Summer's Heat Read online

  Summer’s Heat

  A Novel by Mahogany Star

  Copyright © 2017 Mahogany Star

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1544702701

  ISBN-13: 978-1544702704

  For My Loves

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you father, God for all that you have bestowed me with. I am truly blessed and I take nothing for granted. I thank my Mommy (grandmama) for raising me to understand the power of Prayer. Thank you to my ancestors who I think of, imagine and am thankful for. Your strength, your prayers for the generations that have come after have not gone unanswered. I ask you to continue to guide my steps.

  I am so thankful for my Husband Michael. Without you, I don’t know how I could make any of this happen. I have literally gone from being a girl to becoming a woman, all with you by my side. I love you, through it all. My children, Michael-Jalen and Madison-Leigh, the two people that make my heart flutter at the mere thought of them. I love you two more than life, thank you God for allowing me to be the vessel that brought these two extraordinary spirits to flesh. My mother/sister/ friend, Max, thank you God for allowing us this time together. For giving our lives a chance to come full circle. You are my love, my confidant, I’m so happy we get to experience this part of our lives together. My sister L. Monique Brown, you already know what it is. You’ve been my right hand forever, God makes no mistakes, he knew we would be the pair we are. Our bond is solid. Like my own, Mikaylah-Essence I love you to the moon and back, my twin, I love you.

  Luanda, Nailaja (Ni), my first cousins and my first friends. Raised like sisters, I love you and your families, forever. I’m so proud of the women you both have become. My aunt Tai, my friend my sister, I love you. Sadri, my oldest friend, my family. I love you sis, you are so thorough and so true. Nagina, my big sis, thank you for always supporting me and keeping it 100 with your reviews. Barbara, Q-Tesha, Iasia, Twanna, Nadezhka, Kandece, Shamecka, Teri, Cassandra, Ricky, Tammy, all of you mean so much to me, thank you for all of your support.

  My aunties and uncles, all yall! The Colon’s, the Porters, the Roziers, the Martins, every one of you all, mean the world to me. My first cousin Travis, I hate that you’re not out here with me, but I know you will be someday soon. I love you, you’re more like my brother then my cousin, you know I’d do anything for you. My neighbor Angie, who takes care of us and is always there to lend a helping hand. Thank you.

  Thank you to everyone who’s read my work, from my childhood schoolmates, to strangers who just pick it up out of curiosity. I am truly humbled and grateful. I always seem to forget someone, so if I do, please blame my brain not my heart.

  Always,

  Mahogany

  Prologue

  It was a scorching 102 degrees outside that 15th day of July in 1995, so my mama decided to name me Summer. She says I caused her blood pressure to rise, her body to swell, and her libido to go into overdrive, so she knew I was going to be trouble. I was the last of three children, a baby girl in house of older brothers. My brother Rich was ten when I was born, Kareem was eight, and I was cared for like a precious new toy. I was spoiled, and treated as the prize, my golden hair, hazel eyes and bronzed skin standing out from my siblings, who bore my father’s dark skin and dark hair. My father treated me like a princess, until I was ten. There was nothing I could ask for that he wouldn’t see to it that I got, whether he had to beg, borrow or steal to get it.

  We lived a relatively middle class life, in my father’s childhood home a four-bedroom brownstone in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn. My parents wanting the best for me even on their middle-class salaries ensured I was tutored in Spanish, Italian and French from the time I was four. My father was a Sanitation worker and my mother a Secretary at a Social Services office in Downtown Brooklyn. Everyday I would sit on the stoop and wait for my Daddy to get home from work. He’d see me, and scoop me up in his muscular arms. Although he smelled of the day’s work, I didn’t mind, my daddy was so sweet he even made garbage smell good. He always seemed to have put in a hard’s day work, but he never missed a chance to show me affection. My mother would watch us and smile, full of pride as she looked on from the kitchen window. I was the epitome of a daddy’s girl; we were the prize in each other’s eyes.

  By the time I turned ten, my oldest brother Rich had finished his second year of college, and my brother Kareem had enlisted in the Marine Corps. So mama and I only had one man to relish our affections on. Most of my friends didn’t come from two parent homes, and I’d take every chance I got, to make sure they knew how good my Daddy was to me. The Christmas before I turned ten, my father somehow managed to buy my mother a mink. I smiled rubbing my little fingers through the black soft fur. It felt so good. I was so enthralled by my mother’s mink that I didn’t notice my father standing behind me, till he tapped me on the shoulder. “Princess, oh Princess, this is for you!” I ripped shiny red wrapping off the box and threw the top off only to find an exact replica of my mama’s fur, but smaller. “Summer, don’t just stand there with your mouth wide open, try it on!” I heard my mother say. My father took the mini mink out of the box and held it open for me to slide my arms in, just like he did for my mama. Those were the best years of my life. Unfortunately, there were only ten years like that…

  Chapters

  ONE

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  ONE

  My best friend Cookie was walking me home from a sleepover at her house when we walked into a chaotic scene out in front of my house. My father stood on top of a pile of clothes, he was standing on my favorite purple top, while he held my mother up by the collar of her blouse.

  “You stankin bitch! I should’ve known you were no good.”

  I heard my mother screaming, pleading as onlooker’s watched from their windows and from the streets. Some nosey neighbors had even decided to get a front row view from their stoops.

  My heart beat so fast I thought I would pee my pants. I ran over to my daddy’s arm and pulled it, trying to get him to look at me.

  “Daddy, daddy, please. Please don’t hurt mama.”

  It took a few moments before he would even acknowledge me. He looked down at me with red blood shot eyes that I didn’t recognize.

  “Yo mama’s a ho, and I ain’t yo daddy!” He said as a single tear left his right eye, and he shoved my mother to the floor.

  I ran to my mama’s side, where she lay in a fetal position crying hysterically. My father went back into the house and began to throw more clothes out of the front window. I cried as I watched my beautiful mink fly into the air, tossed like yesterday’s trash.

  “Trish, get yo ass off my property and take your little red bastard with you.” He ranted. I heard my neighbor, Ms. Johnson shout up to the window, “now Joe you know that you didn’t have to go there. That child ain’t got nothing to do with what her mama did. She innocent Joe!”

  My father wasn’t interested; he slammed the window shut along with his heart.

  I forgot my friend Cookie was there, watching me be discarded. She came over and touched my shoulder, but I was in no mood for her consolation.

  “Go home Cookie, get out of here.” I said just as nastily as I could.

  I knew Cookie, was glad to have the satisfaction of watching my pride and joy Daddy disown me. The daddy I always bragged on.

  I helped my mother up from the ground, and watched as a neighbor picked our belongings off the ground, and packed them in large black tr
ash bags. I wiped my mother’s tears and my own, as people watched us walk slowly from the tree lined block.

  We had been staying with my grandmother in the projects, my mother’s old room was still there. My grandmother had three bedrooms, but she rented out the third bedroom to whoever needed it at the moment. It was how she made what she called her number money. It was so hard for me at first. I called my father constantly, begging him to let me back into his life, but whenever he heard my voice on the other end of the phone he’d just hang up. I asked my mother what happened over and over but she never answered. She’d just look at me, and say “you’ll understand when you get older”. I refused to wait till I was older to understand why my Daddy had thrown me out on the curb. I questioned what had I done wrong.

  One night I got up to get a glass of water and I heard my grandmother talking on the phone. At first I thought she was just doing her usual building gossip until I heard her mention my name.

  “That po’ chile. Summer aint deserve to see the only man she ever known as Daddy throw her and her mama on the street.” She paused. “Well I told Trish, eleven years ago to stop messing around on that man. Um, hmm. Yeah, she was sleeping with some white man on the job I hear tell of it. That’s why that chile look like that. How Trish and Joe black ass gone produce a blond haired child? That man was a fool from the git.”

  Then my grandmother laughed out loud.

  “You know how he found out right? That bitch of a friend of hers Debbie. Yessir that bitch was trying to get with Joe and told him about Trish and ole boy.” She paused to take a pull of her cigarette.

  “No Trish aint beat that bitch ass, because she knows it’s true. Hell everybody down there at that welfare office she works at knew she was carrying that man baby. That son of a bitch lived on Long Island with a wife and some kids. You think he wanted his wife to find out about the black bitch he got pregnant at work? He up and left that damn job right after she came off a maternity leave. She bought that picture of Summer and he saw his blond headed baby and flew his ass up out of that office. Hehehehe, yessir he did.”

  My grandmother laughed into the phone so heartily. I was frozen, I lost my thirst, my heart was broken and I understood my father’s pain.

  How could Joe not be my father? The man who played Santa every Christmas, the man who gave me a new twenty-dollar bill when I lost my first tooth? I dropped the glass of water letting the glass shatter like my heart. I screamed out loud, I didn’t care, my mother came running from our bedroom and my grandmother even hung up the phone to come to my aid. I stood there in place as the water flowed nonstop from my eyes. My mother tried to comfort me by pulling me in and embracing me. She tilted my head towards her bosom and I cried uncontrollably, my grandmother just shook her head and went back to her room and closed the door.

  I didn’t say anything to my mother about what I’d heard. It was useless and I wasn’t up for her lies anyway. It all made sense. I stood in the small bathroom and just stared at my reflection in the mirror. Grandmother was right, there was no way I was Joe Smith’s child. I didn’t have one feature of his, not one. I wondered how he could’ve been fooled for as long as he was. Maybe he knew and didn’t care, but he didn’t want others to know he had been made a fool of.

  School was eventful; my friends now had something they considered over me. It didn’t help that my gear began to look tattered and worn from the cheap ass detergent my mother had begun using. My brother Kareem sent my mother a little money home from the service when he could. But my mother couldn’t seem to get it together. I knew she wasn’t paying my grandmother that much rent money, but whenever I asked her for money for new clothes she always said “baby we don’t have no money.”

  I would reason that she worked everyday, but she always came back at me with “We’re broke. That’s it, now leave me alone!” Then she’d retreat to the bedroom and stay in there until she went to work the next day. I’d sit on the bench in front of the building and jump rope with my friends. One day I decided I had to see my father so I walked to my old house and rang the bell. My stomach did somersaults, until I heard a woman’s voice say “I’ll be right there!” I thought I would faint when my mother’s old best friend Debbie stood in the doorway wearing one of my mother’s old Asian style robes. “Well little Summer, what are you doing here?” Debbie said in a cunning tone.

  “I’m here to see my father.” I said as I pushed my way past her.

  Debbie wasn’t about to let that happen so she grabbed me by the arm, and when she did that I turned around and spit in her face. She didn’t hesitate to slap the shit out of me, the sting causing me to pause holding the side of my face for a few moments. Yet that didn’t stop me, I threw myself at her and gave her all the fight my ten-year-old little body could. We rolled in the foyer until Joe came down the stairs to tear us apart. I made sure my mother’s silky robe was ripped from her body.

  “What the fuck is going on down here?” My father yelled as he handled Debbie roughly demanding an answer.

  “That little bitch attacked me!” Debbie yelled, while lunging at me.

  My father had full control of her as he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook the shit out of her. “She’s a child Debbie!” He said shaking her so hard she looked like one of those bobble head dolls.

  “Daddy she hit me!” I yelled waiting for my father to take me in his arms and cradle me as he always did. But he just stood there looking at me with sorrow in his eyes.

  “Summer go home; you don’t live here no more.” He said almost whispering.

  I grabbed hold of him tightly wrapping my arms around his waist.

  “Daddy this is my home. I want to sleep in my bed, I want to sleep in my room. I don’t want to live at Grandma’s house anymore!” I screamed through tears.

  I could see Debbie standing there with a smirk on her ugly wrinkled face. The bitch was still sporting Jheri curls, even though it was the nineties.

  “Listen Summer, you a child, you too young to understand what’s going on. I want you to go back home to your mama, and leave me with some peace.” He said and with a little shove he ushered me out of the door and out of his life for good.

  Two

  Two years seemed to go by fast, and I had to grow up quick living in the house with Trish, Grandmother, and whoever her tenant of the month was. I was getting bummier by the day, and my friends watched me fall off and it was their joy. The only thing I had going for me were my spirally blond kinky curls and my developing body. I watched my mother leave in the night only to return in the morning looking worn and tired. I relished those nights because I got to feel as if I had my own room when she wasn’t there. My mother had changed so much since we left home. She still worked, but her whole demeanor was different, as if she gave up on the will to do better in life. She lost thirty pounds or so, yet she still wore the same clothes that seemed to get bigger by the day. I thought she was just depressed and not eating, until Carmen brought up my mother’s appearance.

  Carmen could’ve passed for my older sister. She was a Puerto Rican girl who lived on the eleventh floor in my building. She was three years older than me, and I kind of appreciated her beauty and pizzazz, but she always tried to put me down. I was sitting on the bench with Ashley and my friend Paulette when she strolled by with her crew.

  “What’s happening twin?” She said laughing.

  “Nothing Carmen, what’s going on? I asked, glad that she spoke to me in a decent manner for once.

  “Nothing Chica. Damn I didn’t want to say this, but you supposed to be repping for me since people think we look alike and whatnot, but word mami yo hair is looking mad nappy. I thought you had that good shit? Ain’t yo Daddy white or somethin? Tell that motherfucker to come buy you some rags because you be looking busted. I can’t have my little twin looking like shit.” She said as her right hand girl Magalia gave her a hand a slap. They all started to laugh as they turned to walk away. I could feel my blood boiling, I felt the same anger toward h
er that I felt for Debbie the day she belittled me. I could see my friends’ faces and I could see they felt sorry for me. But I wasn’t about to let that bitch get away with that shit, not that day.

  “Carmen!” I called out loudly, my voice a little shaky.

  “What?” She stopped like I was aggravating her.

  “Perhaps I could afford better clothes if I sucked as much dick as you!” I said, fearless. I could hear the people around us laughing heartily.

  “You little bum bitch. Go tell yo mama to stop sucking that glass dick. Mija’ you see your mami is looking more strung out by the day. That’s why she can’t do shit for you…Aye.!” She said smirking.

  I couldn’t believe what she was trying to imply about my mother.

  “Whatever Carmen, my mother works hard. What the fuck does your mama do? Oh but that’s right you learned your dick sucking technique from her welfare ass, we know what she does.”

  Carmen had heard enough, she stormed toward me, and I stood my ground waiting for her to get close enough to me so I could attack. I lunged back and threw a punch that sent Carmen flying over the little chained makeshift gate that enclosed the grassy area of our housing development. She fell back and I jumped on her giving her everything I had. I was throwing punches and she was working my head, grabbing my hair and wrapping it around her fingers. She rolled over and was on top of me, and I began reaching for her eyes trying to gauge them out. I grabbed a handful of her curly light brown hair, and pulled her head as hard as I could. Someone began lifting her off of me, and I began kicking her in her stomach, trying to get any last hits off her that I could.

  Ashley and Paulette helped me up, and I was immediately concerned about my face. “Am I bleeding?”

  “You have a little scratch by your ear. A little one. But you brought it to her ass!” Paulette said excited.