Free Jaded by Rhonda Sheree Page A

himself except his ability to raise successful daughters. The day after Syeesha graduated from high school she’d awakened to find him sitting in the den, in his favorite brown recliner, a picture of her mother on his lap. The doctor had said his heart had simply stopped, strange for a man so young. Not so strange to Syeesha and Trina.
    Syeesha refocused her attention to the present. It wasn’t so hard to do. She heard spirited cries from down the hall so she closed her laptop. It would be fruitless to try and compete with the noise. Kiki had company in her bedroom. From the sounds of it, they were either performing an overly dramatic séance to awaken Elvis from the dead or they were having the loudest sex Syeesha had ever heard. She ignored the theatrics and headed to the fridge for a late-night celebratory drink.
    E-mailed Tanya first completed blog article.
    Have hope for a new job.
    Cute guy at school likes me.
    Yep, definitely a reason for a little celebration.
    She rummaged past the expired milk, leftover spaghetti, and half-eaten package of Chips Ahoy! for the bottle of wine she kept stashed in the back of the fridge.
    No wine.
    Maybe I put it on top of the fridge.
    She stepped on a stool and rooted behind boxes of cereal and pancake mix.
    Nothing.
    House music, with its thunderous bass drum and shrill synthesizer repeating the same three notes, became louder. As did Kiki’s operatic theatrics.
    “Stay focused,” Syeesha mumbled.
    Then it occurred to her. She didn’t know why, maybe it had something to do with the way the beat vibrated through the floor and moved through her body. But she knew that once again Kiki had taken advantage of her. The more she thought about it, the stronger her heart pulsed in unison with the music.
    Syeesha’s bare feet stomped toward Kiki’s bedroom, and her fist pounded on the door. But she couldn’t be heard above the music. She pounded again. More noises that sounded like a gorilla attacking a soprano echoed from the room. Syeesha went into the living room to look for something to bang against the door. Monster strutted across the back of the couch as though it were lined with a red carpet laid specifically for her. Syeesha looked at the cat and a devilish thought blossomed. Monster, proving that cats really did have mystical powers, looked at Syeesha, arched her back then glided through the air in a jump to the floor, disappearing into the kitchen.
    That wouldn’t have worked anyway.
    Syeesha found a man’s brown leather shoe on the floor by the couch. Holding it firmly by the toe, she repeatedly slammed the heel of the shoe against Kiki’s bedroom door. When Kiki and her lover finally re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, the animalistic sounds tapered off. The music stopped abruptly. Kiki whipped the door open.
    “What!” Kiki stood before her in all of her naked glory, boldly displaying her barely-there breasts.
    The triple assault of sex, sweat, and alcohol smacked Syeesha in the face.
    “You got my bottle of Zinfandel in there with you?”
    “Yeah. So? I’ll buy you another one. Think I can spare the five bucks.”
    “You have the nerve to be late with your rent every month and now you’re making a habit of taking my shit? You think I didn’t notice my white Levi’s on your ass the other day?”
    “Syeesha.” Kiki glanced back over her shoulder toward her bed. “I’m kinda in the middle of something here.”
    “I heard. Should I call an ambulance or animal control?”
    “Don’t be jealous just ’cause you’re not getting any.”
    “The point, Kiki, is that you took something of mine that doesn’t belong to you. If you can’t be a little more respectful around here I’m gonna ask you to leave.”
    “Ask me to leave?” Kiki batted her lashes, clumpy from too much smudged mascara. She tilted her head as if she were trying to decipher the meaning of a foreign language. “I don’t think you recall the reason why I’m here in the first