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“I brought you something.”
“What?”
“A present.”
Music to my ears. The last present Nick bought me was a silver STS V8 Cadillac with a Bose 5.1 studio surround sound system. I kept it in a garage on 45th Street.
“Where is it?”
“In my coat pocket.”
“That’s nice,” I replied coolly. “It can wait until after dessert.”
He groaned and placed a hand on my thigh. “Asha, please. Stop it.” There were beads of sweat on his forehead
“Oh, all right. We can skip the bread and cheese.”
Nick paused for a moment, gave me a wicked grin and left the room. When he came back, there was a long slender box in his hand.
He placed it in front of my plate but didn’t sit back down.
As I ripped off the heavy pink wrapping, he started to strip. By the time I lifted my new diamond necklace from the silk-lined box, Nick’s shirt had dropped to the floor and his belt was unbuckled. I couldn’t take my own game anymore.
The heat in the room suddenly reached a thousand degrees and I was on my knees unzipping his pants before he had time to make another move.
Chapter 8
SAUNDRA
Most shampoos contain sodium lauryl sulfate, a chemical that has cancer causing properties. That is why I use honeysuckle rose shampoo. It doesn’t create any kind of lather or suds but at least it doesn’t endanger my health.
With my hair still wet I sat on the floor in my room for Evelyn to towel it dry and oil my locks.
“We need to order invitations and put together a guest list,” Evelyn said. She made this announcement right out of the blue as though we had been having a discussion about my wedding. We’d known each other long enough for me to understand that she had been busy in a spirited interior monologue while I was in the shower.
Yero and Evelyn both came from huge families while I only had Asha and a few friends. “Would you like to invite your kinfolk?” I asked.
“Just my mother if you don’t mind, sweetheart.”
“Of course I don’t.”
I knew that what Evelyn really wanted was an invitation to help me with every detail of my upcoming nuptials, but it was something I
really wanted to do with Asha and I didn’t know how to say so without hurting her feelings. So I just quietly looked at the dozens of blown-up pictures that covered my walls. Mama was in every single one of them.
“Sweetheart, are you sure you don’t want to get in touch with them?”
Them. Mama’s family. The clan who had turned their collective backs on Mama long ago because she refused to give up on Asha’s drug addicted father. The clan who had come to her funeral, offered me and Asha a home, and then dismissed us when I decided to move in with my own father and Asha decided to keep our old apartment to remain independent.
“No. Something might go wrong. It is supposed to be the happiest day of my life and I won’t let anyone take that away from me.”
Evelyn stood up for a moment to adjust the chair she was sitting in. “How about an engagement party? We could have them all over for a two-hour affair so they can meet Yero. Any issues that come up would be dealt with there, and then everyone would be calm on your wedding day.”
“Evelyn, it’s not like Asha and I were accustomed to being around them when Mama was alive. It would be more of a getting-to-know-each-other gathering than an actual reunion.”
“So, what’s wrong with that?” Evelyn asked calmly.
Evelyn started parting my locks in small sections, oiling the scalp as she went. “I just don’t have the energy.”
