CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"I thought you got a big contract with some hotshot company in Manhattan? And you're still home?"

Vivian was just walking up front in her two-bedroom apartment. Her fourteen-year-old brother Roger was in their kitchen preparing him a bowl of cereal. The living room, kitchen, and dining room were all one wide open space. Not big, but big enough for two people. "We don't get started on that job until Monday. But in the meantime, we've got to hire us some more workers. Ten floors can take up a lot of space in a building that size. And we've got to increase our cleaning supplies too. It's going to be a busy day. I needed that extra hour of sleep."

"Nay-Nay helping out, or is she letting you do all the work as usual?"

"Boy stop," she said as she sat her big shoulder bag on the kitchen's small center island. "She always helps out and you know it."

"That's what you say. That's not what I know. She's lazy if you ask me. She's got that husband working two jobs to support her and her expensive tastes so she figures she doesn't have to work at all."

Vivian looked at her brother. He was almost as tall as she was. But she learned long ago not to engage him when he was on one of his rants. For peace sake, she ignored him and began checking her text messages.

"Am I wrong or am I right?"

"Wrong."

"Yeah, sure. She's a taker. You're a giver. You're a big, fat loser."

Vivian looked at her brother as if she was this close to slapping him. What did she ever do to him to deserve his disrespect? Especially when he knew she didn't play that. "What did you call me?" she asked him.

"A loser. That's what they say at school. They say you're nothing but a maid."

"And that's how you see me?"

"We living in the hood. Can never eat out or go to a movie. If it wasn't for Kirby, I wouldn't even have decent clothes to wear. What do you think? Hell yeah that's how I see you. You're a loser. A big, fat loser."

"Say it again and I'll shove this phone up your ass." She was so annoyed with her baby brother she didn't know what to do. And she waited for him to say it again. She wanted him to say it again. Because she wasn't playing. But he didn't respond.

When their mother had a sudden heart attack and died, she tried to hook him up with his father. He always talked about him even as a baby. But his father had another family and wasn't trying to rock that boat by bringing him onboard. He wanted nothing to do with him. And Vivian didn't know who her father was, so that wasn't going to solve anything. It was just she and her baby brother. Just the two of them. Since she was twenty-three years older than he was, she was able to get guardianship. But it was never a mother-son relationship. He was too opinionated and too mature for that. But the love was there, and the respect. At least it used to be.

As she was checking messages, even more messages were coming in. She had phoned various agencies about maid help and a few were already responding. With ten floors, they figured they'd need at least four maids per floor, which would mean they needed forty workers, with Viv and Nayla supervising to make certain the work was being done exceptionally well. She just got that contract. She wasn't losing it ever! She was even considering renting a van to pick everybody up – and to ensure they arrived at work on time and ready to go.

But she still couldn't understand why she got that contract. Did he realize who she was and decided to help her out? She doubted it. He didn't show any signs of remembering her. More likely he feel bad for the way he treated her. Because the man she remembered was a good, decent man to his core. Getting to that core would be challenging. But it was there.

But just as she was about to respond to another one of the messages, this one promising to deliver ten maids, somebody began knocking loudly on her door.

"Who's banging on my door that loud this time of morning?" she asked as she made her way into the living room.

"Probably Mr. Willoby," Roger said as he ate his big bowl of cereal. "He knocks crazy like that when people don't pay up."

"I paid my rent. I always pay on time," Vivian said as she went to the door of her apartment and looked out of the peephole. When she saw that it was Kirby Drayton, her boyfriend, she frowned. And opened up. "Why are you knocking like that for?" she asked him as he hurried into the house and slammed the door shut. "What's wrong with you?"

Roger was staring at him too. He looked desperate to Roger.

"You've got to say it's yours," Kirby said nervously to Vivian.

"Say what's mine?"

"You've got to say it's yours," he said again, rubbing his hands together and pacing the floor. But as soon as they heard Police sirens outside, his pace became frantic. "You've got to say it's yours."

But Vivian had no clue what he was talking about. "What's mine, Kirb? What are you talking about?"

"All of it."

"All of what?"

"I'll tell on Rog if you don't say it's yours."

Roger stopped chewing mid-chew. But Vivian was even more confused. "Tell on Rog about what?"

"All that stolen shit he helped me squeeze. That's what! I'll tell on him if you don't say it's all yours and I had nothing to do with it!"

"What squeeze? What stolen shit? What are you talking about, Kirb? I don't know what you're talking about!"

Kirby ran his hands through his hair. He looked beyond-desperate to Vivian. Especially as they could hear footsteps running up the stairs. "All of it," he kept saying as if he knew his goose was cooked.

"All of what, Kirb? What are you talking about?"

"I'm in trouble, Vee, don't you realize that? I'm in big trouble. If I get locked up, I'll never get out again. You'll get probation."

Vivian frowned." Probation ?"

The footsteps were getting closer. "You can't let them take me, Vee," a now-frightened Roger said to his sister. "You can't let them take me!"

But Vivian was frightened too. She frowned at her brother. "Why would they take you?" Then she looked at Kirby. She'd never seen Kirby so distressed. "Tell me what's happening, Kirb? Tell me!"

But it was too late to say a word. Instead of knocking or announcing themselves, the Police outside that door, with a no-knock warrant as their justification, took the battering ram and knocked the door down. They all turned in shock.

"You can't just break down our door like that!" said an angry Roger.

But just as a now terrified-for-her-baby-brother Vivian turned to tell him to shut up, a police officer grabbed her, slamming her down to the floor, and began handcuffing her. Another one had already grabbed Kirby and threw him down too. But when she looked over and saw that her brother was being handcuffed, too, her heart dropped. "He didn't do anything! What are you doing? He didn't do anything! It's mine. All of it is mine!" She didn't even know what she was confessing to, but she knew she had to protect her brother. "It's mine!"

"Don't you say nothing to them, Rog," Kirby yelled out as he was being handcuffed. "You're Juvie. You'll get community service and no jail time at all. You're juvie."

"Juvie my ass," said one of the cops. "All this shit? He'll be tried as an adult just like the rest of your gang."

What gang , Vivian wondered. But she had to get Roger out of this. "But it's mine," she said frantically. "He didn't do anything. It's me!"

"I didn't do anything," Roger was crying out to the cops too. "Viv, tell them. Tell them I didn't do anything!"

But they didn't want to hear any of it. They grabbed all three and stood them up.

"What's the charge?" Vivian kept asking those cops. "What's the charge?"

"Grand Theft," said one of the policemen. "Of that Kia you drive and that Dodge your boyfriend's driving. The chop-shop tried to give both cars a makeover, but we've been on to them for months. And from what I'm looking at right around me in this room alone, everything inside this house is hot too. A whole apartment filled with stolen goods," the cop said. "And you have the nerve to ask me what's the charge?"

The cops laughed at that. Vivian looked at Kirby. He told her he bought her that Kia, and all of that furniture, and Roger's clothes and his PlayStation too. He said he had bought it, not stolen it! She would have never accepted stolen goods and he knew it. She looked at her handsome boyfriend and knew she'd been duped again. Her apartment was his stolen goods storage facility. And she and Rog were the receptacles.

She knew he wasn't a perfect boyfriend. But damn.