What's Real

by Daaimah S. Poole

Genres: African American; African American Urban; African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Daaimah S. Poole follows up her hot, hilarious hit novels Yo Yo Love and Got a Man with the adventures of three sistahs from Philly who are about to take Miami by storm . . . Philadelphia twentysomethings Janelle, Natalie, and Tanya are gonna lose it if they don't get a break from their dull daily routines. Janelle has had it with her boring job as assistant manager at a clothing store. As for Natalie, with a baby to take care of and a husband who won't even change a diaper, she needs a time-out. Tanya is just looking for a good time and a man with a big, thick . . . wallet. Given the chance, these girls like to play, and their playground of choice is Miami. Almost as soon as they hit the beach they find themselves drawn into a fast-moving, flashy world of rappers, ballers, celebrities, and VIPs with cash to burn. But before this wild ride is over, they just may find that all that glitters ain't gold, and a good reality is worth way more than a fleeting fantasy . . . .

Release date: May 30, 2014

Publisher: Dafina

Print pages: 336

Sample

“So that’s it? I can’t say anything to you? You’re going to go be a groupie for the weekend,” Sean said.

“I’m not a groupie!” I yelled into the phone at work.

“Any girls who follow rappers and athletes out of town are groupies!” Sean yelled back at me.

“First of all, I’m not following anyone. Second, I don’t have to explain shit to you. You know what it is. Why don’t you just say you don’t want me to go?”

“Okay, I don’t want you to go,” he said remorsefully.

“I can’t do that, Sean. I already paid for everything and took off from work. I’ll see you when I get back. And as far as I remember, we are not together like that.”

“Whatever, Nellie. If I really was a hater I wouldn’t have given you money to go,” he said.

“You didn’t contribute that much. Bye, Sean,” I said and hung up. Men always want to be all up on you when they know somebody else wants you or you’re going out with your friends. If I was staying in the house doing nothing and asking him to go somewhere, Sean would give me fifty reasons why he couldn’t go. But since I’m going away he wants to act like he can’t live without me. I don’t owe Sean shit. He is not even my man. He has a lot of nerve asking me not to go on my trip. Sean is just my dog. We go to clubs and the movies together. He breaks me off when I need some. And he is there when I need somebody to talk to about my problems with a guy I’m dating. I’ve known Sean since high school. He was a senior and I was a junior. He used to like me, but at that time I didn’t date high school boys, so he wasn’t my type. We ran into each other at Pegasus Nightclub a couple of years ago. We were out of school and Sean looked good and had matured. We got together that night and it has been on ever since. I like Sean, but we could never be a couple, because he is somebody that is in transition. Transition, meaning he has great potential but has not tapped it yet. He’s twenty-five, hasn’t finished college, never had a job more than three months, but he says he’s going to be a millionaire by thirty. I wonder how. He’s cute and dresses stylishly. He was into button-down shirts, blazers, and ripped jeans before they were trendy. He is always superclean. I guess he is borderline metro sexual. He is funny, makes me laugh, and has goals, but he has no money. If he had the world, he would give it to me. But that’s the problem, he ain’t got no fucking money. He has visions for the future and a lot of good ideas, but no way to see them through. Our relationship is open, he can see who he wants and vice versa. We both try not to catch feelings when we talk to other people. We have talked about being exclusive, but we decided against it. Sometimes it’s hard, because like I said, he is my dog as well as my lover. I wish I would not go on vacation for his ass. I didn’t get mad at him when he went to All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles.

I need a vacation from Sean, my job, and my family too! My mother and two brothers, Taron and Jamal, moved in on me about seven months ago. They were supposed to be staying with me for only a couple of months until my mom saved enough for another apartment or she found a job. Neither has happened and I am stuck with them. The public relations firm she worked at for eighteen years laid her off. She was a couple of years away from retirement. They were supposed to give her a pension, but instead they filed for bankruptcy and didn’t give my mom anything. She lost her apartment and her car was repoed. My one-bedroom apartment looks like a hurricane hit it because of them. I come home and there will be shoes, socks, and clothes all over the floor. My brothers leave the toilet seat up and don’t flush it. Taron is eight, Jamal is ten, and they are more than a handful.

My mother cooks and won’t wash the pots she burns. And she burns everything, even rice. Then she tries to doctor the rice up with butter and seasoned salt like you can’t taste the burnt. As quickly as I clean up, they dirty up. I have stepped on race cars and tripped over balls. I am losing my damn mind. It’s so bad in my house that I’m ready to leave, but I don’t have anywhere else to go.

My bills are kicking my butt. Everything is on the verge of being cut off. My electric is so high from my brothers staring at the damn X-box game all day. My cable bill is three hundred dollars from them ordering the same movies over and over again. My mother doesn’t click over when she’s on the other line and then she doesn’t give me my messages until two days later. I really am about to scream. I want to kick them out so bad. But it’s my mom and brothers, so I can’t. So I let them stay and I deal with it.

I work at the Pique, a clothing store in the Gallery Mall in downtown Philly. I’m frustrated with my job because I am the assistant manager. I do everything the manager, Joan, should do. I do the payroll, inventory, dressing the mannequins, hiring, and firing. I close the store at night because Joan never has the time because she is too busy prancing her fat ass to Aunt Annie’s Pretzels at the other end of the mall. I have been in retail since I was about fifteen and it is getting on my nerves. I started out at the Gap; then I came here.

I hate closing the store at the end of the night. Every time I close, I have to make sure all the clothes are put back, hung up, and all the hangers are straight and lined up. I hate cleaning out the dressing rooms. I also have to make sure the money is right and check all the employees’ bags to see if anybody tried to take home some free gifts from the store. The only good thing about working here is my 15 percent discount and being able to get first pick on any size 8 that comes in.

It was almost closing time and there were still like twenty people in line. It was only me and the new girl, Shana, working. She’s a young girl who comes in after her classes at Community College. She’s like nineteen and a little ditzy but cool. Only problem with her is she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. Every other minute she has a void. So I have to clean up her mistakes all night.

I was doing a return when Shana nudged me in the arm and said, “Janelle, that girl just put something in her bag!” I looked up to see what Shana was talking about. I saw the girl. It was now time to play security guard too! I walked over to a few feet from the petite girl who seemed to be helping herself to different color tank tops. Her bag was bulky. I watched her for a moment, then decided to approach her. First, I peeked at her through the jean rack and that’s when I noticed she had a baby stroller with her and no baby. Underneath the stroller was almost a whole rack of our jean shorts and cargo pants. I walked behind her and said, “What’s in your bag?”

“What? Nothing’s in my bag!” the girl said as she turned around, startled and her eyes wide open.

“Well, let me see for myself,” I said as I tried to take the bag from the girl.

“No, get off my shit!” she yelled as she gave me attitude and tried to snatch the bag back from me. Customers were coming over to see what was going on. I could tell the girl was becoming embarrassed because of the crowd forming. I grabbed the bag again and it split open. Everything fell out. There were about a dozen shirts and aluminum foil on the floor. She looked down at the stuff and then up at me. Then I said, “Come with me.”

She followed and said, “I got kids. Please don’t call the cops on me.” I kept walking to the front of the store. I felt sorry for the girl, but I had to call the cops. The aluminum foil let me know she knew exactly what she was doing. She was not a rookie. See, the foil deters our sensor system from going off. I grabbed the stroller and the rest of the merchandise. I asked the girl her name and was about to call the cops. Instead of obliging she ran out of the store. Shana called mall security. That was senseless because they were slow. They came about five minutes after she left. I didn’t bother chasing her. For what? They were not paying me enough for that shit.

After all that drama we rang everybody up and emptied the store. It was a quarter to eight, the end of the evening finally here. I told Shana to hurry up and lock the door. As soon as she did a girl knocked on the door and asked if she could come in. I decided to let her in because she said that she only wanted to get one thing and technically we were not supposed to lock the door until five of eight. I said, “Okay, let her in.” Ten minutes later when I looked up, she was still shopping and trying clothes on. I told her that we were closing and she came out of the dressing room, said sorry, and paid for her things. Shana let her out and another woman tried to ask if she could come in. Nope, it was time to go home, I thought. I shook my head no. The woman said, “Please” and put her hands together like she was praying. I was tired and the store had to get clean. So I shook my head no again. She gave me an angry face and then said, “Your sign says you close at eight o’clock and it’s only seven fifty-five.”

I looked back at her and said, “We’re closed!” She put her middle finger up and walked away.

“Why didn’t you let her in?” Shana asked.

“You saw what happened when we let the last one in. She didn’t want to leave. They know what time the mall closes. I have to count these drawers and get this place ready for tomorrow.” I went into the dressing room and found empty hangers and clothes everywhere. It kills me the way people trash dressing rooms. They try things on and just leave them on the floor without thinking about putting them back on the hangers. I guess if I didn’t work in retail I wouldn’t care either. Shana began vacuuming and I went around inspecting the racks. We didn’t finish cleaning the store until close to nine. I dropped Shana off at the subway, then went to the bank and made our deposit. I was so tired I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I was getting on my plane and heading on my vacation to Miami. A three-day weekend was what I needed. No ringing up anybody, no chasing people, no cleaning. I might even meet somebody down there. I heard all the men be down there looking good. I might get one and then I can drop Sean. My cousin Natalie and her friend Tanya are leaving today. I wish I could go with them, but I couldn’t take off Thursday and Friday. They needed me at the store because Joan wouldn’t come in.

My uncle Teddy was going to drop me off at the airport so I wouldn’t have to catch a cab or the bus. He is my mother’s brother and always helps me and my mom out. We are very close. He helped my mom raise me. He never had any kids of his own. My mom said she doesn’t think he could have any. My real dad, Randy, was never there. I saw him every once in a while when he came to town. Randy just sent the child support check in the mail every other week. When my mother married my brothers’ father, my uncle Teddy was more of a father than their real dad, taking them to basketball games and jogging with them. Their father and my mom were married for ten years. They just got divorced about three months ago, but have been separated for six years. He don’t do shit for my brothers and only lives about six blocks from my apartment.

I really can’t afford to go on this trip, but I need to go. I basically begged and borrowed to go. It’s a sad situation when you’re calculating your bills and you’re broke. But it’s even sadder to know when you get your next check you’re still going to be broke. I calculated I’m going to be broke three more paychecks until I pay everybody back who sponsored me to go on this trip. My uncle Teddy gave me money. Sean gave me a few dollars and my mom even chipped in and she doesn’t have any money. When you’re broke you learn how to make money stretch by any means necessary. I alternate months on paying bills. One month electric gets paid the next month the phone. It usually works. My car is another story. It is always breaking down. If it’s not the alternator it’s the brakes, fuel pump or a tune-up. It is always something and it always will be. That’s why I’m not worried about spending bill money to go on my trip.

At least I’m going on vacation. Philadelphia International Airport, here I come. I can’t wait to get on the plane, sit on the beach, and drink a frozen lime margarita with a salt rim and forget all my worries.

Last night I had a dream that Barry was still alive. He looked exactly the same way I remember. Same deep chocolate skin, tall, and a closely shaved brown bald head. He was on the run and I was with him. We were hiding out at a motel. We were lying in the bed talking when we heard banging on the door. Then I heard, “Open up! Police!” and then more banging on the door. We put on our clothes and escaped through the bathroom window. Barry kept saying, “Don’t call anybody, we got to keep a low profile. You can’t let anyone know where we are.” We checked in to another motel. We stayed inside about twenty-two hours of the day. We didn’t want anybody to know what we looked like in case the cops came around asking questions. “Don’t let anybody know where we at,” he repeated.

We went to the movies in my dream and I remember I couldn’t concentrate. I thought the police were going to find us. I was worried that they were going to lock Barry up. Seeing and feeling Barry felt so real. Then I remember touching his face and saying, “Barry, you are dead. How did you come back to life?” He looked at me.

Then that very moment I awoke. They say that when you dream about a dead person, that’s his way of making contact with you. If that’s true, Barry must know how much I miss him and how I think about him every day. How I wish I could have told him good-bye before he was murdered. Barry’s little brother Moe shot him in the head. They were both high, counting their money. Moe was playing with a silver revolver. He was always pulling out his old-ass gun on someone and pointing it. He picked up the gun and acted like he was going to shoot Barry and the gun accidentally went off. At least that’s Moe’s version of what went down. The police said Moe killed Barry over three thousand dollars and some crack.

That was six years ago, but it still feels like yesterday. Moe got twenty-five years. He has to serve at least fifteen before he is up for parole. Barry was my baby, the love of my life. We had been together since the eighth grade. His grandmom went to my grandmom’s church. We were inseparable. Barry’s grandmom would always drag him to church with her so he would stay out of trouble, and I would see him there. We started talking at church functions and picnics. One day we both played sick from church and went to the neighborhood carnival.

Me and Barry were sixteen when our son, Davon, was born. When I got pregnant, I had to drop out of school because I was always sick. After I had Davon I didn’t bother to go back. At the time, Barry was in juvie for dealing. His whole time in we remained close and in love. We wrote each other every day and I would bring the baby up for visits every weekend. He promised he wouldn’t fuck up while he was in there and got to come home early to me and Davon. When he got home, he made up for being away from me and Davon by moving us out of my grandmom’s house and buying me a car. I didn’t even know how to drive. He would hustle, steal, or do whatever it took to hold me down. Barry was so good to me. We had our daughter, Deja, two years after Davon.

One night when we were at dinner, Barry was ready to steal a Louis Vuitton bag for me, when we had money on us. I said, “Bey, I like her bag.” He asked me if I wanted him to steal it for me. He said, “I can get it as soon as she walks out.” I told him I didn’t want it that bad.

The next day he got a booster to get the same bag for me. Some people said that Barry was a thug and that he would steal from anybody and got what he deserved. But I know he had a good heart. He was a good man; his grandmom brought him up good. Moe sometimes asks me to bring my kids up to the prison to see him. The nerve of him, knowing what he did. He is the reason Barry isn’t here, whether it was an accident or not. I just can’t do it.

After he was murdered, I couldn’t make it on my own. I couldn’t keep my apartment up and dress nice too. I never had to take care of myself. Barry used to treat me like his little princess; he would help me take care of the kids. He did everything for me. Welfare was not enough to pay my rent. I had two kids. Davon was three and Deja was just turning one. So I ended up moving back in with my grandmom and we have been here ever since. I get a welfare check and with that money I try to pay my grandmom and get food. My grandmom took care of me most of my life. Now she is helping me take care of my kids. Our clothes money and shit like that I get from niggas or doing some kind of hustle. I don’t boost. That shit is corny and not enough money in it for me. I don’t have time to steal clothes and then try to sell them. I might do a credit card or check scam here or there, but nothing major. And when I do that I don’t touch the shit myself because that’s federal time and I’m not trying to go to jail.

Davon is now nine and Deja is seven. Deja is in second and Davon’s in the fourth grade. I was packing my bag when Deja ran into the room and said, “Mommy, we coming with you today?”

“No, baby, Mommy is going out of town.” I pressed her Afro puff on her ponytail in and continued packing.

“Tanya, you need to take them kids with you. You never take them anywhere,” my grandmother lectured as she stood in the doorway of my room with her hand on her hip. She had her rollers in her hair and a red flowered housecoat on. My grandmother looks good for her age. She’s almost sixty. Henrietta is a woman that can hold her own. She doesn’t take shit from people and she will tell you about yourself.

“Mom-Mom, leave me alone. I’ll take them somewhere when I get back. I’m going to Miami with Natalie and her cousin,” I said as I tried to finish packing.

“Tanya, you ain’t right! You just like your mother.”

“Mom-Mom, you tripping. Leave me alone, I’m trying to pack,” I said as I folded my turquoise bathing suit and placed it in my suitcase.

“I’m not tripping. You are wrong. You had fun making them, not me,” she said. Then she looked up toward the ceiling and said, “Lord, I don’t know why people think they can just leave their kids on me. Your mother did it. You’re doing it and I guess in ten years your daughter will do it too.”

“Mom-Mom, you know we love you. You know I’m nothing like your daughter Saundra. Davon and Deja are not going to leave their kids on you, because they are not having kids early. I’m going to send them to college and they are going to have good jobs,” I said as I went to hug her. She backed away from me and said, “Don’t try to butter me up. How you got money to go on a trip to Miami when you didn’t even give me any money this month?”

Just when I was about to answer her question, my ride beeped his horn.

“I got to go, Mom-Mom. We’ll talk when I get back,” I said. I gave Deja a hug and kissed her and my grandmother good-bye. Walei, my ride, was outside. He is this African guy who loves to be mistreated, especially by me. I had met him walking down the street about two months ago. He rode past me and beeped his horn. I kept walking, so he put his car in reverse to talk to me, but another car was coming. So he went around the block. When he came back he jumped out of his car and said, “You are an attractive lady. Are you married?” I told him no. Then he said my skin was radiant and he had never seen anyone as beautiful as me. I have been in his pocket ever since. You would never know he was African until he opened his mouth. He has a thick accent. He treats me good and gives up the money. He bought me a Christian Dior bag. We go to fine restaurants all the time. He wants to show me off and I haven’t even kissed him. He’s like the only guy I can get money out of without having sex. I’m his showpiece and he is my moneyman. Walei even paid for my trip. He asked me if he could go and of course, I laughed at him. Walei is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. He is studying engineering or some shit like that. He’s about to graduate after he takes his summer classes. He comes from Lagos, Nigeria. He said it’s just like New York City and one day he is going to take me home to meet his family. I think not. I’m not going to no Africa. For what? So I can get stuck? Please.

I wanted to get my hair braided for my mini vacation. I didn’t want to be looking a mess with big puffy hair. I wanted to be able to get into the pool, to jet ski, and still look cute. I do not have time to even think about doing my thick hair in hot, humid weather. A girl at my son’s day care told me about a girl that did braids in her apartment building. She said that the girl, Heather, was fast, good, and cheap. Three things I needed. I called Heather and she said that she couldn’t squeeze me in until Thursday, which was the day of my trip. My flight would leave at 5:00 p.m. and I wanted to be at the airport by 3:00 p.m. I had to get there two hours in advance because of the security check. I asked if I could come real early. She said I could come any time while her kids was at school. So we agreed on ten.

I arrived at her apartment, and I swear, the roaches answered the door. As soon as I knocked, one crawled down the door. I could smell a nasty mix of funk and roach spray. She opened the door wearing a dingy white bra and bright purple tights with white bleach stains on them. Her bones were sticking out of her ribs. She looked like a walking skeleton and had a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

“How you doing? You Natalie?” she asked as she opened the door. “I thought you was my old man. I forgot I told you to come this morning,” she said as I walked inside her apartment. She asked me what kind of hair I bought as she threw dirty clothes off her sofa onto the floor.

“I just bought the 1B Beverly Johnson,” I answered. She told me that was cool and asked me if I had a comb. I pulled one out of my pocketbook and then she asked me how I wanted my hair braided. I told her straight back with two layers and a design. Then she told me to have a seat on the floor. She took a pillow off her sofa and put it on the floor for me to sit on. It was so uncomfortable and her floor was very dirty. There were dirty shoe tracks and juice spills. While she was braiding my hair, I was swatting flies that flew by me. Her house would be the perfect setting for a Raid commercial. I wanted to kick myself for being cheap and not just going to a braiding shop to get my hair done professionally. Then I saw a mouse run across the kitchen floor and jump into the trash bag. She must have been used to seeing mice, because she didn’t budge. I screamed, “It’s a mouse” and jumped off the pillow.

She said, “Oh, don’t worry about that mouse. . .