Needy Little Things(43)
A tall man in a dirty white tank top appears in the doorframe. He looks at me and Malcolm, then cuts his eyes at Ms. Jasmine. “What are they doing here?”
“Don’t be rude, Derrick. They’re Deja’s friends. They came for a little visit with me. Sit down and have some wings.”
He drapes his belt over the back of one of the dining chairs, looking us up and down. “Friends, huh? That word don’t mean what it meant when I was coming up.”
“Derrick!”
“It ain’t nothing personal. But this world isn’t what it used to be. My mother”—his eyes burn through Ms. Jasmine—“didn’t let me go to weird-ass music festivals with smoking and drinking.”
Malcolm fidgets awkwardly, picking at his chicken wings while I mentally plead for him to make eye contact with me, wishing I could get telepathic confirmation that needing a black light is suspect.
“I didn’t know it was that kind of festival,” she says, scratching her head again.
“Probably would have got yourself a ticket if you did, huh?”
She laughs even though there is zero indication he’s joking.
Derrick turns his attention back to us. “She ask y’all for money yet?”
“That’s enough,” Ms. Jasmine says. “We need it, Derrick. We’re going to need it if we want to find her.”
He leaves the room like she didn’t speak to him at all and I catch Malcolm glaring in his wake.
Ms. Jasmine forces a smile. “He’s Deja’s stepfather, but he loves her like his own. He’s taking this pretty hard.” She wipes the spotless area in front of her with a napkin and sniffs. “All of us are. But I appreciate you two checking up on me. He does, too.”
“Have you heard anything new from the detectives?” Malcolm asks.
“‘We’re doing everything we can. We’ll let you know if there are any developments.’ That’s all they keep saying.” She wrings her hands, scratches her neck. “But there haven’t been any developments. They’ve brought in a few people for questioning, but it’s all come to nothing. That’s why we need to raise some money. Quick.”
I don’t know how much a PI costs, but I’ll do what I have to do to help raise the funds. Until then, though, I’ll do my own investigating. “May I use your restroom?”
Ms. Jasmine looks over her shoulder toward the sound of running water in the main floor bathroom. “Upstairs. Can’t miss it.”
I give Malcolm a pointed stare, which he acknowledges with the slightest nod, before walking through the tiny living room and back into the cramped hall. The stairs are steep and creaky and I see what Ms. Jasmine meant when I reach the top. No way to get turned around up here. Straight ahead is a narrow door, a closet, I guess. To my left and right, full-sized doors. That’s it. The landing is only big enough for two people to stand comfortably. Moving furniture into Deja’s room must have been a hands-on experiment in physics and geometry. The bathroom door is cracked open, but I don’t go into it. Instead, I gently push open the door to her bedroom. It smells like her and I hate myself for wondering how long it’ll take for the scent to fade. Wondering if it has started to already. I peer down the stairs and once I confirm no one has followed me, I slip inside her room. It’s small and messy, like mine. Not messy in the way I’d expect it to look after a police search, though. They should have turned the room inside out. And I don’t know, maybe they did. Maybe Ms. Jasmine straightened it back up so Deja could come home to something normal. I poke around without knowing what I’m looking for, or if I’m looking for anything at all. She has a lot of books, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her reading. Most of them are newer bestsellers that have blockbuster movies to accompany them or old classics. The corner of a red envelope peeks out from between Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Great Gatsby. It’s barely noticeable, but I’m drawn to it the way I’m drawn to items in Santa Bag when there’s a need to be fulfilled. I slide it out and hesitate only a moment before removing the card inside. It says HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY on the front. Must be a platonic one because I distinctly remember Malcolm asking her about her Valentine situation. She’d said there was no situation and she liked it that way, so the inside of the card catches me by surprise.
DEAR DEJA,
YOU’RE EVERYTHING I WANT AND NEED. COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS TILL WE’RE TOGETHER.
FOREVER,
J.
“J.?” The first face to pop in my head is Jude’s, but I looked at his class notes long enough to know this isn’t his handwriting. Not to mention the idea of him and Deja being in a secret relationship before he moved here is absurd. Almost as absurd as the next J name that comes to mind. Josiah. I laugh out loud at that because, while I wouldn’t put it past my brother to crush on one of my friends, he’s not out here buying and sending greeting cards. I pick at a pimple on my forehead, racking my brain. There are two J-A-Y Jays that I know of at East Lake, but ain’t no way Deja would be involved with either of them. I slip the card into my purse, planning to cross-reference it with my yearbook later. Malcolm’s voice suddenly grows louder from downstairs. I take it as a signal to go back down, but my breath catches when I reach for the door.
There’s a chain lock on it. I run my fingers over the tarnished metal. I gave this to her. I found it at an abandoned construction site. The thought of giving it new life through need fulfillment was nice, but I’d laughed when I passed it off. “Don’t know what the heck you’re going to do with this, but here you go,” I’d said. She took it without comment and threw it into her bag.