She literally stopped talking, and walking once her eyes landed on me. She knew that I was coming home today, but she just didn’t know the time. I kept lying to her yesterday, telling her that they hadn’t given me a time yet. I don’t know if I was tapping in with my emotions, and wanted to find myself surprising my mama, or if I was being mean, lying to her, telling her that I didn’t know the time because I didn’t want her to pick me up. Either way, I got the reaction from her that I wanted because her hands went over her mouth, she screamed, and ran over to me, wrapping her arms around me. Remember, I haven’t seen my family in a year because I didn’t want them coming down to the jail seeing me like that.
Seeing my mama break down in tears like this was all the motivation that I needed to try to stay the fuck out of trouble this time because I couldn’t keep hurting her like this.
“Bean, what the fuck girl!” she croaked, pulling away from me, using her hands to wipe her eyes.
My mama was so beautiful, man. Drop dead gorgeous. Just a bad ass bitch all around.
Her skin was damn near bronze. Just a natural glow about her, and I’m sure her relationship had a lot to do with her happiness. I can’t lie; I was glad to see her glowing like this because if anyone knew about the depression my mom endured after losing my dad, and my brother, it was me. If it wasn’t hair that she specialized in, she could do something for skin and havewomen around the world following her routine because just like Ari, her skin was damn near glass.
Full lips just like me, with natural long eyelashes. Since healthy hair was her thing, of course she was going to have healthy hair of her own. My mom’s hair was just as long as mine. She liked to wear her hair straight, while I really liked to just let mine be curly. Since she was working, her honey brown hair was pulled up into a claw clip. My mom was small just as I was, but she was a little bigger than me. If I had to guess, she was probably a good 120. She was taller than me too. She was about 5’4”. She was dressed down in a polo shirt with her business name branded on the left patch, with denim jeans.
“I got out this morning,” I let her know.
“Why you lied to me, and told me that you didn’t know when you were getting out? Why the fuck are you so tiny like this? They wasn’t feeding you?” she asked, staring at me, looking at me like she was ready for me to tell her no, so that she could go down to the jail, and beat everybody’s ass for not feeding me.
When it came to her kids, Keyshawn has always been on go. I didn’t just get my wild side from my daddy. That shit was passed down to me by her as well.
“Then she got the nerve to say that she’s going vegan. I told her that Ima take her to see grandma. Grandma going to put weight on her,” Ari jumped in, letting my mom know.
“Vegan? Riot, please. You took her to get something to eat? Have you eaten anything yet?” she asked, pressing the issue.
“No. I’m not hungry right now. Ma, please,” she was already about to start, and I haven’t been here that long yet.
“Alright. Go sit in my chair. Let me take these braids out and do something with your hair. You walking around here looking like Roman,” she said, referring to my brother.
I walked away, going over to her station. I quickly took a seat, and from where I sat, I could turn my head, and look at mymom, Ari, and Amir. My mom loved Amir like he was her son, so she picked him up, and she was planting kisses all over his handsome face. As bad as his little ass was, you could look in his eyes and tell that he was enjoying everything about it.
She eventually put him down, and he went over to take a seat towards the front of the salon, while my mom and Ari walked over.
“Ima pick some food up and come right back. I’m probably going to go to Waffle House. You sure you don’t want anything?” Ari asked me.
“I’m sure. Go ahead” I let her know.
It was obvious that it wasn’t the answer that she wanted, but she accepted it, and told us that she would be right back.
While she walked away, I used this time to remove the sweatshirt that I was wearing, and from there, you could really see how tiny I was. I was left in just a white undershirt, with my sweatpants. Because I was facing the mirror, I could vividly see myself. I didn’t have to sit here and try to look angry. I just naturally had a face that had its own mug. Beautiful as hell though.
It was no surprise that I was beautiful. My daddy was a handsome man, and the woman that was standing behind me was beautiful too. I’ve been told since I was a little girl, that I had a face that was out of this world, and people used to try and convince my mom to put me in pageants and shit, but I was never the girly type, and I made it clear to my mom at an early age, that I didn’t want to be a part of pageants, modeling, or any of those other things that she wanted me a part of.
The same golden skin that my mom had, she’d passed that down to me as well. My grandma would often compare our skin to a butterscotch glow.
Looking at myself in the mirror, as I was slouched down in the chair a little bit, I paid close attention to my sculptedcheekbones, and the sharp jawline that I had. My jawline didn’t make me look masculine, but it was very defined, and something that I would always get complimented on when people compliment my face card. I had the same perfect cupid’s bow as my mom, Ari, and a lot of the women on my mom’s side. The perfect way to describe my eye color was honey- amber eyes. I used that description because my mom told me that that’s the description that my daddy used to use about my eyes. They were a mixture between light brown and hazel. It just determined how hard the sun was shining down on me. There was a small beauty mark right up under my left eye, and if you paid close attention to my face, you would see the permanent scar that was right above my right eyebrow. I had to get a few stitches there in my childhood because I was outside, playing football with my brother and his friends, and I fell right on the concrete, damn near busting that part of my head opened.
My hair was thick and heavy. Something that was passed down to me from my mother because we had the same hair type. My father’s genes had given me the sandy brown hair color that I had. My face card was lethal, and I didn’t have to do a damn thing to enhance it. Most days, I just put on chap stick, and I went on about my day.
“Who put these braids in your hair?” my mom asked, standing behind me, looking at me through the mirror, as she already started to take one of the braids a loose.
“My cellmate,” I let her know.
“Ima take them out and give you a good treatment. I know you don’t like wearing your hair straight but just wear it straight for about one week. I want to do a blow out on you, so that I can properly cut your ends. You need your ends cut badly,” she responded, and I nodded my head, not going to even fight her on it.
Before she could say anything else to me, her phone started ringing. I watched her through the mirror, seeing as she pulled her phone from her back pocket, looked at the screen, so that she could see who was calling her, and then she answered it.
“What’s up Rah?” my mom answered. That was my auntie Rasheeda. She was Ari’s mom. She was the oldest sister out of the four of them.
“Nothing. What time Bean get out? I want to see her,” the phone was on speaker because I could hear my aunt clearly.
The fact that she didn’t know that I was home already proved to me that Ari hadn’t told her mom. If she had told her, then she would have told my mom, since the two of them were so close, and it would have ruined the surprise.
