New York Times best-selling author and NAACP Image Award winner Omar Tyree first made a name for himself with this urban classic. In the free-wheeling 1980s, Tracy Ellison is a smart, sassy, and sexy teenager who uses her good looks to get with any boy she wants. Loving and leaving one young man after another, Tracy lives it up for several years. But as she approaches womanhood, she learns hard lessons that force her to take a closer look at her lifestyle.
Release date:
August 7, 2001
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Print pages:
416
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Happy birthday toooo you. Happy birthday toooo you. Happy bir-r-r-th-day dear Tra-a-a-a-cy… Happy birthday toooo you,” the crowd of sixteen children sang, helped along by some of the parents who were present.
It was Sunday afternoon in Tracy’s sixth year of life, 1977. She sat proudly on her father’s lap at the table in front of her birthday cake. She cracked a broad smile in her cute red dress. Her newly tied ponytail dangled down her neck. Her hazel eyes enlarged as her daddy helped her to cut the two-layer cake while the other children watched excitedly, all wishing that it was their birthday.
Tracy’s daddy, Dave Ellison, was deep cocoa-brown and hazel-eyed and had the lean figure of a trained athlete. He was a youthful twenty-nine-year-old, possessing the boyish face of a teen. Dave wore no mustache or beard, obeying his self-imposed hygiene regulation. He believed that his clean-shaven face presented a healthy and professional appearance at the hospital where he worked as a pharmacist.
Tracy’s smooth, honey-brown skin was exactly half the richness of her father’s tone. She had inherited his light-colored eyes along with the almond shape and long eyelashes of her mother, Patti. Tracy’s eyes seemed to glimmer whenever the sun hit them, making them sparkle like a cat’s eyes. She was average height for her age, not standing out among the other kids. But her daddy was tall, and her mother was no midget herself. Patti had inherited a considerable amount of height from her father, Jason Smith, who had died in a car crash a year ago. So Tracy, it seemed, was destined to be tall.
Tracy’s cousins had always envied the attention she received. For her birthday, she received presents and money from all of her guests and relatives. Her aunts bought her new clothing and shoes that her cousins wished they could have. All but two of her six cousins were older than she was.
Patti, matching her daughter and wearing red herself, bought Tracy a pink Mickey Mouse watch. Dave gave her a small gold ring.
Most of the parents sat around eating ice cream and cake and watching the television set inside of the kitchen. Their kids played board games in the Ellisons’ large, finely decorated basement.
The kids began to scream and yell once Patti decided to put on a VCR movie. The 27-inch, floor-model, color television set was a brand-new RCA. Dave had bought it a week before the party. He had moved the old, 19-inch Sony, with stand, into Tracy’s room. Her cousins envied that, too.
Out of four sisters, Tracy’s mother, Patti, had captured the best man. And Patti had been considered the prettiest sister since their youth, with her light skin, curvaceous body and dark, almond-shaped eyes.
Dave was definitely a catch. His high income enabled them to move into a comfortable and scenic black neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia. In Germantown, they had the luxury of private lawns, patios, driveways and lots of trees, which surrounded their three-bedroom twin-house, things not affordable to the many Philadelphians who lived in crowded row-house areas. Patti worked at a nursing home as a dietitian, adding to their snug income.
So far, Tracy was their only child. Dave was an only child himself. Patti’s three sisters each had two children.
Tracy fought with her cousins constantly. At most of their family gatherings, her mother and aunts tried unsuccessfully to keep them apart. Their unruly children could destroy an entire party with infighting. They had done it many times before.
The kids, ten girls and six boys, including Kamar, Tracy’s only boy cousin, watched Cinderella. The girls were having more fun than the boys, who would have rather watched Dumbo. But it was Tracy’s party, and she wanted to see Cinderella first.
The children spilled juice on the rug, left crumbs on the tables and got melted ice cream all over their bodies. Patti ran behind them, cleaning up to keep the house neat and pretty.
There were carpets in every room except for the kitchen, which had new blue-and-white tile floors. And when Patti finally gave up trying to salvage what was left of her clean house, she went and sat in her large kitchen with her sisters and the rest of the parents.
“Girl, this house is just beautiful,” a parent said enthusiastically, as though the house had energized her.
“Yeah, girl, you just don’t know how much we put into this house,” Patti quickly responded, trying to be modest.
“Well, if my man had some money, I could’ve had a house like this, too,” Patti’s younger sister Tanya said. She stood inside the kitchen entrance leaning up against the wall. Tanya was well-curved herself, wearing a royal blue shirt-and-pants set with black shoes.
“Unh hunh, that’s why I love to visit, just to be in this house,” Patti’s youngest sister, Joy, said with a giggle. “This feels better than being in the hospital.” Joy was considered the silly sister. She was on the thin side, wearing an off-white dress and sitting in one of the kitchen chairs.
“See, I told you years ago, Joy, that that boy you was dating didn’t have no sense. But you wouldn’t listen,” Marsha, the oldest sister, commented. Marsha was heavy-set and mean. She wore a wide, black, skimpy dress. She kept pulling it down over her hips under the kitchen table.
You need to stop trying to look cute in them tacky-ass outfits you wear, Patti thought to herself of her older sister.
“Look who’s talkin’,” Joy responded to Marsha while slicing a piece of cake. “You ain’t got nothin’ better than what I got.”
“Well, that’s only because the nigga left me. But I gots more, honey.”
Patti began to feel uncomfortable, predicting where her sisters’ conversation was headed. “Come on now, every time we get together we talk about the same-o-same-o. Now, this is supposed to be my daughter’s party, so let’s act like it,” she told them.
“Aw, girl, listen to you,” Marsha snapped. “You gon’ get yourself a little college boy with some money, and then gon’ tell us not to be jealous.”
“Now hold on, one minute,” Patti responded. “Don’t start this dumb stuff tonight, Marsha, ’cause I’m sick of it. You can leave my house with all that.”
Marsha shook angrily while trying to lift herself from the kitchen chair. “Fine! I ain’t gotta stay here for this boring-ass party any-damn-way.”
The parents, standing inside of the kitchen and the dining room, began to feel embarrassed. They all appeared as though they weren’t listening to the argument, but they were.
“You know what, Marsha? This is it! If you can’t show me any respect in my house, then you don’t need to come here anymore. There’s no reason for you to be acting like this toward me, or the rest of us.”
“Fine, sista’, you said it,” Marsha huffed. She jumped on the phone and called a taxi. She then got her coat and rumbled to the basement door to call her two daughters.
“Trish and Marie, get your things, ’cause we goin’ home!”
“No, I’ll take them home,” Joy interjected. “Ain’t no sense in them being punished just because you can’t get along.”
Marsha looked offended. “Look, dammit, my girls came here with me and they gonna leave with me!”
Both of her daughters looked up from the basement stairway while listening to the confusion. Trish, the oldest, didn’t care one way or the other, but Marie didn’t want to leave.
Trish hiked up the steps and got her coat in a flash.
Marie whined while moving slowly up the stairs behind her. “No, Mom-mee, I wanna stay,” she whined.
“Get up them damn steps, girl! I’m sick of your whinin’,” Marsha screamed at her, grabbing her arm.
“Come on, stop her,” Tanya urged Patti. Tanya, the peacemaker, had the two youngest children.
“You know how she is, Tanya, so I ain’t even gon’ try,” Patti told her.
Tracy came upstairs with the rest of the kids to watch the dispute. She felt good that her Aunt Marsha and cousins were leaving. She didn’t want them at her party in the first place.
Dave had snuck upstairs to his bedroom to watch a football game long ago. He decided to stay out of the sister battles. He knew it was coming. The Smith sisters had never gotten along since he had met his wife. They were all a larger image of their children.
“The man don’t really love you. He only married you ’cause you messed around and got pregnant on him,” Marsha said to Patti as she hastily headed for the door. “And I should tell him that you lied the first time.”
Patti was shocked at Marsha’s outburst. I don’t believe she said some shit like that in front of everybody! she snapped to herself. A large vein in Patti’s throat thumped erratically. She was embarrassed. She fought off a strong urge to go after her mean-spirited sister as she walked from the house. Patti felt like canceling the entire party to recuperate from Marsha’s venom, but it was a celebration for her lovely daughter. She didn’t want to let her inconsiderate older kin ruin Tracy’s party. Nevertheless, a few of the parents could sense her embarrassment. They moved to gather their kids for home as well.
“Look, Patti, it’s been nice, but I really have to be going. The kids have school tomorrow,” one parent said.
“No, don’t let this tear my daughter’s party apart, Venice. I’m fine. Now come on, they can stay,” Patti pleaded.
“Patti, I have some other stops to make,” Venice argued.
Patti sighed and gave in. “Well, at least let me make you a few doggy bags,” she offered.
Venice nodded as Patti hurried off toward the kitchen.
Patti quickly wrapped up leftover food and two large slices of cake in aluminum foil as she helplessly watched her daughter’s party fall apart.
“See, that’s why I hate them. They always mess stuff up,” Tracy whined at the front door.
“I know. Every time they come over here they get mad at everybody for no reason,” the little girl from next door agreed. The three boys from down the street, who were left, weren’t concerned. With the diminishing number of girls, they went back inside of the basement to begin watching Dumbo.
DING DONG!… DING DONG!
“Mommy, somebody’s at the door,” Tracy called, running back to the kitchen.
“I heard it the first time,” Patti responded to her. She marched out to answer it.
“Hey, Patti, how you doin’?”
She backed up to let him in. “I’m fine, Keith. How are you?”
“I’m okay. I just came to pick my daughter up,” Keith said, eying his little girl who was sitting on the couch. She stared up at his slender, dark frame in alarm.
“Well, let me get you some cake,” Patti told him.
“Okay,” Keith said.
Patti took another trip to the kitchen.
Keith then approached his daughter on the couch.
“Hey, girl?” he asked her sternly.
“Yes, Daddy,” she whimpered.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave at six-thirty? You got school tomorrow.”
His little girl hunched her shoulders and drew a long face. “Yes.”
“Aww, Mr. Keith, she was gonna come home soon,” Tracy said in her friend’s defense.
“Yeah, well, that ain’t the point. Her daddy told her to come home on her own,” Keith responded to Tracy. “It’s ten after seven now, and she forgot all about what I had told her.”
“Here you go, Keith,” Patti said, returning with more cake wrapped in aluminum foil.
“Oh, thanks, Patti,” Keith said with a smile.
Keith was not tall, nor as defined as Tracy’s dad. His daughter, Raheema, favored him in the face, with her high cheekbones and aquiline nose. Her fair skin and long brown hair favored her mother.
Patti had always wondered why Keith was so mean to his wife and daughters. They were all beautiful. Yet he treated them with nothing but bitterness.
“Well, good-bye, Ra-Ra,” she said, stooping down.
Raheema was as light as Patti and pretty cheerful. But Keith, in times of his evilness, could look like a blue-black, red-eyed wino.
“Say good-bye to ‘Aunt Patti,’ girl,” he told her while Patti stood beside them.
Raheema was nerve-racked by then, and her voice showed it. “Good, good-bye Aunt, Aunt Pat-ti,” she stuttered, with tears in her eyes.
Patti noticed her fear and made a point to see her to her house, next door. Keith had a snake’s tongue, but he was no match for Patti.
“What’s wrong, Ra-Ra?” she asked, as if she didn’t know.
“Oh, she’s just crying because she has to go home to get ready for school tomorrow,” Keith answered for her.
“Well, you can come over tomorrow, honey. Okay?” Patti assured Raheema, pinching her cheeks.
“Yes,” Raheema answered with a sniff. Then from out of nowhere, big tears began to fall from her eyes.
“Don’t cry, Ra-Ra,” Tracy perked, comforting her next-door neighbor with a hug.
“Matter of fact, I’m going over to your house to ask your mother right now,” Patti responded.
She, Keith, Raheema and Tracy went next door, leaving the little boys inside the basement.
“Beth, Patti’s down here!” Keith shouted up the stairs.
Patti could sense that he felt robbed of punishing his daughter.
Beth came down in her nightclothes. She looked tired. Her long brown hair was combed back, and her dark, ringed eyes stood out against her light-brown skin. She looked nothing like she did three years ago, when she and Keith first moved next door. Dave and Patti had moved to Germantown only a year before them. The seventies had been prosperous for blacks.
“How are you, girlfriend?” Beth asked, stepping up to hug Patti. Tracy smiled. And Raheema felt relieved with them in her house.
“I’m doin’ all right. Yeah, umm, I just wanted to ask you if Raheema could spend the night on Friday,” Patti said, changing her initial plan.
“Well, yeah, I guess so,” Beth answered, sneaking a glance at Keith.
“Okay then, I’ll be right over to get her after school. And then we’ll go shopping together and get us some ice cream.”
“Y-a-a-a-y!” Tracy squealed.
Keith took a seat on their long black couch and watched television in silence.
“Tracy looks so pretty today,” Beth said, watching Tracy as she bounced in her bright red dress.
“Well, Ra-Ra is a little charmer, too,” Patti told her.
Keith frowned. “Yeah, but she never listens. Mercedes listens, but I guess Ra-Ra thinks she’s too cute.”
“Raheema and Mercedes are two different people, Keith. You shouldn’t even judge her like that,” Patti contested.
Raheema became apprehensive hearing her father speak about her. She hoped “Aunt Patti” could win the fight. Beth always kept quiet. She never intervened when Patti and Keith would go at it about her own children. And since Beth wasn’t up for the challenge, Patti stayed right in their business.
“Well, she better start doin’ what she’s told,” Keith warned.
“She’ll be all right. Come here, Ra-Ra,” Patti said. She gently rubbed her fingers through Raheema’s soft hair and rubbed her neck to calm her nerves. She knew she had won their argument. Raheema would be able to sleep in peace.
Patti left with Tracy and began to send the rest of the children in her basement home. She then readied Tracy for bed. It was nearly nine o’clock.
“Did Keith say anything to Ra-Ra when I went inside the kitchen?” Patti asked her daughter while tucking her in.
“Unh hunh. He said that she was ’sposed to go home at six-thirty.”
Patti shook her head in disgust. “I knew it. That man ain’t no good. He’s just as evil as he wants to be.”
Tracy chuckled and closed her eyes. Her mother then swept into her own bedroom. Dave was still watching television. He was leaned up against a pillow with his hands behind his head.
“You know what, Patti, I’m sick and tired of your sisters coming over here and terrorizing my damn house. I’ve worked hard for mine. Now if they got a problem with that, you best leave them out of our lives. Or at least out of my damn life.”
“Look, Dave, now that’s my family. Without me, they’ll fall apart,” Patti self-righteously assumed. “So even if they argue with me, they really do need me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m gon’ tell you what, soon you ain’t gon’ need me, because I’m a little worn out from this dumb stuff.”
Patti started to undress. “Dave, it ain’t all that bad.”
“Yes the hell it is,” Dave snapped. “Matter fact, they’re not coming over here anymore. Period.”
Patti stopped undressing and stared at him. “Why, Dave?”
“Because I said so. That’s reason enough.”
“Now you know that ain’t even fair,” Patti retorted. She caressed Dave’s chest under the sheets. Dave pulled her hand away and rolled over. “Baby, come on,” Patti pleaded.
“No, now, get off of me.”
Patti sighed and turned the other way.
“Turn the TV off,” Dave demanded.
“You’re the one that turned it on.”
“I don’t care. You just got in bed. You’re not all that comfortable yet.”
Patti stayed in the bed, refusing to move.
Dave turned to face her. “What do you think, I’m playing? I told you to turn the shit off,” he snapped, nearly pushing her out of bed.
Patti caught her balance to avoid falling onto the floor. She then went and turned the TV off. I don’t know who he think he is, she thought to herself as she strolled back to her side of the bed.
“Are you satisfied now?”
Dave was playing his ugly tough-guy role. He had learned it years ago to keep Patti in check. And Patti enjoyed pissing him off. It was her childish entertainment.
Dave jumped up in an instant and grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?” Patti whined.
“I’m tired of you playing that young-girl shit. You sleep on the damn couch tonight.”
“Why?” Patti said, holding Dave gently by his waist. She gently squeezed him, hoping to turn him on.
“Get off me, Patti. You’re a damn kid, girl, I swear,” he told her as he knocked her hands away.
Patti shoved her breasts up against his chest. “Please, I’m sorry, baby,” she pleaded. She tried to plant a kiss on her husband’s lips. Dave turned away to avoid it.
“No, get off of me,” he persisted, still trying to push her away.
Patti sighed and began walking toward her daughter’s room.
Dave asked, “Where are you going?”
Patti teased him with a sly grin. “I’m going to sleep with my baby. She’s the only one that cares about me,” she told him.
“Look, I’m gonna give you about two seconds to go downstairs and sleep on that damn couch, like I told you,” Dave warned her.
Patti really knew how to get to her husband. She smirked and said, “Okay already.”
Dave mugged her in the back of her head. “You think this shit is a damn joke, don’t you?” he asked her, pinning her to the hallway wall.
“Now wait a minute, Dave, you’re hurting me.”
“I’m hurting you? Shit, you’re hurting me with these stupid-ass games you play all the time,” Dave told her.
“How the hell am I hurting you? It looks like you’re the one that has me pinned up against this damn wall,” Patti retorted.
“Look, you’re fucking with my peace of mind, Patti. Now we’re damn near thirty years old. We’re getting too old for this role-playing shit.”
Patti looked at him seriously for a moment. “Dave, you’re the one that started it. You could have turned that TV off yourself.”
“Yeah, well I’m gonna end it, too.” He released the hold on his wife and walked back into his bedroom, locking the door in her face.
Patti shook her head and grinned. She reminisced on the many other occasions where she had argued with her husband and ended up making sweaty love. Those were their best nights. She thought that maybe they would be having another one if she played along with him, but she was wrong.
Dave was seriously fed up. He longed for a more mature woman who would cooperate with him instead of aggravating him and forcing him to play Mr. Sweet and Mr. Sour. In fact, Dave had become so good at it that he couldn’t tell the difference between his real self and his roles. He was beginning to feel like he was up for a living Academy Award.
Patti fell asleep on her living-room couch and spent the night there. She had anticipated her husband coming down to carry her back to their bedroom and make passionate love to her. But it never happened.
“Come on, Tracy, it’s time to get up,” Patti called.
“Okay, Mom,” Tracy answered, wiping out her eyes. She stepped out of her twin-sized bed and followed her mother to the hallway bathroom.
“Did I wake you up from a dream, baby?” Patti asked her.
“Yup. I was Cinderella, and the prince was just like dad.”
“Just like Dad? Well, didn’t you have a beautiful dream.”
Tracy smiled and said, “Yup, Mom.”
“Well, let’s get you cleaned and dressed so you can eat your breakfast.”
“Mommy?” Tracy asked, getting undressed for her bath.
“Yes, Tracy.”
“Why does Dad never eat breakfast with us?”
“Because he has to go to work early.”
Patti helped her daughter into the tub.
“Why does he have to go to work early?”
“Because that’s his job, honey?”
“Did you and Dad fight last night, Mommy?”
“No,” Patti lied to her. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I heard you and Dad in the hall last night.”
“Well, we were out in the hallway, but we weren’t really fighting.”
Tracy looked in her mother’s hand mirror while getting toweled off. “Why my eyes different from yours, Mommy?” she asked.
“Because you got them from your father.”
“Unt unh. Daddy’s eyes aren’t pointy like mine. And they shiny, too,” Tracy argued, still looking inside of the hand mirror.
“Yes they are, Tracy. You just can’t notice them on your father as much as you can on you, because you’re lighter than your dad,” Patti explained.
Tracy put her arm next to her mother’s arm to compare complexions. “I’m tanner than you, Mommy,” she said.
“Yup, you came right in between me and your father.”
“How that happen?” Tracy asked, as her mother put on her new birthday clothes.
“Ut oh, my daughter looks sharp to-day,” Patti said.
Tracy smiled and spun around in her baby-blue dress. But she hadn’t forgotten her question. “Hunh, Mommy, how’d that happen?” she persisted.
“What?” Patti asked.
“How did I get like this?” Tracy asked again. She raised her arms up high to show Patti her color.
“You ask some complicated questions for a little girl, now don’t you?”
They went down into the kitchen to eat.
“Tell me, Mommy,” Tracy pressed, as she took a seat in a kitchen chair.
Patti just couldn’t believe how tenacious her daughter was. She’s going to be a very assertive girl, she told herself. “I’ll tell you what, you ask Dad when he gets home.”
“Awww, see, you don’t tell me nothin’.”
Patti looked at her daughter with piercing slit eyes. “You watch who you’re talking to, girl! You hear me?”
Tracy nodded and began to eat her breakfast with a long face.
Tracy loved going to school. She had perfect attendance and was smart and popular. She drew attention like a magnet. She wanted as many friends as possible. School was where Tracy could show off. And the teachers praised her participation in class.
“Yup, and then my cousins messed it up. They always mess it up,” Tracy was telling her group of girlfriends, Celena, Pam and Judy.
“I don’t like my cousins either, ’cause they always wanna race and stuff,” Judy said, standing short and chunky.
Celena, the tallest of the group, rose from their small bench at the far end of the schoolyard. “Aw, you just say that ’cause they always beat you,” she said to Judy.
“Shet up, girl. That’s why you gon’ fail in school,” Judy retorted, facing off with her.
“I got better grades than you,” Celena said.
“No you don’t.”
“Yes I do, ’cause on our first spelling quiz, I did better than you.”
“Well, we just started, and that was the only one we had anyway. Now! I busted your bubble,” Judy responded, bumping flat chests with Celena.
“You can’t beat me in nothin’, little girl,” Celena contested, staring down at her shorter friend.
“Who is you callin’ ‘little girl, ’Stinky?”
Tracy loved to hear the girls argue. It reminded her of her aunts and her mother.
Pam, the quieter friend, sat and watched the action herself.
“I’ll kick you in your butt, Big Mouth,” Celena said as they bumped each other again.
“Do it then, Stinky,” Judy dared.
Both girls were pushing and shoving. Tracy got up to stop what could’ve turned into a real fight. “Stop y’all, we all friends,” she said, moving inbetween them.
“Well, that’s why Celena ain’t got no hair. At least I ain’t bald-headed like you,” Judy said, starting up again.
“I ain’t bald-headed, girl. I got more hair than you,” Celena snapped.
“GET OUT THE WAY, THE BALL IS COMING!” a boy shouted, running past.
The girls didn’t move out of the way quickly enough. Judy got knocked down on her plump behind.
“Ay, boy? Why you do that?” Pam yelled at him. She was quiet, but a fighter.
“I’m sorry,” the boy responded.
One of his friend’s overheard him apologizing. “Ay, Tommy, don’t say sorry to her, man,” he said, staring and bumping into Pam. She swung immediately. The boy blocked it and punched her back in her neck.
“See, boy, I’m gon’ tell on you,” she whined.
“Go ’head then, girl. See if I care.”
“See, Aaron, you always hittin’
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