Temple News | Philadelphia Tribune | Fiction Works
Chapter 1: Girlfriends
“What are you thinking about?” Steph asked as she sat on the edge of my bed.
“How sweet success can be. Especially when I can rub it in the faces of the people who think I’m not good enough,” I said, looking towards her.
“As soon as we graduate from Girls High in June, I’m going full steam ahead. I’m not going to look back either. I’m going to get signed to a label and do it big.”
Steph cuddled my stuffed brown teddy bear. She dubiously eyed me.
“Just like that?” she asked skeptically. She was the realist to my high wired optimism.
“Yeah. Just like that,” I hissed, angry.
“I can fucking sing. I out these bitches who sucked dick to get ahead to shame.”
Steph sighed in that condescending way of hers.
“Reesa, do you always have to use that kind of language?”
“Fuck yeah! I’m making a point.”
“That you’re ignorant?”
I snatched my teddy bear right out of her clutching, brown hands.
“Who are you calling ignorant?” I shouted, throwing the stuffed animal to the floor. I had to do something with my hands because I was about ready to go off on her.
You’re such a hater, Stephanie.”
“I’m a hater because I’m not telling you what you want to hear?” Steph stood up, sighing.
The very least she could do was lie to my face. It’s par for the course with girlfriends. We share clothes, dry the others leaky eyes, make the bad feel better and above all lie when the truth threatens to touch us. I know damn well how I am. My bliss is not rooted in the ignorance I’m accused of.
“The thing is I am who I am. I can’t fucking change. I won’t change. I don’t want to!” I made empathically clear with a hand on my hip huggers.
“Be that way, but I’m starting to get a headache. You’re not making it any better,” Steph said. She grabbed for her black, Jansport shoulder bookbag.
“You’re so loud, Reesa.”
“I’m trying to be heard.”
“The problem is that you don’t want to be hear anyone else.”
I just shrugged my shoulders and stood with my arms crossed. Stephanie left with a tepid wave of her hand on the horse she rode in on. Being alone was a small price to pay. But I couldn’t take the solitude as I carried me into that Sunday. I gave a shout out to the Lord, but I need to be a two way conversation and not just with my reflection in the mirror.
“Damn. When God created heaven, earth and the Seven Wonders of the World, obviously I was the eighth. God sure didn’t make any mistakes on me. I got in going on,” I vamped in front of full length mirror.
I stood frozen before my sleek, compact emulate that gleaming chrome stand; fully relishing in the satisfaction and beauty that is me. A vision in a tight gray cashmere sweater, stretch blue Rocawear Jeans and my new boots on. I sure am the flyest of them all, Reesa Jenkins.
From the front: A heart shaped tan face with nary a blemish. A busty C cup and baby making hips and long, high definition legs that could wrap around Denzel Washington like a spider. I have some meat on my bones. Picture Beyoncé but with naturally flowing black hair past my shoulders. . I’m 5'7 and fluctuate between 150 and 165 lbs, but I haven’t heard any complaints. Not even a one. I am a brickhouse.
I pressed and flipped my hair as I turned my voluptuous body around and caught glimpse of my nice phatty. Let me stop being so modest. I’m bootylicious back there, ya heard? But that’s not bragging. I’m just telling it like it is. Grown ass men look left, right and sideways at me. Of course their wives and girlfriends—who should remain under veils—try to be a way, but can I really help being adored?
I was born perfect. Rays of light shined through the heaviest and thickest fogs when I come around. I’m not messing around either. People, in particular men, just worship me. Attention just can’t resist me. All my friends and family are just blessed to be in my presence. Throngs of admiring crowds stand up when I make my way on the scene. What can I say? I’m a gift from up above.
Now if you’ve just catered to my delusions of perfection, thank you. You’re too kind, but I have a confession. I’m not really perfect. Far from it.
Okay, take two. Here’s the real deal about me. I do turn heads and not a syllable shy of expressing that. Get it? Got it? Good. I got IT, flaunt IT and make Momma wish she had a boy. But anyway…
My lips may be speaking platitudes of flawlessness but even a free consultation with Dr. Phil would expose me as verily fraud. The shattered heart that beats from within couldn’t be covered by a band aid. My life had been ruined even before the very first breath of life. At least I’d get some credit for acknowledging the difference between my escapes into fiction where I take larcenous license and a reality that often leaves me feeling sorry for myself.
I’m American as American pie. Maybe more like Blackberry. My pigmentation alone is a feature that prevents me from living out my daydreams in a suburban cul de sac. But the diverse neighbors on this average, bustling block in the Mount Airy area of Philly are nice, pleasant and for the most part keep my name out of their gossiping mouths. What my Momma doesn’t know won’t hurt me.
I’m a hormonally overloaded 17 year old. A relentless flirt who only sneaks kisses and other things to her man. Technically, he’s 17 too, but my Jay is living large. He goes to Central High school and plays on the basketball team as their top scorer. I heart him.
My heart just jumps for joy when I see him. He’s the next Allen Iverson and my suppressed Harlequin desires are happily dying to ingratiate myself as his wifey in training with full conjugal benefits. Trouble is, I don’t have a clue how to do the dirty and those boring classes I sleep through at Girls High aren’t giving me any pointers.
I’m gonna call Chanté. She’s my best girlfriend. Not only that, but a worn out slut. Sex is a recreational after school activity for her. That’s my girl and she’s the milk to my Oreo but she fucks more than bunnies. Friends keep it real.
My other close friends are Stephanie and Candy. They’re the black and Spanish angels, respectively, on my shoulders.
I’ve got a cousin R.J. He lives with his Daddy, Uncle Pookie. Mine got run over by a Mack truck. There I go lying again, but for all I know he could very well met that deserved fate. My Daddy is a deadbeat loser that ran out on me and Momma. He doesn’t have two good cents to rub together Momma always says. She hangs on the hope that one day, she’ll find that loose dog and neuter him. I just hope it burns when he pees.
Saving the best for last, I’ve got a Momma just like everyone else. But my Momma is the best. Her love for me is true and ride or die. Melissa Jenkins doesn’t have a bank account full of dead presidents, but she lets me take, take and take. I’m her only baby and entitled to be spoiled even if we don’t have extravagant ends.
Momma raised me to live by God’s commandments but it’s been a while since I was brought up to speed about who’s who in the bible. Momma says she prays I’m minding my manners, but I’m not that innocent.
“There ain’t shit to do,” I whined this very cold winter day of November 2001.
There was fresh snow on the ground after a snowstorm had done its worse to Philly and the neighboring tri state area. While the countdown had begun, it wasn’t even officially Christmas yet, but to look outside my bedroom window, it was a winter’s wonderland for all the kids to play it. All but me.
“I just got these boots,” I reminded myself, refusing to venture outside and get them dirty. I had spent too many hours babysitting Ms. Spano’s spawn from hell, Darius, to just treat them so cavalierly, but my reluctance to do so only added to my extreme boredom.
“There ain’t shit for me to do,” I rang my best girl to complain.
“Why you telling me for?” Chanté responded, as if I had interrupted her plans.
“You got a guy up in your room, don’t ya?” I guessed to out the reason why Chanté was being so distant with me. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Chanté had snuck a boy into her room behind her mother’s back. Chanté thought she was the shit and hearing her parent’s voice was worth protecting that reputation by seeing all these guys.
At 5'6, Chanté didn’t have any problems attracting the upper echelon of guys, including the jocks, which were also drawn to her because of her light skin. We called her “high yellow” because she was so light and could pass for a white girl. For the guys who had issues with how dark they were, whom we considered ill from “negroitis”, having Chanté to show around on their arm was like a status symbol.
This is not to say that Chanté minded being glorified by her companions. Her very fair complexion, which earned her the nickname snow white, enhanced by makeup, and her B cup chest afforded her clothes, jewelry, the latest CD’s, nights out on the town and any other materialistic possession she coveted. Her gullible playmates never tired of indulging her demanding whims by impressing her with luxuries well beyond their after school jobs at the mall means. For them, any price was worth the privilege of Chanté being pointed out in a crowd as their girlfriend. So as much as Chanté was being pimped around from one eager young John to the next and being used to enhance their egos, run up on like a frequent route, but Chanté was just as much a user eager to enhance her wardrobe.
“It’s nothing like that,” Chanté dismissed my suspicions, but she wasn’t fooling me.
“Do I know him?” I ignored her blatant attempt to lie. Realizing that there was no use in lying, Chanté decided to level with me.
“It’s no one that you know,” Chanté satisfied my curiosity, but her admission took me by surprise since there wasn’t anyone in Philly I didn’t know. And if I didn’t know you, you weren’t worth knowing.
Chanté may have thought she was God’s gift to the world, but he broke the mold when he made me in his image-perfect. My tan complexion, with jet-black hair past my shoulders, which I was wearing in cornrows, was all real. I had that good Indian hair. I’m assuming from my Daddy’s side of the family since momma didn’t have any Indian in her family tree. As momma put it, she was just “black”, but her grandma was white which explains why I came out the oven “uncooked”. Momma would really crack me up sometimes, but I got more than her sense of humor as I got her hourglass figure too. I was shapely with curves all around. I wasn’t fat and I wasn’t a stick. I was just thickity thick in all the right places. Some guy was always telling me how good I looked and I knew they weren’t lying. I had been blessed with some good genes that developed early. At seventeen, my appearance granted me access to all the guys since I passed for legal. I know I went over all this, but I just wanted to make it absolutely clear.
“It’s just some guy I met at one of those college fairs,” Chanté finally fessed up.
“Why’d you have to lie for anyway?” I snapped over the phone, angry that she had tried to perjure herself.
Chanté knew me better than to think I was some kind of snitch who would go running back to her Momma with this bit of news. Not unless she made me really annoyed as she was doing now and I would have let something slip out of sheer spite.
“He leavin anyway. So, you want to do sumthin?” Chanté pacified me now that this mysterious boy in her bedroom would no longer occupy her attention.
“Oh now you wanna do something, right?” I said, ticked off that I was coming in second to some new nigga she had just met.
I had known this girl all my life and I deserved more consideration than to be relegated as a contingency plan to some guy. I wasn’t afraid to tell her this either.
“Don’t be passin me up for some nigga you probably ain’t gonna even know a couple months from now,” I rebuked her.
“Ressa, you wanna do something or not? You taking up my minutes,” Chanté indignantly responded. It was as if Chanté felt as though I should’ve been flattered that she was making time for me in her busy schedule of revolving boys and fending off their teenage lust.
Since staring at the four walls had thus provided me little entertainment and there was absolutely nothing on Comcast Cable to watch, I set aside my pride and cowered to Chanté’s arrogance. Shit, I had nothing better to do.
“Call up the other girls,” I ordered Chanté to do, referring to the other members in our clique, Candice and Stephanie. We were the four musketeers and were always down for each other. I would need my girls now to back me up. I would need an audience now as my imagination was going to be the means I’d keep us all amused during this log winter day.
***
“I really didn’t expect to win this Grammy,” I gleefully pronounced, clutching my hairbrush as if it were the golden statuette I envisioned in my mind.
“God is GOOD. No, he’s great. And I just really want to thank all of my fans. Without you guys buying my albums and supporting me, none of this would be possible. Oh yeah, I gotta thank my momma and all my friends back in Philly,” I screeched like a small child as my bewildered friends took turns looking at each other.
Each wondered who would have the honors of telling me that I had lost my mind. It wouldn’t be Stephanie. To my dismay she was reading a book as usual. I often wondered about her…
“Girl, get your head up out that book!” I reached to grab the book away from her, but Stephanie resisted. Her hand brushed against my arm.
“Reesa, this is silly,” Stephanie reiterated of my performance.
“Crazy is more like it,” Candy testified to my mental state as Chanté giggled nearby.
In keeping with our competitive rapport, it was obvious that Chanté was pleased that the other girls were not taking my flight of fantasy for anything more. It’s not that Chanté didn’t want my aspirations of musical acclaim to be realized, but it was a girl thing. Before the paid critics ripped me a whole new one, I would have to pay my dues by enduring the teasing of my friends.
“What kind of friends are y’all anyway?” I snarled in contempt over being made fun of.
“Girl, just calm down,” Candy tried to placate me.
“I don’t wanna,” I came back with, crossing my arms as I was determined to savor my temper tantrum.
“Don’t be like this,” Candy tried to reason with me as she honored her nickname.
Her given name was Candice, but she was always to maintain the peace, which reflected her sweet predisposition. There was also the matter that Candy was a sweets junkie. So, the name naturally suited her.
“You don’t wanna end up like Aimee,” Candy narrated the story of a girl at our school, Philadelphia High School for Girls, who after a falling out with friends turned to a life of hardcore drugs which exiled her from everyone else as well. Per Momma’s strict orders, she was off my radar now too.
“I always say hi to her and stuff but she just acts like I ain’t there,” Candy went on to explain her inroads at striking up a friendship with the druggie had failed miserably.
“Forget her if she just gonna be that way,” Candy went on, rebuffed that her overtures of camaraderie had been rejected. Candy honestly believed that she could spread so thin as to be friends with everyone devoid of sacrificing a part of her.
Candy was 5'5 with brown eyes and matching Puerto Rican hair and big boned, but her heart was even bigger. She had the aura of a child in believing she could save the world and she would start one disgruntled high school loner at a time. Her efforts were by and large in vain, but that heart of hers was in a good place.
“I’m not one to gossip, but Aimee ain’t nuthin but a crack head,” Chanté scandalized. Chanté had made it her business to be well informed of others and Aimee had not escaped her radar.
“She used to be a real good student too,” Stephanie sighed as she placed her Omar Tyree novel on her black Guess pants that she had purchased at Cheltenham Mall. They fit her well, which Stephanie delighted in since her tiny frame made it hard to shop.
Although Stephanie wasn’t vain, she took great care in how she looked since she was very self-conscious about her appearance. On a good day, she was 5’0 and 5’2 if she were wearing high heels. Her curves were absent as Steph was the self professed of the Itty Bitty Titty committee. She was a comedian that one and could make a joke out of almost anything to relax a tense moment, but you just had to watch out for that Caribbean temper of hers. Steph’s family was from the Islands and her dark complexion wasn’t the only noticeable trait she was passed on as she could be very dark herself at times. Stephanie’s mood swings vacillated so much that she could be a case of extremes in a span of a day.
“Aimee got kicked off the track team because she was using,” Steph said disappointed that Aimee had gone that far astray from her freshmen days when we all got to know the other members of the 246th graduating class of GHS.
For once, I kept my mouth shut. Aimee was a dirty word in my house these days.
“It’s a real shame,” Stephanie commented. She reached for her novel which struck a chord with Chanté.
“Reesa’s right. You always got your head in some damn book,” Chanté noted of Stephanie’s routine.
“I like to read, okay?” Stephanie replied angrily.
“I know how you get your kicks but I prefer PG fun.”
“Sukie, sukie now,” I laughed, “You just got told.”
Now it was my time to sit back and smirk, as Chanté was the receiving end of Stephanie’s fiery temper. It really is the quite ones because just like dynamite, Stephanie could just explode despite her unsuspecting nature. Looks were very much deceiving.
“I just think you need to get a life,” Chanté responded, trying to regain her superior footing with Stephanie. She was not having Chante looking down her nose at her given how she spent her free time.
“You need to get a life Chanté instead of always just talking about everyone else’s!” Stephanie shot back at Chanté. Staunchly refusing to be intimidated and impressing me by standing her ground.
“Well, Damn!” I chuckled at Stephanie’s pointed insult.
“And you can stop instigating,” an annoyed Chanté screeched in my direction.
“Just who you getting loud with?” I goaded a riled up Chanté.
“C’mon you guys. We all friends in here,” Candy interceded to mediate the tension that had saturated the room.
“Weren’t you making some big speech about thanking all the little people for your Grammy, Reesa?” Chanté mocked me to evade Candy’s peace making efforts.
“You always got fuckin jokes, Chanté,” I exploded at Chanté. I was more than pissed that she considered my dreams nothing more than material for her to use.
“Don’t tell me you’re sensitive now too, Reesa,” Chanté said, growing frustrated that she was getting attitude every which way that she turned.
“All y’all PMSing at the same time now? Is that it?” Chanté speculated.
“No, what it is that we’re all tired of your big mouth,” I conveyed as I got right into Chanté’s face.
I needed to remind this girl that I wasn’t Stephanie. I wasn’t no pushover that Chanté could just step over. I’d Chris “Knock her the F out” Tucker style.
“What you gonna do about my mouth then?” Chanté taunted. She waited on my reaction but Candy registered hers first.
“All this ain’t even necessary,” Candy griped. She tried to prevent me and Chanté from coming to blows by getting in between us.
“This is the same shit that always happens,” Stephanie scornfully commented on our repertoire. She was still angered over Chanté’s slurs against her.
“Let them kill each other!” Stephanie ordered Candy to do as she was too emotionally riled up to help with the peace effort.
“You guys are just actin like a bunch of puntas!” a frustrated Candy swore at us in Spanish.
“See, now you went and made me upset!” Candy spoke as she tried to regain her composure. Stephanie, who was studying Spanish in school, gave Candy the eye as Chanté and me tried to hold in our laughter. It was always something to behold when the easy going Candy lost her cool.
“You so easy to mess with, Candy,” Chanté giggled as Candy was becoming visibly upset over the infighting.
“We were just playin around,” I let Candy in on the circumstances surrounding my standoff with Chanté.
“Sike. I knew you guys were just playing around,” Candy breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to referee a fistfight.
“Somebody obviously forgot to let me in on the joke!” Stephanie rebuked our sudden playfulness when her feelings actually had been hurt.
I always thought Stephanie was too emotional and just needed to develop a thicker skin, but that pep talk would have to wait for another day. Today was about me.
“I’m sorry alright?” Chanté set her pride aside to apologize to Stephanie.
Now the question was whether or not Steph would return the gesture. Despite being one of the nicest girls around, as she would literally give you the shirt off your back if you needed, but she could harbor a grudge if she was wronged.
“C’mon Steph,” Candy tried to persuade Stephanie to accept Chanté’s apology. After what seemed to be an eternity of contemplation, Stephanie caved in.
“I’m sorry too, Chanté,” Stephanie made amends.
“Group hug?” an excited Candy warily suggested to us.
“Fine,” we grumbled in unison as Candy pulled us close for the embrace.
***
Once our crisis was averted, another one soon appeared on the horizon. Our stomachs were all growling. We made our way downstairs to raid my fridge but Momma put a stop to that and ordered us not to spoil our appetites until dinner was ready.
“When’s that gonna be?” I moaned through my hunger pains.
“Soon,” Momma reported in her usual smart ass dictation. I still loved her though because I could be her daughter when the occasion called for it.
“What you makin’ anyway?” Chanté speculated.
“My specialty,” Momma quipped before entering the kitchen.
“Am I supposed to know what her specialty is?” Chanté joked but I knew.
Momma was making her famous steak, mashed potatoes, string beans, and white rice. I got hungrier just thinking about feasting on that delicacy. Twenty minutes later, dinner was served.
“Thank you, Ms. Jenkins,” Stephanie respectfully acknowledged my Momma for cooking us dinner. Momma smiled at her and was glad that Stephanie was eating since according to her “that girl was way too skinny”.
“This is some real soul food cooking,” Chanté praised momma’s culinary talents as she cut into her steak.
“Mmmmmmmmmm Hmmmmmmmmmmmm,” Candy seconded that opinion as she licked her lips of gravy sauce that was dripping down.
“There’s more in the pot if you girls want some more. Just help yourselves,” Momma specifically offered Stephanie.
“Yeah, alright,” Steph shrugged. She hated to be patronized even if the purpose was with good intent. It was all the same.
After Stephanie’s assurances that she would serve herself seconds, Momma retired to her empty bedroom. She didn’t have a husband or even a man waiting to romance as her as my daddy had skipped out on us years ago and left Momma to raise me by all by herself. This will be a continual testimony. I. HATE. HIM!!
As far as I was concerned, Momma was doing an admiral job all by herself, but it’s like Janet said- Who really wants to be lonely? The answer is nobody. Not even Momma who I could’ve sworn took some vow of chastity since I hadn’t seen a nigga sniffing after her in a minute.
“I hate that mothafucka!” I cursed the deadbeat father I never knew as I sat at the table.
“Reesa, can you go a full sentence without swearing?” a prudish Steph shook her head.
“Look, I’m sorry. English is my second language. Cussin is my first.”