Some Came Desperate Read online

  But she didn’t have time. Between vacuuming and dusting and cleaning up all of the clutter that signified their life since moving into Jeremy’s small, two-bedroom apartment, not to mention cooking the grandest meal she’d ever cooked, there was just no time. That was why she didn’t focus on that. Today was Jeremy’s twenty-fifth birthday, and for her own reasons she was determined to do everything she could to get on his good side.

  It had been two years since Jeremy picked them up at that truck stop café in Bainbridge and brought them to live with him in Miami. Two long years. Although Jules’ relationship with him flourished, Simone’s was significantly rockier, and she constantly tried to get him to understand her point of view. But he never cared to understand it, finding her a pain at best, a pest at worse, and they often locked heads.

  But Simone did not have a personality that knew how to retreat. She questioned his authority at every turn, unable to go along to get along like Jules. And even as Jules tried to urge her to pick her battles more carefully, she would find herself even more frustrated. Mainly because her battles concerned Shay and her absolute belief that if Jeremy tried, he could get Shay out of Georgia’s foster care system.

  But Jeremy wouldn’t even try. For the longest time Simone couldn’t understand why not. She would take full charge of Shay, he wouldn’t have to lift a finger to help her, but he still wouldn’t even attempt. After a while, and Simone’s constant pleadings, it became like a sadistic game for Jeremy. He learned how to push her buttons simply by bringing up Shay and how she’d never see her baby sister again if he had anything to say about it, and then he’d sit back and laugh as she overreacted the way he fully expected her to.

  Jules, on the other hand, could do no wrong in Jeremy’s eyes, as she never once asked him to do anything that she thought would stir up his ire. Her sweetness and understanding often left him comparing the two sisters in such a way that did nothing to help Simone’s cause. All Simone wanted from Jeremy was his help in getting Shay back, but nothing she tried ever worked, especially when everything she did well, Jules, in Jeremy’s eyes, did better.

  Except cooking and cleaning. Simone could cook and clean circles around Jules, and she was determined to use her gifts to her advantage. She needed Jeremy’s help, and she was determined to get it, even if it meant swallowing her pride and cow-towing to him precisely the way Jules often did.

  “He just drove up, Simone!” Jules yelled and Simone looked over her decked out table one last time and then hurried nervously into the livingroom. Jules was standing at the door, ready to open it the way she did most days for Jeremy, and Simone stood beside her. She thought it was ridiculous the way they were cow-towing to Jeremy, but she couldn’t tell Jules a thing.

  And Jules looked so elegant, Simone thought, in her form-fitting black dress, a dress that made Simone’s looser, longer blue-and-white dress look drab and almost costume-like, as if she was the distraction and Jules was the main event. And when Jeremy entered the apartment, smiling at Jules and then looking at Simone with something akin to contempt, Simone knew that her hard work, all of that cooking and cleaning and cow-towing, was probably going to be futile anyway.

  And it was. Jeremy wasn’t two minutes in the apartment before he was complaining about the mess Simone’s cooking had made and how he wanted her to clean up his kitchen by the time he got back from dinner.

  “Dinner?” Jules asked him.

  He smiled, looking at her with fondness. “That’s right, babe. I’m taking you out with a few friends of mine. All doctors.”

  Jules smiled, excited, as Jeremy had never taken either of them around his friends, but then she looked at Simone. Jeremy looked at her, too. “But Simone cooked dinner,” she said reluctantly.

  Jeremy looked at Simone. “So?” he said. “She can eat it. But you and I are going out. So stop all of this lollygagging and get you a sweater.”

  Jules did as she was told and Simone, defeated, looked at Jeremy. Jeremy grinned. “You’re pathetic, you know that? Why would I eat some junk you burned on my birthday?”

  “Who asked you?” Simone replied with equal contempt, although her heart was breaking. She went to her bedroom just as Jules was hurrying out and slammed the door. And when she was certain that the two of them had left the apartment, she walked slowly back into the dining room, took her chicken, her greens and cornbread, her mac and cheese, and tossed it all into the garbage. Then she went into her bedroom again, a bedroom she shared with Jules, and cried.

  Three months later and nothing had changed. Jeremy was still in med school and they were all still cramped into his small, two bedroom apartment near the campus. The only thing different it seemed to Simone, was Jeremy. He was getting worse and she didn’t like it.

  “Getting worse?” Jules asked as she washed the dinner dishes and listened to Whitney Houston on the radio. Simone sat on top of the drain board watching her sister work.

  “Yeah, he’s getting worse. He used to be at least tolerable. Now he’s a downright brute.”

  “He’s just trying to be like a big brother to us, Simone, that’s all. You just need to stay cool and stop battling him over everything.”

  “I’m not thinking about him! He just wants to control us, Jules, and you know it. From what we wear, to what boy we talk to, to what time we get up on a Saturday morning! He’s an out of control control freak and I’m not taking it anymore!”

  Jules laughed and pinched Simone’s cheek. Simone was sixteen now and would be a very pretty girl, Jules felt, with those beautiful green eyes of hers and that long, thick, wavy hair. But she was always so serious, so mouthy, that she often came across as more mean than cute. Which, Jules also felt, was why she and Jeremy clashed so much. “Why don’t you just chill, Simone?” she asked her, and then began singing along with Whitney’s Saving All My Love for You.

  “Jules!”

  “What?”

  “Stop singing and listen to me. You know how he doesn’t like us to talk. He’ll be coming in here any second.”

  “Child, please. Why would Jeremy care if you’re talking to me?”

  “Oh, he cares. Trust that. With his racist self.”

  “Racist?” Jules said, astounded. “Stop talking nonsense. How could he be a racist with two black girls living with him?”

  “I see what I see and he can’t stand black people. He just happens to be in love with you.”

  “That is so not true, Simone, and you know it. You’d better not let anybody hear you saying something like that. Jeremy’s no racist and he looks out for both of us.”

  “I’ve got a plan,” Simone said, ignoring Jules’ last statement and Jules began drying the dishes, not at all interested in hearing yet another one of Simone’s great PLANS.

  “Jules, you heard me?”

  “Yes, I heard you. You’ve got a plan, just like you always have a plan. I heard.”

  “You turn eighteen in a week, right?” Jules still didn’t respond. “Jules?”

  “Simone?”

  “Listen to me!”

  Jules tossed the dry cloth on the drain board, folded her arms, and gave her sister her undivided attention. “All right, what is it?”

  “You turn eighteen in a week, right?”

  “Yes, Simone, you know I do.”

  “That’s our answer.”

  “Our answer? Well will you please clue me in because I don’t know what the question is.”

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that Jeremy won’t get Shay to come live with us?”

  Jules rolled her eyes. “She’s still in Foster Care, Simone. He’ll have to get custody of her.”

  “So what? They gave him custody of us.”

  “They gave him legal guardianship of us, and that was only so he could enroll us in school and be able to make medical decisions for us if we got sick or something. There’s a big difference between being granted guardianship over two almost-grown teenagers already living with you and going to Georgia asking the state
to remove a kid already in state custody.”

  “Ain’t no difference,” Simone said with certainty. “That’s just Jeremy trying to play with our minds. He doesn’t want Shay here that’s why she’s not here.”

  “Come on.”

  “Come on nothing! Just the other day when I asked him—”

  “For the thousandth time.”

  “And you heard what he said. ‘What I need with a nine-year-old around here? You’re too much as it is.’ That’s what he said. He didn’t say a word about why he couldn’t do it. He said he didn’t want to do it. He doesn’t want Shay here, and me, either, if truth be told.”

  “Oh, Simone, stop being ridiculous. Why wouldn’t he want you here? He’s fed you, clothe you, taken care of you for two years now.”

  “Because of you, not because of any great love he has for me.”

  Jules just shook her head and got back to work.

  “You’re Miss Perfect in his eyes,” Simone continued. “You make all A’s in school, you iron his shirts for him, you cook for him, you jump like a grasshopper on fire every time he calls your name. But me? I’m barely passing school, wouldn’t iron a shirt for him if he wrapped it around my head, wouldn’t cook for him if cooking could save my own life, and barely bulge when he calls my name. Yeah, trust me on this big sister. Jeremy Druce would love to get rid of me. That’s why I can’t wait for next week to get here.”

  “What does my birthday have to do with this?”

  “I told you I’ve got a plan.”

  “What plan, Simone?”

  Simone nodded and smiled. “You’ll see. You won’t do it if I tell you now.”

  “Won’t do what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Oh, please,” Jules said. “Aren’t you late for work or something, because you are really beginning to get on my nerves?”

  “I miss Shay, Jules.”

  Jules stopped drying a bowl and stared at the dish water. She missed her too. Desperately. Often she thought about that day, that horrible day, and how selfish their decision now seemed. She looked at Simone. Simone was suffering most of all, because she was the one who pulled Jules back when Jules tried to run to Shay. They could have kicked the social worker and grabbed Shay, or distracted the social worker and took Shay, something. But all they did was run. And Simone walked around with that great guilt every day of her life. “Me too,” Jules said, and got back to work.

  Simone wanted to talk more about Shay and how she might be faring in Foster Care, but Jeremy came into the kitchen, with his now-familiar ponytail and bags under his eyes from too much studying. And even though Simone couldn’t half stand him, she still had to admit he was a very attractive man.

  “Get off of my drain board,” he ordered as he entered the kitchen, but Simone didn’t budge. When he moved toward her, however, she quickly jumped down.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” he asked her.

  “I’m off today.”

  “You were off yesterday.”

  “And I’m off today.”

  “Then don’t you have some homework to do?”

  “No, Jeremy, I don’t have homework to do. I don’t have anything to do except talk to my sister.”

  Jeremy glared at Simone. “You’re a tough girl for a charity case,” he said and even Jules looked at Jeremy.

  “I work,” Simone replied with some degree of hurt in her voice, “and I give you every dime I make.”

  “Chump change. That don’t make up for what I’ve done for your crazy butt so don’t even try that. If it wasn’t for me you’d still be hanging around truck stops, with your dumb behind. I took you in and don’t you forget that.” Then he looked at Jules. “Make me a pot of coffee; I’ve got to pull an all-nighter.”

  Jules immediately began to do as he ordered. Simone shook her head, which prompted Jeremy to fume. “Go do your homework!” he said.

  “I told you I did it already.”

  “Do some more.”

  “That’s stupid, Jeremy.”

  “You’re the one who’s stupid, bringing home all of those C’s on your last report card when Jules brought home straight A’s. Now do as I said!”

  Simone rolled her eyes and angrily left the small kitchen, her anguished heart only able to take some solace in knowing that in one week, just one week, Jules would turn eighteen and their long, bitter days with Jeremy Druce would finally be over.

  She woke up early. When she turned over, Jules, who shared the double bed with her, was still sound asleep. Normally Simone would let her rest, since Jeremy worked her like his slave, but this was not a normal day. Jules was eighteen today and Simone had to let her know the significance of what that number truly meant.

  “What is it?” Jules said annoyingly as Simone shook her awake. “What time is it?”

  “It’s Saturday, Jules.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s your birthday.”

  Jules closed her eyes again. So what, she thought. But Simone shook her again.

  “What’s the matter with you, Simone?” she asked angrily as she reopened her eyes.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now, Jules, before Jeremy gets up.”

  “Not again.”

  “I’m serious, J. This is serious.” By now Simone was sitting up in bed, Indian style, and was twirling around her long Indian plait. Jules, knowing how forceful Simone could be when she was on what Jeremy always referred to as one of her “crusades,” sat up in bed, too. Only she sat against the headboard and tried with all she had not to fall back asleep.

  “Talk, Simone.”

  “Okay,” Simone said, positioning herself, thrilled to have her sister’s attention. “You’re eighteen today, right?” Jules, however, closed her eyes. “Jules!”

  “Yes,” Jules said as she reopened her eyes. “I’m eighteen today. You know it, I know it, the world probably knows it loud as you’re talking.”

  Simone lowered her voice. “What I’m trying to say, Jules, is that now that you’re grown in the eyes of the law, we can leave Jeremy’s house.”

  Jules looked at her younger sister. “What?”

  “That’s right. You’re old enough to get us an apartment of our own. Then you can petition the courts for custody of Shay, Shay can come and live with us, and we’ll be a family again.”

  Jules, who always viewed herself as the more practical by far, shook her head. “Are you out of your mind, Simone?”

  That stung. “I’m not stupid, Jules.”

  “How can we afford an apartment? I have no income and your little Burger King job won’t pay anybody’s rent.”

  “We don’t have to get anything expensive. Just a little one bedroom somewhere, that’s all.”

  “Like where? And I’m not living in no ghetto.”

  “What difference does it make where we live? The point is we’ll have Shay back with us. They don’t care if you’re poor. You just have to be old enough.”

  “You are dreaming, Simone. Nobody’s giving custody of a nine year old child to me! Are you crazy?” Then she exhaled. “Besides,” she added, “Jeremy’s not about to let us leave him.”

  “You’re eighteen, Jules, don’t you understand that? It doesn’t matter what Jeremy thinks anymore. You’re a grown woman now. All you got to do is leave!”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is that simple! Yes, it is! All we got to do is do it. Sometimes you’ve got to just feel it in your soul and do it, Jules. For Shay’s sake. This is one of those times for Shay!”

  Knocks were suddenly heard on their bedroom door and both sisters jumped at the sound. Jules shook her head. “See,” she said, “I told you you was too loud.”

  Jeremy, in his bathrobe, peered into the girls’ bedroom and then came on in. “What’s going on in here this early in the morning?”

  Jules looked at Simone. Simone exhaled. “I was wishing Jules a happy birthday.”


  Jeremy looked at Jules and smiled. “So my girl is eighteen today!” He looked her up and down. “Feel any different?”

  Jules shook her head.

  “Why don’t you talk?” Simone angrily asked her sister. “You always act so mousey around him!”

  Jeremy’s smile left and he looked at Simone. “And good morning to you too, Simone.”

  Simone didn’t respond. Jeremy laughed and then looked at Jules again. “I’ve got a gift for you, baby,” he said to her. “It’s on my bed. Go get it.”

  Jules threw the covers back, revealing her short nightgown, and with a grand smile dashed from the room. Jeremy turned and looked at Simone, and his smile quickly vanished.

  “I hate you, you know that, Simone?”

  Simone stared at him. “You hate me?” she said, taken aback.

  “I hate you with a passion. I wish you would curl up in a corner somewhere and do us all a favor and die. You’re only taking up space in this world anyhow. So just end it now if you please. For the whole world’s sake. Then maybe me and Jules can have some peace.”

  Simone was shocked, and hurt, by the harshness of Jeremy’s words. There was no love lost between them, she knew that. But to hear him say that he hated her and wished her dead, stung.

  “You heard me, girl? Die. Drop dead. I’ll be so happy I’ll sing at your funeral.”

  “I’ll be singing at yours first,” Simone said, although she knew it wasn’t true. She despised Jeremy, but she didn’t hate him or wish him harm.

  “You’re so pathetic it turns my stomach just to look at you. You’re like a horror movie. That’s why your own mama couldn’t stand you.” Jeremy could tell, by the way Simone’s eyes brightened, that he’d hit a nerve. “Yeah, I know about that. Jules told me all about it.” He laughed. “Girl, you must be something evil for your own mama to hate you. It’s like you’re a big zero in this world. It’s like your birth certificate isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”