The Coldest Winter Ever

Winter scrounges together the cash that she and her mother had in their purses and realizes that she all she has is “a total of $1,480, a diamond necklace, a diamond bracelet, diamond earrings, and the clothes on [her] back” (109). She realizes that her sisters will be taken care of in foster care because they’re “little and cute” (109), but she must fend for herself. She decides not to go back to Brooklyn since it might not be safe, and instead decides to stay with Sterling: “I would use Sterling for as long as possible, at least until I got answers to the big questions about my mom, pop, and sisters. I couldn’t see him minding. He seemed to enjoy being used” (113).

While waiting to pick Sterling up, she gives herself a budget of $300 and goes clothes shopping. She lies to Sterling and says that she needs to stay with him for two weeks because her parents are on vacation. It’s implied that he had a girlfriend, but he kicked her out to let Winter stay with him.

Momma is staying with her sister Laurie. She tries to get her youngest daughters back, but she’s unable to because she doesn’t have a place of her own or a job. Winter meets Midnight, hoping he knows where the rest of Santiaga’s money is at, and hoping she and him can go into business together. She dresses fancy for the occasion, but Midnight doesn’t notice. She tells him that he better respect her, but he sets her straight:

‘What you know about that? I saw your naked ass on that videotape sipping champagne with Bullet. Who’da ever known that Santiaga’s daughter was sipping bubbly with a nigga who’s a worker for the other side! While your daddy was being raided by the feds you were having drinks butt naked with the enemy’ (121).

Midnight explains that Slick Kid played the video he took of Winter and Bullet on the big screen at a bar, and Midnight beat Slick Kid up as a result.

Natalie calls Winter to tell her that Bullet broke up with his girlfriend because she was cheating on him. Later in the day, Winter meets Midnight to talk more about everything. He says that the money she was hoping to get is gone. She accuses him of stealing it, and he again tells her how it is:

‘If I was a different type of man I’d break your ass up right here in front of everybody. Now, hear this Shorty. Your father was like a father to me. He gave me a break. For five years I never sifted one penny from him. I could of easily, because I was close to him. But Santiaga paid me well for my services. I got my own loot […] So don’t ever use your pretty lips to destroy my reputation. It took me a long time to build it, and believe me I earned it’ (125).

He says that even though he couldn’t get the money, he’ll try and work something out for Winter. Winter and Momma go to visit Santiaga. When the guard calls out the name Santiaga, Winter, Momma, and a young Puerto Rican woman named Dulce stand up. Winter and Momma are confused because it’s clear that, for some reason, this stranger is here to see Santiaga as well. Momma goes back to see Santiaga, and Winter sits down next to Dulce, who’s holding a baby boy. He’s wearing a bracelet that says Ricky Santiaga, Jr. It becomes clear that Dulce is Santiaga’s mistress, and she’s holding his baby. Winter reacts to this realization: “You fucking whore. Don’t you come here looking down on my mother like you better than somebody” (130). Dulce and her almost fight, but the guards give them a warning. Winter stares at her and notices that she’s dressed in the latest designer fashions, and she realizes that she probably has most of Santiaga’s money since the cops obviously hadn’t raided her place. After the visit, Momma tells Winter that Santiaga said it was all a mix-up and that he didn’t know the Puerto Rican woman. Winter doesn’t mention anything about the baby’s name.

The next time Winter sees Momma, Momma’s head is shaved. She says she did it because it’s the latest fashion, but she reveals that she really did it because she was angry at her sister and tired of borrowing her wigs. Winter thinks that she looks awful with her bald head and twisted face, but she doesn’t say it aloud. Winter and Momma visit Porsche at her foster home, and she cries because she wants to leave with them.

Winter meets Midnight and he says that the money is gone indefinitely and that things are looking bad for Santiaga. Apparently, everyone turned on him when they got arrested alongside him. The only reason Midnight escaped incarceration is because he was smart and didn’t flaunt his money. He tells her that he’s leaving Brooklyn. She cries and asks if she can come with him, but he says, “You don’t even know what’s going on around you. If it ain’t on the front page you don’t know it. But you know the name of every designer in Bloomingdale’s. Hell no, you can’t come with me. Your dumb ass ain’t bringing me down, not me” (145). He hands her an envelope with $3,000 in it and walks away. 

Winter sits in a coffee shop and looks for apartments in a local newspaper. She heads to the advertised apartment, a little brownstone in Harlem. She knocks on the door and an older woman with a “thick West Indian accent” (147) answers the door. The woman asks Winter a bunch of questions, like if she has children or if she’s a student. Winter says that she doesn’t have children, but then she lies about the other answers to look like she would be a better tenant. Winter loves the apartment and tries to offer the woman cash, but the woman looks suspicious and makes Winter fill out an application for the apartment. The woman says, “We’re trying to clean the block up, get rid of the drugs, make it better for everybody. We’re real careful because a lot of drug dealers have cash. They’ve got money to spend. They send a pretty little thing like you in here” (149). When the woman asks Winter for one month’s rent plus two month’s security deposit, Winter changes her mind and decides she’ll just stay with Sterling for awhile.

When she gets to Sterling’s, her suitcase is packed and by the door. Sterling and his old girlfriend, Judy, greet Winter. Apparently, Sterling told Judy that Winter was his cousin, so Judy has no idea that he has been sleeping with Winter. Sterling and Judy escort Winter to a cab:

Sterling couldn’t control me, so he picked this motherly girl to fill my shoes. She’s probably been around him for years hoping and praying for an engagement ring, but if you asked me it wouldn’t last. It was obvious that her pussy is no good, otherwise he wouldn’t have lied to her to be with me in the first place (155).

With nowhere else to go, she decides to go to Brooklyn to stay with her mom’s sister. She calls Natalie, and after dropping her stuff off at her aunt’s, she goes to Natalie’s house. All her old friends are there, including Simone, who’s now pregnant. They all smoke, drink, play cards, and catch up on gossip. Winter goes back to her aunt’s at five in the morning, and her mom, “bald-headed and thinner than [she] last saw her” (158), is waiting in the apartment lobby to see Winter.

The next morning, Winter wakes up to her aunt asking her for money. Winter says that she doesn’t have any money and empties her purse to prove it, all the while her stash of cash is pinned inside her bra. Simone calls and asks Winter to go shopping. While at the store, Winter pays full price for her new clothes, only to realize afterwards that Simone shoplifted the outfits she wanted. Simone has made a business of stealing, and she even has the device that removes the alarm tags. 

That night, Simone and Winter rent a limo and go to a concert at Uptown and the Boogie Down. Everyone is dressed to impress. While Simone and Winter are in the crowd, “Natalie was up in the box seats with the kid Will whose hands were holding all kinds of shine—jewels and other signs of big cash flow” (162). Seeing Natalie in the box seats, wearing clothes that have always strictly been Winter’s style, makes Winter angry; she thinks she should be the one up there with the rich guy. Winter asks Simone how Natalie got with a guy like Will, and Simone says that it’s because of that “video with you and Bullet and her and Slick Kid. In one part she was sucking Slick Kid’s dick real nasty-like. Now niggas is sweating her like she Vanessa Del Rio or something” (163).

When the concert is over, the MC thanks Sister Souljah for putting on the event and donating proceeds to her children’s program. Winter judges the way Souljah dresses. Winter, Simone, Natalie, and Will all go to a restaurant, and “Will acted like he was the Lion King surrounded by all us women” (165). Winter goes to the bathroom to adjust the money in her bra, and when she comes out Will is standing at the payphone. He starts flirting with her and says that the dress he bought for Natalie would look better on her. He asks for her number, and just as he pulls out a pen, Natalie walks up. Natalie realizes what’s going on and says to Winter, “You little sneaky bitch. You fucking low-down sneaky bitch” (167). Will denies it and hugs her, but during the hug Winter silently mouths her number to him.

Back at the table, Winter and Natalie get into a fight. Natalie calls Winter’s mom a crackhead, which is true, and Winter retaliates: “If your shit was all that, [Will] wouldn’t be sniffing up and around my ass” (168). Winter leaves with Simone, and Natalie says she better never come around the area again. The next morning, Will calls Winter at her aunt’s house. They agree to meet that night: “What Natalie didn’t understand was that I needed Will for business purposes. She was way too dumb to relate to the ideas and business plans I had put together […] I was about to build an empire so I didn’t have to be concerned with lowlifes like Natalie and her off-the-wall comments” (170).

Will and Winter go to a drive-in movie. Winter tries to see if she can invest in Will’s drug business, but he says no way: “He obviously didn’t want to do business with me. He must’ve only wanted the pussy” (173). She asks him, if he’s such a good businessman, why is he with Natalie when she “fucks around with anybody” (174). He says, if she wants honesty, it’s because Natalie performs fellatio well:

Natalie sucks my dick like no other hoe ever sucked my dick […] There’s an art to sucking dick. Natalie got that shit locked down. She gets the whole dick in her mouth and still finds room for my nuts. When I bust in her mouth, she swallows like it’s pancake syrup (174).

He basically propositions Winter, saying that although Natalie is a good girl to have in the bedroom, he wants to make Winter his girlfriend because she is classy and knows how to act. He says that as long as Winter satisfies him, he won’t need Natalie on the side. Then he “rubbed his balls with his left hand until his thick erect dick was sticking out of his pants” (175). She says he has some nerve, and he says that getting his “joint done right” (175)is his main pleasure. He says that if a girl isn’t around to do it when he wants, he pays a male crackhead to do it: “Men got stronger jaws. That shit feels even better” (175). Winter is officially not attracted to Will: “I can’t be seduced or excited by questionable masculinity. I need to know that my man is rugged and rough to the bone. I would never have to worry about Midnight saying or doing this” (176).

The next morning, Winter wakes up to a threat from Natalie on her voicemail. Apparently, Natalie saw Winter getting out of Will’s car. She gets in the shower, and when she gets out, she realizes her money is missing from her bra. Her aunt knocks on her door and says that she has company. Before Winter can question her aunt about her missing money, a woman from the BCW says that she needs to leave with her. Winter tries to refuse, but the woman says that until Winter turns 18, she is a ward of the state. Before Winter leaves, she asks her aunt about her money, and her aunt smirks, making it clear that she stole it: “My mind snapped. All I know if I had my two hands around her neck choking her. She was gagging for air” (183). 

Winter is taken to live at The House of Success: “[A] group home for teenage girls aged thirteen to eighteen. Don’t ask me why they picked that name. As far as I as concerned it was a joke like everything else” (184). Although it’s minimum security, each girl is expected to follow the rules which earns them privileges, such as leaving the premises to shop, etc. Winter’s case worker says, “For the next thirty days you will be evaluated. If you are not deemed to be violent or suffering from a learning disorder or illness you will be treated like a young adult with adult responsibilities” (184). Thinking about her new home, Winter initially imagines the worst:

[L]ike some squad of butch women dragging me out of my bed, fucking me up in the bathroom and shoving a broomstick up my pussy. But I would fight anybody I had to before I would let them get me down. They’d have to kill me before I’d let some chicks eat my pussy or make me like theirs (185).

However, she finds out that it’s nothing like her imagination. She is housed in a room with three other girls: Claudette, a Christian girl from Haiti with greasy hair and bad taste in clothing; Lashay, a chubby but cute girl who loves boys; and Rashida, a pretty but quiet girl who reads a lot and keeps to herself.

During Winter’s first week in the house, she meets with a counselor named Kathy Johnson. As soon as she walks in the room, she judges Kathy’s lack of style. Kathy asks her questions, and Winter gives short answers: “No sense getting all involved when she was the walking, talking example of what education amounted to. What was I supposed to do? Struggle to be like her? Pay some big school big, big money so I could get a little job in some little place making an iddy biddy bit of cash. What do I get?” (189). Kathy asks about Winter’s family, but she doesn’t want to talk about them and thinks that Kathy is being nosy. Winter asks about money, and Kathy says that she will earn $60 a week. Kathy says that most of the girls in the house have jobs to save for when they get out.

Afterwards, she sees the in-house psychiatrist, who asks her about her family and upbringing: “She asked me all kinds of questions about my mother and father. Did my father touch me, did I ever want to have sex with him, did my mother ever beat me. No matter how many times I told her ass no she would put the question another way but still be asking me the same shit” (190). To entertain herself, she starts telling the psychiatrist outrageous lies: “I masturbate to the sound of a washing machine” (190). The psychiatrist writes everything that she says down in a little notepad.

Winter takes a series of math, reading, and writing tests. Despite skipping school frequently, she passes the tests because Santiaga taught her his business. A woman talks to her about birth control, but Winter doesn’t want to talk to her. At night, when the other girls are gone, Winter hatches a plan to make extra money. She decides that she’ll have Simone steal stuff for her, she’ll pay her a bit of cash for the products, and then she’ll sell the products to the girls at the house for a higher price.

Winter gets to know each girl in the house so that she can personally tailor her products to them. She gives Claudette a free makeover and convinces her that if she wants to continue to look pretty, she needs to buy her products. Claudette becomes her number one customer. Meanwhile, Winter has to be involved in therapy: “The psychiatrist recommended me to attend weekly sessions, labeled me some kind of sociopath or something like that because I told her all those kooky stories that she was ‘educated’ enough or should I say dumb enough to believe” (199). The psychiatrist also says that Winter should visit her little sisters, but Winter thinks it would be pointless to, as she can’t change their current situations.

Winter tries to visit Santiaga to get business advice, but he refuses to see her. This causes her to go into a depression, and she spends the next three days in bed, refusing to see anyone. On the third day, her social worker forces her to get up and see the doctor. As she’s getting ready, Rashida confides in her, saying she has had some low moments in life. She invites Winter to come see Sister Souljah speak, but Winter declines. Later, she recognizes that she’s alone: “That day I decided I would think of everyone in my family as dead. This made everything easy. It would be me against the world” (207).