“I can’t. First of all, I’m starving. I need to eat. Second, did you forget that I don’t have a car?”
“Church is on her way. I’ll have her grab you some food before she gets there.”
“Okay.” I agreed reluctantly.
Perkins had just setme under the dryer when our mom and Mrs. Strong entered the salon pushing two racks of women’s clothing.
“Oh, Bright is showing off,” Perkins commented with her hands on her hips.
“Let him cook,” Church insisted, walking up to the racks.
“What is all this?” I asked.
“My son asked us to pull together some options for you,” Mrs. Strong told me. “My sons don’t typically involve me in their dating lives, but Brightreallydoesn’t involve me in anything. This is special.” She clapped happily.
“Bright and I aren’t dating.”
Everybody in the salon ignored me while the nail tech rolled everything she needed to start on my manicure over to the dryer.
Over an hour later, as Perkins styled my hair, Collins waddled over holding a white eyelet crop top and matching form-fitting wrap-around midi skirt. “With that pink hair and tanned skin you’re gonna look so pretty.”
While Church gave my face a light beat of makeup, my mother, Mrs. Strong, and Collins helicoptered around me. “Stop!” I fussed, making a shooing motion with my hands at thethree of them. “Not only are y’all making me nervous, but you’re making me feel like a virgin on prom night.”
“Uh . . .” I could see Perkins’s twisted lips in the mirror. “As if you were still a virgin by prom night.”
My sisters and even Alisha laughed.
“Not you trying to go there, Perkins. Not when I was an auntie by the age of eight.”
“I was one by the age of eight months.” Church chimed in.
“Stop lyin’!” Perkins said through her laughter. “Forget both of y’all.”
“Right, because I’ve always been the only innocent Kingsley sister,” Collins told us.
“I beg your pardon.”
Collins glanced at Church. “I don’t know, Church.”
We all laughed again.
“All of you girls were innocent,” Alisha lied to us. “Y’all were my sweet innocent girls.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Collins tried to hug her around that oversized belly.
“When are you having that baby already?” I questioned.
“Right,” Perkins agreed, “because you’ve been pregnant for at least two years at this point.”
Collins pretended to cry. “I know. Every day I keep hoping she’ll come, but she keeps faking me out.”
“My granddaughter will come when she’s ready,” Mrs. Strong said. “She knows her Noni is waiting to spoil her rotten. She’ll be my first little girl. Four sons and two grandsons. Now I’m finally getting a little girl to fawn over.”
Church eyed our mother. “That’s the opposite of you huh, Ma? You had four daughters. Perkins turned around and gave you three granddaughters, now you’re getting yet another granddaughter. We can’t get any testosterone in this family to save our lives.”
“I’m all right with all my girls. I wouldn’t trade any of them and I’m looking forward to this one, too.”
Mrs. Strong checked her watch. “It’s forty-five minutes to pick up. We should probably let you get home.”
