down at the bright lights. G said we were going to the island of Oahu, and this was the city of Honolulu. Except for the mountains that I could just barely see off in the distance, the bright lights kinda reminded me of New York, and even though we hadn’t even started our vacation, thoughts of the city made me miss my baby brother.
As soon as we got off the plane and walked down to the terminal there was a limo driver waiting. He was holding up a sign that read Purpose Driven, Inc., which was the name of one of G’s front companies. I felt like I was in a foreign damn country or somewhere down in Chinatown. There was Japanese writing on all the signs and so many Oriental people it wasn’t funny.
Honolulu didn’t look nothing like New York from the ground. Yeah, the crowds were out there and the traffic was mad, but it was clean and smelled good and I rolled down the window in the limo and sucked up the saltwater smell all the way to the hotel.
G had booked two penthouse suites at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and if I thought our apartment was large, it didn’t have shit on the Kahala. I knew all this had to be costing G some mad yardage, but I also knew he could afford it. Our suites had connecting doors and there was a king-sized bed, a dining area, and a separate spare bedroom in each one. By now I was used to quality stuff. G had exposed me to the best that money could buy and he didn’t believe in skimping. After borrowing Gino’s cell phone and leaving a message at the apartment for Jimmy so he’d know we’d landed safe, I checked everything in the room out thoroughly and decided it was up to standard.
We were all travel-tired and G was getting cranky. We ordered a bunch of food from room service, but by the time they brought it up G was shivering and sweating like he was running a fever.
“Let me run you a shower,” I told him, trying to get back on his good side. If I was gonna be here for ten damn days I didn’t want there to be no unnecessary tension. I started the shower for him, and while he was in there I took his silk pajama bottoms out his suitcase and laid them on the bed and put his slippers on the floor beside the tub.
Me and Gino both picked over our food until G got out the shower, and then Gino left to go to his room and I stripped out of my clothes and got into the shower myself. I was tired as hell, even though it was still early in Honolulu, because of the time difference. A few minutes later I was washed and oiled and had my hair tied down with my favorite silk scarf. I brushed my teeth and said a prayer for my baby brother, then climbed my ass in the bed next to G and crashed.