Rhonda had heard enough to have a vague understanding of what happened. She closed her phone and started packing. She wasn’t safe there in their apartment. Hunter had betrayed her. She didn’t want to be with him for another second.
She moved her daughter to California and filed for divorce. Luckily, her job could be transferred to any main city with an airport so she started working harder and taking on extra shifts to pay rent for a small house in a nice neighborhood where her daughter would never even meet a gang member. Occasionally, she would spy on Hunter, just so she would know what was happening. From her spying she learned that Hunter didn’t meet his deadline to pay back the money with interest. She learned that Hunter promised double if they gave him a month. She knew that month was coming up. How Hunter was planning on coming up with the money, Rhonda had no idea until Madeline had come to her home that night.
Chapter 35
Rhonda sat with her arms folded and lips sealed. She didn’t owe Madeline anything. She especially didn’t need to tell her anything about what had happened between her and her husband. But then she had a thought. She hated her husband for what he did to her. For taking money from the gang that had stolen her innocence all those years ago. She hated him even more because he still seemed to have everything figured out, so much so that his perfect, beautiful, white ex-girlfriend was at Rhonda’s home on his behalf.
She still wasn’t sure why Madeline had come to see her, but she was starting to have an inkling. It made sense and she knew it all along. After all these years, after everything, she had been right about Hunter and Madeline—they weren’t really over. They had never been really over and now that Hunter was getting divorced, he could go back to what he really wanted.
He never really wanted her, Rhonda believed. Yes he was mostly a good husband and a good father (aside from his betrayal!), but he had done it from an act of duty, not love. Had there been no pregnancy, Rhonda was sure she and Hunter wouldn’t have lasted so long and instead he would have been back with Madeline even sooner.
And now that Rhonda filed for divorce, Hunter could have whatever he wanted. He could have Madeline and even her money to fix his problem with the Cobras. Well, Rhonda could not allow that. It wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t get what he wanted. And how convenient for her, Rhonda still had a chance to ruin it for him. With Madeline in her living room, she had the chance to ruin everything for Hunter, just like he had ruined everything for her.
“You remember what happened to me?” She said.
“Of course. You were so young.” Madeline responded. Madeline, however, didn’t know the whole story. How could she, being an outsider in Harlem?
“You know who did it to me?”
Madeline shook her head. Back then, Rhonda had refused to tell her anything more than that she had been raped and impregnated.
“Well, in Harlem, there is a gang called the Cobras. You don’t mess with them and they run the neighborhood. If you see someone in a green bandana, you look down and you walk the other way.” She paused to gauge Madeline’s interest. “I was a victim of their initiation ritual.”
Rhonda hadn’t thought about that day for a very long time. In fact, she had tried not to think about it since the moment it was over, but she remembered every little detail, down to the dirt in the boy’s fingernails.
The first time she saw Ray was the day before it happened. She was with her friends sitting on the bleachers at the basketball court on 140th when he walked by. He hooked his fingers on the outside of the fence and stared in at the boys shooting hoops and the girls watching. He stood like that for a while, nothing but his eyes moving from person to person. No one seemed to notice him there except Rhonda. She caught his eye one time and quickly looked back at the lighter her friend was flicking on for her to light her cigarette. A little later, she caught his staring right at her. It made her blush and she smiled at him. He was cute, she thought. With his almost buzzed hair and broad cheekbones, his baggy designer jeans, he looked like a 15-year-old’s dream guy. She thought he might have winked at her, but she wasn’t sure. After all, guys weren’t usually interested in her. They liked girls like Keisha or her other friend Tatiana.
That evening, when the girls were ready to disperse from the basketball court, Ray came right up to Rhonda and introduced himself. He asked if he could walk her home. Rhonda wanted to say no, she liked walking home with her girlfriends and they still had so much to talk about. But Keisha and Tatiana oohed and aahed and gave approving looks to their friend. So Rhonda agreed. Anyway it was about time she started dating. She knew she was way behind her friends.
Ray was sweet. They talked about Tupac and their favorite songs. Ray told her about a movie he had just seen that Rhonda had to see. She took note in her head to watch it that evening so she could tell him next time she saw him. When they got to Rhonda’s home, he asked for her number and she gave it to him. She asked him why she never saw him at school and he told her he went to a different one. Rhonda had heard of his school, she knew it was for kids who had been expelled and that excited her. He promised to
