Page 45 of Isn't She Lucky
“Giada—”
“No, just listen. You wanted to know, so listen.” I clear my throat, but it does nothing to help clear up my shaky voice.“She struggled working full-time. You used to complain about how your parents barely had time for you, well, guess what? My mother didn’t have time for me either. She had to work, and when she wasn’t working, she was stressed out about something. We didn’t have those evening dinners with a chef preparing our meals. She didn’t even cook. There wasn’t enough time or money for all that. Most nights, it was spam and bologna sandwiches for me, and I still considered myself lucky because at least I had something to eat. A lot of people from my neighborhood had nothing.”
“I could’ve given you money.”
“It wasn’t your responsibility to do that, Kase,” I say, brushing tears from my face. “It wasn’t. You did enough for me.”
I snatch a sheet off the bed and wrap it around myself. Leaving his bedroom, I return to the one I’d been sleeping in next to his. After a quick shower, I get dressed and leave. I can’t breathe under the pressure of thinking about everything we had to go through. I doubt if someone of his status can truly understand that.
13.
“Kasim?” Ms. Gardnersays as she opens the door. “I would ask you what you’re doing here, but I already know.”
“Is she here?” I ask, because since Giada left my house yesterday, we haven’t said a word to each other since. I haven’t seen her, kissed her lips, or made love to her, and that’s highly unacceptable. I called, she didn’t answer. I texted, she didn’t read my messages.
“No, she’s not. Where is she?”
“I’m not sure, but while I’m here, I need to talk to you. May I?”
“Sure,” she says, stepping aside so I can enter.
I step inside and see boxes all over the place then remember that Giada is using the money I gave her to buy her mom a house. She deserves one after all her years of hard work, but what about what Giada deserves?
“Have a seat,” she says.
“Nah. I’m good right here.”
“I’ll cut to the chase. You did something to me—to me and Giada—that we’re trying to repair.”
“I know.”
“I love her.”
“I know you do, but you were children at the time, Kasim.”
“Yeah, we were. Two years ago, though, we weren’t. I gave you my number. I told you to pass it Giada…to tell her I saidhi. You didn’t give it to her, did you?”
She sighs heavily and says, “No, I did not.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because—”
“Don’t give me nothing but the truth, Ms. Gardner. Please. Just tell me.”
“Because I don’t want my daughter to be with the man whose parents I used to work for—cleaningtheirhouse, moppingtheirfloors and scrubbingtheirtoilets. Giada will be just fine being with someone around here—someone like us who she can relate to. We don’t live in affluent neighborhoods—places where only people who make seven figures can afford. We don’t come from money ‘round here. We work hard for everything we got, and even after all that, we still fall short! Still can’t afford to pay the rent in full, asking the landlord for an extension only so they can charge a fifty-dollar late fee on top of the regular price that you couldn’t afford to pay in the first place. What you know about that, Kasim? Hunh? What you know about going grocery shopping and having the cashier take stuff off after she done rung it up because you ain’t got enough money to pay for it? What you know about sending a child to school with holes in her shoes because your last check was only enough to pay the bills? And answer this for me—how many nights did your family run out of food, because at my house, we ran out every Thursday and it was just two of us.”
The gut punch she delivered knocked the air clean out of me. There were days they had to go without food – days Giada didn’t have anything to eat. Tightness builds in my chest as I attempt to choke this down. She should’ve told me. I would’ve made a way.I could’ve done something. How do you help when you don’t know anything’s wrong?
Ms. Gardner angrily swipes the tears away from her face and says, “I prefer for Giada to be with someone like us—a man who knows the struggle. A man who builds her up and makes her see her full potential—not one who hands her everything on the same silver platter from which he was fed from. She doesn’t need to be with you.”
She’s angry. Bitter. She’s upset with me because of the circumstances I was born into. My parents were rich. I can’t help that.
I say, “I feel your pain. I do, but there’s nothing you can tell me that’ll keep me away from your daughter and, quite frankly, I don’t care how you feel about us or who youthinkshe should be with. The truth of the matter is, Giada was the best part of me, and you took her away with your lies.”
“You’re from two different worlds.”
Two different worlds…
