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  Jules shook his head from side to side as if he was in disbelief. He looked up at her and said, “I got five to nine years, Zya.”

  Zya dropped the phone, and it collided with the metal table, causing a loud bang to echo through the room. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. It was almost as if her brain refused to process the words. I’ve got five to nine years. The words replayed over and over in her head, and she couldn’t stop the silent tears from falling down her face.

  What am I going to do? she asked herself. She picked up the phone, but was speechless.

  The look on Zya’s face made Jules’s heart weak. He loved Zya. She was the one woman who was down for him through whatever, and he knew that she felt deeply for him. He was happy that she was pregnant. He knew that there was not a better woman to carry his seed, but he also knew that she needed him to be with her.

  “What do you mean? You haven’t even been to court yet,” Zya said when she finally found her voice. “What about the trial?”

  “There’s not going to be a trial, Zy. I had an active warrant pending, and they had enough evidence to sentence me to twenty-five years. Me skipping bail only made things worse, so my options were limited. The prosecution offered me a deal to avoid all that. I had to take the five to nine,” he said, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself more than Zya.

  “Couldn’t you have won the trial?” Zya asked, refusing to believe that there was no other way out.

  “Zya, I done already been through all that with my lawyers. There’s no way around it.”

  Zya lowered her head, and the salty tears cascaded from her face onto the table.

  “There’s no way I can take care of this baby by myself. I can’t even take care of me. I’m getting an abortion,” she said, almost whispering the last couple words.

  “No in the hell you ain’t! You not about to kill my seed. I love you, Zya, and I’ma be there for you and my child when I get out. That would kill me, Zya. You got to give me something to come home to.”

  Zya nodded her head as she listened to his words, but the tears wouldn’t stop.

  “What you gon’ do is get on your hustle, and you got nine months to do it,” he said sternly. Jules was insistent on getting his point across to the woman sitting across from him. There was no way he was letting her get rid of his child. Even if he wasn’t there to support them physically, he would make sure that he gave her the means to support herself. He would supply her with the knowledge she needed to get money while he was away. It would not only benefit her financially, but would keep his spot in the streets on hold while he was away.

  “Zya, you gon’ have to take care of things while I’m in here. We got a baby on the way, and I need you to be strong. You got to hustle to eat . . . and I got some old debts I need to settle with my lawyers, so you got to hold me down. You understand?” he asked her.

  Zya nodded and wiped her eyes. “I understand.”

  “You still holding that?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, I got ’em,” she replied, knowing he was referring to the ten kilos of cocaine she had picked up from Torey Snow.

  “Time’s up!” the prison guard announced as he opened the door to the visiting room.

  Zya looked at Jules and asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  He knew he didn’t have time to explain it to her. They had wasted too much time on other things. He stood up and said, “Wait for my letter.”

  Zya nodded her head and replied, “I’ll be back next Monday.”

  “No!” Jules yelled out loud. Zya frowned her face, but before she could ask him why, he said, “Come every other Monday. I don’t want you to become a familiar face around here.”

  Zya watched as a guard came and escorted Jules out of the room. He was pulled away so fast that she didn’t even get the chance to say “I love you.” She got up and walked out of the prison.

  By the time Zya arrived at Vita’s house, it was dark outside and the street was lined with cars. There was a dice game going down on the front stoop, and Zya already knew what was up. Zya could see that Vita’s brownstone was packed on the inside, and she hesitantly made her way into the house. She didn’t feel like being around a lot of people, and she definitely didn’t want the word getting back to Jules that she was at a house party.

  She made her way into the tiny room where she slept, and checked to make sure her goods were exactly where she had left them. She pulled out the duffel bag and began to pull out the bricks, counting each one to make sure that nobody in the house had been in her shit.

  I can’t afford to take an L right now, she thought as she sighed a breath of relief once she realized that nothing had been touched. The door opened and a Latino girl came bursting into the room with a drink in her hand. The cocaine wrapped in clear plastic was spread out on the bed, and the girl’s mouth fell wide open when she saw it.

  “Damn, bitch, can you knock?” Zya asked harshly as she got up, preparing to get in her ass. She stopped when she saw the dark-skinned dude enter the room after her. Snow stood behind her with a Heineken in his hand, and when he saw the dope on the bed, he leaned over and whispered in the girl’s ear, “Let me handle something real fast, mama.” There was an awkward silence in the room. The girl looked at Zya with venom in her eyes and rolled them hard, but didn’t attempt to leave.

  “Bitch, don’t get it fucked up,” Zya warned as the Latino girl sped up her step and exited the room.

  Snow closed the door and said, “Chill out, li’l ma. What the fuck you doing here in this hot-ass trap house with my dope?” He stared down at her with his gray eyes and spoke with a lazy drawl. His skin was chocolate, and his eyes pierced through Zya as if he had known her all his life. Before she could even respond, he asked her, “What’s wrong? Where Jules at?”

  Zya didn’t think it was smart to be broadcasting Jules’s arrest, so she replied, “He’s out of town. I’m handling his business in Harlem while he’s away.” Snow was tipsy, and she could tell by the slant of his eyes, so she didn’t doubt that he was buying the excuse.

  “It don’t look like you handling it too well. You up in this mu’fucka with ten kilos of snow on you,” he said as he took another sip of his drink.

  “As long as you get paid, you shouldn’t have no problems with how I conduct mines,” Zya replied smartly, with one hand planted on her hip.

  He looked her up and down then licked his lips. He stepped closer to her and leaned over to whisper in her ear. “If you were my bitch, I wouldn’t have you out here making my money. I’d have you out here spending it.”

  Zya looked up at him, and for a second, her eyes were stuck on his. The door opened, and the Latino girl appeared with her hand on her hip. She cleared her throat loudly. Snow turned around, and Zya mugged the girl that was standing in her doorway. Bitch, don’t nobody want your man, she thought. She smiled slyly then grabbed Snow’s hand. She pulled his tall frame down to her and whispered in his ear.

  “First of all, I’m not anybody’s bitch. I’m his woman, and I ride for mines. I’ll leave the gold-diggin’ up to your little girlfriend,” she said. She kept her eyes on the girl waiting by the door, knowing that she thought the conversation was more than what it was.

  “Papi!” the girl called out, growing irritated as she watched Zya work her man.

  Snow backed away from Zya, and couldn’t take his eyes off her as he made his way to the door. She smiled then closed the door behind him.

  Zya put the kilos away and made sure they were hidden underneath the bed. She lay down on the bed and tried to block out the music that was playing throughout the house. Vita had Yung Joc bumping extra loud, and Zya grew frustrated quickly. She couldn’t even think straight. The rowdy atmosphere was not healthy for her or her baby, and all she wanted to do was get out of the house. Knowing that she had nowhere to go, she went to sleep.

  After tossing and turning all night, Zya woke up to the smell of food. She walked downstairs and went into the kitche
n, where she found Vita’s boyfriend, Heavy, cooking breakfast. The house was clean and showed no signs that a party had just taken place the night before.

  “What up, Zy!” Heavy yelled out, shouting for no damn reason. Zya had to laugh, though. Heavy was cool like that. He was one of them loud, rowdy Southern dudes who just didn’t give a fuck.

  “What up, Heavy?” Zya said as she sat at the bar-style counter. “Where Vita at?” she asked.

  “She went to get her toes wrapped or some shit,” he replied as he took the salt down from the cabinet and put way too much in the potatoes he was cooking.

  “Her toes wrapped? You mean she went to get her hair wrapped?” Zya asked.

  Heavy waved the spatula in the air and replied, “Yeah, she went to the salon to get her shit hooked up. Hair, toes, all that good shit.”

  Zya laughed at Heavy. This nigga in here thinking he G. Garvin, she thought as she smiled to herself and shook her head.

  “Yo, Zya, I hear you got them thangs on you,” Heavy said. Zya tensed up, knowing exactly what he was talking about. She knew that Snow would not have put her business out like that, so she knew the loud-mouth Latino girl had told someone what she saw.

  “Nah, you know I don’t get down like that,” Zya commented nonchalantly, trying to make Heavy think he had heard wrong. Heavy was cool, but she knew that he was like every other nigga in Harlem; he had his own agenda. He was a small player in the dope game. He was still hustling rocks, but she knew that he had been trying to get his hands on weight.

  He barking up the wrong mu’fucking tree, cuz I ain’t got shit for his ass. She knew that she would have to find her own place real quick because she didn’t trust Heavy as far as she could throw him, and she couldn’t throw his fat ass far at all.

  “Oh, you know I’m just asking. If you are rolling like that, I know somebody that want some.” His country accent made his offer sound friendly, but country or not, Zya could see through the bullshit. Heavy didn’t know anybody worth dealing with. He was inquiring for himself.

  “Nah, I don’t know what you talking about. You know I don’t get into all that. I don’t make the money, I just spend it,” she said, repeating what Snow had said to her the night before. She got up and went back into her borrowed room.

  That nigga is asking too many questions. I should find that girl and beat the brakes off her ass for telling everybody my business. Damn! I was not trying to be out here like this. I’ma sitting duck cuz if niggas even think I got these bricks, I’m gon’ become a target. Zya knew the game. She had helped set dudes up, so she knew when a situation had the potential to become trouble, and her current situation was not good.

  Zya tried to stay low-key as she waited for Jules’s letter to arrive. For three days, she anxiously awaited the letter’s arrival. She was waiting for Jules’s instructions on what to do with the dope, but her patience was wearing thin. She was dead broke and tired of depending on Vita for a place to stay.

  “Jules was supposed to write me a couple days ago,” Zya said as she sat on the front stoop waiting for the mailman to arrive. She had timed his route down to the second, and knew that he should be arriving any minute.

  “Why are you tripping on his letter? You’ve been running around bugging out ever since you visited him. What’s so important about it?” Vita asked suspiciously. Zya hadn’t told Vita about the dope she had been left with. Vita was her best friend, but she had seen Vita pull some grimy shit on other chicks, and Zya didn’t trust her with a big secret. Vita couldn’t hold water and would have her business all over Harlem by nightfall.

  “There’s nothing important about it. He just promised he would write and he hasn’t,” Zya said in an agitated tone.

  “I don’t know why you riding with this nigga anyway. If I was you, I would leave his ass stanking and move on to the next nigga. Hustlers come a dime a dozen in New York,” Vita said as she crossed her legs and hit the edge of her cigarette to dump her ashes.

  “Whatever, Vita. I didn’t ask you for all that. I ain’t one of these gold-diggin’-ass bitches. You know I ain’t got it in me to be grimy. I was with him when he was out and doing good, so now that he’s down and out, I can’t be fake. I’ma do the bid with him,” Zya said defensively.

  “You and every other chick,” Vita said smartly.

  Zya looked at Vita like she was crazy and replied, “Fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, Zya . . . I’m just saying . . . Look, you know you’re my girl. I don’t want to see you out here stressing over a nigga. I’m just asking you if Jules is worth you giving up damn near ten years of your life.”

  I’m carrying his baby. I’ll wait for however long it takes, Zya thought. She hadn’t told her best friend about the baby yet, which is why Vita was so quick to tell Zya to leave Jules alone.

  She doesn’t understand what I’m going through. She doesn’t have a baby to think about, Zya thought, growing angry. Vita was her girl and everything, but there was a limit on the amount of time that they could spend together before Vita got on her nerves. With Zya staying there for the past three nights, she had far exceeded that limit.

  They had known each other since middle school and were almost like sisters. They were bittersweet because they fought and made up all the time, just like they were really related. At the end of the day, they always had each other’s back.

  Jules needs to come through like he said he would. She touched her stomach and felt the morning sickness creep up on her. She still hadn’t been to the doctor. She had been so worried about hearing from Jules that it had slipped her mind.

  “You’ll be all right, Zy. That nigga will be out before you know it,” Vita said as she puffed on a Newport, trying to be supportive. The mailman came walking down the street, and he looked down at Zya with a curious look on his face. His route was an early one, and he had seen her sitting, waiting on him, for the past four days.

  “Do you have anything for Zya Miller?” she asked him as he stepped up the steps to Vita’s house. Zya shifted her weight from side to side as she waited impatiently for the mailman to check. He sifted slowly through the mail until he finally handed her an envelope.

  Vita put out her cigarette against the step and stood up. “I’ll give you some privacy, Zy,” she offered as she got up and walked inside.

  A sense of relief washed over Zya, and her hands trembled as she ripped opened the letter.

  Zya,

  I hope that you are maintaining while I’m in here. I’m sorry you have to carry this on your own. You and my unborn baby mean everything to me. I am going to take care of you when I get out, but I need you to hold me down while I’m in here. I know you feeling it right now cuz all the money I had was in the house during the raid. That shit is state’s evidence now. You gotta charge that to the game and start over.

  Remember the day I got caught? When I sent you to get them Bibles from that store in Jersey? That’s how you going to have to eat until I get out. Those Bibles that you were bringing back are golden right now.

  Remember my man Smitty? He’s an older cat from Brooklyn. You need to get in contact with him. He’s not going to trust you because he is used to dealing with me. We have a phrase that we say. Once you say it, he’ll know you’re okay. When you call him, say “All work and no play.” He will finish the sentence.

  He usually buys two Bibles from me every month. That’s a guaranteed sell. They go for 16, but I got them on consignment, so you take 12 dollars from every joint and deliver it back to Snow. That mu’fucka don’t bullshit about his money, Zya. He a mu’fuckin’ killer for real, so don’t try to pull no slick shit. You make sure his money is right every time.

  You keep 4 dollars from every Bible. You’ve got ten of ’em, so that means by the time you sell them all and pay the connect back, you’ll have 40 dollars. That should hold you over for a minute. Use the money wisely, because that’s all you are going to have to get by.

  Get out of that nigga Heavy’s crib A
SAP, and take care of my shorty. I’ll see you next Monday.

  Julius “Jules” Carter

  P.S. Smitty’s # 718-886-5419

  Zya folded the letter and knew that Jules was using “Bibles” as a code word for the kilos of cocaine. She knew that it was a strong possibility they were monitoring his mail, and Jules took precautions. She also knew that when he said dollars, he was talking in the thousands.

  She pulled out her cell phone and felt the butterflies in her stomach as she called the number. She didn’t have any time to waste. She needed to sell the bricks so that she could have some money in her pocket.

  “Hello?”

  “Can I speak to Smitty?” she asked nervously.

  “Speaking. Who is this?”

  “My name is Zya. I’m calling to conduct the business you have with Jules,” she said.

  “I don’t talk to nobody but Jules,” the voice on the other end said calmly. Zya heard a click and then the sound of the dial tone. She quickly redialed the number.

  As soon as he picked up the phone, she said, “All work and no play . . .”

  “Make a dull day,” the voice on the other end replied. “Meet me at Junior’s in Brooklyn in an hour,” the voice announced then hung up on her again.

  Zya made her way back into Vita’s to pick up the duffel bag full of cocaine. She hoped that Smitty would take all of it off her hands, but she knew that he would only buy two. Jules had made that clear in his letter, but at least it would put a little money in her pocket.

  Inside the house, she was surprised to see Heavy standing in her room, looking through her duffel bag. “What the fuck you doing in my room?” she asked as she stormed past him and grabbed the bag out of his hands.

  “This is my house. I can come into any room I want to. I thought you didn’t get down like that,” he said as he eyed the black bag that Zya held in her hand.