Read the Warning Label First

by B. M. Hardin

  “I could listen to you sing all night,” I said aloud.

  “Really? I would consider it an honor to sing to you all night Miss. Young,” he answered me but didn’t bother to look in my direction.

  I smiled at him even though he wasn’t looking at me. Though I didn’t know his name, I’d seen him on most nights that I worked late, here recently.

  He was fairly new, I think.

  He seemed like a nice guy. I always made sure to speak to him because I felt that with him being surrounded by people with so much money, he had to feel some type of way about having to pick up their trash and clean up after them on a daily basis.

  The least that we could do was speak to him and say thank you.

  He wasn’t dateable, but I wanted him to know that he was appreciated.

  He was rather young to be a janitor, but I never bothered to ask him any personal questions.

  As I exited the building, he stopped doing what he was doing to look out the window as always, to make sure that I made it safely to my car.

  Once I was safely inside, he turned his back to the glass and continued mopping the floor.

  Sweet…

  If only he wasn’t a janitor.

  No, I wasn’t a gold digger, but I was realistic.

  The man that would be lucky enough to call me his would bring just as much to the table as I did.

  And I couldn’t, or maybe it was that I wouldn’t apologize for having some kind of requirements and standards.

  I’m telling you, I would live the rest of my life alone before I changed some of them.

  And I meant that with everything in me.

  ***

  “Don’t you look good enough to eat? That dress is going to catch you somebody’s man tonight. It damn sure better not catch you mine!” Donna laughed.

  Donna was a friend of my assistant, Delilah, and I had become quite fond of her.

  She was witty, funny and brutally honest.

  And I mean as honest as they came; but I liked it.

  I’d met Donna through Delilah over a year ago.

  Let me say this, Delilah was my friend first, who needed employment, so I gave her the job as my assistant once I got my promotion.

  It was no secret that Delilah didn’t like the position, hell I wasn’t even sure if she really even liked me.

  Really, I should know better than to refer to her as a friend. Maybe associate was a better term for her.

  Sometimes she was the one person that I could say that was always there for me, but I was no fool. I knew that she was jealous of me, and always had been though she didn’t really have a reason to be.

  Sure, I made way more money than she did, but I never threw my money or my bank account in her face. If anything, I was always trying to help her and push her to follow her dreams so that she didn’t have to spend the next five years of her life working for me.

  Delilah and I had been introduced a few years ago. We briefly dated friends.

  But clearly they weren’t worth keeping otherwise they would still be around.

  Anyway, she and I became friendly.

  It had only taken me about two see a few signs and the friend that I was dating, was history. But Delilah and I remained acquainted and shortly after meeting, Delilah popped up pregnant.

  The said thing was that the friend that she had been dating turned out to be a deadbeat and neglected to take care of his responsibilities.

  Even I missed that about him.

  In the little time that I’d been around him, he hadn’t come off as a man that wouldn’t take care of his kids.

  But the proof was in the pudding.

  Just like that, Delilah was a single mother with a now a three year old son and currently looking for a man to play the role as a father figure in his life.

  She’d made me his god mother but I was sure that it was only because she knew that I could back her financially when it came to him, which I did with no questions asked.

  I loved him as if he was my own son, but I always slept with one eye open when it came to his mama.

  It was just the vibe that Delilah gave off; not all the time, but enough for me to notice.

  Maybe it wasn’t as serious as I thought it was, but like I said, I paid attention to signs not only in men but in women as well and she gave all the signs that said: Warning: Proceed with caution with this bitch.

  I’m just saying.

  But now Donna, her best friend, and now a good friend of mine, was the truth and I liked the sincerity of her personality.

  Donna was in a relationship, not a committed one, but one that she’d stated on several occasions that it worked for her.

  She was with a cheater, but she knew it and she didn’t care because she did whatever it was that she wanted to do too.

  Basically, they had two kids together, and neither of them seemed to like the idea of another woman or another man being around them so, they just entertained others on the side.

  I guess that was the most accurate way of putting it.

  Hey, if they liked it, I loved it, but that kind of relationship just wasn’t for me.

  Hell to be real about it, it shouldn’t have been for them either. Clearly they’d forgotten that STD’s are real. That’s all I’m saying.

  But nevertheless, we were preparing to hit the town as two and a half, single ladies and hoping to have a little fun and maybe even meet someone new.

  I was the thinner one of the bunch.

  I didn’t have much of anything, but I guess I had enough.

  My breasts were bigger than my booty; which I had been meaning to get that fixed.

  I had the funds for any type of surgery that I wanted. I was just a firm believer of the saying that if it wasn’t broke, don’t fix it.

  And it would be just my luck that I bought a new booty and ended up with some rare and crazy side effect.

  That was the only reason I hadn’t gotten me a new, and bigger ass as of yet.

  But it was still on my to-do list.

  Other than the lack of booty, everything else was pretty much a go.

  I was average height, brown skinned complexion and average length hair.

  I was one of those people that didn’t have all of the assets but I damn sure knew how to be sexy.

  I had sex appeal which continuously made it easy for me to be noticed; if only I could be noticed by the right one.

  But needless to say, getting approached had never been a problem, even when I was the odd ball out.

  Donna and Delilah were both very shapely.

  They were pretty much the same size from the top all the way down to their big round bottoms.

  Delilah was definitely the prettier of the two, but her personality sucked which made Donna more desirable and attractive over her on any given day.

  But nevertheless, we set out to laugh and drink the night away.

  I could already tell that the night was going to go sideways just from the constant phone calls between Donna and her mate.

  She was constantly explaining her destination and reminding him that she allowed him to have his free time so that he needed to back off so that she could enjoy herself. But for some reason, on this particular night, he seemed to be all in his feelings.

  Maybe he was tired of the games that they were playing…

  Yeah right!

  Donna said that he was only being clingy because his side chick had dumped him.

  I found it amazing that she managed to say the words without even flinching; as though it didn’t even bother her.

  How could a woman know that their man was going to lay, kiss and have sex with another woman, and then come back home to do the same thing to them, and it not bother them?

  How could any woman simply lay there while her mate pumped on top of her, knowing that he had just come from pumping on top of someone else, and she not even care?

  The whole thing baffled me.

  But that was her relationship and her problem.
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  Once we were inside the club, we headed to the bar and patiently waited for the bartender to get us our drinks.

  “Ten o’clock,” Delilah whispered and nodded over my shoulder at the man standing right behind me.

  Slowly, I turned around to see a tall, dark chocolate fellow staring at me as if I was a piece of meat on a stick.

  He smiled at the sight of my face and I damn near threw up at the sight of his teeth.

  Oh hell no!

  His teeth didn’t have a stitch of white on them. They were stained a dirty, dark brown that even in a club setting, was noticeable. And they were crisscrossed, crooked and everything else.

  Either he couldn’t afford the proper dental work, didn’t have a job that came with insurance, or he didn’t care enough about himself to keep up with the maintenance of his hygiene and routine necessary dental exams.

  Either way, he had better get the hell out of my face!

  I turned back around, hurriedly, and ignored his taps on my shoulder until we got our drinks.

  I walked off without even looking back at him and as soon as we were far enough away from him, the girls burst into laughter and began to tease.

  What was he thinking?

  I would have never been able to look at him, let alone let him put his mouth on me.

  There was a woman somewhere that probably wouldn’t mind his teeth, but I wasn’t her.

  My future mate at least had to be able to smile at me without making me sick to my stomach.

  I simply shook my head and realized that I only came out to waste time and to get out of the house.

  The type of man that I wanted wasn’t going to be found here. The type of man that I wanted most likely wouldn’t be found in a club.

  So, what the hell was I even doing here?

  The girls sat their drinks down on the table in front of us and headed to the dance floor.

  I took a seat in one of the chairs and sipped on my mixed drink.

  I smiled at them as they danced and motioned for me to come and join them, but I declined.

  I immediately wished that I had driven.

  I would have probably gotten up and left. I could think of a hundred other things that I’d rather be doing at that moment.

  But since I was riding shotgun, I was stuck.

  And from the looks of it, the girls wouldn’t want to leave anytime soon.

  I guess if I got too bored, I could always call a cab.

  The drink was delicious and soothing and as I nodded to the beat of the music, I closed my eyes to focus on the words.

  They sure don’t make music the way that they used to, I tell you that much. I had no idea what it was that the singer was talking about.

  I was sure that it had something to do with money and ass but I wasn’t familiar with the slang words that they were using.

  But the beat reminded me of an old school jam.

  I absolutely loved music.

  Coming up, I’d only heard gospel music, but my college roommate introduced me to the soothing sounds of rhythm and blues and everything from the 80’s and 90’s.

  From then on, music was my escape.

  It my medicine when I was sick. It my therapy when I was feeling low.

  Music was love.

  And I loved me some music!

  At the sound of commotion, I opened my eyes to see Donna’s boyfriend in the face of the man that she had been dancing with.

  My heart skipped at a beat as Donna jumped in between them and tried to control her mate but by then the other guy was a live wire.

  It all happened so fast and before I knew it, shots were fired and I was on the floor underneath the table.

  I was too afraid to look up so I simply laid there, covering my head for a long while until someone touched my back.

  I looked behind me and it was the man from the bar with the messed up teeth. He reached for my hand and cautiously, I took it.

  On my feet, I looked in the direction where the altercation had begun and I covered my mouth at the sight of not only Donna but also Delilah lying on the floor.

  I tried to head in their direction, but the stranger grabbed me and pushed me toward the exit instead.

  Lord please let them be okay.

  ***

  “How are you holding up?” I asked Delilah.

  She was now home from the hospital.

  Through all of the gun fire, she’d been hit in the shoulder by a stray bullet.

  Unfortunately Donna, her man, the guy she was dancing with and one other person, had been pronounced dead at the scene.

  It had all happened so quickly that it still seemed unreal.

  I couldn’t believe that it had escalated to something that turned deadly.

  The whole ordeal was definitely confirmation as to how unhealthy relationships could cost you not only your self-respect and dignity, but you could be one of the many that it actually cost you your life.

  Delilah was still in a state of shock, so I was over at her place helping her and tending after my god child.

  “I still can’t believe that she’s gone,” Delilah said softly as she laid her head on my shoulder.

  “She was the only real friend that I’d ever had.”

  I don’t know why her words stung my heart like a thousand bees but it did.

  I wanted to say…

  Well bitch what am I?

  Even though she had some jealousy towards me and underlying issues, I had been nothing but a good friend to her.

  But the truth was to truth, no matter how well you tried to hide it. And now that I knew the truth, instead of just assuming, I could now embrace and deal with it accordingly.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” I said to her and rubbed her back.

  “No it won’t. She wasn’t supposed to die. Now, I’ll never be able to tell her that I’m sorry for sleeping with Big Ox.”

  Big Ox is what they called Donna’s baby’s father on the street.

  As soon as she’d said the words, I glanced at Bryson, my god son, and took a good look at him, just to make sure that he didn’t resemble him.

  Thankfully he didn’t.

  Hell, you just never know with whores.

  And that was the only way to describe Delilah after what she’d just confessed.

  I would have killed to have seen the outcome of Delilah breaking the news to Donna.

  I could only imagine that Donna would have given her the beat down that she very much deserved.

  Delilah should be ashamed of herself.

  There are just some things that you just don’t do. There are just some lines that you just don’t cross.

  I sat with them for a little while longer before making my exit.

  Delilah would be out of work for the next week or two so I vowed to come by and check on the two of them every few days.

  I could have offered to take the Bryson with me but unlike her, I still had to be at work the next day and of course I had no one to help me look after him.

  Pulling off, I thought about how disrespectful and untrustworthy Delilah truly was.

  I mean really, sleeping with her best friend’s man?

  Hell, if she would do that to her best friend, there’s no telling what she would do to me.

  I mean what was she thinking?

  Even If he approached her, she shouldn’t have ever opened her legs to him.

  I never understood how a woman could lay with a man that was already lying with someone else.

  There’s no way in hell that I would want a penis that I knew first hand that it had been in any relative’s or friend’s mouth or in her secret purse.

  Ugh, I just don’t understand.

  But I was a virgin for a reason, so I guess maybe I wasn’t supposed to.

  But right was right and wrong was wrong.

  At what point do your morals kick in when you’re doing something like that to someone that you say that you love?

  I didn’t have all of the answers, but
I did have the truth.

  The truth was that Delilah couldn’t be trusted.

  The spilling of her beans, confirmed that Delilah was a friend to no one.

  And you know what?

  She was definitely not a friend that I wanted or needed in my space, not even if it was for pretend.

  I loved little Bryson, I really did, but maybe she was going to have to find him a new god mommy.

  The truth to the matter was that I pretty much had zero tolerance for bull crap.

  But then again, that was clear.

  On another subject, I will say this though, life is too short.

  Feelings of fulfillment were definitely at an all-time high considering what had happened to Donna and what could have happened to Delilah.

  So, needless to say, it was past time for me to start enjoying the pleasures of life rather than working myself to death.

  It was definitely an eye opener, and I was sure that Donna’s funeral was going to make it even clearer that the time for me to start living was now.

  It was so easy to be alive but there were tons of people, including me, who weren’t actually living.

  It was time for me to loosen up and just start living.

  I had never gotten around to calling my mother, and since it was a Sunday, I decided to head on over to the hospital.

  She too could be gone in an instant, and I needed to do better with spending time with her and showing her how much I loved her, even though we had some issues.

  Walking into the facility, I always got this eerie feeling and always felt as though my mother really didn’t belong there.

  Sure, she had done some strange things throughout the years such as grabbing a baby from a woman’s arms and running down the street with the baby because she’d said she could see demons in them.

  She’d done that, along with a few other things, all linking to religion, but still yet, in my opinion, she wasn’t exactly crazy.

  Who am I to say that she didn’t really see some of those things?

  Coming up in the church, I’d learned to be more than optimistic, but society wasn’t as accepting of some of the things that my mother had done as a result of her religious beliefs.

  But still to this day, I blamed my father for my mother’s condition or behavior.

  The broken heart that he’d caused her is what had made her the way that she was today.