The Coldest Winter Ever

Rashida and Winter go to Souljah’s house, and Winter immediately notices how it’s expensively decorated: “It was like walking through a museum. There were huge ivory tusks that had to be straight off an elephant, carefully placed in a sitting room with huge windows. Chess pieces, marble tables, statues, heavy-weight curtains, and plants everywhere” (246). There are five floors, and every floor is elegantly decorated, except the fifth floor, which is the floor Souljah rents from a doctor. Rashida talks to Souljah privately to introduce the situation, and Winter waits in a room that’s like a library.

When Winter meets Souljah, she takes note of the woman’s appearance:

She had big brown eyes, long lashes, and chubby-type cheeks. Her hair was shining like it just got done. It was twist style, kind of original. She was a typical uptown girl: bit ass, wide hips, and nope, not a flat belly. She still needed to do those sit-ups […] The thing that stood out most about her were those eyes. She was staring right into me (248).

After a long and uncomfortable silence, Souljah tells Winter that’s she’s “so pretty” (248), and she asks her where she’s from. Winter lies and says that she’s from Long Island. Souljah corrects her by saying she meant to ask her what country she’s from because she looks like her “family is from Panama or Trinidad, or one of the Islands maybe” (249).

Winter asks Souljah if she has Midnight’s contact information, and she says no, that he only calls her sometimes. Winter lies and says she’s Midnight’s cousin, and that her friends call her Sasha. Souljah says that she can stay with her until Midnight calls, and then afterwards “you two can hook up and take it from there” (250). Souljah shows her to the room where she will be staying and says that the bed opposite from hers belongs to Souljah’s sister, Lauren. Winter immediately falls asleep, having been awake since the night before. She awakes around midnight to hear Souljah and Lauren arguing outside the door. Souljah is mad because Lauren has been out for days without calling to check in.

Winter thinks that Lauren looks “like a brown China doll. She was the model-looking type of girl. I couldn’t call her a fashion model ‘cause she had no fashion. She had nice hair, but with too much gel in it” (252). When Lauren meets Winter, she asks why Winter is there: “What’s your problem? Everybody who stays with Souljah got some kind of problem. That’s the only kind of people she likes” (252).

The doorbell rings, and Lauren asks Winter to answer it. She does, and she stands “face to face with GS, one of the top hip-hop artists in the music industry” (253). She can’t believe her eyes, and she feels self-conscious because she’s wearing a “two-day dirty outfit and slippers” (254). He’s here to see Souljah, and he passes Winter with no regard: “[He] just stepped over me like I was a roach. Or maybe he confused me with the maid” (254). Souljah and GS leave together, and Winter goes back to her room.

Lauren tells her the house rules. First, there’s no smoking, although Lauren is smoking a cigarette as she explains this rule. Also, Winter can’t have a key because Doc owns the house and runs her medical practice on the first floor: “She has a lot of expensive stuff, equipment and all that. So she’s real strict about the key situation” (255). Finally, when Souljah runs a men’s group on Thursday nights, all women must leave the house. Winter asks about GS, and Lauren says that he’s basically in love with Souljah, but they aren’t dating.

The next day, Doc drives the girls to go shopping. They take her Benz, and Winter thinks how good the situation seems: “Things couldn’t have been better” (258). Doc is the “first black female doctor [Winter] had ever seen up close. Everything she had was high quality. She looked young, acted young, and didn’t even get snobby about being a brain surgeon” (258). Winter gets annoyed while they’re shopping because Lauren watches her every move, and she even ends up buying the exact same red bag that Winter buys. After the shopping spree, Winter only has $500 left. The group goes to dinner, and Winter lies about her family by saying that her mom has cancer.

That night, Winter and Lauren stay up all night talking like best friends. The next morning, Souljah wakes Lauren: “You’re not taking care of business, as usual. Just because we are sisters doesn’t mean you should take advantage” (263). Winter goes with Lauren to do errands for Souljah, and she finds out that Souljah paid a church nearly $2,000 to give a benefit for AIDS patients. When Winter asks what Souljah gets out of the deal: “She gets an audience. She gets to tell two thousand people what’s on her mind, what her deepest thoughts are, and what they should be doing with their lives” (264).

The next time GS comes to the door, Winter has been expecting him and she’s dressed in Daisy Dukes and no bra under her shirt. When she answers the door, the cold air makes her nipples stick “out through the baby tee” (267). He asks if Souljah’s there, but she demands that he at least ask for her name. He does, and she says her name is Sasha. The next morning, Souljah wakes up Winter and Lauren and makes them come with her to Riker’s Island prison because she’s supposed to speak to a group of “young sisters behind bars” (269). However, when they get there, she must unexpectedly speak to a group of HIV positive women. At first Souljah is nervous because she wasn’t prepared for this, but once they go in the room, Souljah speaks from her heart. By the end of Souljah’s talk, the women’s eyes are filled with tears, all except Winter’s: “I hated her for making me think about my mother. I hated the way she thought she could get into everybody’s personal business” (274). Souljah hugs the women, which is significant because most avoid physically engaging those who are HIV positive. 

That night, Souljah calls Winter into her bedroom. Winter observers Souljah’s room: “[T]he bedroom is a place where a girl gets to say who she is. Just by the arrangement of things you should be able to tell something about the girl that maybe you didn’t know” (275). She notices that Souljah’s bed is circular and is the center of the room, even though Lauren told her that Souljah doesn’t sleep around anymore. They start talking, and Souljah reveals that she’s 25. When Winter asks her why her room is lined with books, Souljah says she tries to keep up with what’s happening in the community. Winter says if she lived in the community, she wouldn’t need books, but Souljah says how “the books help you understand why what is happening is happening. Usually in life the same things are happening over and over again, in cycles, you know? And if it’s not a good cycle, you got to understand it in order to make it stop” (276).

Souljah asks Winter what’s going on with her education and what she wants to be when she grows up. Winter says she wants to be rich, but she doesn’t know how just yet. Souljah says, “I’m asking because I would like to help you do what you want to do. You’re a pretty girl. I can tell you’re very smart. You’re quick on your feet. You seem very creative, maybe that’s the direction you want to go in?” (277). She tells her that she has talent because she’s good at doing nails and is always so well put together, but Winter doesn’t respond. She points her to a career guide, but Winter just asks her why she has change scattered across her bedroom floor. It’s clear that she’s not taking her seriously but is judging her instead.

Lauren and Winter go on a double date. Sarge is Lauren’s date and Boom is Winter’s. They go out to eat and then to Boom’s basement, which is “damp and dark” (280). His mattress is on the floor without any sheets. A blanket hangs in the middle of the room, dividing it into two halves. Lauren and Sarge are on the other side of the blanket: “The sound of Sarge’s belt buckle clicking, the zipper noise, and their heavy breathing got me good and ready” (281). Boom and Winter start making out: “When Boom found my titties, he started rubbing my nipples between his fingers. At first my body got excited, but he rubbed them so long that they were burning” (281). He then attempts to give her cunnilingus, but he “wasn’t sucking [her] clitoris which would have sent [her] over the top” (281). Instead, they have sex, but she can’t feel it because he’s a “little dick nigga” (282). Angry, she grabs her stuff and yells for Lauren to take them home.

With her money down to $375, she begins to feel desperate. She looks around the house for things she could steal, but she realizes that nothing in the house is practical for stealing and stealing isn’t her specialty, anyway. She’s also upset because she doesn’t want to attend Souljah’s womanhood meeting, but she has no place else to go. She goes to visit Doc in her office to see if there was anything to steal down there, and Doc tries to get her to get a gynecological checkup because she’s never had one before. Winter refuses. She lies and says she’s a virgin.

That night at the meeting, Souljah asks the women what they believe in. Many women give answers, even though some express that they don’t know. When it’s almost Winter’s turn, she leaves the room to pee. 

Lauren busts into her and Winter’s room and exclaims that she has VIP passes to GS’s birthday party, and that “[e]very bad ass in the entertainment industry is gonna be in the jam” (293). Upset, Winter thinks about how she doesn’t have much money to prepare herself for the party:

Life is a crap game. Or, as Santiaga would put it, life’s a poker game. So the next day I laid my three hundred on the counter at Saks Fifth Avenue. I walked out with a designer shopping bag with one Calvin Klein slip dress inside. I already had the banging shoes and a matching shoulder bag (293).

She’s sees her outfit as an investment, hoping that her stunning looks will hook a rich guy into taking care of her financially. Before the party, Souljah, Lauren, Doc, and Winter get dinner: “I couldn’t understand why Doc was coming to the party. Her time had already come and passed. But I wasn’t sweating the small stuff, especially because Doc was the driver, and she was pushing my kind of whip” (294). GS’s birthday party is at a club, and because of Sister Souljah, they get to skip the line and go straight inside. Once the club gets packed, Lauren and Winter realize that Doc and Souljah are gone, meaning they must be in a secret VIP room somewhere. They find the room but aren’t allowed in because they don’t have the right pass. While Lauren tries to persuade the guard to let them in, Winter sees Bullet come out of the room. He picks her up, making it obvious he’s still attracted to her, but she says she’s mad at him for showing everyone their videotape. He says it wasn’t his fault, but that he misses her and has been looking for her everywhere. He asks her to leave with him, but she declines, holding out to hopefully get in the VIP room and hook up with a celebrity. He gives her a pager so that he can get a hold of her in the future.

Lauren couldn’t get them into the VIP room, but she says that Frankie, GS’s personal security guard, gave her the scoop: “GS was having a private party out in his house in Alpine, New Jersey, at 2 A.M. All we had to do is meet Frankie around the back of the club. The four black trucks in the back would be bringing the party to Jersey and […] ‘All the finest honeys get to ride free with security’” (300). Winter, Lauren, and 60 other girls cram into various luxury vehicles and head to the party:“Twenty girls left standing on the curb ‘cause security said they were either too fat or too ugly” (300).

The party at the mansion is fancy and the food is decadent: “It wasn’t but half an hour before everybody started asking where’s GS? Where’s LX? Where’s this celebrity or that celebrity? After a while, I started getting vexed with security ‘cause I wasn’t sure if they just wanted to keep all the women for themselves” (302). Finally, at three in the morning, a security guard stands up and says, “GS is ready for some pussy. Who wants to give up the pussy?” (302). All the women in the room stand up and jump around eagerly. The security guard says that they’ll have a beauty contest. After getting the women to do degrading things, and after most of the girls are told “You ugly, sit down” (302), Winter wins the contest for being the prettiest and smartest, meaning she gets to sleep with GS.

The security guard leads her to a room that is almost completely dark, except for the faint glow of a TV. She fumbles her way to the bed, where a man is lying drunk. Assuming it’s GS, she gets naked and slides into bed next to him:

Taking total control, I threw my legs over him, then mounted him like I was the jockey and he was the thoroughbred. I was determined I was gonna revive the million-dollar star. I was gonna make love to him so he would remember my name and come back sniffin’ round my door tomorrow. Laying my titties on his chest and my hairs against his now erect, big thick thank God dick, I began to suck his neck (308).

Afterwards, they fall asleep. The next morning, the man who was once beside her is gone, and a woman is trying to get her out of the bed. Winter tries to say that she is GS’s girlfriend, but the woman says that this isn’t GS’s house, it’s a rented space for his upcoming music video. A security guard gives her a ride back to Souljah’s house.

Winter spends her last $20 on food and weed, and she contemplates how to get GS in her clutches. She knows he should be coming to Souljah’s house any day now: “It was unlike him to let four days go by without showing up. Even though I had about five plans brewing, I felt real uneasy. Staying at their house had me feeling out of my element […] First off, I was never alone. Second, I had no one to feed off. What I needed was a connection” (315). This makes her think about how much she resents Souljah: “[She] was cockblocking. She was interrupting my connection to Midnight and GS. She was clogging up my flow” (315).

When she gets back to the house, she visits Doc, hoping to further scope out her office for ways to steal money from her office. Doc is busy, so she attempts to go back to her room in Souljah’s apartment, but she regrets her decision: “I walked right into one of those womanhood meetings” (316). Souljah is again asking the women if they’ve figured out what they’re living for, or if they know a cause they would fight for. One girl says that she would fight for her sister, but Souljah tries to point out that community is just as important to fight for because it affects everyone. Winter is annoyed with Souljah: “How are we all connected when all of us live in separate places? I bet none of these chicks live in an apartment as laced as Souljah’s. When you get a bill in the mail it ain’t a ‘we’ thing. When I buy clothes they ain’t for ‘we’ they for me. I live for me. I die for me” (318).

GS finally shows up and asks for Souljah. Winter says, “You know what’s up, nigga,” and smiles wide at him, referring to the other night when she supposedly had sex with him at the after party. He laughs and says that she’s crazy, and then he tries to push past her. She follows him up the stairs and grabs him, but he jerks his shoulder back and says, “Look, girl. You want to get fucked, I’ll fuck you. But don’t trip in her house. I ain’t checkin’ for that” (319). Then Souljah appears and asks if everything’s okay, and he says yeah.

That night, when Souljah comes back, Winter asks if GS is her man. Souljah says no, they’re just friends: “We like each other, but we both know it wouldn’t work out” (321). Souljah says that she knows Winter has a thing for him, but she’s free to pursue him if she wants because GS isn’t her boyfriend. Souljah says, “I told myself there’s two kind of men I would never marry, a performer or a preacher” (321). Winter asks why, and Souljah responds, “Because you have to know yourself as a woman. You have to know what you want out of love and what you don’t want” (321). She says that a million women are in love with GS, and even if he wants to be faithful, GS’s woman will have to feel like she’s competing with all the other women.

The next afternoon, Winter tells Lauren to contact GS’s security guard, Frankie. Lauren calls him, and Winter listens in on another phone. Lauren pries, trying to get information on GS, but this makes Frankie mad. Lauren says she’s doing it for a friend, and Frankie automatically thinks of Winter: “Lauren, between you and me, if she’s fiending for the dick, it’s Tony she should be talking to. He’s the one who fucked her. Ain’t that right, dog?” (327). Winter breaks her cover and screams, “You lying motherfucker!” (328) into the phone, but Tony gets on and perfectly describes what happened between them that night.

Later in the day, Lauren is working in Doc’s office, and Winter steals $300 from Doc’s strongbox. It’s the day of Souljah’s AIDS benefit, and Winter decides she’s not attending: “I wouldn’t sit through one more meeting or speech, nada! But the pressure was on. Souljah was bossing everyone around, rehearsing Lauren about how to place volunteers, security, etcetera” (328). However, Souljah asks for her help and puts her in charge of collecting the money as people come in. Everyone who comes in is dressed to impress and donates $20 for the cause. When the preacher asks everyone to bow their heads in prayer, Winter steals the donations: “I laughed, grabbed a stack of twenties, tens, and fives. I was not greedy. I left at least half in the basket. It was only a two-step motion dropping the bills into my red Coach bag” (330).

After stealing the money, she goes to the bathroom and estimates that it amounts to $7,000. Trying to look as innocent as possible, she walks over to Souljah and tells her that she must leave because she has a stomach ache. Souljah tells her to go home and rest, and that she has a check for her for helping so much. She also says that she talked to Midnight, whose real name is Bilal, and she’ll tell her what he said later.

Winter goes back to Souljah’s to collect her belongings before running away and to steal the file that Souljah kept on Midnight. On the way out of the door she runs into Lauren. Lauren asks for her help carrying boxes into Doc’s office, and she agrees in an attempt to look like nothing’s going on. She sets her purse down, helps Lauren, picks her purse back up, and leaves. She catches a cab to New Jersey and gets out at a Marriott hotel. When the cashier asks for the room deposit, Winter digs into her bag only to discover that it’s not her bag; it’s Lauren’s, and there’s nothing of value inside. Lauren must have known what was up and switched their purses when Winter wasn’t looking. The $7,000 she stole and her diamond jewelry from her father are now gone.