True Beauty

by Shelia E. (Lipsey) Bell

  Kacie and Layla returned to the table after Landon departed.

  “What happened?” they both asked, almost at the same time.

  “Nothing really. I just told him that he was never meant to be a forever-after relationship.”

  “What about Dennis? What are you going to do about him?” asked Kacie.

  “The man looked crushed,” said Envy. “I felt terrible when he realized Landon was here to meet you. Girl, could things have been any worse?”

  “Yeah, I could still be a big, fat, ugly woman sitting on the couch in front of the TV, munching on Church’s fried chicken. Oh, there are many things that could be worse, and have been worse, besides wondering how I’m going to get things back right with Dennis. If anything, he had better realize the jewel he has in me. ’Cause I’m telling y’all something that men like Landon realize every day—I’m priceless.”

  Kacie gave Layla a crazy look and rolled her eyes up in her head. “Come on, y’all. I’m ready to go. My sixteen-year-old babysitter is probably pulling her hair out right about now,” said Kacie.

  “What’s the rush? Isn’t Kenny helping her with the kids?” asked Layla. “It’s still early and it’s not like we have to get up early in the morning. We can have another margarita and finish our girls’ night out. We sure won’t have a lack of things to talk about, not after all the drama tonight.” She smiled while Kayla and Envy looked at each other and then at Layla with faces that looked like they had been etched in stone.

  “Kacie’s right,” remarked Envy. “Let’s go. Kacie wants to see about her kids, and I don’t want to start thinking about how you can sit here and act like everything is all good when you probably just blew off the best relationship you’ve had in your life.”

  Layla shooed them off with a wave of the hand. She took another sip of the last few drops of her margarita before she proceeded to stand. “Y’all are some real party poopers. If I’m not sitting here pulling my hair out, then I sure don’t see why the two of you are making a mountain out of a molehill. But that’s fine. Let’s get out of here. I have plenty of numbers I can dial if I really want some company, and that includes Dennis and Landon. I don’t know what it’s going to take for y’all to see that I’m not the old Layla Hobbs; this time I’m the shot caller.” Layla pointed at herself, reached across the chair, picked up her coat, and proceeding putting it on.

  Kacie and Envy remained silent while they put their coats and gloves on too. The three of them walked outside and were welcomed by the cold.

  The ride home was full of continuous banter by mostly Layla. “Watch this,” she said as she turned on Ridgeway in the direction of the interstate. She turned off her Bluetooth, and put her phone on speaker.

  “Fool, what are you doing?” asked Envy.

  “Yeah, you do not need to be talking on the phone and driving. Shoot, it’s not like you have that much driving experience. And haven’t you heard of the Oprah Winfrey No Phone Zone pledge about not talking or texting while driving?” Kacie shot Layla an irritated look.

  “No, I never was an Oprah fan, and you know it. There’s nothing someone like her, with billions of dollars, can tell me. She has a chauffeur driving her around so she can talk whenever she pleases. Forget Oprah, and shut up and listen.”

  “Hello,” Dennis said; he was on speaker for all of them to hear.

  “Dennis, I’m sorry about tonight. I can explain everything, if you’ll give me a chance.” She looked over at Envy and eyed Kacie who was in the backseat as she sped along the interstate.

  “Look, I don’t want to hear your excuses. I know what was going on, so don’t try to play me. I’m not going for it.” Hurt more than anger resonated in his voice.

  “Dennis, please. I know you love me, so don’t play games. Let me stop by. I need to talk to you for real.”

  Silence filled the air. Envy and Kacie appeared glued to the conversation between Dennis and Layla.

  Envy peered over her shoulder at Kacie and shook her head.

  “I’ll give you fifteen minutes. That’s it.” He sighed into the phone.

  “That’s all I need. I should be there in about thirty, no later than forty minutes.”

  “Remember, you still have only fifteen minutes of my time when you get here.”

  “I’ll see you in a little bit. Bye, sweetheart.” She hit the End icon on her phone. “Didn’t I tell you that I have that man in the palm of my hands,” she said, and gestured with one hand off the steering wheel.

  “Girl, slow down. It’s probably still some ice out here from the other night. While you’re trying to prove to us that you’re some . . . well, I don’t know what you’re trying to prove,” chided Kacie, “but right now, all I need you to prove is that you can get me home safely.”

  Envy and Layla laughed and the three of them engaged in conversation about everyday happenings they’d heard about around the city.

  “Kacie, what’s up for you when you get home?” asked Layla.

  “I don’t know. I don’t have a man in my life. Girl, my little red book got so much dust on it, it’s beginning to take on the form of a mountain.” Kacie laughed.

  “I’ll have to see what I can do to help you out. You need to do something fun, and go somewhere daring, where the fine men hang out.”

  Envy spoke up. “Do not listen to this wild child, Kacie.” The three of them laughed while Layla drove toward the intersection.

  “Come on, let’s make the best of this ride home.” Layla turned the radio to classic soul and Jennifer Hudson was singing. “You hear that, y’all? She said she’s invisible for the last time. Sing that song, girl.”

  Kacie started laughing. “Will you watch where you’re going! You’ve only been driving for a minute, you know.”

  “Don’t try to talk about my driving. I’m getting better every day. Stop trying to avoid the song. You hear that?” Layla asked, and then started singing, “‘And now I’m gonna live my life for me.’ You better wake up, girlfriend.”

  “If you ain’t crazy, I’ll pay somebody my paycheck,” Envy said, cracking up while banging her back against the seat cushion.

  “All I know is that the last thing I need is a man. You used to say that all you had to do was look at food and get fat; well, all I have to do is look at a man and I get pregnant,” said Kacie.

  The three friends spent the ride home singing, talking, and laughing. None of them knew or cared what tomorrow might bring. There were plenty of worries to last them through the night, without the fresh worries they were sure to face on tomorrow.

  7

  By trying, we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

  Kacie unlocked the door to her house. Before she could make a complete step inside, a stream of light guided her along the cherry wood floor and toward the den. One of Kenny’s favorite rappers serenaded her from what she recognized as his most prized possession, an IPOD his daddy had given him. “Everybody must be sleep,” she whispered for no apparent reason.

  She removed her coat and hung it, along with her faux Coach bag, on the coatrack inside the foyer. In a butler’s dozen of steps, she was in the den. The first stop was Kenny’s IPOD dock. She reached down on the table to switch off the dock, and almost stumbled and fell when she saw two figures lying on the floor.

  Her hands covered her open mouth. “Oh, my God, what is this?” Her voice seemed to startle the couple lying on the floor. Twelve-year-old Kenny was in his boxer shorts and the sixteen-year-old babysitter was butt naked. She hurriedly pulled the quilt up to shield her body.

  “What in the . . .” A list of expletives poured from Kacie’s mouth. She had been scared out of her mind, thinking that something tragic had happened. Something had—the babysitter had molested her son. “Get up. Get up right now!” she screamed. “How dare you come into my home and rape my child. I’m calling the police right now.” Kacie felt each pant pocket for her cell phone, but quickly recalled it was inside her purse.

  The frant
ic looking babysitter jumped up, holding on to the quilt while she searched around the parameter of the room for her clothes.

  Kenny was up just as quick. “Mom, stop tripping, will you? Jackie did not rape me. So don’t be calling the police. We weren’t doing anything, man. Anyway, I’m going to be thirteen in a few,” he said.

  The cracks in his voice rendered Kacie speechless for a few seconds as she thought about her oldest boy being right at the door of puberty. She shook her head. “I don’t care how old you are. You can be a hundred and thirteen, but know this,” Her voice rose in anger. I’ll whoop your behind then too. Kacie walked up on him and pointed her finger so close to his face that she could have scratched his eyes out if she chose. “Boy, you don’t know anything. You still have milk on your breath. This fast-tail girl took advantage of you, and she’s going to pay.” Kacie pointed at a terrified-looking Jackie.

  “Ms. Mayweather, please don’t call the police,” Jackie pleaded. “I didn’t do anything. I promise I didn’t. Nothing happened. Please, Ms. Mayweather.” The girl cried uncontrollably.

  Kacie turned abruptly. She saw two of her older children, who must have heard her screaming, watching from around the corner. Their eyes were huge as hokie marbles. “What are y’all doing? Y’all got somebody in here too?”

  With looks of terror, they shook their heads and said, “No, ma’am.”

  “Then get your butts back in your rooms,” she yelled at Keith and Kassandra, “and I mean right now.” The kids disappeared within seconds.

  Jackie managed to gather her clothes. And within moments, the girl was fully dressed, while Kenny remained half-naked in front of his mother. For the first time, Kacie looked with different eyes at her oldest child. She studied his almost-six-foot frame, which he’d taken after his father. She looked at his forming abs and muscular shoulders. She even noticed stubbles of hair on his chin. When did all of this happen? How had it happened without her noticing? The sound of his voice telling his mother that she was wrong brought her back to a state of reality.

  “You are in serious trouble, young man, if you are having sex in my house,” she continued to yell. “And you, Miss Hot Tail, I’m calling your parents right now. They think you’re over here babysitting, and you’re, well, you’re nothing but a slut and a pervert. Messing around with a child. What kind of neighbors are y’all?”

  Tears continued to pour from the girl’s eyes.

  “Too late for tears now. Sit your behind down on that sofa until I get your parents on the phone. Then I’ll decide about whether or not to call the police on you.”

  “Momma, stop it, will you? Don’t you see you’re scaring her?”

  “Boy, if you don’t shut up talking to me and get some clothes on your behind.” Kacie’s face was scarlet. She formed two fists like she was getting ready to fight. “And remember, the taller they are, the harder they fall. I might be shorter than you, but I will still knock your butt out. I will not have you disrespecting me in my own house. I don’t care if you’re twelve or forty. Do you understand me, son?” She didn’t flinch for a second. She stood at his chest, mere inches from him. Her face had a snarl on it that could probably curl the devil’s toes. She was just that mad.

  Kenny obeyed his mother. He hurriedly found his pants and T-shirt and put them on just as quickly as Jackie had put on her clothes.

  “Now sit down. Over there.” She pointed toward the recliner. Kacie left the room and went to retrieve her cell phone. She called Jackie’s house and began telling whoever answered the phone what she had walked in on when she arrived home. “Y’all need to come over right now, because I am about to call the police on your daughter.”

  Kacie threw her cell phone on the couch and returned her focus to Kenny and Jackie. “See, if I had walked in here, and you, Miss Thang, were a boy, and Kenny was a girl, well, there would be a murder committed up in here because I would have done everything to take you out of this world . . . and I still feel like it. But you think since he’s my son and you’re a girl that you can just do what you want to him and not suffer any consequences? Well, honey, you’ve met the wrong mama now.”

  “Ma, please. Stop it. It isn’t my first time being with a girl. I know what I’m doing. Anyway, I made the move on Jackie, not the other way around.” Kenny bit on his bottom lip and paused like he was deciding whether to keep talking or be quiet. Kacie’s temper could get out of hand at times, and this was definitely one of those times. He timidly spoke again while Jackie sat on the couch and rubbed her hands together. “And we weren’t having real sex, anyway, Ma.”

  “What do you mean you weren’t having real sex? I didn’t know there was such a thing as not having real sex,” she said in an angry voice. “Why don’t you enlighten me by telling me the kind of not-real sex you were having? Tell me that!” she yelled.

  “Just oral sex. It was nothing.”

  “What did you just say? Boy, are you on drugs? I know you didn’t say that you’ve been having oral sex? Where? Up in my house? Don’t you know what God teaches about fornication, sex outside of marriage?”

  “Ma, I don’t mean no disrespect, but look around our house. You have seven of us and we all have different daddies. I know how to use protection if I was going all the way. Anyway, a lot of kids do it. It’s no big deal.”

  Kacie hauled off and slapped Kenny so hard that his face turned sideways and her handprint formed before he could turn back to face her. She hit him repeatedly. “Please, please, Ms. Mayweather. Don’t hit him anymore,” Jackie cried and pleaded.

  The doorbell rang and saved Kenny from another blow against his face and head. His eyes were watery, but no tears fell. Jackie, however, was almost hysterical. When she heard the voice of her father coming inside, she jumped up from the couch and ran into his arms. Her slender frame and long legs made her look like a wobbly giraffe.

  “Yeah, run to your daddy, but your daddy can’t help you up in here.”

  Jackie’s mother wasn’t with him. Kacie surmised that she must be at home with Jackie’s younger sister and brother.

  “Calm down, honey,” he told his daughter while he surveyed the scene in front of him. “Ms. Mayweather, can we sit down and talk about what you said happened here?” he asked in an almost raised tone.

  “We sure can. Have a seat,” she instructed more than offered. The man held on to Jackie’s hand and led her to the sofa.

  Kacie remained standing. “It’s simple, Mr. Cheney. Like always, I called your daughter to babysit my kids while I went out with my friends for some me time. I’ve been gone about two hours, only to return home to find my house dark with music playing right here in my den. I almost fell down when I stumbled over your daughter and my son underneath the cover you see over there.” Kacie turned her head in the direction of the cover and used a finger to point as well.

  “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but your daughter was butt naked, laying all up against my twelve-year old child. She’s sixteen years old. She should know better. She molested my son. She gave him oral sex. How disgusting is that?”

  “Hold on, Ms. Mayweather,” the man said, and put his hand up like he was stopping traffic. “I don’t think my daughter molested your son. Look at him.” Mr. Cheney focused his attention on the young man sitting in the chair. His face was still beet red with handprints that looked like they had been professionally engraved on each side of his cheeks. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, and I’m certainly not trying to take any blame from my daughter’s alleged actions, but Kenny does not look anywhere near like the average twelve-year old. The boy is almost as tall and as big as I am. And to be honest, he doesn’t need a babysitter.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? And for your information, if you felt like my children didn’t need a babysitter, why did you let Jackie come? You never had a problem with it before.”

  Mr. Cheney sucked in his breath until he looked like he was about to burst. “I let her come because you were paying
her, and because I believed she would be safe. Apparently, I was wrong.”

  “Look, I have six other children and I’m not about to leave them for my son to watch by himself. And it’s my business, not yours, whether I choose to have a baby-sitter or not. And apparently,” Kacie emphasized, “I was the one wrong for believing Jackie was a respectable, trustworthy young lady. She obviously had other things on her mind, none that included looking after my children. No telling how long this has been going on,” Kacie retorted with a show of force like she was backed by a full troop of soldiers.

  Mr. Cheney rebutted angrily, “Well, if Kenny didn’t want anything to happen between my daughter and him, he was certainly able to stop it.” Mr. Cheney turned toward his daughter. “Jackie, did you and Kenny have sex? You can tell me the truth, honey. And if he made you do anything you didn’t want to do, you can tell me that too. I’m here to protect you.”

  Jackie put her head in her hands and cried.

  “I didn’t make her do anything!” Kenny yelled.

  “Shut up!” Mr. Cheney suddenly bounced up from the sofa. “You shut up right now. If you did anything to hurt my daughter, I swear—”

  “Look here, don’t you even try to turn this thing around and blame my son for what that little tramp did.”

  “I don’t see how you can stand in front of me and call my daughter a tramp. Take a look at yourself in the mirror,” he said with force behind every word. “That’s why I hate that you people on Section 8 can move in our decent neighborhoods and then mess it up with kids like your hoodlum son, and you, Miss Mayweather,” he said in a sarcastic drawl, “need to watch who you’re calling a tramp.”

  “Daddy,” Jackie hollered. “Please stop it.”

  Kenny sprung up. “Don’t you call my mother a tramp,” he yelled at Mr. Cheney. “Me and Jackie are friends; friends with benefits,” confessed Kenny. “We’ve been having oral sex practically since we moved over here. I like her, she likes me, and age doesn’t matter. A lot of teenagers are doing it; and she can’t get pregnant ’cause we’re not going all the way. Just because I’m twelve, y’all act like I don’t know anything. But you got me messed up. Tell ’em, Jackie. Tell ’em that we care about each other.” Jackie nodded but looked embarrassed.