Page 19 of On Everything

Pernelle

“Babe, I told you I would call you when I got ready.”

I walked out of Ciara’s building irritated just that quickly. I hated when Emoney didn’t listen to what I told her. Sometimes I feel like I have a fucking teenage daughter, even with us being the same age. Do studs mature at a slower pace or some shit?

“I know, I just missed your fine ass. Come here.” Emoney pulled me in closer to her body.

We started around the corner to our projects, and I was counting down to the moment I could take a shower since I’d been out sweating all day.

I remember when I was a kid, going to bed without a bath was easy to me.

Now as an adult, I couldn’t get comfortable with all this grit over my body.

“So, did you handle whatever you had going on? Did it have something to do with Elijah and the bullshit he keeps up?”

“Nah, not really.”

She kept it short. When Emoney wasn’t running her mouth to me, I knew it was something that she had no business doing.

She was always a good person; she just got lost on her way after graduating high school and not getting that scholarship to play basketball at her dream school, NYU, because of her height.

She often joked that if she had my legs, she would be dominating the WNBA right now.

Making Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reece look like AAU players.

My baby had big dreams back in the day, growing up in the Bronx just deterred a lot of them and getting hooked up with the wrong crowd didn’t help.

I appreciate the money she is making now; I really did, I just wish she was making it legally because I’m not holding shit down if she get locked up.

I will probably be on the other line with a nigga when she tries to make her first call from jail.

“Do you want anything from the store? Tell me now P, before we get all the way up these stairs.”

“No, I’m good. I have a pack of Skittles and a Dr. Pepper in the fridge for after my last blunt. That’s if you didn’t touch it.”

“I didn’t.”

She put her hands in the air. She was so damn cute, which is why I ever gave her a chance.

In school, she didn’t dress like she does now.

Back then, she would rock gym shorts and t-shirts, making it seem like she was just athletic.

Nowadays she went completely in, wearing braids, boxers, bottom grills, and everything.

I catch people looking at her light skin ass all the time, but I know she’s not going anywhere.

It’s just fucked up that as fine as she is, I still can’t keep my mind off getting dick.

I want someone to nut in my mouth so bad; I be sucking on sweet and salty peanuts just trying to replicate the taste on my tongue.

I know that I am so hyper-sexual due to my cousin molesting me when I was younger spending the night with his sister.

I remember when I told my mama what he did, she went over his house with a belt and whooped him and his mama with it.

He ended up going to juvenile, and eventually he did something else to land him in prison.

I know if I am ever blessed with kids, I’m not trusting them around no cousins or none of that.

Shit, when Princeton was a baby, I used to be totally against him staying with any of his friends because of what happened to me.

People are sick and those same people have kids that they pass their traits down too.

When I saw Gia Ramerez walking out of our building with her baby at this time of the night, I smacked my lips. Ain’t shit parents were everywhere I turned in Castle Hill.

“Now, why she got that baby out here this late?”

“Probably going to the bodega. Both of them look hungry.”

“Baby, stop.”

I playfully shoved her.

“You know, baby. I can’t wait to see what kind of mother you about to be.”

“About to be? I’m not pregnant, Ebony.”

“I know, not yet, but you can be if you still on that. I think we have a way to make that happen now.”

“And how is that? You have at least five thousand dollars to start this insemination process?”

“I have more than that.”

She looked down at the ground before looking over to me.

“Look, I have to tell you something, but you have to promise me that you will never say shit about this to nobody. Not your mama, not Ciara, not your brother. Nobody.”

“Babe, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m not trying to. I just need to know that you’re going to ride for your girl.”

“Emoney, haven’t I always been there for you?”

She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side of the pathway next to a tree.

“Babe, the rats hang under this tree.”

“I know, I know, just listen to me, Nelle. I have something upstairs that is about to make us more money than we thought we could ever have.”

“Something like what? Ebony, what do you have in my house?”

“Just listen to me. Let me explain first.”

“Nah, I’m going up there.”

She grabbed my arm, making me instantly get defensive, I’ve hated when people touched me unwarranted since I was a child.

“Unt, unt. Let me go. What the hell is going on?”

I broke free from her and walked up to the building, traveling all the way to our floor with Ebony on my trail.

“Listen, Pernelle. I’m trying to explain to you, but you acting dumb. Wait, can you just stop?”

I ignored her ass all the way up to the stairwell. That’s when she grabbed me one more time just before I could open the door.

“How the fuck you say you love me when you can never listen to what I have to say? Just fucking listen to me, Pernelle! You doing the god damn most before I even said a word.”

“Because Ebony, your ass is really fucking scaring me right now. What is in our apartment?”

She held her head to her chest and then looked up the stairs and down before she spoke.

“Alright, to make a long story short, since your ass is impatient. We have Hov’s girlfriend Cashmier up in our apartment and we asking him for five hundred grand before he can get her back.”

“What!”

My voice echoed in the stairwell and Emoney placed her hand on my mouth.

“Shh, shh, shh, baby. Let me explain.”

“Explain what, E? Do you know how fucking dumb you are to take the girlfriend of fucking Hov, then ask for money. Are you crazy? Whose fucking idea was this? Elijah’s?”

“No, it wasn’t!”

“Then whose was it! Yours! Are you that dumb?”

“It was her idea, baby. Cashmier’s.”

The stairwell was quiet for a minute until one of the doors on another floor opened, and we were no longer alone in the stairwell.

“Let’s just go to the apartment so we can talk.”

“Hell no, the apartment that Hov is about to shoot up I’ll pass; I’m going to Ciara’s.”

I started to walk away.

“Alright, but when I’m balling without you, I don’t want to hear I’m not holding you down.

I’m trying to give you everything you been wanting from me, but you ready to give it up because you scared.

Like, I didn’t think this shit through. The least you could do is hear me out before you just run off. ”

Ebony always had a way of getting into my head about some shit.

Her and her gift of gab was the reason I was with a girl anyway.

My mama is still calling it a phase because she is another one adamant about me having a baby.

She says she has zero faith that Princeton will claim any child he makes.

She fears he will be just like his father.

“Whatever, I’ll hear what you have to say, but I’m still not staying in there.”

“Whatever you say. Look, let’s just go inside and talk this shit through.”

Emoney guided me to our apartment door, and knocked three times before the locks started to turn.

“Who the fuck is in our apartment?”

“Elijah and ol’ girl.”

The door swung open.

“Good you here, bro. She complaining like a muthafucka.” Elijah shook his head, and I smelled a woman’s sweet perfume before I hit the corner.

When Cashmier turned around, she looked just as pretty now as she does on her Instagram pictures.

The bitch was perfect, tall, smooth skin, perfect eyebrows, and soft flowing curls in her hair.

It looked like it was real too. I think she was Trinidadian, but I don’t know.

Whatever she is, her being her looked wrong. What the hell were they fucking up to?

“Emoney, I know you don’t think I’m sleeping on this couch that all these people have had their asses on. I thought you were going to have an air mattress here for me.”

“Who is she?”

Cashmier turned her nose up at me.

“This is my wife, Pernelle. She cool. She knows about everything. We can trust her.”

Ebony exaggerated the truth because I’m just as confused as I was when she told me that shit outside in the stairwell.

“Okay, well, what about the mattress? If I’m going to be here for a while, I at least want to sleep comfortably.”

“Alright, we got you, don't worry. Elijah, can you run to the store and get her a mattress? Get some sheets and shit too.”

“Alright. I’ll be back.”

Elijah left out the door, and I rolled my eyes hard as hell because I know he was a part of the reason that Emoney is even going for this shit.

She was never this reckless before, but when he got on to the dumb shit, she fell right in line behind him.

Two dummies attempting to be hard criminals is a recipe for disaster.

“Now, come in the room, baby please. Cash, let me know if you need anything else.”

“Oh, I will.”

She replied in an irritated tone. We stepped inside the room, and I pushed Emoney down on the bed.

“How the fuck did this shit even come about? Tell me now because I’m ready to get mad disrespectful in here.”

“Alright, let me tell you. So, me and Elijah been running plays all summer jacking niggas and we finally wanted to move on some real money instead of this petty shit we been doing around here.”

“And?”

“And we didn’t want to go after someone like Hov, so we came up with the idea of getting at the weaker link, his girl, who has just as much access to his money.

We studied her movements and shit through Facebook.

A few nights ago, we attempted to rob her, but she stopped us, offering a bigger prize. ”

“Wait a minute, what kind of prize would she be offering two people trying to jack her?”

“I’m about to tell you, baby. She told us she’s been wanting to find people like us for months and that she could get more money for us while making shit right in her relationship. She said he hadn’t been paying attention to her in months, and if we take her, maybe he will treasure her more.”

“Okay, that shit is nuts.” I shook my head, walking over to the small window in our bedroom that overlooked the fire escape.

“I know it sounds crazy, baby, but she was with it and it can make us a lot of money. We are going to have Hov turn over the money to a location Elijah found and give her back to him. Everything will happen safely, and no matter if Hov wants to run off in the sunset with her or not, we will get paid.”

“So, she’s doing this just so Hov can appreciate her again?”

“Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but then again, it doesn’t. You know how far some bitches will go to be seen by a nigga. Especially a nigga with money. She even says she's pregnant.”

“Wow.” I was genuinely outdone with this shit.

“How long will she be here?”

“For a couple of days. She said she wants him to worry his self to death first.”

I shook my head looking through the hole in the jagged blinds that we been needing to replace.

The beautiful city lights past these blinds kind of symbolized what I was going through right now.

My life is like these blinds, raggedy as fuck, but my future could be like those city lights through that hole if they could pull this off.

Five hundred thousand dollars is life-changing money, but that’s if I don’t lose my life because of it.

Hov is a lot closer to them than they think, and that can make this whole situation go entirely wrong. For everyone involved.