Was it Good for You Too? Page 4

  Tailan sagged on the wall, trembling. She glanced at her appearance in the hallway mirror, adjusted her blouse, and blindly followed him without another word of protest. She couldn’t fight him right now, especially since she was so vulnerable to him.

  They reached the lobby. The authors were there, assembled in groups, chatting like old friends. They were all discussing the press coverage of their tour.

  “Pam, you’re quoted!” Joyce Brown, one of The Vets and a member of M-LAS, exclaimed.

  Pam froze before letting out an elated squeal. She ran forward and took the newspaper that Joyce held out.

  “Read it out loud,” Beverly said, perching on the arm of a chair next to Brenda, her longtime friend.

  Pam slipped into the space next to Joyce, bumped her shoulder as a thanks, then held the paper out and read, “The tour is an amazing way to meet readers, promote your work and have a lot of fun in the process.”

  Murmurs of agreement from the crowd made Pam nod. She held up her hand to quiet them. “The days of an author sitting behind a desk looking pretty are over, said Pam, who self-published her first two books before her latest, Looking for D*ck in all The Wrong Places, was picked up by Simon & Schuster and she hit the national bestsellers list.”

  Cheers went up from everyone in the lobby, then faded away so Pam could continue.

  “Then she founded M-LAS, a support group of several authors who co-author published projects and cross-promote, with the goal of each member hitting the national bestsellers list.”

  The M-LAS members in question all raised both hands in a show of solidarity that made the other authors smile.

  “Authors need to go out there and hustle,” she continued. “Especially if you’re a relatively unknown author, you have to encourage them to take a chance on your work. You need to tell them why they’re going to like your book. This is a phenomenal tour. I’m so excited to be part of it. It really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

  A roar of excitement went up from the group and hearty applause followed.

  Tailan and Delvin moved forward. He slid his hand around her waist. The action was snagged by The Divas. She wanted to slap him. Tailan could feel the anger and jealousy they were throwing her way.

  Lord, where’s some arsenic when you need it?

  “People are watching,” Tailan whispered, putting some pep in her step to distance herself from him.

  He caught up with her in three long strides. “And?”

  “Go somewhere and handle your business, and let me handle mine.”

  “You are my business.”

  Tailan froze, forcing him to turn back in her direction. She abruptly relieved him of her bag and started toward the restaurant to get something to eat.

  Delvin’s dark brown eyes flashed with anger. “Make no mistake, Ms. Song.” He blocked her attempt to get around him. “Now that we’ll be sharing the same space for the next few days, rest assured, I’ll be taking full advantage of it.”

  Forget breakfast! Where’s that damn bus?

  Tailan sidestepped him and started for the hotel entrance where the bus was waiting.

  “I was coming for you next week anyway.”

  That statement tripped her just a bit. Tailan rolled her shoulders, gathered her focus, and turned to him. “What’s so special about next week?”

  “I’ll be a free man.”

  Tailan’s lids dropped over her tired eyes, and she shook her head. Instead of being thrilled by the news, deep coursing resentment burst from her. “So you sacrificed it all for nothing,” she sneered.

  The expression that shadowed his chiseled face was sweet payback.

  “Hate to break it to you, but I’ve moved on,” she said. She lifted her chin in bold defiance and headed over toward the group that was camped out near the waterfall outside.

  He fell into step with her. “Have you?”

  “Oh yes,” she proclaimed proudly. “I’ve done quite well without you. Unlike the rest of your adoring fans, for me, the sunrise doesn’t depend on you taking your next breath. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  Delvin gripped her shoulders and held her in place. “Tai, I’m serious.”

  “So am I,” she shot back. “You had your chance, Delvin. You chose a lie over our love. That choice was on you—not me. You won’t get a lick of sympathy from me about how all this played out. You could have handled it better. You didn’t.”

  “All I wanted was one child,” he countered in a voice that made her tense up. “One child that we would’ve raised together, loved, protected.”

  “There’s no protecting a child in this world,” her voice radiated with raw pain. “I know that more than anyone.”

  Chapter 6

  Tailan flashed Delvin an arctic blast with her eyes, and he released her. She increased the distance between them and felt his eyes track her every move, but he didn’t follow. Breath seeped out of her mouth in steady bursts. She hated how adults so flippantly lied to themselves—to others. The terrified child in Tailan Song knew one unshakable truth: monsters were indeed real.

  She had barely made it out of a turbulent childhood when her parents were killed before they were scheduled to testify at a drug lord’s trial. A fourteen-year-old Tailan was forced to stay with her mother’s brother and sister in an area of Chicago infamously known as The Bucket of Blood—a place filled with real blood, real danger, and real horrors.

  During her short stint on the city’s West Side, Tailan witnessed unspeakable acts of savagery and senseless violence. Some of the cruelty was outright sadistic. Even now, some of the things she had seen or heard of followed her like echoes of tortured ghosts.

  There was the twelve-year-old girl who was gang raped by eight men in an alley half-way down the block. No one came to the girl’s aid, even though people heard the screams for hours. Or the honor student who was gunned down simply because he dared to want more out of life than the people around him. Murders were a daily occurrence.

  So much rage all around her made Tailan terrified to leave the house.

  Then the tide turned, and being outside the house was a much safer place to be.

  “She livin’ here, we need to put her to good use,” Uncle Lin’s deep voice echoed through the old house one night.

  The floors creaked under the weight of her aunt’s heavy footsteps as she replied, “Now you know we can’t do that. Them people’s gonna give us good money to keep her here.”

  “Seven hunnert a month ain’t enough,” he growled.

  “It’s enough,” Aunt Trish shot back. “She don’t eat much. Picky little thing. She clean up real good. The house ain’t never been this clean. With that money and she earning her keep, it’s gonna hafta be enough. We the only family she got. She’s our sister’s child. And you know you did that girl wrong.”

  “It wasn’t no damn rape,” he protested. “She wanted that shit. Just like all them others.” Then his voice took on a faraway tone. “But Lawd, she was a sweet li’l thing.”

  Tailan almost lost her dinner. Her uncle had raped her mother? His own sister? No wonder Mama never said much about her family.

  “You ain’t touchin’ her child,” Aunt Trish insisted. “That ain’t right.”

  “But Trish, we could make a lot mo’ money,” he pleaded. “A lot mo. We’d have that seven hunnert and then some.”

  Now Tailan understood why she had always felt exposed and vulnerable around him. Pure instinct had compelled her to never be in a room alone with him no matter what. His leers and the fact that he was always trying to find ways to put his hands on her made her shiver with disgust.

  “Uh-uh! I ain’t doin’ dat,” Aunt Trish said, and for a moment Tailan felt a splinter of hope.

  “She still a virgin, right?” his voice held a hint of something Tailan couldn’t put a name to, but it made her tremble with dread.

  “What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”

  “King say he’d pay a grand just to tap
that chinky-eyed bitch.”

  Tailan’s heart stopped, then jump-started at a thunderous pace.

  “How much?”

  Lin chuckled, “Yeah, and that’s just for one time. He gonna pay somethin’ every time.”

  Aunt Trish’s feet shuffled along the hardwood floor. “Naw, Lin. We can’t let him do dat. I heard he da one who kilt our sista. Be wrong to let him have her. She died protectin’ dat girl.”

  The woman was more right than she could know. King wasn’t just looking to sleep with Tailan, he wanted her dead. How he had found her on the West Side was cause for concern, but what she heard next would be her on notice.

  “Baby, we can do whatever we want wit ‘er,” he said in a lower tone, and Tailan could image his watermelon-sized head nodding for effect. “You know I can break her in real good. Gentle like.”

  There was a scrape of chair against the floor, and it caused Tailan to jolt forward.

  “She be good to go. He won’t know the difference,” he said. Then he added a statement so profane that Tailan was still trying to absorb the verbal blow before realizing that the conversation had moved on to him saying, “It’ll just be me … and him, that’s all.”

  Tailan cracked the door in time to see Lin stroke a hand across his sister’s hips.

  “You wanna keep me happy right?” Then he kissed her neck, and Tailan almost lost what was left of dinner. “I’ll teach her, just like I taught you.”

  “Naw, Lin, it can’t be him,” she said in a soft voice. “And it can’t be you either. We’d make more money from someone else … if she’s still a virgin.”

  Tailan didn’t wait to hear their final decision. She propped open her bedroom window and escaped that old wood-frame house with just the clothes on her back and a bookbag filled with a few personal items.

  The night she left was one of the most terrifying nights of her life. At fourteen, she was homeless and literally on her own. Her father’s people wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. Apparently he had brought his family unforgivable shame—by marrying outside his race. They considered her a Bink—which in Mandarin was slang for half Black, half Chinese or Chink. They wanted nothing to do with her tainted blood.

  And the hospitality and shelter from her mother’s people came at a grisly price—the same price that her mother had apparently paid. But for Tailan it would be worse—being raped repeatedly by her uncle, then sold to the man who murdered her parents and siblings, and who would eventually kill her too.

  Too numb to even cry, Tailan had walked for hours until she reached downtown Chicago. Then by nightfall she headed up Jeffrey Boulevard for several miles until she made it to a place called Chicago Vocational School.

  C.V.S., once an all boys’ military academy turned co-ed vocational high school, stretched four blocks from east to west and three blocks from north to south. Surely amidst all that real-estate she could hide out until she figured out her next move.

  Tailan broke a window in one of the classrooms in the aviation wing of the school. Once she crawled in, she did a quick perimeter check and settled on a small space in the corner facing the door as the ideal refuge. She inched the teacher’s desk into the corner so no one could look in the classroom window and see her on the floor. Later that night, she took a shower in the girls’ gym and washed her clothes, then made her way into the cafeteria and ate whatever she could get her hands on.

  Two months later, she was startled awake when someone touched her shoulder. A scream leapt from her mouth as her lungs rushed to supply her with oxygen. The words of her uncle plagued her dreams. Terror seized her, and she lashed out at the blurry assailant.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, holding out his hands to ward off the attack. “Calm down!”

  Tailan inched away from the boy, trembling uncontrollably with fear. He simply looked at her, waiting for her to get it together. He remained completely still and silent.

  Those precious few minutes allowed Tailan to focus, to find the courage to look at him. Vague recollection inched to the surface.

  “Delvin Germaine?” she whispered.

  He nodded.

  “You’re on the basketball team.”

  Delvin lifted his hands, palms up. “I won’t hurt you,” he repeated, his eyes caressing her with gentle concern. “You look cold. I’m going to take off my jacket and pass it to you. Will that be okay?”

  She hesitated a few moments, then nodded as he reached up, pulled off the blue and gold varsity jacket, and held it out to her. When she didn’t take it, he added, “It’s all right—I promise.” His smile practically melted her.

  “Okay,” she whispered. Tailan’s limbs did not want to work. Fear still had a death-grip on her body. Obviously, Delvin had assessed the situation because he carefully stooped down and covered her with his jacket. His close proximity actually soothed her enough to say, “You were in my accounting class.”

  “And English,” he added. “And band.”

  Delvin settled down on the floor next to her. He reached into a brown paper bag, pulled out a chicken salad sandwich, and offered it to her.

  Tailan shook her head, even as her belly roared to life in blatant protest.

  The sound reached Delvin’s ears, and he smirked. “I think you need to eat something.”

  She hadn’t in days. The cafeteria had been cleared for the summer, and almost everything was locked up and out of reach. What little she was able to gather up had been stretched out over that summer, lasting until two days ago.

  “Here,” he said, holding the sandwich even closer.

  She looked at the tempting meal and suddenly gave in.

  “I made it this morning,” he said as she took a bite and tried to smother a grateful moan. “Shouldn’t be too bad. I used Miracle Whip.”

  Trying not to inhale the sandwich, Tailan slowed down and tossed a smile to Delvin. “I like Miracle Whip.”

  He passed her a bag of chips, then reached inside again and pulled out a pack of orange Hostess cupcakes. “We’re going to have to split these. They’re my favorite.”

  Tailan took another bite of her sandwich, followed by a few chips. Still leery of his motives and cautious, she kept her gaze fixed on him. He glanced up at her and winked, and before she knew it, she was returning a genuine grin.

  “Practice started yesterday?” she asked around a mouthful of food.

  “They had us come in early,” he replied with a shrug. “They want us to go to State finals this time.”

  Delvin stayed silent as they ate their meal. Eventually his eyes shifted to a paint splattered throw cloth Tailan had schlepped over from art class. Her bed. Now that her stomach wasn’t growling, embarrassment crept in.

  “You can’t stay here,” he said. “You know that, right?”

  She looked away, hating that he confirmed what she had felt earlier in the week. More sounds, more movement in the hallway. For the majority of the summer there had been none. Only her in the entire building. Safety. Pure safety.

  “They’re starting to prep the school for the new year,” he warned. “People are going to be everywhere. Someone else is going to find you.” He gestured to the door. “I just came in here for a break after practice and to eat my lunch. But there’ll be janitors and teachers coming around soon.”

  Tailan looked out to the empty classroom seats and realized her peaceful time was going to come to an end. She felt her face fall. All summer, she had been reasonably all right. No threat of being attacked or raped by her depraved uncle. And no doubt he and her aunt were on the lookout for her. Dear God, what kind of sick family had her mother come from?

  She personally never wanted to learn the answer to that question.

  “I have no place to go,” she admitted solemnly, keeping her eyes forward. “My parents died a few months ago. My father’s people don’t want me. My mother’s family is … they’re … I … they …”

  Tailan flinched as Delvin’s hand covered hers. Her eyes shot to his, to his
hand over hers, then back to his face. She saw no lust in his deep dark eyes, only comfort as he said, “You can come home with me.”

  Her heart rate sped up, and she snatched her hand away. Tailan threw off his jacket and backed away from him.

  The horror she witnessed in his startled expression shocked her.

  “No, I’m not talking about that,” Delvin promised. Again he threw up his hands, trying to explain. “I’ll sleep on the floor, and you can have my bed. We’ll have to sneak you in after my parents go to sleep, but they travel a lot.”

  Tailan blinked and blinked again as his offer took root in her brain. A soft bed instead of a hard floor? Food? Real food? Safety? Maybe. Oh, and a bathroom with real mirrors to see her reflection. Tailan had no delusions about her appearance. She accepted the fact that she must look a hot mess.

  His offer was too good to be real. She could hardly wrap her mind around it. And yet, she was tired. So tired of always being afraid. Tailan wore her terror like a second skin, and that extra coating wouldn’t allow her to hope. Even with him.

  “I’ll be all right,” she insisted as she absently brushed her hair with her hand. “I can find my own way.”

  Delvin reached out to glide a finger across her cheek, and she froze. “You’re going to have to trust somebody at some point.”

  Tailan pulled away from his touch. “Why should it be you?”

  Delvin’s eyebrow shot up. “‘Cause I shared my cupcakes with you.” He lifted his chin arrogantly. “And I don’t share my orange cupcakes with just anybody. Chocolate maybe,” he shrugged. “But orange …”

  The haughty look on Delvin’s face was too comical. A whimsical laugh found Tailan, and she gave in to it. After a few moments, a wave of embarrassment flamed her face. She looked down at their entwined fingers and the orange cupcake in her other hand. She could not remember how the second one ended up there.

  “Taking the last cupcake, that’s like being engaged or something.” Delvin softened his words with a smile.

  So many bad things had bulldozed over her life. To finally receive a little comfort was too much. The waterworks started, and she couldn’t turn them off. Tears rained down her cheeks. Gasping groans of deep-seated agony consumed her. And for the first time, she accepted strength from another.