My response was a chuckle. Shio didn’tfuckwith me. It was safe to say Shio hated me now.
“Real talk, he do. He got us watchin’ you and shit… round the clock. If he didn’t give a damn ’bout you, he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to make this shit happen.”
“Yeah, well… I’m no good for Shio. He has a family now. That’s where his focus should be.”
Bahati, the beautiful. Her skin was as dark as mine, though our nationalities differed. As soon as she emerged from the closet, I detected an African accent. Even after being kidnapped, with us not knowing what the Rodríguezes had put her through, she was still so pretty. Not a blemish was on her face, and her high cheeks and chin were rounded. The braids fit her face well, and they were done to perfection. Her lips were plump, and her eyes curved upward at the corners in a seductive manner. Even I could see her body was to die for under both the torn clothing and the silk pajamas. She’d carried a child and done it well. A child for Shio. She was the mother of his baby, a baby I hadn’t known existed. A baby Shio hadn’t known existed.
But the Rodríguezes had known, and it made me wonder how long they’d known about me living under Shio’s roof.
Bahati and Uriah were proof that Shio had a type. Both women carried a certain confidence, confidence that I’d never possessed and probably never would. I’d only been in the same room as Uriah once, but the power she possessed insimply existing was compelling. Bahati had a different kind of confidence—one that screamed I’m beautiful, and I know it.
Her attacking me was strange in the sense that I hadn’t been in situations where I’d had to fight a woman. However, I knew how to fight. My brothers and I had countless physical fights. She had a right to be upset, but I preferred questions over reactions. She’d found drugs in her baby’s hand and automatically accused me. While I was upset, I did understand her plight. I, being caught on drugs by Shio, didn’t help my pleading of being innocent. But even being childless, I knew that if it had been my child, I would have attempted to fight me too.
“So, you a quitter?” The voice on the other side of the door—Italian—asserted.
“I’m a—” I thought of the best word to use in English. “I’m a realer.”
“The word you lookin’ for is realist, Mexi-Mami.” He corrected me, but not in a mocking manner.
“Si. We don’t belong.”
Silence again.
“Besides cocaine, what do you wanna do with your life? What are you? Twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six,” I corrected.
“That’s still young as fuck, Mexi-Mami.”
“Yeah. But it does not feel that way… I… I have been told that I would be a wife since I was a child. There had not been time for me to think otherwise,” I confessed.
“So, just thinking… and I’m talkin’ thinking hard as hell about it, what you wanna do? It’s okay if you need time to think or if you change your mind later but tell me what comes to your mind first.”
Running my tongue across my teeth again, I felt a tingle in my veins. I needed a hit. I couldn’t have a hit, though, so I thought about what it was Italian was asking me. I didn’tunderstand why he was asking me this, but he was placed here to “watch” me, so the least I could do was engage in conversation.
“If you could get out today, no cravin’ drugs. What is it you wanna do?”
I could still feel Shio’s daughter’s head on my chest. The silkiness of her hair felt like it was still in my fingers. The calm I felt from just holding her and having her in my presence centered me. Grounded me. Satisfied me. I was the same way with my baby brothers; I loved caring for them and teaching them and protecting them—giving them what I never had.
“I partied a lot, but it was only because I was chasing the numbness. The high, Italian—it stops all the worry and doubt. I meet new people, and even if I’m never going to see them again, I almost live my life through theirs. The newlyweds that are on honeymoon and are overly friendly because they are high on life. The group of women who are on a girls’ trip and are sloppy drunk, leaving the stress of their day-to-day lives in their home countries. It’s all fun for the moment. It helps me forget my future… My present.
“But, if I had my choice, I’d still be a wife. Not only a wife, but a mother. Some days, I say I don’t want it, but deep down, I do. I just would like it if I had my choice in who I chose to be the father to my children. But since I do not, I can own a business, maybe. I can go back to school to maybe care for children or become a teacher.
“I really do not know. Everything seems hard for me.”
I could hear Italian shift before his voice clearly spoke. “As a woman, and shit… a man, too… But we ain’t talkin’ ’bout niggas right now. But muthafuckas be sayin’ you supposed to have goals for yourself. Goals that will help you live the life you deserve and desire. But I believe women have options, so I believe you have options too.
“It’s like this… If you wanna be a professional with a fancy degree and booming career, you know you gonna have to put your all into schooling. You gotta study. You gotta show up to class every day. If you want to be a high-earning entrepreneur typa of bitch—my bad, typa girl—you gonna have to have a vision and hustle your ass off.
“You gotta push yo’ shit like crack in the eighties… Awl damn! My bad, no pun or no slick shit. But yeah, Mexi-Mami. If you want to be kept, be a rich nigga’s Barbie, then you gonna have to invest in your appearance and your mindset. I ain’t saying you gotta have a slim, Coke bottle figure or a BBL or no shit like that. It’s niggas out here that love BBWs and odd builts, just the same. But you gonna have to keep yourself up to even attract that type of nigga that’s gonna keep you. Looking good, smelling good, dressing well, even if the clothes and shit are from the clearance aisle… You gonna have to be that man’s version of a walking dream.
“Now, what do all those women have in common, regardless of their goals being different? I’ll answer it for you—discipline. They have fuckin’ discipline. I ain’t here to judge you or no shit like that, but you lack discipline, Mexi-Mami.”
I swallowed the thick saliva that had built up in my mouth during his speech.
“Ain’t shit wrong goin’ either route. The men in my family have always provided for the women—that’s just how it is. That’s how I was raised, and that’s the typa nigga I’ma be when the time comes. If you wanna be a wife, you gonna have to walk like a wife and talk like a wife. You gonna have to act like a wife, even before you’re officially a wife. Especially if you’re tryna be a wife to a nigga that ain’t gone require you to do nothing but be his.”
I’d said it already, but now, after listening to Italian’s words, I could not see myself having a job or owning a business. I had never been led to believe that I could be that type of woman. Tome, being a wife was the easy way out—I just did not like having to be the wife of the man my father had chosen for me.
