Lani

I woke up a few hours later around 5 that morning in my bed with the comforter draped over me. I really don’t remember much from the night before except for having a really bad time at my Dad’s and then going out on the grounds far away from the house to get high, and then Dom came and took me to the train only to tell me that he was seeing someone, so I went to a friend’s in Brooklyn and got high with her some more; but that’s really all that was clear to me at that time (that seems like a lot huh?). And then I heard the puking coming from the bathroom…

“Are you cool in there?” I may despise the boy but being the only female in my big ass family of men I take on the mother role easily when someone is sick.

“Yeah I’m fine, sorry for waking you up. You can go back to bed I’m done.” I heard the toilet flush and the water run for about a minute before Justin came out from the bathroom looking like shit and smelling like toothpaste. At least he was being clean.

“You didn’t wake me up, my circadian rhythm did.” I was always somewhat of a psychology nerd in high school and I’m guessing he wasn’t by the look that he gave me.

“Your what? If that’s some girly problem you can keep it to yourself. I have no food left in my stomach to throw up but I just might.”

“I guess you never took psychology; circadian rhythms are basically your sleep cycle. I’m always up around this time everyday.” Handing him a bottle of Pepto-Bismol I grabbed from the closet next to the bathroom, I laughed at the stupid look etched on his face.

“Interesting…” He grabbed the bottle, chugged a little bit, and walked past me to lay down in the middle of my bed where I had just gotten up from and pulled my black comforter over his head.

“Sure you can just sleep in my bed. It’s fine, I didn’t plan on trying to go back to sleep or anything…” Was he seriously about to take up my bed?

“Thanks.” Within minutes I heard light snoring coming from my bed so I grabbed my laptop from its place on my desk and went and sat at the kitchen table to look up community colleges in the area. It was time that I go back to school, maybe. Before I could even open up Internet Explorer I heard my cell phone ringing from in my room so I ran to pick it up before it woke the asshole up.

“Hello?”

“Renee sweetie, it’s Mommy.” She ruined my dinner the night before by showing up, now she was going to ruin my day and it had just barely started.

“Can I help you?”

“I want to apologize for the things I said yesterday at dinner. I know I was out of line and I know I shouldn’t have just dropped by the way I did.”

“It’s not my house to care if you drop by or not. What bothered me is you brought your sweet little family along with you.” My mom left my dad when he started to get deep into the business and went and started a new family with a wealthy ass lawyer from Atlanta and decided she was going to parade her perfect girls around in my face.

“They’re your sisters Renee, you can’t hate them for something they have nothing to do with.”

“They aren’t my sisters, and I can hate them all I fucking want to. Do you mind, it’s early as hell and I really have nothing to say to you.”

“Renee are you going to hate me forever? Your father and I haven’t been together for years and it’s time for the divorce to be finalized, I just want to start over.”

“Don’t you think you’ve already started over a long time ago? And let’s get one thing clear now, my fucking name is Melania, not Renee, get it straight Mommy dearest. And I don’t give a shit about you and Dad not being together, we’re all happier without you actually. Just don’t try to come back into mine and Gianni’s life expecting us to be welcoming of you and your new perfect family.” Maybe I shouldn’t have hung up in her face but she deserved that shit. I hadn’t realized that I had been so loud until Justin was standing in the doorway, still looking like he got run over by an 18-wheeler, repeatedly, followed by Rae and Trace. Did I wake them up? Oops…

To say that I hate my mother would be an understatement. She left my father because she claimed he couldn’t give her what she needed, but he loved her to death and anything she wanted he delivered. I still remember the day she came home and told my dad that she was leaving him for someone else, I mean, who wouldn’t remember something like that? I was never really attached to her growing up, Daddy’s Little Girl at heart, but I still loved her; she’s my mom, I was supposed to love her and I did just that until she packed her shit and left.

When she left our family started over; my Dad had the house we live in now built and he spent more time dealing with business in our own home than he did when Tiffany was around. Although my dad spent more time at home he got deeper into the mob shit than he was before, I guess it was a way to deal with my mom leaving. It pisses me off that my mom would wait almost 11 years to sign the divorce papers my dad had been trying to get signed for years; she wasn’t asking for spousal support until she decided to sign the papers so I don’t get why she refused. But now things were different, she had come over to tell my dad that he needed to give her the money she was asking for, or she would out him and all of his operations in court.

As much as I want my dad to lay low with his illegal bullshit, it makes him happy and I wouldn’t be able to cope if he went to jail. That’s why I got so mad at dinner that night and it turned into a screaming match between her and I, while the men in my family tried to break it up. Imagine hearing from the person who birthed you that you’ll never amount to anything, just as she thought. So now you can see why I was hostile towards her when she called.  

“Is there a problem Lani?” I looked up and saw the three of them staring at me with sleepy eyes. I shook my head no and Justin and Trace turned back around and headed back towards the bedrooms. Rae didn’t believe me though, and being my best friend she shouldn’t have.

“Tiffany showed up to dinner threatening Daddy if he didn’t dish out more money for her and the poster children.”

“So you were yelling on the phone at 6 in the morning because?”

“That bitch got my number somehow knowing that I hate her. Her and I got into it when I heard the threats she was throwing at him and she basically called me a cheap whore and told me I was never going to be anything and no one would ever love me. Nice right? This was all in front of Dominic by the way.” Rae’s mouth flew open but closed immediately. She didn’t know what to say, and I can’t blame her, I wouldn’t either if I were her.

“Fuck her Lani. She’s never been a mother to you so you shouldn’t even get all mad about her. No one told her to go and be a puta and sleep around and leave you guys, she chose to.”

“To top it all off, Dom told me he’s seeing one of the bartenders at the Boston restaurant, Susan is her name. Nice right?”

“He must have a thing for girls who sling liquor for a living.”

“Yeah, he must. I can’t even be mad because I’m the one who basically said that we need to see other people. I should have completely broken it off, you know?”

If I didn’t want to be with him, why was I beating myself up over everything? Dominic could have his tramp, if he wanted to be one of those people that mixed business with pleasure he could go ahead. What do I care?

If my mom wanted to black mail my dad then I should let her, right? I mean, I am a nobody and won’t ever make something of my life. Maybe I should take her “advice” and get deep into my dad’s businesses, since you know, I do know my way around them.

Seriously though, that bottle of Malibu sitting in the back of the fridge never looked so good…

Justin

“We should aim real low with this fucker. None of this is really your fault to begin with and look at what he did to retaliate. We need to retaliate in a way that will be unsuspecting to him; I’m talking something that will piss him off and make him know we don’t fuck around. You know where to hit him where it hurts Randy?” I walked into my dad’s penthouse and overheard a conversation he was having with one of his soldiers in the kitchen.

“I’m not looking to do any terrible damage. I just want to get him back for that bullshit he pulled a few weeks back. Like you said, I want him to know that he can’t fuck with the Timberlakes and get away with it.”

“He’s got a daughter who lives right here in the city over on East 27th. From what I hear from a few informants she’s Daddy’s Little Girl so I’m thinking if we give her a little message to relay to Daddy…” Lani and Rae live over on East 27th Street… they couldn’t be, my dad can’t be… oh god.

“I knew I hired you for a reason. Do what you have to do to get our point across that we’re not letting this shit slide. Don’t kill her, don’t do anything that will harm her, just scare her a little to get the point across, okay?”

“Hey Pop.” The two of them look startled when I stepped into view.

“Hey Just. I didn’t hear you come in. What’s going on?”

“Nothing I’m just heading out to meet up with some friends who live over on East 27th but I figured I’d stop by here and see what ya’ll were up to first. Where is everyone?” I could tell by the frown on my dad’s face that he was confused about the comment I had just made. Yea, be scared Dad.

“Lisa and the boys are in the Hamptons for the weekend.”

“Oh cool, well I’m off, I can’t be late or she’ll be pissed at me.” Not that Lani was really expecting to see me, but I’ve heard her say a number of times that her biggest pet peeve is tardiness and I’ve heard her mention that she gets it from the men in her family. If my dad knew anything about her family I’m sure he’d get the hint.

So maybe I hadn’t planned on heading over to their apartment before then, but I knew Trace was over there helping the two of them repaint just about the entire apartment (because of the complaining he was doing that morning when I was getting ready for work), and I was praying that Dominic wasn’t there; I can’t be held accountable for the attitude and snide remarks I make when he’s around, I just don’t like that pretty boy.

I don’t know why I was going over there, it wasn’t like I could warn her about the plans my dad had in store; I didn’t know when or where they were going to confront her and I couldn’t just let her know that I knew who she was. I sure as hell couldn’t let her know that my family was in charge of a lot of the problems her family was having at the time either. God damn why can’t I just say no to a sweet piece of ass, not that I would know how sweet her ass is considering she won’t give me the time of day.

“Ugh, seriously, don’t you have a job that you have to be at?”

“Hello to you too sunshine.” Paint covered jeans and a tank top have never looked so sexy before. I’ve seen her at her worst, this being one of them, but damn she’s never looked better.

“What do you want?”

“I brought food for you guys. Trace told me that ya’ll were painting all day so I figured I’d bring something by before my next project meeting.” I held up a bag of take out and she let me in.

“Ya’ll? This is New York, not Memphis, you hick; drop the accent. Larissa, Trace, Gianni, we’ve got food, ya’ll could stop painting for a while.” Who the fuck is Gianni? And what happened to Dominic? Oh yeah…her brother.

“So I have this friend who knows something important that he should tell someone, but he can’t tell because it’ll get him in a lot of trouble. He’s been asking me what he should do and I can’t figure out what advice to give him, what do you guys think?” We were sitting on the floor of the living room eating when I asked that random ass question. The four of them just looked at me with weird looks on their faces and continued eating.

“Excuse me? Did you break into my weed stash when you stayed here?” All heads turned to Lani as she bit into her sub.

“You have a weed stash? And you couldn’t tell your little brother, what kind of sister are you?”

“Weed stash Lani?” I’m guessing from the tone in her voice Rae was against recreational drugs other than alcohol.

“I was kidding, damn. Anyways, your friend is being selfish. What grade is he in, fifth? Who the hell are they gonna get in trouble by, his Daddy?” At that point the intercom buzzed so she got up and let whoever it was in while the conversation was dropped and a new one was started until we were all startled by the hard pounding on the door. Gianni got up from his place on the floor to answer while the rest of us just sat back and listened to Lani talk about how selfish I was being. Seriously I can’t catch a break from her; why am I so intent on getting her to like me?

“Is there a Melania Violano here?” We heard a deep booming voice coming from the door.

“Yeah, who the hell are you?” Apparently being snobby runs in their family. Who greets people at your door that way?

“It doesn’t matter, just let me speak to her kid. Trust me you don’t want this to get ugly.” At that point Rae and Lani shot each other worried looks and got up to see who was at the door pushing Gianni back into the living room with Trace and I; I was trying to listen to whatever he was mumbling under his breath as he took his seat until I realized he was ranting in Italian. I hadn’t realized that the two had stepped out of the apartment with whoever was at the door until the door slammed shut and Lani ran past us with a pissed look on her face and with what looked like tears streaming down her cheeks.

“What’s going on baby?” Rae sat down next to Trace with the same pissed off look on her face. My dad couldn’t have acted that fast on Lani, could he?

“Nothing.” She took out her cell phone and dialed numbers then started to yell in Spanish to whoever was on the other end. What the hell is with these people and not speaking in English? I guess I was going to have to find out what happened the hard way, going in to talk to Lani myself. Trust me, I knew I was about to die and as I walked down the hall to her room I was picking out what I wanted to be on my gravestone:‘Here lies Justin Randall Timberlake-Harless. Loving son, brother, and a big fucking sucker for exotic pussy’

What do you think?