It's a Curl Thing

by Jacquelin Thomas

  “They sure are,” Alyssa replies. “Fashion is Divine’s middle name.”

  “Actually, it’s Fashionista…don’t hate…”

  “I’m so glad you’re here. Finally,” Mimi states. “Rhyann has been so uncooperative.”

  “She’s still mad because I didn’t want to date Mr. I’m so rich all the girls want to date me.”

  Alyssa chuckles while Divine inquires, “Who is that?”

  “Gage Tenez. For some reason he really irritates Rhyann. He does talk about himself a lot, but I still like him.” Mimi flips her hair over her shoulders. “I like Traven, too, and I do think that he’s better for her. Not Gage.”

  “Well, you would like Gage, Mimi,” Divine says. “The two of you have something in common. You both like to talk about yourself all of the time.”

  Mimi places her hands on her hips. “Oh, I know you not talking.”

  Alyssa and I crack up. Those two are too funny.

  Chapter 20

  Jerome and Ava’s daughter just made her appearance into the world two hours ago. Divine and Alyssa are on their way to the hospital to see the baby. Although Divine is trying to act all nonchalant on the phone about everything, I can tell she’s excited about having a baby sister. Divine’s really been worried, but she tries hard not to show it. Maybe she thinks that she’s being disloyal to her mother or something.

  “How is your mom handling the news?” I ask.

  “She’s all right, I guess. You know she’s all into planning her wedding right now.”

  “Is Miss Eula going with you and Alyssa to the hospital?” I ask. Miss Eula is their cook, but she’s more like family. Divine told me that Miss Eula helped raise Jerome after his grandmother died. When Jerome and Miss Kara divorced, she got Miss Eula.

  “No, she’s going to visit Ava later this afternoon. She wants to buy a gift before she goes to the hospital. Stella’s taking us there, and I think Mom’s going to drop Miss Eula off on her way to a meeting.”

  “Are you planning on buying a gift?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it,” Divine replies. “I guess I should, huh?”

  “Probably,” I say. “I know your dad would appreciate it—especially since he can’t be with them.”

  “I’ll pick up something from the hospital gift shop for now.” Divine pauses for a moment before continuing. “We’re going to Mimi’s house afterward. Like around two. Are you coming by there? Mimi said she was going to call you.”

  “Yeah, but I already told Mimi that I won’t get there until later,” I state. “I have to go somewhere with Miss Marilee this morning.”

  “Oh, okay,” Divine says. “Are you going to see a client?”

  “Yeah. Mrs. G is sick. Remember, I told you about her.”

  “It must be serious if y’all are going to her house.”

  “She’s real sick,” I acknowledge. “Dee, she has a brain tumor and they can’t operate.”

  “That sucks big-time.”

  “Tell me about it,” I reply. “I’m scared she might die.”

  “Pray for her,” Divine advises. “My uncle’s always talking about how God can do anything. The thing is this—Rhyann, you have to believe. You know…have faith. Believe God for her healing.”

  “I am,” I respond, feeling a twinge of hope. “You’re so right. God can do all things, so healing Mrs. G ain’t nothing.”

  I pray after Divine and I get off the phone. “Father God, I’m not trying to tell You how to run Your business, but Mrs. G—she needs You now. She needs healing, and only You can heal her. Please do this for me. If You do this for me, I won’t ask for anything else.”

  Auntie Mo drops me off at Mimi’s house before she heads over to the Cohens’ estate for their summer barbeque. They have her working in the kitchen, but she doesn’t mind, because they’re paying her overtime. It’s about time, as far as I’m concerned.

  “How was your visit with Ava and your new little sister?” I inquire shortly after my arrival. “Is she cute?”

  “She’s adorable,” Alyssa responds before Divine can open her mouth.

  I glance over at my friend, waiting to hear what she has to say about the baby.

  “She looks like Ava,” Divine responds, holding up her camera phone. “I took some pictures. Her name is Sierra Michele.”

  “That’s a pretty name.” Mimi looks at the photos eagerly. “I like it. She doesn’t really look like anybody to me.”

  “Ava says that Sierra has Divine’s eyes,” Alyssa blurts.

  Shaking her head no, Divine utters, “She has Jerome’s eyes.”

  “So do you.”

  “Whatever…,” she mutters. “Anyway, Sierra looks much better in person than in these pictures. She just hasn’t found her photogenic side yet.”

  I laugh. “With a diva big sister, I’m sure she’ll find her best side in no time at all.”

  Alyssa chuckles.

  A few beats of silence pass before Mimi asks, “So how was it? What did you and Ava talk about?”

  “Girl, you so nosy,” I say.

  “You want to know as much as I do,” she counters, her eyes full of amusement.

  “We talked mostly about the baby,” Divine informs us. “Ava wishes Jerome could’ve been there. I can understand that. I can tell that she misses him a whole lot. She told me that she was so scared of losing the baby. She said that the cards I sent her when she was on bed rest kept her encouraged.”

  “Have you changed your mind about her?”

  I pinch Mimi on the arm. “Stop being so doggone nosy.”

  “Rhyann, stay out of this,” she demands. Rubbing her arm, she adds, “You are so not the boss of me.”

  “Mimi, that’s so mature.” I toss a pillow at her, which hits her square in the face.

  Outraged, she snatches something from under her pillow and shoots me in the chest with it.

  I glance down at my wet shirt. I can’t believe what I see. “Really, Mimi—a water gun? You keep a loaded water gun under your pillow? What exactly do you think this is gonna do if someone breaks into your room?”

  “Distract them until I pull out the knife in my drawer. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll just have to pull out my big gun.”

  I think she’s bluffing. “I can’t wait to see this. It’s probably a butter knife from your mom’s best silverware collection.”

  Alyssa and Divine fall back on the bed, laughing.

  That’s before Mimi opens her drawer and pulls out a huge hunting knife.

  “Whoa! Put that thing away,” I say, alarmed.

  “Where did you get that?” Alyssa asks.

  “My father gave it to me.”

  “So is the big gun a real gun?” Divine wants to know.

  “No, guns are dangerous. It’s a huge water gun. More like a water rifle, only I have water mixed with jalapeño juice, hot sauce, and black pepper in it.”

  “Okay, now I’ve heard it all,” I say, trying not to laugh. “Here is the girl who doesn’t mind spending thousands of her parents’ money on unimportant stuff, and she’s too cheap to buy some real pepper spray.”

  “It’s illegal to have more than two ounces, I think, so I decided to make my own.”

  We look at each other and burst into another round of laughter.

  “Hey, I don’t want to be the one breaking the law,” Mimi says.

  “But Mimi, you don’t think you’ll get in trouble for making your own?” Alyssa asks.

  “Well, the way I see it—if nobody comes into my room uninvited, I’ll never have to worry about anyone finding my homemade pepper spray.”

  “You don’t have any homemade bombs anywhere, do you?” I tease.

  “No. I’m just sticking to the pepper spray.”

  She is so serious that we all break out laughing. Finally, Divine turns to me.

  “I’m so glad your drought with boys is over.”

  “My drought?” I put my hands on my hips. “Oh no, you didn’t go there. Just be
cause it’s been a while since I had a real boyfriend don’t mean that I was in a drought.”

  “So what do you call it?” Divine asks.

  Alyssa’s cell phone rings.

  She glances down at the caller ID and grins. “I’ll be back in a minute. This is Stephen.” Alyssa leaves the room for some privacy.

  “I call it focusing on my studies,” I tell Divine.

  “Okay, that’s the answer you give your parents, Rhyann,” she says with a laugh. “What’s the B.F.F. response? That’s what we’re waiting for.”

  I laugh too. “Okay, I admit that I might have been in a temporary slump. But I wouldn’t say it was a drought. That implies an extended shortage of something—the key word being extended, like a long time. Slump simply means that there was a decrease or a decline.”

  “I guess Latin is really working out for you,” Divine responds with a chuckle.

  Mimi stretches and yawns. “Call it whatever you want, but it’s been so long that I thought you’d retired from the dating game.”

  “I haven’t retired—just wanted to wait until the right guy came along. That’s all.”

  Divine winks. “As it turns out, he was always there.”

  “Girl, he was trying to knock my door down. I’m so glad I got a new doorbell.”

  Mimi frowns, not following. “What’s your doorbell got to do with all this?”

  “It’s her way of saying she had a change of attitude, Mimi.”

  “Oh.” She pulls out a small compact mirror and begins playing with her hair. “Can we please talk about me and Kyle now? I have loads to tell you.”

  Alyssa strolls into the room, asking, “Hey, did I miss anything good?”

  “Mimi’s about to brag about her wonderful relationship with Kyle and how much they adore each other,” I say.

  Divine adds, “And how she just knows he is the one for her.”

  “You two can be so mean,” Mimi fusses. “You’re just jealous of what I have with Kyle.”

  Divine and I look at each other. “Naaah…,” we say in unison.

  “Well, anyway, Kyle and I do have a wonderful relationship. I am finding out that he can be a little moody. Some days he’s really happy and upbeat, and then other times he’s just so depressed. His father has been taking him to see a therapist…”

  I fall back on the bed, groaning.

  Mimi drones on and on. “But the thing is that we really do adore each other. I’m telling you, and you can laugh if you want. Kyle is the one for me….”

  “Why are you looking so sad?” Traven inquires as we head into Golf N’ Stuff. “You used to like hanging out with me.”

  I take him by the hand. “Traven, I do like spending time with you. That is, until you open your mouth and ruin everything. All this trash talking you’ve been doing…You’re still gonna lose.”

  He laughs. “Girl, you crazy.”

  I smile, but in fact I am feeling down, and Traven sees it.

  He wraps an arm around me. “Okay, what’s bothering you, Rhyann? You know that you can tell me anything.”

  We sit at an empty table. “There’s this lady that comes to the hair salon—well, she’s real sick. She has a brain tumor.”

  “Is she going to make it?” he asks, concerned.

  I shrug. “I don’t think so, Traven. Mrs. G is getting worse instead of better.” I stop, thinking back on what I used to think about her. “I didn’t like her when I first met her. I used to call her the red baron.”

  He laughs. “Why’d you call her that?”

  “She has this bright red hair, she wore red lipstick, red nail polish, and she loves red shoes. Mrs. G says that red is her signature color. I used to think that all Jews were the same, but she is really a nice woman. Traven, she was the one who told me about the blacks in the concentration camps during the Holocaust.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t, either, but I did some research and while there were not a lot, there was definitely some of us there.”

  “You really do care for her.”

  I nod. “I don’t want to lose another person, Traven. I’m tired of people dying around me—people that I care about.”

  “I know what you mean,” he replies. “My granddad and me. We were real close…when he died, I was so mad at him. He wasn’t supposed to leave me. My mom told me that it wasn’t his fault, though. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So then I got mad at God.”

  “I think I was mad at God for a while, too. When my aunt died in Iraq…Traven, I thought I was gonna lose my mind. She and I were close.”

  “Remember at my granddad’s funeral when I walked out?”

  When I nod, Traven continues. “They were getting ready to do the prayer, and I wasn’t ready to talk to God. I was too mad.”

  “I kind of did the same thing at my aunt’s funeral,” I confess.

  “Are you still mad at God?” Traven asks.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know how I’ll feel if something happens to Mrs. G, though. It’s too much.” I meet his gaze. “What about you? Are you still angry?”

  He pushes out his lips. “My granddad was in a lot of pain before he died, and I wouldn’t have wanted him to live with all that. Hey, let’s change the subject,” he suggests, then kisses me on my forehead. “We’re supposed to be having fun.”

  “You know what will make me happy right now?”

  “What?”

  I point over to the bumper cars. “Getting into one of those cars and racing you.”

  Traven laughs. “Rhyann, I’m telling you. It’s not gonna happen.”

  “Watch me,” I say.

  He inclines his head. “That sounds like a challenge.”

  I break into a run, heading to the purple car while Traven jumps into a red one.

  When it’s time, I press the pedal in my bumper car and rush toward Traven’s car, laughing the whole time.

  “My car won’t move,” he yells.

  “You actually have to step on the pedal.”

  “I know that,” he shouts back. “The car won’t move.”

  I back up away from him.

  In a surprise move, he plows into me.

  “You’re such a liar,” I say.

  “Stop whining.”

  “If it’s a fight you want,” I cry, “then it’s a fight you’re gonna get.”

  When I get home four hours later, Auntie Mo meets me at the door, wanting to know every single detail of my date with Traven.

  Talk about nosy.

  “Did you have fun?” she asks.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I respond. “We went to Golf N’ Stuff. We played miniature golf and rode in the bumper cars. You know how much I like them. We had so much fun.”

  She notices how happy I am, and she coughs uneasily. “Have you considered what will happen when Traven leaves for college?”

  “I’m trying not to think about it right now, Auntie Mo. I just want to enjoy the time we have together.”

  “I like Traven a lot, and I think he’s good for you. I just don’t want to see you become so serious about him.”

  “We’re taking it slow, Auntie Mo. You don’t have to worry.”

  She hugs me. “I don’t want to see you hurt. It breaks my heart to see my children in pain. But you’re using your head, so I feel much better. Now go on to your room. I know you’re dying to call Mimi and Divine.”

  Auntie Mo knows me too well.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” I say.

  “Don’t stay on that phone all night, Rhyann. You have to get up early tomorrow.”

  “For what?” I ask.

  “Your dentist appointment,” she answers. “I told you about it last week.”

  “I forgot,” I reply. “But I’ll be up in time.”

  I get Mimi and Divine on three-way as soon as I settle down in the middle of my bed. Alyssa picks up an extension phone so that we can all talk as if we were in the same room.

  “How was
your date with Traven?” Divine inquires. “You have fun?”

  “We had a lot of fun,” I say.

  “Well, spill,” Mimi demands. “Don’t keep us hanging. Hey, is he a good kisser?”

  I laugh. “You’re so nosy.”

  “We all want to know,” Divine interjects. “So you might as well answer the question.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “He’s a real good kisser. I’m gonna miss him so much when he leaves in August. I hate even thinking about it. I was doing pretty well until my aunt mentioned it earlier.”

  “He’ll be home before you know it,” Divine tells me.

  “Yeah,” I murmur. “Anyway, I’m not gonna focus on that right now. So tell me, what did you all end up doing? I know you missed me.”

  Mrs. G’s condition has worsened, and she’s unable to get out of bed or even sit up for long periods of time. I just found out that she’s been put under hospice care, which makes me feel really sad. I don’t want to upset her, so I try to hide my emotions whenever we go to the house.

  Miss Marilee pulls me off to the side. “Rhyann, we can’t walk into that room with tears in our eyes. Wipe your face.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hon, I know how hard this is on you. Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to come.”

  “No, Miss Marilee,” I quickly protest. “I don’t know how much time she has left, and I want to spend some of it with her.”

  “Okay, but put a smile on that beautiful face of yours.”

  Miss Marilee has to wipe away her own tears before we enter the bedroom.

  “My two fav…favorite girls…,” Mrs. Goldberg mumbles when she sees us. “Come to make me gorgeous.” She tries to sit up.

  I rush to her bedside. “Take it easy, Mrs. G. You can just lay right there. We got you. You know we got skills.”

  “M-mad skills…”

  Mrs. Goldberg can still make me laugh, but I can’t shake the feeling that this might be the last time I see her.

  “Rhyann, I want you to do something for me,” she says right before we get ready to leave.

  “Sure,” I respond. “What do you need, Mrs. G?”

  “It’s not for me, dear. It’s for you. I want you to live each day to the fullest. Live as if every day is your last. Don’t grow up with a single ounce of regret.” She places her hand over her heart. “I’m not sad to have to leave this world, because I have no regrets. I enjoyed my life—I really did. Now, will you do that for me?”