As the Wicked Watch(99)

“Folks are always talking about how Black girls are the most unprotected people on this earth,” Yvonne said, “but when the time comes, they look away. You can’t talk about other people if you’re doing the same thing.”

And that’s precisely what you did.

“But didn’t something feel wrong? I mean, why didn’t you take it seriously?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But I am now,” she said. “I’ll have to carry that regret with me for the rest of my life.”

Yvonne and Manny were repentant of their mindlessness. I saw in them what I didn’t in Louise, a sense of obligation to try and figure this out, to be redeemed.

“What are you going to do with this picture? Has Pamela seen it?” I asked.

Yvonne glanced over at Manny, who dropped his head.

“Look, if you didn’t trust me, you wouldn’t have shown me this. And if I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be here,” I said.

“Pam is in denial,” Yvonne said. “After the boys were charged, she didn’t want to hear no more about Terrence.”

The mother who had pleaded with the crowd at the vigil “Tell us what you know. This isn’t about being a snitch. Tell us!” had turned a blind eye herself.

“What about his roommate? I hear they’re in business together. You think he’s part of this?”

Manny looked surprised. “Really? I thought Brent worked for Terrence. I ain’t never heard either one of them say they were business partners.”

Interesting.

“What’s Brent like?” I asked.

“He’s quiet,” Manny said casually, but Yvonne, I noticed, was having a visceral reaction.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Oh God!” she said and started shaking.

“What is it, babe?” Manny asked.

“You know Monique?” she said to Manny.

“Yeah.”

“Monique Connors?” I asked.

Yvonne said, “Yes. How do you know her?”

“It was a chance encounter at the vigil. As I was walking through the crowd, I ran into this young girl who described herself as Masey’s friend, ‘sort of.’”

“They were more than ‘sort of’ friends. They actually got closer when Brent, her brother, started getting his hair cut here,” Yvonne said.

“Oh, they’re brother and sister?”

“Yes.”

Yvonne raised an eyebrow and said, “I’m thankful to God I didn’t have a brother like that.”

Manny turned to look at Yvonne like he was unsure about what she was talking about. I stared at her, bracing myself for the point she was trying to make.

“I don’t know how you’re going to feel, Jordan, about me not mentioning this before. Manny doesn’t even know. As a woman who has had something like this happen to me before, I just didn’t want to tell anyone what she shared with me. It’s her secret.”

“What secret? What are you talking about?” I asked her.

“The young girls like to tell me everything. I don’t know why. They just trust me and they tell me everything. Maybe it’s being in the chair, me taking care of them, doing their hair, and making them feel comfortable. You know what they say about beauty shop and barbershop talk. You become a therapist, and I’m a therapist big sister.”

“Yvonne, I need you to get to the point,” I said. “What did she tell you?”

“Monique hates her brother and she’s also afraid of him. She can’t stand him.”

She paused.

“Monique told me a couple of months ago that when she was younger, Brent used to come in her room and touch her.” She swallowed and lowered her gaze, recognizing again the impact of what she was saying and triggering memories of her own.

Manny squeezed his forehead and rubbed at his temples. I grabbed Yvonne’s hand, left to console her, as women often do in these moments, and sympathized with what she was feeling, having just admitted that she, too, had gone through some type of trauma.

“How long did she say it went on?” I asked.

“She didn’t say how long exactly. She just said for years.”

Our girls were not safe. I’d heard that thousands of times. But to appreciate the full extent of what that really meant was almost too much to bear.

“Do you have a picture of Brent?” I asked.

Yvonne was in no shape to answer. Her whole world had turned upside down. She was emotionally destroyed.

“Hold up,” said Manny. “Let me look in this box at the pictures from the cookout last summer. I know he was there, and we have a bunch of pictures.”

Manny shuffled through the box of loose images and finally handed me a picture of six men posing around a picnic bench at a park, looking like they were having the time of their lives.

“There.” Manny pointed to a man in the middle of the group who was in full floss mode, smiling away. “That’s him.”

The man in the picture was a sharp contrast to the monster Yvonne had just revealed in his awful form. Tall with a medium build, he smiled broadly, confidently, leaning against a picnic table with his arms folded and a beer in one hand. There was something about his eyes.

“Can I have this?” I asked.