Chardonnay: A Novel (6 page)

...I was four-years-old again, dancing to Whitney Houston’s
You
Give good Love to Me
in my mother’s red Gucci high heel shoes, black
pearls, and cream colored mink coat. I had on some scarlet lipstick that I somehow
remember being on my lips perfectly. I had used it as a blush as well, just
like I had seen my mother do, before the days of matte or mouse blush creams.
Only mine wasn’t patted on neatly, it was in circles on my pudgy baby face and
mascara was all over my eyebrows. I could see my reflection in my parent’s
mirror that sat above their dresser as I jumped up and down in their huge
circle bed. My golden curls in my hair bounced happily as I giggled and fell
into the pile of pillows. Suddenly my mother stormed into the bed room crying.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to be in her clothes or make-up but I didn’t know it
would have made mommy that upset. So I sat still, buried in the pillows and
waited for my mother to command me out of her and my father’s bedroom, but that
reaction never came. She ran towards the closet digging for something and then
came back out with a dusty box...I could see her pull a letter out. She didn’t
even notice the scarfs and tubes of lipstick I had strolled all over the floor.
I listened on to my mother speak to herself reading back the letter as I sat
quietly.

“January ninth. You were never for sale and I must understand that
you are a part of me. That’s what they told me, even after saying I must let go
because you ultimately came from him,”
My mother began to weep harder
after she read those words. I sat in silence as I tried to understand what it
all meant to her and from whom. She continued with,
“our love was one of captivation...and in those times I was
told that my love was what was of thirst, not other foreign seas that were swam
in for years. You were never abandoned.”
My mother wiped her eyes, placing her hands to her stomach...I was so confused
then about what I had witnessed, just as I am today. She never knew I was in
the room and that was the only time I’d ever seen my mother cry. She was so
beautiful in that vulnerable state to me even as a child.

 
The microwave sounded just
as a hand touched my shoulder. I jumped from both disturbances and looked over
to my left to see my little sister Jersey. She was rubbing the sleep out her
eyes, and her sleek black hair was draped over her shoulders. At
sixteen-years-old, she had the absolute effect on boys as I did with her milky
smooth chocolate skin, dimple face, and glowing jet black deep set eyes. We
were totally opposites. She was the kind of girl that
knew
she had it
going on and no one could faze her in telling her otherwise. I smiled at her as
she threw her hip out and said, “When you get home?”

I touched her hair and flicked it while removing myself from the
stool.

“Well, I’ve been in the city for a good minute, chica. You’re
looking grown and cute.” I said, pulling my warm milk out the microwave.

“Ha! Chica you crazy! I’m grown and sexy!”

I laughed since I awaited her familiar response. Jersey’s
confidence perhaps had been thanks to many guys in our rich as soy milk
neighborhood, including Mystro. But it was the naturalistic character of her
presence that had many men fooled or in other words schooled before she even
walked through the door of womanhood.
 
I
wasn’t sure my little sis had ever had sex, but I knew she wasn’t above having
little boyfriends here and there. Once I left the neighborhood Jersey was the
next hot girl on the block to get. And every guy was lined up for a chance
before my parents could assign her a particular guy as they had done to me. But
Jersey never had that put in her psyche. She was dating who ever she wanted to
date and my mother would surely approve as long as they had money.

I chuckled at her and sipped my milk. She sat on the stool and
opened the box of Danishes.

“So what’s new?” I asked.

“Hump!
You.
I heard on the
block what happened with the Mr. Sexy Myron.”

I shook my head as she bit down on the Danish; the child had grown
up without my permission.

“Shut up,” I walked over to the island and sat in the stool next
to her and grabbed Danish myself.

“It’s grown folks business. And how you know anyway?”

“Everyone talking about it.
You betta be glad momma and
daddy ain’t here.”

I shook my head and sighed,

“Where are they?”

“Went looking for you...what’s going on sis? Myron is a hot topic
and got money out the ass?”

I looked at Jersey and knew she could never understand where I was
coming from since at sixteen-years-old anything was fair game. She would roll
with the breeze if our parents let her.

“It’s about more than how fine he is or how fat his pockets are,
and I can tell you now I’ve been digging in his pockets enough to have paid off
two
mortgages and a car note, along with the little allowance our
parents gives us a week. But...Jersey, when a dude don’t treat you like he’s
supposed to, are you gonna keep letting him buy your love?”

“Yelp! Right until I find another one!”

“Yeah, another one just like him, be careful what you wish for.”

She rolled her eyes and opened the Tupperware lid that held the
delectable scent of our father’s basil chicken. She took a cold leg and gave me
a wing, my favorite part of the chicken.

“You think Mystro stuck up?” she asked.

“No, why?”
I said laughing, she always thought something
was wrong with the guy if he didn’t want anything to do with her instead of her
thinking something was wrong with her. But I liked that about her.

“I was at the Legends mall in Kansas last weekend and I saw him
strolling with this girl,” Jersey smirked and went on to say,

“She wasn’t Katura. So, me and my crew went ovah to speak and he
just nudged his chin my way and told me some bullshit story about him having to
be somewhere, when I could blatantly see him wasting his precious little time
walking around with this girl they call Vee.”

I sipped some more of my milk and said, “Oh really.”

“Uhn huh.
So if the girl he was wit could pull him from
Katura, I know I could—
Nay
she was busted!”

“But—her ass wasn’t was it?”

“Nope.
She could have been the pin up girl for Apple
Bottoms if her frontal wasn’t such a disgrace.”

We laughed and for the first time I felt as if we were in close
enough age to tell her everything that was going on at that point of my life.
But I didn’t after what she told me next.

“So I tested him...please don’t be mad at me Chardonnay,”

I looked at her. I knew Jersey had a crush on Mystro, hell they
were the same age, but I just knew she wouldn’t fall for his hype like every
girl in a thousand mile radius who had ever heard of him had.

“Two days ago, I gave him my virginity.”

I could have gone through the roof. I held my head down and placed
my hand on my forehead, rubbing it gently.

 
Not only was I disappointed
she had done that—not only was I disappointed in Mystro for taking something so
precious from her, but I was now put in a predicament of my little sister
screwing around with one of my best friends man. I stood from the table slowly
and walked a few steps shaking my head then finally turning around to her to
say,

“What?
Jersey do you know what you gave to him?
Pussy points—a virgin is like...a gold mine that he can be able to just tell
his friends about.
A bragging right—not a cherished memory.”

A faint look of shame crept along her baby face.

“But, he knows what went down and I do to.”

“Let me guess...he told you that you looked beautiful and played a
role you hadn’t ever seen before, huh? Or did he promise you that you would
always be special to him...I bet he didn’t tell you he loved you.”

I knew how Myron and his boys rolled, although they cheated, they
never lead the females along. Jersey looked out the window as headlights pulled
into the garage and said, “No...
he
told me he was
in
love with me.”

Somehow that suddenly made it all worse.

Zasmyth got out her car and came around the side door like I told
her to do. She knocked and I yelled that it was open while staring at Jersey.
Zasmyth stepped in and threw my huge LU duffel bag on top of the island counter
top.

“You left this girl! You must have been really tripping
about...did I miss something?” she said after finally looking at the droop
looks on Jersey and I’s faces.

“Yeah...we have a problem on our hands.” I said walking over to
Jersey.

“Girl what you do now!
Can’t ya keep ya ass home?”
Zasmyth said as she stole
a Danish
out the box.

“It’s not about how she can’t stay
home,
it’s a little more real this time.”

“What the hell ever! He really loves me. It’s not like you are a
saint Nay!” Jersey said in defense.

“He who?” asked a confused Zasmyth.

I shook my head as Jersey blurted out,

“Mystro!”

“Come again, I—I thought he was only supposed to love Katura...you
know—the girl he can’t live without.” said Zasmtyh concluding my fear of Mystro’s
huge game of getting Jersey legs wide open and all to himself.

“Jersey, I can’t believe this. And did it occur to you that he
only dates older women?”

She tisked and got out her Blackberry.

“Watch this,” she text him and told him what she had done and told
him to call her now. It took about ten minutes for him to respond back after we
had moved everything to the living room, but he did as told. I answered the
phone and he didn’t sound one bit intimidated.

“What’s the deal, Stro?”

“Maannn.
I could ask you that? Why you stand Myron up
like that?”

“Grown folks business, okay. Now to you—”

“Nah, I’m a cut this short now. Your sister came to
me
. She’s
the one who sucked my dick and talked me into doing the shit-no man in their
right mind would turn that down.” I
wince
my eyes at
the thought of Jersey doing that.

“So you really don’t love her.”

Silence.

And that scared me. I almost wanted him not to love her and just
leave since it would teach her a lesson and rid me of having to deal with
Katura as well.

“Stro?”
I asked.

“Yeah, I love her.”

“Let me get this straight...you have been seeing each other all of
two days and you love her.” I just knew he wasn’t going to get out of that!

“Chardonnay...ho-hold on,” He put me on hold talking in the back
ground I could hear faint conversation,
“Yeah this her...naw man you call
her, we talking—wait shit!”

He came back in clear and said,

“Myron wants to—”

“NO.”

“Well, like I was saying—you’ve forgotten Jersey and I’ve
been knowing
each other SINCE we were born.”

Damn...he got me. I smirked as I looked at a love struck Jersey
sitting with her legs pressed against her chest and her chin on her knees. I
decided I would let her deal with this all her own since she had to go through
different relationships in order to be able to find the guy of her dreams. But
at the mention of Mystro’s name I didn’t see that carefree girl that I always
knew my sister to be...I saw me. You knew love no matter how it reflected back
to you and I knew she was seriously into Stro, like I was still seriously into
his brother no matter what he had done to me.

 
I still had my reservations
if Mystro was being raised up anything like Myron was. After a minute or two of
Mystro saying his later comment Myron’s voice came onto the phone. I hung up.
Zasmyth left after three in the morning. I approached my bedroom door and
gently pressed my hand to it. I smirked at the familiar squeak it did since
forever. My parents were still out looking for me and I made up my mind that I
would face them head on whenever they came home. I clicked on the light switch
and stared at a room with so many stories flowing in the perfumed air, the
comfy scent of gardenia and plumeria fresh roses that my mother still managed
to put in my room, which triggered passionate and heartfelt memories.

That scent
also provoked timid memories as well. My room was the same. The color pink,
Hello Kitty, and Michael Ealy everywhere. I sat on my canopy bed and glanced
over at my clock. It read 3:45 am. I decided I was too tired to unpack yet and
jumped in my plush bed. When I looked to my left, I saw Myron’s bedroom light
come on. The curtains weren’t drawn back so I couldn’t see anything, just his
silhouette.
 
I noticed there was another
one in the room. A woman’s outlining. Not his mother’s figure or his sister’s.
The female was curvy and short. Myron clicked his light out and I panicked.
Why? I didn’t know. I eventually fell off to sleep watching the two’s bodies
bump together. And I was content with it for the simple fact of the matter of
the way they were fucking. It had been a sore researched matter on my part but
I had to know and dissect what Myron found in sleeping around on me.