The Ugly Side of Me

by Nikita Lynnette Nichols

  “Because Chantal eats too much, and I can’t produce milk fast enough to keep her li’l chubby butt satisfied.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do about her hollerin’?”

  “I can’t do anything about it. Her pediatrician says that when she gets hungry enough, she’ll drink the formula from the bottle.”

  “What are you and Trevor doing today?”

  “Trevor can’t do anything, ’cause I’m on my way to get a mani and pedi.”

  “You’re leaving your husband with a fussy baby?”

  “Heck yeah. Chantal and I are joined at the hip Monday through Friday, while he’s at work. Saturdays are for me. He’s her daddy. He’s supposed to listen to her fuss. What are you and Malcolm doing today?”

  “Malcolm is working until seven o’clock tonight.”

  “Well, come on and get your hands and feet done with me.”

  I looked down at my cuticles. It had been over a month since I had visited a nail shop. “I guess I could use a fill-in, but my money is funny.” Since I had purchased Malcolm’s truck, I couldn’t afford any pampering.

  “Come on and go. I got you.”

  “You ain’t got a job.”

  “But I got a husband,” she retorted. “I’m on my way to get you.”

  Chapter 24

  Anastasia and I walked into Tyang’s Nail Shop at 1:45 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. Ten minutes later we were relaxing and sitting side by side in massage recliners, with our feet soaking in warm water. Our backs vibrated, and so did our feet.

  A young Korean girl with beautiful jet-black, straight hair came and sat on a stool in front of me. “Fee feyal okay?”

  I hated talking to foreigners because I had to ask them to repeat themselves about twenty times before I understood what they were saying. “Excuse me?”

  She dipped her hand in the water and patted my big toe. “How fee feyal? Fee feyal okay?”

  I nodded my head. “Oh yes, my feet feel good. Thank you,” I said.

  She lifted my left foot from the warm water and dried it on a soft white towel, then examined my toenails. “This yo’ah fir pedicu’a?”

  Here we go again. “Pardon me?”

  “When lat tie you get toe done?”

  “About a month ago,” I answered.

  “Who do yo’ah toe fo yu?”

  I looked over at Anastasia for help.

  “She wants to know who did your last pedicure,” Anastasia said to me.

  I looked at the Korean girl. “I went to a sister who owns a nail shop in my neighborhood.”

  “I tell she no Korean,” she said, examining my feet with a turned-up nose. “Koreans do gud wok. Yo’ah toe not gud wok. You wan cute toe, comah heeyah. You wan jack-up toe, go to yo’ah sista.”

  Anastasia heard the Korean girl and hollered. I looked over at her as she sat next to me.

  “I can’t be sure, but I think I just got checked,” I said.

  “You definitely got checked,” Anastasia responded.

  Thirty minutes later Anastasia and I were at side-by-side nail stations. We got our nails filled in with acrylic coating. Little fans beneath the table were blowing on our freshly painted toenails when the wind chimes over the door to the nail salon rang. In walked Sharonda and Leticia, the broads who were with Malcolm and his boy, Ivan, at Mr. G’s Club last week.

  I whispered, “Stacy.”

  She looked at me. “Huh?”

  “Remember the girls that I told you about that were at Mr. G’s with Malcolm?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “They just walked in.”

  Anastasia directed her attention toward the front of the nail salon, where Sharonda and Leticia had sat down in two chairs to wait their turn. Anastasia and I were about fifteen feet away, so they hadn’t seen me yet. I remembered the club was dark and dim on the night I approached their table. Even though I had got a good look at them, maybe Sharonda and Leticia hadn’t gotten a good look at me.

  “The one with the micro-braids is Sharonda,” I said to Anastasia. “She’s the one who was darn near sittin’ on Malcolm’s lap. The girl next to her is Leticia. She had on that same outfit last week at the club. That same halter top is the reason Ivan’s eyes were focused downward as she talked to him.”

  “Look, Rhapsody, don’t start nothin’, ’cause I’m somebody’s mama. Okay? I can’t be out in these streets, fighting.”

  “You ain’t gotta worry about me, Stacy. If they don’t start no crap, it won’t be no crap.”

  A minute later another Korean lady escorted Sharonda and Leticia to the same massage chairs Anastasia and I had sat in for our pedicures.

  Leticia was the first to notice me. She looked at me kind of funny but turned her head. Then she looked at me again and squinted her eyes, like she was trying to figure out if she’d seen my face before. Then her eyes widened a bit. That was the expression that let me know she had finally realized where she’d seen me. She leaned over and whispered something to Sharonda, who looked dead into my face. She nodded her head at Leticia, confirming that I was definitely the one who had shown my butt and cussed them out last week.

  Anastasia was watching all three of us. “Rhapsody, be cool.”

  I didn’t remove my eyes from the broads when I spoke to Anastasia. “I am cool, Stacy, but I ain’t no punk.”

  “I didn’t say you were a punk, I said, ‘Be cool.’”

  Two Korean women had coated our nails with acrylic and had filed them evenly. Now they instructed Anastasia and me to wash and dry our hands, then select the nail polish color we wanted. The racks that housed the hundreds of bottles of nail polish were adjacent to the massage chairs in which Dumb and Dumber sat. With our backs to them, Anastasia and I compared nail polish colors.

  I held up a bottle of bright pink polish with glitter. “This color would look nice on your fingers, Stacy.”

  “Yeah, it would, if I were in kindergarten,” Anastasia said. “Put that crap back.”

  “Put that crap back, trick.” The echo came from behind us. We didn’t know if it was Sharonda or Leticia who had mocked Anastasia, ’cause when we turned around, both of them were looking down at copies of Jet magazine, with smirks on their faces.

  We brought our attention back to the nail polishes. I mumbled, “I’m trying to be cool, like you asked, Stacy.”

  “I know. Let’s just pick a color so we can get out of here.”

  Anastasia selected a nice neutral beige color.

  “That’s a pretty color, Stacy. What number is it?”

  “This particular bottle isn’t numbered. It’s called Sahara.”

  “It’s called Sahara, trick.” We heard an echo again.

  I was surprised at how quickly Anastasia lost her cool after instructing me not to lose mine. She turned around and asked, “Is there a freakin’ problem?”

  Leticia and her oversize boobs spoke up. “What?”

  “Y’all messin’ with my girl, and when you mess with her, you mess with me.”

  Sharonda stood and stepped out of the water her feet were soaking in. “Well, we can take it outside.”

  I took a step toward them. “Let’s do it, then.”

  In the next second, one of the three Korean ladies approached us. “No, no. No fy in heeyah. I call polee.”

  This time I understood what she said without asking her to repeat herself. “We ain’t gonna fight in here. We’re gonna take this outside.”

  “No, no. No fi outsy eeda. Comah ovah heeyah an get yo’ah nail paint.” She grabbed Anastasia’s elbow and guided her back to our stations. She turned and looked at me. “You too. Comah ovah heeyah an seet down.”

  After our nails were polished, Anastasia and I sat under a nail-drying table. At that time Sharonda and Leticia were getting their toenails painted. My cellular telephone rang, and I was excited to see Malcolm’s name flashing on my caller ID.

  I pressed the TALK button and brought the phone to my ear. “Hey, Malcolm. What’s up, baby?” I purposel
y spoke loud enough for Sharonda and Leticia to hear.

  Anastasia looked at me, rolled her eyes, and exhaled. “Aw, heck. Here we go.”

  “You miss me, boo? I miss you too,” I cooed to Malcolm. “I’m at the nail shop with Stacy. I can’t wait to see you tonight.”

  From where I sat, I saw Sharonda take her cellular telephone from her purse and dial a number. Two seconds later I heard a click in my ear; then Malcolm told me to hold on.

  “Hey, Malcolm baby,” Sharonda said, loud enough for me to hear.

  I didn’t even remember moving out of my seat, but my fist went flying across the nail shop and slammed into Sharonda’s face. Leticia came to her defense and jumped on my back. Anastasia must’ve been on my heels when I first sprang up, ’cause next thing I knew, she pushed Leticia off of me.

  Sharonda leapt out of her chair, thinking she was gonna get the best of me. She was in for a rude awakening, because as soon as she came at me, I grabbed a handful of her micro-braids and slung her from the east to the west. I looked over my shoulder to see how Anastasia was doing. Leticia was a big girl, but somehow Anastasia had managed to bring her to her knees. Then they started rolling on the floor. I took Sharonda’s braids and rammed the back of her head into the wall of nail polish, and every bottle tumbled to the floor.

  I saw that Leticia had gotten the best of Anastasia. She was straddling my friend, tryin’ to hit her face. I let go of Sharonda and ran into Leticia. I bodychecked her like I was a football player charging at a player on the opposite team. She went airborne before she slammed into the floor. I heard the door chimes ring, and suddenly six policemen had all four of us in handcuffs.

  One cop asked a Korean lady who had started the fight. She pointed right at me. “Tha one wit da big mou.”

  It took three hours for a lady cop to come open the cell at the jailhouse on Twenty-Sixth Street and California Avenue to tell me and Anastasia that we were free to go. We walked out to the vestibule and saw Trevor. To say that he was livid would really be putting it mildly. Anastasia and I took one look at his face and knew we were in trouble.

  “What the heck was y’all doing, fightin’ in a nail shop?” Trevor’s eyes were the size of golf balls. He wouldn’t let us answer. He turned away from us. “Let’s go!” he yelled.

  As Trevor drove to my house, Anastasia and I didn’t utter a word. He glanced at his wife, who was sitting in the passenger seat, and said, “Are you gonna answer my question?”

  “It was two girls against Rhapsody, Trevor. What was I supposed to do? Let my best friend get her butt kicked?”

  He positioned his rearview mirror to look at me sitting behind him. “What happened?”

  I exhaled. “There were two girls at the nail shop who had a beef with me. They were talking crap to me and Stacy.”

  “Rhapsody, the police said the girls were nineteen years old. What kind of beef could they have with your grown behind?”

  “I had kind of a run-in with them before, Trevor.”

  “That didn’t answer my question,” he said.

  “They were mocking us, and it got on my nerves, so I stole on one of them.”

  “What was up with the cell phones?” Trevor asked.

  I played dumb. “Huh?”

  “The police said something happened with somebody’s cell phone.”

  Anastasia turned around in her seat and looked at me. “You may as well tell him, Rhapsody.”

  Trevor looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Tell me what?”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t feel like getting into that right then.

  “I’m waitin’,” Trevor said to me.

  I didn’t have a choice. Trevor wasn’t gonna let up. “I called my man, and while I was talking to him, he got another call, and he put me on hold. One of the broads from the nail shop had called him, and she made sure I knew it.”

  “Hold up,” Trevor said. He looked confused. “Those girls were teenagers.” Trevor glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “One of them is messing around with a dude your age?”

  Anastasia looked at the embarrassed expression on my face. I did not want Trevor to know the age difference between Malcolm and me.

  “Nope,” Anastasia answered for me. “Rhapsody is messing with a boy the girl’s age.”

  Thank God we were wearing our seat belts, because the way Trevor slammed on the brakes, I thought all three of our heads were going straight through the windshield. “What?” He looked at me in a way that made me feel ashamed. “What the heck is wrong with you, girl?”

  I didn’t say nothing, ’cause I couldn’t say nothing. No words would make the situation right in Trevor’s eyes. I turned to look out the window and kept my stare there until we got to my house.

  Chapter 25

  When I walked in my front door, I saw Malcolm sitting on the living room sofa. He glared at me.

  “Don’t say a word to me, Malcolm.” I walked past him, and he got up and followed me.

  “What are you walkin’ in here pissed at me for?”

  I stopped walking and turned to him. “’Cause this is your fault.”

  Malcolm went to the front door and slammed it shut. I hadn’t realized that I had left it open. He came back to me. “My fault? Did I tell you to punch Sharonda in her face?”

  I put my hand on my hip. “First of all,” I began, “this is my house, and the only one who slams doors around here is me. Second, who told you I punched her in the face?”

  “We were on our cell phones, Rhapsody, when the crap hit the fan. I heard Sharonda say hi to me, and the next thing I heard was her cell hittin’ the floor and a whole bunch of shufflin’ and arguin’. Then Sharonda called me twenty minutes later and told me what happened. You better be glad I was able to convince her to drop the charges.”

  My eyes got so big, I looked like a deer that had been caught in the headlights. “What do you mean, I better be glad?”

  “If Sharonda hadn’t dropped the charges, you and your girl would still be locked up.”

  “So, what did you have to do to get her to drop the charges, Malcolm? Huh?”

  He walked away from me. “Rhapsody, don’t start with me, okay?”

  I followed him into the kitchen. “I’m gonna start and finish it. What’s up, Malcolm? Are you screwing Sharonda?”

  He stopped abruptly and turned to face me. “I’m not doing this with you, ’cause you’re crazy.”

  Malcolm went into my den, plopped down on the futon, and picked up the remote control from a table next it. He turned on the television and found a basketball game on the ESPN channel. I guessed he called himself dismissing me, but I went and stood directly in front of the television.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Are you screwing Sharonda?”

  “Look, Rhapsody, I stood on my feet for nine hours today. I don’t feel like dealing with this petty crap.”

  “Oh, so now I’m petty?”

  “What you did today was very petty,” Malcolm said to me. “Sharonda is nineteen years old. You’re a grown woman. Don’t you feel the least bit stupid?”

  “I feel like slappin’ the heck outta you, that’s what I feel. All I wanna know is if you’re screwing her or not.”

  When he didn’t answer me, I folded my arms across my chest. “You’re procrastinating, Malcolm. You got somethin’ to hide?”

  “Sharonda and I grew up together.”

  My eyebrows rose. “And?”

  “And nothin’. We’re only friends now. Would you move out of the way?”

  “Malcolm, you must think I’m a fool. I saw her almost sittin’ on your lap at the club last week.”

  “That’s a lie, Rhapsody.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  He exhaled loudly to let me know that I was getting on his last nerve. “Sharonda is a friend of mine. In fact, I have many women friends. Okay? So don’t trip. I consider you a friend.”

  “Except you’re screwing me.”

  “And you’re the only frien
d I’m screwing. Now move out of the way. I’m trying to watch the game.”

  “I’ma let you watch your game, Malcolm, but this conversation ain’t over.”

  I went into the kitchen. I was sitting a pot of water on the stove in preparation for spaghetti when I thought I saw someone move through the bushes outside my kitchen window. My screams brought Malcolm running to me.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “I think somebody is outside, in the bushes.”

  Malcolm removed one of his gym shoes and quickly ran out my back door with it in his hand. Within two minutes, he was back in the kitchen. “I didn’t see anybody.”

  I looked at him. “What the heck were you gonna do with your gym shoe? I said I saw a person, not a roach.”

  At three o’clock on Sunday morning I got out of bed to pee. In the dark I walked into the bathroom, half asleep, with my eyes closed. I’d been living in that duplex for five years, so I knew that the toilet was four steps away from the bathroom door. After taking the four steps, I turned around, lifted my T-shirt to my waist, and squatted. When it dawned on me that I was squatting lower than usual and that it was taking longer than it normally would for my butt to connect with the toilet seat, it was too late.

  Swoosh.

  Malcolm had left the toilet seat up, and my naked butt was cold and wet. I looked like a two-year-old getting potty trained, with my butt way down in the toilet and my legs dangling.

  “Malcolm!” I hollered at the top of my lungs.

  Immediately, he came to the bathroom door, turned on the light, saw me, and started laughing.

  “You left the toilet seat up, and what are you laughing at?”

  Malcolm was laughing so hard, he could hardly get his words out. “You look like a munchkin.”

  To him, it was funny, but it wasn’t funny worth a darn to me, because I was truly stuck down in the toilet. I was short and had an oversize butt. No matter how I tried to raise myself up, I couldn’t do it.

  “This is not funny, Malcolm.”

  He was hollerin’ and laughing. “Yes, it is.”

  I felt my blood begin to boil, and my ears were getting hot. I was mad as heck ’cause Malcolm saw me trying to free myself, but he just stood in the doorway and got his laugh on at my expense.