Full Figured 9 Read online

  I thought of my last conversation with Victor before I left for Long Island. “Brielle, you know I love you like you are my own child, and I only want the best for you, but I’ve been hearing bad things about you and the crowd you hang with. And I don’t like the hours you’re keeping.” The night before, he’d closed up the restaurant and come home at 3 a.m. He felt the hood of my car, which was still warm, so he knew that I had been driving it not too long before—way past my midnight curfew.

  I had hung my head, hoping he’d take that for an apology and drop the subject. No such luck. He continued, “Your grades are starting to suffer from it as well.” He lifted my chin and looked me straight in my eyes and asked, “Is there anything you want to tell me? Is there anything you are into that you might not want your mother to find out? Because you know you can tell me anything and I’ll help you.”

  Thing was, I believed every word Victor said. I didn’t feel as though he was trying to get me to confess to something so that he could trap me and go rat me out to my mother. Victor truly did seem concerned about me. It was the look that every girl hopes to see when she looks into her father’s eyes. I’d waited years for that look, but I couldn’t even take it all in for what it was worth, because I knew damn well that, as a father, he had every right to be concerned about me. I was hanging with a suspect crowd, my grades were shitty, and I was getting a craving for those ice chips.

  No way was I going to have that look in Victor’s eyes be replaced with disgust and disappointment, so I did what I do best: I lied to that man right in his face. I told him everything was fine and that after spring break I’d hit the books harder than ever.

  He didn’t press the conversation after that. He just kissed me on the forehead, patted me on the shoulder with a smile, and told me how much he’d miss me and my brother while we were gone. But I could tell he didn’t believe me. I could tell he knew something was up.

  I cringed, just thinking that this might have been our last conversation. I told a man who never wanted anything but the best for me a lie right to his face. How could I live with that? If God would just give me one more chance to . . .

  Who was I kidding? If I had to do it all over again, I’d still lie. I mean, I couldn’t admit to Victor that I dibbled and dabbled in drugs here and there. He’d look at me as a hardcore druggie and probably start hiding things in the house. No way would I be able to convince him that it wasn’t that serious, even though never once had I stolen anything to get high or even borrowed money. I’d usually just treat myself to a little something whenever Mom turned over my portion of child support to me.

  Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t any kind of addict. I bought just enough to last me. You’d never find me lying out in a sweat, scratching at my neck, fiendin’ for the stuff. Although another week in New York might have been a different thing. But still, believe me when I say I wasn’t hooked or anything. Like I said before, it was just a recreational high. I could quit any time I wanted. It’s just that life was so much more fun when I was high.

  As I stood there listening to Jamela cry over her ailing father, though, no drug in the world would have made that sight fun.

  I listened a little longer to Jamela.

  “Daddy, don’t leave me. I’ll do whatever I have to do to take care of you, just so long as you live. I won’t go away to college. I’ll be here for you like you were always here for me. I love you, Daddy. Can you hear me?”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. The girl was crying and snotting all over the place. Hell, if she kept it up, I was probably going to end up having to ask the doctors if they could prescribe something to calm her down. Hmm, had I copped my ice first, I might have been able to solve that problem. For now, though, I guessed I would have to see if a few comforting words would do the trick.

  “Jamela,” I said as I entered the room. “I’m so sorry, sis.” I decided to call her sis like I did back in the day when I was younger and smaller than her. Somehow, in all my thickness, I’d managed to surpass Jamela in size. Guess it was time for me to start giving her all her old clothes back.

  “How is Victor?” I reached over and put my hand on her shoulder. Since she was still on her knees, I couldn’t give her the fake hug that I would have sacrificed doing. What can I say? I was not the hugging type, although I was sincere as far as her father went. I really did care about him.

  Jamela looked up and noticed for the first time that I was in her presence. “Oh, hey, Brielle,” she said. “You’re back early.” She was surprised to see me. I didn’t interact with Jamela that much, and she and my mother didn’t communicate, so there would have been no way for Jamela to know I was coming back home early.

  She began to wipe away her tears with her hands. I spotted a small box of tissue, grabbed a couple out of the box, and handed them to her.

  “Thank you,” she said, extending her arm limply. She looked so weak and helpless, just the way my mother had sounded on the phone. In this state, Jamela looked nothing like the confident person I’d always seen her to be.

  In my opinion, sometimes her confidence was laced with a little cockiness. She always walked around the house unaffected by anything, her head held high and nose in the air like she was better than all of us. She never gave me a direct attitude, but I just couldn’t stand how she acted like her shit didn’t stink. I imagined her being at school telling all her friends how I had to wear her hand-me-downs. Now that I think about it, she probably only gave me her old things as an excuse to get her daddy to go out and buy her an entire new wardrobe. I could just hear her now: “Daddy, I had to give Brielle all my clothes. I have nothing to wear to school. Do you expect me to go to school and get straight A’s if I don’t look good?”

  Well, I would have said it like that, anyway. Jamela was so proud of herself. She even acted like her dark skin was better than my light skin, when we all know it should be the other way around. Just look at the music videos. The light-skinned girl is always the pretty lead. But I thought her father probably had something to do with that. I was sure he’d instilled in her to be proud of her complexion, to be proud of herself period, because he was always telling her how proud he was of her. I bet he never lectured her about the kinds of people she was hanging out with, the way he did with me.

  Watching her crying and begging for her father’s life was sad though. For the first time since I could remember, I really felt for Jamela. Truth be told, she had never really done anything bad to me, nor had she ever been mean to me.

  If I was really being honest with myself, I could admit that I had allowed my mother to shape my relationship with Jamela. I loved my mother. In my eyes, she was right about everything. I watched how she was with Jamela. I listened to the things she would say about her, and I guess I allowed those things to influence my feelings about Jamela. I started seeing her differently—through my mother’s eyes.

  “I came back early when I heard,” I said to Jamela. She turned her attention back to her father, and so did I. Seeing Victor lying there, tubes coming from his nose, IVs from his arm and machines beeping, I grew weak in the knees. “I’m sorry that this happened, Jamela. I know how much you love your dad.”

  She turned around and looked at me. I felt like she was examining my face for sincerity. “You love him too.” Her eyes were questioning.

  “Yes.” I nodded and smiled.

  “I appreciate you being here.”

  Neither of us said anything for a minute as we both watched Victor lying motionless in the bed. After a few seconds, she pushed herself up off the floor. She stretched her stiff body.

  “I’ll sit with him and give you a break, if you’d like.” I looked around. There was a chair on each side of his bed. The one closer to me was a regular plastic chair. The one closer to the window was a little nicer, almost like a mini La-Z-Boy.

  “No, I don’t want to leave him.” She walked over to the less comfy-looking chair, so I headed over to the recliner. “I want to spend as much time with him as I
can.”

  She sat down and said, “Your mom is funny about how long I stay in here with him. She went home to shower and change, so I want to spend as much time with him as I can before she gets back and starts regulating.” She let out a small chuckle.

  I chuckled too, but I knew shade when I heard it, and that chick had just thrown some shade. I wasn’t mad though. My mother was very controlling and protective of those she loved, so I knew what Jamela meant.

  Jamela took her father’s hand and just sat there staring at him. This was like a depressing scene from one of the soap operas my mom used to watch. I wanted to sit here and keep Jamela company, but this was too much. I shot back up from my chair, rubbing my palms down my jeans.

  “Okay. I’m going downstairs to grab a coffee then. Do you want one?”

  “I’d appreciate that. I haven’t slept a wink since yesterday. I could use a boost.”

  You and me both, I thought, rolling my eyes up in my head. I headed over to the curtain to exit. “Sure you don’t want to come with me? Just to walk and get your blood flowing?”

  She shook her head. “I want to be here when he wakes up. If he wakes up.”

  I nodded my understanding as I exited the room, making sure I’d wiped every last one of my escaped tears away before I got on the elevator.

  I returned to the room about a half hour later, surprised to see that my mom wasn’t back yet. I knew she said that she was going to try to take a nap, but she must have been so exhausted that she was still asleep.

  I gave Jamela her coffee and then sat back in my chair with mine. I pulled out my cell phone to call my mother.

  “Those aren’t allowed.”

  I looked over at Jamela, who was pointing to a sign on the wall. It was a laminated picture of a cell phone with a circle around it and a huge slash through it.

  “Oh,” I said, then opted to send my mother a text instead. I told her that I was at the hospital and asked when she was heading back up. She replied a couple minutes later, letting me know that she wouldn’t be back any time soon.

  “My mom’s not coming back until the morning,” I informed Jamela. If I wasn’t mistaken, I think she perked up a little bit at the news.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll just stay with him all night.”

  I suppose I could have offered to stay with her, but no way was I spending the night at that hospital. It wasn’t like Victor knew we were there anyway. What was she going to do, just sit there and stare at him all night? Sorry, Charlie. It wasn’t happening.

  The nurse came in to check on Victor. By then I’d finished my coffee and figured I’d been there long enough. I stood up to leave.

  “I think I’m going to get ready to head out,” I said, stretching. “I’m still jet-lagged and everything from that long flight.”

  “I understand,” Jamela said. “Thanks again for coming.”

  “No problem.” I threw my cup into the trash. “You sure you don’t want to go home, change clothes, and get cleaned up or something?” This was my last offer, and I was hoping and praying she’d decline—which she did. On that note, I told her good-bye and left the hospital.

  As soon as I walked out of those sliding automatic hospital doors, I hopped on the phone with my BFF, Lyric, who was also a fellow cheerleader. We were polar opposites but complemented each other in so many ways. I was the thick cheerleader; she was as skinny as a rail. I was the popular black girl, and she was the popular white girl.

  Although she was a straight-up white girl, she was real cool. We met each other in second grade after my mom married Victor. She also lived in Bel Air, with both her parents and younger twin brothers. Her parents had beaucoup money. They were both in the movie industry. They stayed on sets or on location. Most people thought the housekeeper/nanny was her mother, because she was more visible in Lyric’s life than her own parents. Lyric had no complaints though. She said they rarely saw her, so when they did, they could never differentiate whether she was high. Made it easy for her to keep her little meth habit under wraps.

  “Girl, what are you doing in town so soon?” she screamed into the phone so loud that I pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure I hadn’t accidentally put it on speaker.

  “Didn’t you get the text I sent you?”

  “I didn’t get a text from . . .” She said the words slowly. I could tell she was searching through her phone while she was talking. “Oh, here it is.” I heard her mumbling as she read. “I don’t know how I missed this.”

  “Yes, my stepdad had a stroke, so I came home early.” I reiterated what was in the text I’d sent her as I approached the rental car.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Is he okay?”

  “He seems to be holding his own. I’m at the hospital now. Well, I’m just leaving the hospital.”

  “Will you be able to make it to the club tonight?”

  “Hell, yes, and after being up in this depressing bitch, there is nothing more I need right now than a drink—well, maybe there is something I need more than just a drink.” Lyric knew exactly what I was talking about as we both shared a laugh. “Girl, I can’t wait to get my drink on. I just have to drop off this rental, go home and pick up my car, and then it’s on. We gon’ party tonight, bitch!” I got in the car and started it up.

  “That’s what’s up,” Lyric said, using ghetto slang in her white voice.

  “All right then. Let me handle my business and we’ll hook up later. Deuces.” I ended the call and pulled out of my parking spot. I couldn’t wait to get my stuff. I didn’t want to think about my mother, Jamela, my father, or even Victor laid up in the hospital. All I wanted to do was go have fun. I’d caught my second wind, and now I was about to flap my wings and fly high!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JAMELA

  Three Years Later

  The day after Daddy had his stroke, Brielle flew back from New York. She sat with me in Daddy’s room for a little while, but then she left. Glendora, his own wife, didn’t even show up again that night. It was just me alone with my father near death. That was the scariest time in my life, and there I sat, dealing with it alone. Even now, three years later, I still felt alone. Yes, Daddy was back home now, but the stroke had done so much damage that he couldn’t care for himself. And even though Glendora, Brielle, and Brendon were under the same roof, it felt like it was always just me and my pops, because no one else seemed to be around to help take care of him. Glendora was off spending as much money as she could; Brielle was busy getting high and thinking she was hiding it from everyone, although Glendora was the only one still in denial about the extent of Brielle’s problem; and Brendon. . . I didn’t care what he was doing as long as he was staying away from me.

  Call me an “old soul,” but I didn’t mind spending any free time that I had next to my father, reading the paper to him or reporting to him how well the restaurants were doing. He’d been a good father to me, and I did everything I could to make sure he was comfortable. Although he had two full-time nurses, I spent as much time with him as I could. He and I were family. Even as ill as he was, he was still a comfort to me. The same way it had been hard for me to tear myself away from his hospital bed, it was just as hard to get me away from his side now.

  When I wasn’t with Daddy, I was working at the restaurants to continue his legacy. Three years ago I was just a high school senior with an after-school job helping out in the restaurant. Now I was a grown woman who had taken Daddy’s place in actually running the restaurants. Glendora had tried for a while to manage the books, but between her expensive tastes and her lack of self-control, she was running the place into the ground. Half of our profits went to pay off her American Express bill every month. I finally convinced her to let me take over, and to my surprise, she relented pretty quickly. She actually admitted that she was glad to let me do it because, as she said, “I am too cute to be spending so many hours on my damn feet every day.” On top of taking over at the restaurant, I was going to school part
time, squeezing in night classes whenever I could.

  With all that I had going on in life, you would think I didn’t even have time to sleep and eat. Well, you would be partially right. I didn’t have much time to sleep, but eating wasn’t a problem, considering I spent hours each day surrounded by food. So I was no longer that girl sitting by my daddy’s hospital bed in more ways than one. I was twice the girl—literally.

  I’d put on so much weight that it was ridiculous. As always, my stepmother did not bite her tongue in reminding me. Just last week she’d said, “Girl, you better do something about that weight if you ever want to get a man the way I got your daddy. You already a dark shade of black,” she said, referencing my complexion. “You don’t want to be fat and black. You can’t do anything about your skin unless you got Michael Jackson money, but you can do something about that weight.”

  As much as I hated to say it, she was right; not about my skin tone, but about my weight. There was no reason why I was allowing myself to get out of control like this. My father needed me, and if God saw fit, he’d be needing me for years to come. I needed to get healthy so that I could always be there to take care of him. I didn’t want to get so big and unhealthy that I was lying right up next to him, needing someone to take care of me.

  With that being said and with my gym bag strapped over my shoulder, I pulled up to LA Fitness in West Los Angeles. I climbed out of my car. My mother’s old car had finally clunked out, but I didn’t get a new one. I just drove Daddy’s, since his medical condition prevented him from driving. I was sure Glendora would have rather I walked, but somebody needed to keep the restaurants up and running, and I couldn’t do that using public transportation. Besides, that was the income that still allowed her to shop like there was no tomorrow, so she handed over the keys to his Cadillac.

  As I approached the facility, I got a glimpse of my muffin top in the mirrored windows of the building. Even with a black stretch girdle under my sweat clothes for my workout, it was obvious that I wasn’t just thick; I was fat.