Nina Thomas
The grand jury didn’t return a murder indictment against me. I was so relieved I cried. Now that that was behind me, I had something else on my mind-the women who robbed me. They didn’t follow me from Jimmy’s; they were there at my apartment waiting for me. They had to know that I would be at Jimmy’s, and where I lived. I looked at Teena and wondered how they knew that.
I went home with Shay and Teena. They had a surprise party waiting there for me. “Surprise!” Even though I wasn’t in the mood for a party, I acted like I was having a good time, but my mind was focused on how them women knew where I lived. Sometime during the party, I sat down and watched Teena. She was all over the place, like she always was, being the life of the party. After awhile, Shay came and sat with me. “Something bothering you?”
“Why you say that?”
“This is your party and you’re the only one that’s not having fun.”
“Just got a lot on my mind.”
“That why you been sweatin’ Teena all night?” Shay asked.
I didn’t answer.
Shay stood up. “Come on. We need to talk.”
Shay led me by the hand into the bedroom. We sat on the bed and I ran it all down to her. How no matter how much we talked about not doing business at Jimmy’s, Teena called me to do business at Jimmy’s. I told her about the two women who were watching me, and that it was those same two women that robbed me. “They didn’t follow me from Jimmy’s; they were waiting there for me, Shay. They had to know that I would be at Jimmy’s that night, and they had to know where I lived.”
“Wait here a minute,” Shay said and left the room. When she came back, Teena was with her. “Tell her what you just told me, Nina.”
I ran through it again.
“Hold up. You think I set you up?” Teena asked.
“We just talkin’, Teena,” Shay said.
“I ain’t talkin’ to you, Shay. Nina, you think I set you up?”
“Like Shay said, we just talkin’.”
“You do think I set you up. That hurts bitch. Long as we’ve known each other, as much shit as three of us have been through together, you think I would do some shit like that? That shit hurts,” Teena said, and I could see the hurt on her face.
“If you would stop being so hurt and think about it, you’d understand why we had to have this conversation,” Shay said.
“Why?”
“Think about that shit, Teena. Nina don’t go to Jimmy’s, that’s your spot,” Shay began. “You call her up there and there are two women watchin’ her. The same two women that are waiting at her apartment to rob her. How did they know where she lived? How did they know she would be at Jimmy’s that night?”
