Full Figured 13

by Mona Love

  “Okay. I have both of those on the second ticket,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  “Six, seven, thirty-three,” Leitha continued.

  I was silent, because suddenly, as I ticked off those numbers on the same ticket I had the previous numbers on, my stomach knotted.

  “Well, bitch? What is the word?” Leitha said, craning her neck over my shoulder.

  I swallowed hard. “Ye . . . yeah. I, um, I have those,” I stammered.

  “Wait? What?” Leitha asked, her voice going up ten octaves.

  “Wh . . . what’s the Meg . . . Mega Ball?” I asked, barely able to speak. I closed my eyes and waited to hear her read the number. Everything in the room was spinning off-balance, and trust me, it wasn’t the Hennessy this time.

  “Bitch, it’s eleven!” Leitha said, almost screaming. “Bitch! Tell me that fucking ticket don’t have eleven as the fucking Mega Ball number!” She started bouncing on her knees and fanning her hands in front of her.

  I swear I felt like my soul had left my body. I don’t know how else to describe the crazy out-of-body experience I had in that moment.

  “Keisha! What does the Mega Ball say?” Leitha yelled at me.

  I couldn’t speak. I stared down at the ticket clutched in my trembling hand.

  “Keisha! Let me see!” Leitha urged frantically.

  I held out my quaking hand. Leitha snatched the ticket.

  “Agghhhhhh!” She belted out the most ear-shattering scream I’d ever heard. Her scream snapped me out of the catatonic shock. I jumped up from the chair so hard I sent it slamming into the wall.

  “Oh, my God!” I screeched, and believe it or not, all 320 pounds of me jumped so high off the floor I knew my neighbors under me thought an earthquake had hit. I continued to jump, too. Leitha and I jumped and hugged and screamed and cried and danced and went ’round and ’round until we were finally exhausted and collapsed on my floor, heaving and out of breath.

  “Bitch,” Leitha breathed out each letter.

  “Biiitttccchhh.” I dragged mine out on a long breath, hardly able to breath anyway. “Agh!” I screamed and kicked my ham-hock legs in the air.

  Leitha turned her head to the side and looked over at me. “Agh!” she screamed too and kicked her legs. We busted out laughing. It was the kind of laughter that said we were set for life and would never have another care in the world. I had hit the motherfucking lottery, all off of using Andre’s name as my numbers! My mother always said it was better to be born lucky than rich!

  Chapter 4

  More Money, More Problems

  My entire body shook as Leitha and I walked into the New York State Lottery office the next day so I could come forward as the winner. We hadn’t slept at all from the time I found out I won until that moment. I didn’t even remember Leitha calling her man to say she was staying at my house. We were both so blown away we didn’t know what to do. First we jumped around, screaming and cheering and falling down with joy. Then, we fell into a stunned silence for a few hours, shock I guess. When the realization that I’d won had set in, I suddenly got so paranoid.

  “Bitch, we can’t tell anyone,” I had whispered, holding the ticket up against my chest. “Shit, somebody might kidnap my ass.” I had looked around all crazy.

  “I’m not telling anyone, but you know in the state of New York you have to come forward publicly, so everyone you know will know, eventually,” Leitha had told me.

  “Can I help you?” the woman behind the window asked pleasantly.

  “Um, I, um . . .” I couldn’t even speak.

  “She won. She’s the winner from a month ago with the unclaimed ticket,” Leitha blurted, filling in for me. “The one worth sixty million dollars.”

  The woman smiled. You know, the wicked kind that said she heard this same story every day and it was bullshit. “Okay, sweetheart. Be sure to sign your ticket first and then you have the right to stand here and watch me verify it,” she said in that perfunctory business way.

  My hands shook so damn hard my signature looked like I signed while riding a roller coaster. I pushed the ticket toward the skeptical woman and watched as she punched in some numbers with a blank face. I heard the computer ding and something blue lit up on her screen. I also saw her eyes stretch wide.

  “Right, she’s the winner, so let’s get this popping,” Leitha said with a hint of shrewd satisfaction in her tone.

  Everything after that moment seemed to be a whirlwind. I felt like fairies had whisked me away to a new lifestyle, one of the rich and famous. There were tons of papers to sign. There were pictures and fingerprints. I met a ton of people from the New York State Lottery Commission. To me, they all looked like godfather mafia types. It was definitely an eye-opening experience.

  “I’d like to stay anonymous if possible,” I told the group.

  “In New York, you have to do press, Ms. Long. That’s just part of the process when you win,” a greasy-headed stuffed suit told me.

  Leitha and I eyed each other. I could tell she was playing the same song in her head that I was playing: “More Money, More Problems.”

  Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and Nordstrom were just a few of the stores Leitha and I hit up before the money even hit my account. We were spending what was left of our “poor man” money like it wasn’t an issue. Which it wasn’t anymore.

  I’m a big girl, so it wasn’t easy finding high-end name brands to fit me in clothes, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t shop for shoes until my head spun. Gucci sneakers, Balenciaga sneakers and shoes, Aquazzura boots, and Sophia Webster pumps were just a few of the brands I purchased during the trip.

  “You ain’t getting no Christian’s?” Leitha had asked as she modeled a hot pair of Christian Louboutin So Kate pumps that looked smashing on her feet.

  “Girl, you think my fat-ass feet can fit into those shits? I refuse to walk around looking like I got some pigs in a blanket for feet. No thanks, boo,” I said. We had a good laugh off of that.

  Leitha and I stayed the entire weekend in a suite on the top floor of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in the city. It was my idea, because as a child I just always associated the Waldorf Astoria with being rich. Now that I was rich, I figured, why not?

  Honestly, Leitha didn’t care where we stayed, so long as she was sticking close to me. She’d been a great friend, and she was the reason I had played the lotto in the first place. She had nothing to worry about. Every time I thought about winning, I thought about Andre, too. Love and happiness were always what came to mind when I thought of him, and I didn’t even know him.

  “Leitha, you up?”

  Of course her ass was knocked out. She groaned. We had partied all night and gotten back to the hotel room at three in the morning. We hadn’t had a good club night in a long while. We rolled like the rich and famous. But today was press day. I would have to go forward and collect the big check while on television. I was nervous as hell, too.

  “It’s almost time to go to the press conference,” I said, nudging Leitha again.

  Leitha finally sat up and rubbed the sleep and hangover from her eyes. “Are you ready for this?” she asked, her voice so gruff with sleep it sounded like a frog had gotten lodged in her throat.

  “I mean, what choice do I have?” I murmured. “I just don’t want all these people coming out of the woodwork asking for shit. I don’t want a bunch of suddenly new friends and family members. You know how that shit goes,” I continued.

  Leitha shook her head in the affirmative. “Let’s just make a promise that we won’t change up on each other. I know it’s your money, and I get that, but let’s just make sure our friendship stays the same no matter what,” she said.

  I looked her in the eyes and raised my right hand. “I promise I won’t switch up on you as long as you don’t switch up on me. Money ain’t got shit on our friendship.”

  “Swear?”

  “Swear,” I said, putting my right hand over my heart.

  Le
itha and I hugged to seal the promise. But neither of us really knew what the future held.

  * * *

  After the press conference announcing that I’d won the $60 million jackpot and taken home over $40 million in the end, my cell phone began ringing nonstop. It got so bad I couldn’t keep up. Call after call. Of course my mother was first. I hadn’t told her anything when I first found out. It wasn’t like she and I had the best relationship over the years. Honestly, I couldn’t stand her deep down inside. She was the reason I overate and grew to this voluptuous 320 pounds. She always blamed me for everything that went wrong in her life, including the fact that she didn’t have a man. I had all intentions of hitting her off with some cash, but more so to buy her a one-way ticket out of my life than to mend our relationship.

  I hadn’t decided where I was going to move to yet, so I returned to my apartment for a few days. I needed to gather my keepsakes and some other sentimental things, but I was leaving all the rest of that cheap-ass IKEA furniture behind. I had so many ideas about how my new life would be.

  Keith was the first dude who tried to make a move after I’d won the money. What can I say about Keith? Hmmm. He was my foray into the older-man arena, and he’d proven to be a damn controlling-ass mess. He’d tried his best to lock me down. He had wanted me to cut off Leitha and all of my friends. He didn’t want me to hang out. He wanted to have me when he wanted me. I had quickly grown tired of that bullshit. So, after I won the money and found my front door flooded with dozens of long-stemmed roses from Keith, I had to laugh. He’d also called my phone a dozen or so times. But it wasn’t until he showed up at my house that I knew he had definitely lost his mind.

  “Keith,” I said when he appeared out of nowhere holding yet another bouquet of roses.

  “Keisha, I’ve missed you,” he said in that proper way older men speak.

  “Well, I—” I started.

  “You don’t have to say that you missed me. I know you did. We had something good,” he went on, trying to step inside. I was quickly reminded of why I had broken up with Keith: that control and him always trying to tell me what I was thinking.

  The day I met Keith, I had literally run into him.

  I had been banging the steering wheel of my boss’s Mercedes-Benz impatiently. Traffic had been at a complete standstill, and I was late with his dry cleaning and lunch. “Shit! He’s going to kill me!” I had exclaimed, realizing I was powerless over the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the FDR. I had been personal assistant to Orin Brouzin, a millionaire tycoon, and he hated when I was late.

  I had laid on the horn. “Drive, people!” But traffic had only inched forward.

  I slammed my fists on the steering wheel. But I had needed the job so quitting wasn’t an option.

  Finally fed up, I had swerved the car out of the lane to try to maneuver through the gridlock. I hit the gas, accelerating the car forward. A horn sounded from somewhere to the right of me, and I hit the gas again, just as my boss’s car collided with another.

  I screamed as my body flew forward against the steering wheel, causing the airbag to deploy. I remember feeling like someone had punched me in the chest. The dusty smoke from the airbag caused me to cough, and it covered my face with white dust. I heard three loud bangs and felt the whole car shake again. I blinked my eyes, trying to get them to focus. I couldn’t seem to locate the source of the noise.

  “What the fuck was you doing? You ran right into me!” a big hulk of man had barked. He had come up on me. His features were etched into a scowl. The man had started pounding on the hood of the car.

  My heart leapt into my throat.

  The driver’s side door of the Mercedes suddenly flew open, sending a gust of humid summer air into my face. Before I could react, I felt myself being forcefully dragged from behind the wheel. I tried to hold on to the steering wheel, but even with all my size, the bump to my head had made me too weak to hold on. I was pulled forcefully from the car. The man had been hell-bent on kicking my ass.

  “Get off of me!” I shrieked, swinging my arms wildly. I had tried to duck back into the car, but the man gripped me too tightly. I kicked my feet and caught him in the gut.

  “You little bitch!” the man had snarled, grabbing a fistful of my hair.

  “Don’t touch me!” I growled, punching the hulk somewhere close to his chin. I couldn’t believe the man was really assaulting me. I had tried to stand on wobbly legs. I smoothed down my rumpled dress with my trembling hands and reached up to my hairline, where I was bleeding. The impact of the accident still had my head spinning.

  “What the fuck were you doing coming over to my lane?” the man growled, jutting an accusing finger in my face. “You should fucking learn how to drive!”

  With sweat beads running a race down my back, I stood my ground. “First of all, you hit me!” I said indignantly, not letting the man’s size intimidate me anymore.

  I watched as the man curled his huge hands into fists. He moved toward me like he was about to pummel me to the ground. I kicked off my sandal and steeled myself, waiting for the man’s powerful punch.

  “Wow, so beautiful and feisty as hell.” Another man had stepped from behind the menacing hulk, pulling the hulk’s arm down before he started to rearrange my face.

  “I got this, Mr. Jones. You get back in the car out of this heat. She’s going pay for the damage to your car,” the hulk stammered, his voice a low murmur. It was a much softer tone than he had used with me seconds before.

  I rolled my eyes at Mr. Jones. Shit, I was ready for him too. It was clear that the hulk was Mr. Jones’s driver. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with either of those bastards.

  “I apologize for my driver. He is just protective. I’m Keith Jones.” The suit extended his hand toward me. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  I stared at his hand. I had to admit Keith was handsome for an older man. He reminded me a bit of a cross between Idris Elba and Lance Gross with a splash of salt and pepper. He was dressed in a three-piece suit that was perfectly tailored to his form. Whether he was gorgeous or not, I still didn’t like what had happened.

  “Look, I really don’t have time for this chitchat. Your driver needs to learn how to drive. It’s people like him who make this kind of traffic worse,” I had spat, folding my arms over my chest defiantly.

  Keith shoved his hand back into his pants pocket and then laughed. He laughed so hard I started to question his sanity.

  “What’s so funny?” I had asked.

  “How amused I am by you. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman so beautiful yet so unrefined. You’re an original, that’s for sure,” Keith said, still chuckling.

  I threw my hands up, thinking he was trying to insult me. Unrefined? You haven’t seen unrefined! “Look, mister, I really have to go,” I had said, annoyed. I’d wasted enough time arguing with these men.

  “It doesn’t look like you can go anywhere,” Keith said, nodding toward the front-end damage on the Mercedes. I pushed past Keith and surveyed the damage. The front of the car was a mass of twisted and gnarled metal.

  “I’m dead!” I muttered, letting out an exasperated breath. The car was going to need to be towed. My shoulders slumped with defeat. All I could see and hear now was my boss’s reaction. I shuddered. “I’m fired for sure. Now what will I do?” I gasped, cupping my face in my hands.

  Keith had touched my shoulder, sending a cool chill down my back. I had shrugged away from him, feeling uneasy. I didn’t trust anyone, especially men.

  “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of everything. But first, I need to know your name,” Keith had said. That was the start of it all. He had taken control of the situation and had never really let the control go.

  I blinked away the memory of how Keith had come into my life. I wasn’t going back to him that time. I had forgotten how fast and easy it had been for me to lose myself with him.

  “Actually, Keith, I didn’t miss you. I have moved on, and I know you’re only here
because you saw me on the news as the jackpot winner. No thanks. I can buy my own flowers,” I said and slammed the door in his face.

  I turned around and danced a little bit. It felt so liberating to do that. I wasn’t always strong enough to stand up for myself like that. I felt proud.

  * * *

  A week later the trail of dudes and deliveries of “I’m sorry” flowers hadn’t stopped. It was kind of amusing how many boyfriends I suddenly had pounding down my door to be with me. These were the same dudes who had friend-zoned me or called me their sister. Or worse, had just downright dissed me because I was a big girl. I wasn’t hearing it. That was, until I got caught off guard.

  I was dancing around the apartment, gathering things to box up, when someone knocked on my apartment door. I grumbled as I made my way to the door, thinking it was Leitha. She wasn’t really letting me out of her sight since I’d won. I snatched back the door, ready to curse at her ass because she had a damn key, and when I looked up and saw who was standing there I almost fainted.

  “Mmm . . . Malek?” I stammered with a mixture of shock, delight, and “nigga, what the fuck” all rolled into one.

  When I pulled back the door and found him standing there flashing that megawatt smile, I truly almost gagged on my own tongue and suffocated my own damn self.

  “Keisha,” he sang, licking his lips in that LL Cool J way I remembered.

  “Malek?” I huffed, exasperated already, and he hadn’t even said more than just my name. He was the last person from my past dating life I’d expected to show up. I was sure my mouth hanging open sent that very message, too. I blinked rapidly, not believing that he was at my door. Suddenly, everything about him came rushing back to my mind. I closed my eyes and remembered. Damn, I had been soooo in love with Malek.

  The night I met Malek was one of those friend hookups. A friend of ours named Danielle had decided she was tired of seeing me lonely, and her boyfriend had a friend, blah, blah. You know the rest. Malek initially didn’t seem interested in me, but as the drinks flowed and my bubbly, “life of the party” personality shined through, he had warmed up to me.