A Girl From Flint

by Treasure Hernandez

  They shook their heads no, and headed up to Amra’s room. Amra turned on her radio, and Honey and Tasha flopped down on the bed.

  “So what are y’all wearing tonight?” Honey asked.

  Amra went to her closet. “I don’t know. What are you wearing?”

  Honey grabbed her bookbag and pulled out a pink and white Baby Phat outfit. Honey pulled out two more outfits, another Baby Phat and a Rocawear. “Y’all can wear one of these if you want to.” She got in the mirror and started fixing her hair.

  Tasha watched Honey swoop her hair up into a ponytail. “You know how to do hair?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’ll hook you up if you need me to.”

  The girls primped and groomed until they were ready to go to the party. Honey had her hair swooped into a ponytail, Amra had her hair flat-ironed down, and Tasha had cornrows to the back, with big hoop earrings.

  Honey put the outfits back in her bookbag. “Y’all can get dressed in the car.”

  Amra looked at Tasha and Honey. “Okay. Where I am I going tell my momma we going?”

  Honey stood up. “I’ll tell her something.”

  They grabbed the bookbag full of clothes and walked downstairs, where Ms. Pat was sitting in the living room, reading a magazine.

  “Hey, Ma, can we go out with Honey?”

  Ms. Pat looked up. “You girls look nice. But where are you trying to go?”

  “Well, we just want to go and see a movie. It starts at ten, and my mother let me get her car tonight so we could go and see it.” The words rolled off Honey’s tongue like a professional as she fed Ms. Pat the lie.

  “Do you have a driver’s license?”

  Honey took her license out of her bookbag and showed it to Ms. Pat.

  “I guess it’s okay then, but y’all better be back here by one o’clock.”

  The girls jetted out the door. As they drove downtown, Honey said, “It’s these dudes that are going to be at this party. They got money. I have been kicking it with one of them on MySpace.”

  Tasha frowned. “MySpace?”

  “He was the one who bought me those outfits y’all got on. His boys got just as much money as he do, so y’all better get on ’em.”

  Tasha quickly learned that Honey knew how to talk a nigga out of money. They never bought her anything big, but she always kept new shoes, tight clothes, and extra cash. Every weekend, the girls would chill, and every time they got together, Honey had something new to show them.

  Tasha and Amra quickly adapted to Honey’s ways. They had plenty of boys at their high school falling in love with them. Amra had even snatched Dre up from under Sade. It was crazy. Anything they wanted, they quickly got just by letting a nigga think he was special.

  As Honey, Tasha, and Amra grew closer and closer, together they hit more niggas for more things.

  “Tony’s stupid ass gave me a hundred dollars today.” Amra pulled it out of the Coach purse another boy had purchased for her about a month ago. “His ugly ass will give me anything I want.”

  Tasha laughed. “Niggas is stupid. All you got to do is tell ’em you love ’em, and they be willing to give you anything you want.”

  Honey shook her head. “It ain’t the love they want, it’s that ass. You know niggas be trying to fuck, and they will pay any amount for some pussy. You just got to get that shit out of ’em. I let them dudes know up front that I ain’t fucking for free.”

  Tasha responded, “Shit, ain’t no nigga fucking me for no cash. I ain’t even on that level yet. I just be playing with their heads a little bit.”

  Amra walked over to her dresser and put the money in her panty drawer. “That’s why we be getting more money than you. Please believe, them niggas will pay for it. Tasha, you better be real and get them for they money.” Amra reached for the blunt that Honey had just rolled up, something she had picked up from Honey. She hit it and slowly inhaled and passed the weed to Tasha.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m straight.”

  Honey took the blunt from Amra and laughed.

  “What you scared of?” Amra opened up her bedroom window, so her mother wouldn’t smell the weed.

  “Nothing. I just don’t smoke.”

  They chilled for a couple hours, then Honey drove Tasha home. They pulled up to Tasha’s house, said their good-byes, and Tasha got out of the car.

  When Tasha walked into her house, Lisa, high as usual, approached her, so Tasha just kept walking toward her room.

  “Where the fuck you been, you little bitch? I told you to come home after school. I needed you to do something.”

  Tasha just ignored her mother. She wasn’t even making sense. She hadn’t even talked to her mother for a couple of days, since Ms. Pat had been letting her stay the night at her house. She saw a strange man sitting on the couch and knew that her mother had company.

  Lisa pulled Tasha’s arm as she tried to walk past her. “Don’t you walk your fast ass away from me. Momma needs a favor.”

  Tasha snatched her arm from her mother’s grasp.

  Lisa smacked her across the face. “I told you about disrespecting me. I’m still your momma.”

  I’m tired of this shit. I’m so tired of this. I’m out. Tasha walked into her room to get the money she’d been saving up. She looked in the shoebox under her bed, but it was empty.

  Her mother came and stood in her door. “Oh, I took that. You should’ve brought your ass home. How you get that money? Yo’ little ho ass out here tricking?”

  Tears came to Tasha’s eyes. She grabbed a bag and went to her closet and started throwing her clothes into it. She grabbed the picture of her once normal mother and put that in the bag as well. I don’t have to deal with this, she thought, tears streaming down her face. She grabbed her bag and ran out of her room. She walked into the living room and attempted to walk out the door, but her mother’s friend was blocking it. “Move the fuck out my way!” Tasha yelled. “I don’t know you!” She attempted to shove him out of her way.

  The strange man grabbed her and held her close to him . . . too close to him. Tasha started twisting and kicking to get out of his grasp. “Let me go! What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed. She felt a hard bulge in his pants. “Get the fuck off me!”

  “He just wants to give you a little kiss, Tasha. Sit yo’ fast ass down. Do Momma this favor,” Lisa said as she watched her friend run his hands all over her daughter’s body. She walked over to Tasha and said, “Relax, baby. It won’t take long. He got a big juicy dick. He gon’ make you feel good.”

  Tasha kicked and screamed as the man and her mother tried to lay her down on the floor. In a panic, she started to scream as loud as she could.

  The man put his hand over her mouth to shut her up, unbuttoning her pants with the other hand. Tasha kicked to try and ward him off. She bit hard into his flesh.

  He raised his hand back and smacked her hard in the face, and Tasha felt the tingles vibrate in her face. He raised his hand again and hit her hard across the face a second time.

  Tasha screamed out in pain, “Stop it! Help me! Momma, stop!” She screamed as she felt her mother hold her legs down.

  All of the sudden, Tasha heard a thud and saw the man grab the back of his head and crawl off, swearing to himself.

  “Get the fuck off of her!” Honey said as she helped Tasha up.

  Tasha watched the man holding the back of his head and heard her mother yelling at Honey.

  Honey pushed Lisa out of the way, grabbed Tasha’s bag off of the floor, and dragged Tasha out of the house. “Are you okay?” she asked, hugging her.

  “I just need to get out of here.” Tasha huffed through her tears. “Can you take me to Amra’s?”

  The car was silent on the way there. Honey couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed. The only reason why she’d come back was because Tasha had left her purse in her car. No wonder she never liked to talk about her momma. Honey patted Tasha’s hand to reassure her that everything would be alright. If I hadn’
t shown up when I did, who knows what they would have done to her. That’s fucked-up her own mother would try to rape her.

  They arrived at Amra’s house and rang the doorbell a thousand times before Amra answered it.

  Amra opened the door and saw Tasha in tears. She knew something serious had happened. “Ma!” Amra yelled, knowing that her mother would know what to do.

  Ms. Pat came rushing downstairs and saw that Tasha was hysterical, and that the side of her face was red and swollen. “Oh, baby, come here,” she cooed softly. She embraced Tasha, and tears formed in her own eyes. “You’re not going back to that house. You are okay now. It’s going to be alright.” Ms. Pat hugged Tasha and rocked her back and forth as if she were a baby.

  Honey called her own mother and told her what had happened, and let her know that she would be spending the night at Amra’s.

  Ms. Pat finally calmed Tasha down and tucked her into Amra’s bed. Amra and Honey slept on the floor and tried to comfort their friend. Ms. Pat brought Tasha some ice for her face and said, “Try and get some sleep, Tasha. You are safe now. I’m not letting you go back to that damn house.”

  Tasha had finally stopped crying. “Why would she do this to me?” she asked. Her voice was raw and her face flush.

  “Your mother has a lot of demons that she’s dealing with, baby. She can’t take care of you right now. There are other people in your life that love you, Tasha. Look at these fools right here.” Ms. Pat pointed to Honey and Amra. “They love you more than anyone in the world, and you are like a daughter to me.”

  All three girls laughed.

  “Thank you, Ms. Pat,” Tasha whispered.

  Patricia turned off the room light and closed the bedroom door.

  The girls lay there in awkward silence, not knowing what to say. Tasha was embarrassed, hurt, and confused. Honey and Amra were both shocked. Neither girl knew what to say to make her feel better.

  I couldn’t imagine going through something like that, Amra thought to herself.

  “How could she do this? I’m her daughter.” Tasha said through tears of pain.

  Honey sat up. “Fuck her, Tasha! We love you.”

  “We are your family, and we ain’t gon’ let nothing else happen to you.”

  Honey couldn’t imagine how Tasha was feeling, but she knew Amra was right. She couldn’t let anything else happen to Tasha. She was like the sister that Honey never had.

  Honey turned to Amra and Tasha and said, “To none of us! Fuck that! We are too close. Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you, Tasha, or you, Amra. Y’all my girls for real, and we got to look out for each other. We can’t let anybody else hurt us. We always got to stick together. We don’t trust anybody but each other.”

  Tasha nodded her head and hugged her two best friends. They were the only people in this world she could trust and depend on.

  Tasha left home and moved in with Amra and Ms. Pat, and the bond between the girls only grew stronger throughout the rest of the school year. They were inseparable; whenever you saw one, you saw the other two.

  They continued to hit niggas for money, but as the school year came to an end and Honey was getting ready to graduate, the clique grew restless.

  “Why you got to go all the way out there?” Tasha asked Honey as they were lying on Amra’s floor, watching a movie.

  “Me and my cousin, Mimi, are supposed to be trying to open up a hair salon. Y’all know I love to do hair and shit.”

  Amra smacked her lips. “I’m saying though, you my girl, and Michigan is so far away.”

  “Y’all need to be trying to come with me. I know that my auntie would let y’all stay with her, at least temporarily. We could get our own apartment. Just say, ‘Fuck it, fuck school,’ and come with me.”

  Tasha wasn’t feeling that idea. She wasn’t trying to jump stupid and become a high school dropout. “Fuck that! I ain’t dropping out of school. That’s some dumb shit. I mean, we hustling niggas and everything, but that shit ain’t gon’ pay no bills. It ain’t gon’ bring no security. I can’t fuck with y’all on that.” Tasha’s education was important to her, and was the only thing that gave her hope.

  “Yeah, Honey, she’s right. My momma would look at me like I’m crazy if I asked her if I could move out there with you.”

  “I mean, don’t trip though, y’all. We still got the whole summer to spend together. Then after we graduate high school next year, we can come out to Flint and hustle those niggas right.”

  Tasha wasn’t trying to think about the day that their threesome would become a twosome. They were all together now, and that’s all that mattered.

  The girls changed the subject. None of them wanted to think about the end of the summer when Honey would leave her friends.

  Chapter Three

  Tasha and Amra watched Honey walk across the stage in June. They were the loudest people at the graduation ceremony. They just couldn’t help themselves, they were proud of their friend.

  “That bitch done graduated and shit!” Amra clapped loudly for Honey as she accepted her diploma.

  They sat through the rest of the commencement in silence, and after it was over, they ran over to Honey and gave her a hug.

  “Congratulations!” Tasha sang. She hugged her friend tight.

  “Thanks, girl. Come on, I want y’all to meet my momma.” Honey pulled them over to a woman that could have been her twin. She had the same dark chocolate skin, long hair, and thin frame that her daughter displayed so well. They were truly model-type women. “Ma, this is Tasha and Amra.”

  “Hi, girls. You can call me Ms. Jones. I have heard so much about the two of you. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Ma, can we use the car today?”

  Ms. Jones smiled. “Yes, just drop me off at home and then have fun tonight. You don’t have to worry about being home at a certain time. It’s your big day. Enjoy it.”

  Honey, Tasha, and Amra got into the Nissan, and they dropped Honey’s mother off at home.

  “Have fun, and don’t bring my car back with no dents in it.” Ms. Jones got out of the car and went into the house.

  “So, where y’all trying to go?”

  Tasha shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. What’s popping tonight?”

  Honey looked in her rearview at Amra. “Well, the club is gon’ be jumping tonight. A lot of graduations were today, so you know all the graduates gon’ be trying to be up in there.”

  Amra sat up and stuck her head in between the front seats. “You know me and Tasha ain’t gon’ be able to get into the damn club.”

  “Yeah, you will. They don’t even be carding like that. I heard that they rarely even check ID’s. So are we out?”

  Tasha put in a CD and turned up the volume. “We out, and if we don’t get in, then we’ll just do something else. I’m hungry right now anyway, so let’s go eat.”

  The girls went to Applebee’s and celebrated Honey’s graduation.

  “Here are the invitations to my open house. My senior pictures are in there too.” Honey pulled two envelopes from her purse and put them on the table. They picked them up.

  Amra said, “You know we gon’ be there.”

  “Your pictures are cute.”

  Honey fanned herself and jokingly said, “I know.”

  The girls laughed, and then ate their food.

  Tasha looked at her two friends, and was filled with sadness as she realized that this summer would be the last summer that they had to chill with Honey. It would be a long time before they saw her again. Her ass moving all the way to the Midwest and shit, she thought as she ate her food. Tasha knew Honey needed to go to Flint, but that didn’t make it any easier for her to let go of one of her best friends.

  “You ready to go?” Amra asked Tasha for the second time.

  Tasha came out of her thoughts and got up and walked out of the restaurant with Amra and Honey behind her.

  That night outside the club, the line was extra long. It seemed like everybody was
trying to get up in there. A group of girls walked back from the front of the line. One of them muttered on their way back to the parking lot, “Fuck this! Them lame-ass bouncers could have let us in.”

  Amra overheard the comment. She turned to Tasha. “See, I told y’all they was gon’ be checking ID’s.”

  “Girl, chill the fuck out. They gon’ definitely spot your underage ass if you go up there tripping.”

  Honey laughed. “Hell, yeah. Just chill and we in there.”

  The girls waited in the line for about twenty minutes before they grew restless. Amra thought as she stood in the line, My damn feet hurt. If I would have known we was gon’ be waiting like this, I would have worn some kicks.

  As if Tasha had read Amra’s mind, she turned to Honey. “Fuck this! Let’s go somewhere else. My feet are starting to hurt.”

  Honey nodded her head in agreement, and they started to turn and go back to the car. Just as they were getting ready to get into Ms. Jones’s car, a pearl white Cadillac Escalade pulled up next to them. The driver rolled down the window and said, “What up, ma?”

  Tasha turned around and looked at the driver. Damn! He fresh to death! she thought as she approached his window.

  Honey and Amra waited by the car, as Tasha went over to talk to the carful of dudes.

  “What up, lil’ mama? Where y’all going?” the dude asked her, trying to sound cool.

  Tasha glanced back at her girls. “I don’t know, but it’s too packed up in there. We ain’t trying to be in line all night.”

  The dude licked his lips. “What’s your name?”

  “Tasha.”

  The dude stuck his hand out of the window and shook Tasha’s hand. “I’m Damon.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Damon, but we’re about to go.”

  Damon looked at his boys in the back of the car. “You and your girls over there can come into the party with us if you want to. I’ma go park. Just meet us at the front.”

  Tasha told Damon to hold on and then went back over to her friends. “Hey, he can get us in.”