He shrugs in nonchalance. “I don’t care and you shouldn’t, either.” As if to prove a point, he leans over and kisses me on the lips. “I’ll see you later.”
I turn around to find Mimi standing there.
“I guess you two are getting pretty tight,” she tells me.
“Mimi, I’m not going down this road with you. I have a job to do.” I step around her. “Thanks again for helping me with the lawyer.”
Chapter 16
Hey, Dee called me earlier,” Rhyann tells me the next day. “We’re going to the mall after work, and then grab something to eat. I hope you’ll go with us this time. You always say no.”
I release an impatient sigh. “Rhyann, I keep telling you, I don’t want to go and be the only one who can’t shop or pay for those expensive meals y’all always buying. I don’t have it like that,” I tell her. “I can’t throw away money on clothes for the fun of it.”
“Okaay,” she mutters. “I guess that’s a no, then. You know, Kylie, your attitude is really beginning to suck.”
“Rhyann . . .”
She walks off before I can apologize for snapping.
I feel awful, because I never meant to go off on Rhyann. When I get a break, I make my way to the shampoo bowl.
“Rhyann, I’m so sorry for snapping at you like that,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean what I said about the clothes. It’s really not my business how y’all spend your money.”
“It’s cool, Kylie,” Rhyann replies coolly. “I know that you’ve been under a lot of stress, but you need to stop tripping like that. We’re your friends—at least we’re trying to be. You have to lighten up some.”
We walk into the break room and sit down at the table. “I really do like hanging with y’all, but Rhyann, I don’t have money like that, and even if I did, I don’t think I’d be buying all those expensive clothes. I’m cheap, and l like being this way.”
“That’s not being cheap, Kylie,” Rhyann points out. “You’re just being wise with your money. Humph! I go to the mall, but I don’t spend money like Mimi and Divine. I don’t know if you ever noticed, but Alyssa doesn’t either, Kylie. We just go to hang out with our friends. Nobody is going to make you feel bad if you’re not a slave to all things designer. I’m like you—I’m trying to save a little money.”
“Since we’re talking about this, Rhyann, I don’t want people always paying for me. I’ve seen my mama take advantage of so many people,” I tell her. “I don’t want to be anything like her. I’m not a user.”
“I know that,” Rhyann responds. “Girl, we all know that about you. That’s why you’re now an official B.F.F. and entitled to full privileges.”
“Well, butter my tail and call me a biscuit,” I say, grinning from ear to ear. “I got me some B.F.F.’s.”
Rhyann laughs loudly. “Kylie, first rule of a B.F.F.—never say that butter thingy again. NEVER.”
I’m so bored just following the girls around as they try on this blouse and those pants. Mimi’s wrist should be hurting from all the times she’s whipped out her credit card.
You would think that she didn’t own a stitch of clothing in her closet from the way she’s shopping. Divine isn’t a slouch, either, when it comes to trying on just about everything. I stand beside Alyssa and try to stifle a yawn.
She glances over at me and laughs. “What’s wrong with you, Kylie? Are you tired from all the window-shopping?”
“More bored than anything else,” I respond honestly.
Mimi gasps in shock. “What kind of person are you, Kylie? Who doesn’t like to shop?”
I try to remain patient. “Mimi, we’ve been in this mall for two hours. You only have two hands—how much can you carry? You already bought out the last store.”
“You haven’t bought anything, so you can help carry some of my stuff.”
“NOT.”
Mimi stares at me. “Kylie, what is your problem?”
“You two, don’t start,” Rhyann quickly interjects. “We’re supposed to be having a good time.”
“Kylie, if you didn’t want to be here, then you shouldn’t have come,” Mimi tells me. “I’m so tired of feeling bad that I’m not poor.”
“Yeah, right,” I answer wearily. “The last thing you’d ever want is to walk in my shoes. You’d have a meltdown.”
“Kylie, you have no right to judge me. I can’t help it if my parents are wealthy and I benefit from it.”
“You think you’re so much better than me.”
“No, you think I’m better than you,” she retorts. “You don’t think you’re good enough to be our friend, and while everyone else is too polite to tell you, I’m not. Kylie, this is really getting on our nerves. Stop being a freaking victim.”
I’m too stunned by her words to respond.
“What Mimi is trying to say is that we like you for you, Kylie,” Divine puts in. “But sometimes you make it difficult by putting up a wall between us—that wall is your circumstances. Now, Mimi can be snobby at times. Me, too, but we accept you as you are. The problem is that you seem to want us to change who we are, and well, that’s totally not going to happen.”
I can’t believe they are trying to turn this all around on me. “You know what? This was a bad idea.” I look toward the mall’s entrance. “I’m going to take the bus home.”
“There’s that wall again,” Divine says.
“Well, guess what?” I say snidely. “You don’t have to deal with it anymore. This friendship is not going to work.” I rush off before they can see the tears run down my face. I keep telling myself, I don’t need them—or anyone else, for that matter.
Chapter 17
I find my mama waiting for me outside the apartment building when I arrive home. How can my life become any more miserable?
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you,” she says tightly. “I miss my daughter. Anything wrong with that?”
I survey her face. “I’m not sure I believe you, Mama. I think you want something.”
Just then Miss Lucy walks up. She isn’t surprised to see my mama. “I see you’re back, Serena.”
“Kylie, I need to talk to you.” Mama eyes Miss Lucy, then adds, “Alone.”
Miss Lucy stays right where she is. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Mama glares at Miss Lucy for a moment, then turns her attention back to me. “I have some stuff in the car,” Mama says. “I need to stay here with y’all. It’s just a few days, Miss Lucy, if you don’t mind.”
I shake my head. “Mama, I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here. I don’t know what’s going on with you, and to be honest, I really don’t want to know.”
She starts crying. “I got evicted, Kylie. What am I supposed to do?”
“Pay your rent,” I retort angrily. “Mama, this is what you always do, and then you look for someone to bail you out.” I’m not giving in on this point. “We don’t have room, and we don’t have permission.”
“Don’t nobody needs to know that I’m staying here.”
“Miss Marilee owns this building,” I tell her. “She would know that you’re here because I’m not gonna lie to her anymore, and neither is Miss Lucy.”
“I have nowhere to live,” she shouts.
Passersby strolling along the sidewalk stop and stare until my mama gets ghetto and says, “What y’all looking at? This ain’t your business, so just keep on moving.”
“You can go to a shelter, Mama.”
“I can’t believe you’re being so coldhearted.”
I can’t let her words hurt me anymore. I know that I have to be firm. “Mama, I’m really not trying to hurt you—I’m just telling you the truth. It’s time for you to grow up and be responsible. This is exactly why I want to be emancipated. I love you, Mama, but I just can’t do this with you anymore. You’re on your own.”
I leave her standing on the sidewalk and go inside the building. She’s still standing outside when I get on the elevator.
<
br /> “You were pretty hard on your mother just now,” Miss Lucy tells me as we enter our apartment.
Dropping my purse on the sofa, I say, “I told her the truth. She needs to get a job. I think it might do her some good to stay in a shelter for a while.”
“Are you trying to punish your mother?”
“No, ma’am. I just want her to help herself for once in her life. Miss Lucy, do you think I’m wrong?”
Her voice betrays some doubt. “No, I don’t. I just want to make sure you’re doing this for the right reason. We probably could’ve let her stay here one night.”
I shake my head. “My mama wasn’t gonna leave. I know her, Miss Lucy. Once she got in here, she would try to stay here as long as she could. I don’t like being this way with her, but my grandma used to always say that Mama needed tough love.”
I really hope that this will help her get her life together.
I tell Miss Marilee about my mother’s visit when I come to work on Tuesday.
“I’m sure it must have hurt you to do that to your mother, but I think you made the right decision. Your mother does need to get a job so that she can make it on her own.”
“Then why do I feel so terrible?”
“Because you’re human and you have a merciful heart.”
“I really love my mother, Miss Marilee. I do. All I want is for her to get it together. She wants me to respect her. I feel that she needs to earn that respect.”
It seems like I’ve gone too far, because Miss Marilee strikes the same note Miss Lucy did. “Kylie, she’s your mother, and I know that you honor her because of that fact,” Miss Marilee says. “Being a parent doesn’t come with a handbook, so I want you to consider giving Serena a break. She was only fourteen when she had you, dear. Younger than you are now.”
“I know that,” I say, bowing my head.
“If you were to have a child right now, do you think that you could do any better than your mother?”
I take a seat in the chair behind the counter. “Actually, I do,” I tell Miss Marilee. “I’d work two or three jobs to take care of my child. I wouldn’t be dependent on a man for nothing.”
Miss Marilee leans on the counter. “So when would you have time for your child with all of those jobs?”
I think about her question. “I would have to work in order to take care of my child. I want to give my children everything I didn’t have. I—”
Miss Marilee cuts me off. “Do you know what children want most, Kylie?”
“What?”
“Love and quality time.”
I nod in understanding. “I get it now, Miss Marilee. Sure, that’s what I’ve wanted from my mama all this time. Now I see that there’s more than one way to mess up as a parent. Sometimes you can focus too much on your job and not be there for your child.”
“You have to find a balance, and for some parents it’s not an easy task. Then to be fourteen on top of that . . . just think about what I’ve said.”
Miss Marilee’s words weigh heavily on my mind throughout the rest of my day.
Rhyann comes to work around noon. We say hello, but that’s about it. I can tell she’s still upset over the words exchanged at the mall the other day. I consider going to the shampoo area and apologizing to her, but I don’t, because I don’t feel I was wrong.
Yet I already miss the girls, and I have not really talked to Chandler, either. I just have to keep my distance from all of them. I know this is for the best, because I’m not rich.
But why does it have to hurt so much?
Chapter 18
The girls arrive shortly after I get home from work.
“We seriously thought about kicking you to the curb, Kylie,” Rhyann tells me, “but we decided to come over here and talk this thing out once and for all.”
“Just so you know, we don’t go chasing down people. We have lots of friends,” Mimi adds. “People who want to be our friends.”
“Not really helping, Mimi,” Divine says to her.
“Maybe she’s right,” I say, discouraged. “We come from different backgrounds—too different to be friends.”
“That’s a load of bull and you know it,” Rhyann says. “Kylie, Alyssa and I don’t have rich parents. My mother is dead and I live with my aunt. Divine’s parents are divorced, so she has a blended family. Mimi’s parents are still together, but her father has a son with an ex-girlfriend. Why are you tripping like this?”
“Y’all are trying to act like I have the problem, but it’s not me. Mimi doesn’t really like me and I know it. I see all the strange looks you give me, especially when I’m with Chandler.”
“You think I don’t want you with Chandler because you’re not good enough,” Mimi responds. “That’s not even the case, Kylie. I don’t want him hurting you, and then it affects our friendship. I had that happen one time already with Chandler.”
“Kylie, if my girls weren’t cool, I never would’ve introduced you to them,” Rhyann tells me. “The other day, you saw I only bought one shirt, and it was marked down to eight dollars. I don’t feel bad because I can’t shop like Dee or Mimi.”
“It definitely don’t bother me,” Alyssa says. “We really want to be friends with you, Kylie.”
“Why?” I ask. I wave my hand around our itty-bitty apartment. “Why do you want to be friends with me?”
“Because you’re brave,” Mimi says. “Kylie, I could never handle something like this. I’d die.”
Divine nods in agreement. “We admire you, and while you aren’t a fashionista, you’re still very cool. We have fun and we enjoy being around you.”
“Until you start tripping,” Rhyann adds.
Divine says something she obviously had planned to say. “We promise not to force you to go on our shopping sprees if you don’t want to go. We’re just so used to doing almost everything together.”
They are so nice, and I’m feeling a lot better that they think enough of me to have come over. “I guess I was a little jealous because I just can’t shop anytime I feel like it,” I confess. “I like spending time with y’all, but it did make me feel like an outsider.”
“You’re not an outsider, Kylie,” Mimi tells me. “We’re all different, and yes, I’m shallow at times, but this is me. Love me or hate me.”
I smile.
“Friends?” Mimi asks, holding out her hand to me. “For real this time.”
I shake her hand. “For real.”
We do a fabulous five group hug.
“I’m glad y’all got that straight,” Miss Lucy says from the kitchen.
Rhyann holds up her sleeping bag. “I called Miss Lucy earlier, and she said that it was fine for us to kick it over here for the night. We wanted to surprise you.”
“You’re staying here?” I ask, grinning from ear to ear. “Like a slumber party?”
“Yeah,” they respond in unison.
I can’t believe they actually want to stay here with me in this tiny little apartment, but that’s okay with me.
“I have a great idea,” I say.
All eyes on me, they ask in unison, “What?”
“We can make something, like nachos. Chips, chicken, cheese, salsa, olives, black beans, jalapenos—the works.”
Mimi frowns. “Girl, I do not know how to cook, and I have no interest in learning.”
“Then stay away from the chicken,” I say with a chuckle. “You just man the salsa. I’ll cook the chicken.”
“I’ll handle the chips,” Mimi counters. “Let Rhyann do the salsa. She makes it homemade, and it’s delicious.”
I glance over at Rhyann. “You can make salsa?”
She nods. “I just need some tomatoes, garlic, green chilies, onions, cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, and jalapenos.”
“You make it like we do, then,” I respond. “We have all of that stuff.”
Alyssa follows me to the kitchenette. “I want to see how you do the chicken.”
“I take skinless chicken breasts and
poach them, and after they cool, I shred the meat with my fingers.”
Divine joins us. “What do you want me to do?”
“Can you cut up the lettuce?”
She nods. “I’ll help Rhyann cut up the stuff she needs for the salsa, too.”
Mimi rises to her feet. “I’m going to run to the store and get more chips and some soda. I can tell you right now, that one bag isn’t going to be enough for all of us. Kylie, they might not look or act like it when we’re in a restaurant, but these divas can eat.” She grabs her purse. “Do you need anything else?”
“I don’t think so.” I glance over at Miss Lucy. “Do you need anything?”
“Mimi, if you don’t mind, can I ride to the store with you? I need to pick up my meds.”
“I don’t mind at all, Miss Lucy.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Divine exclaims thirty minutes later. “This is the best chicken nachos I’ve ever eaten. That queso sauce is delicious!”
“Kylie, what else can you make?” Mimi asks, licking her lips. “I think I’m going to be hanging out over here.”
“We could do a low country boil,” I say. “We only did it once so far, and that was to celebrate Miss Lucy getting her benefits and having this apartment. I make fried chicken, liver and onions, macaroni and cheese—all sorts of stuff. I’ve been cooking since I was nine.”
“All of that sounds good,” Rhyann says. “Okay, when we get to college, Kylie is my roommate. I called it first.”
“Rhyann, you can cook, so you don’t need Kylie. I can’t boil water, so she has to be my roommate,” Mimi argues. “I’ll just live with you both.”
“Yeah, let Mimi stay with y’all,” Alyssa says with a chuckle. “Divine is enough high maintenance for me. I don’t need two of them.”
“I might be a year behind y’all,” I remind them. “I’m gonna try, but there’s no guarantee that I’ma be able to catch up all of my credits in order to graduate on time.”
“That’s not a big deal,” Mimi states. “We’ll get a three-bedroom apartment so you’ll have a room when you get there, or we can just have our mothers rent a five-bedroom house for us so we can all live together. What do you think? Won’t that be cool?”
Split Ends Page 14
