Chapter 3
Trill-Land, ’LoLux Estate
While Toni was outside in the pool with ’Lo’Lo, I was in my room, stretched across the bed with my phone propped against a pillow, watchin’ my mama oil Grandma Glo’s scalp through FaceTime.
I had been in Trill Land long enough for the luxury to start feelin’ normal in small ways, but then moments like this would hit me and remind me that normal was really just whatever a person got used to.
Back in Greystone City, normal was hearin’ somebody fussin’ outside before the sun even came up.
Normal was Grandma Glo yellin’ from the kitchen for somebody to go to the store, somebody else askin’ who touched the last piece of chicken, and somebody’s baby runnin’ through the house with no socks on while the TV blasted loud enough for the whole block to hear.
Normal was love and bullshit sittin’ in the same room, and half the time you couldn’t tell which one was louder.
Here, in Trill-Land, shit moved real different.
The house Toni lived in with Kay’Lo was so damn big and pretty it still made me pause sometimes, even though I’d been out here for a long time now.
The floors shined like nobody ever walked on them, the windows showed off views that looked fake, and the pool outside looked like the type of shit people saved on Pinterest when they was manifestin’ a better life.
There was staff, security, cars waitin’, food bein’ made, and enough space for everybody to breathe without steppin’ on each other’s nerves.
It was soft in a way I wasn’t used to, and sometimes I looked at Toni movin’ through all of it with her baby on her hip and her husband somewhere close by watchin’ her like she was the center of his whole damn world, and I couldn’t do nothin’ but feel proud.
My bitch deserved this, and she deserved all of it too.
My cousin had been through the type of hell and hurt that would’ve made a lot of people turn cold for life, and somehow, she still had love in her.
She was loud, crazy, funny, dramatic, and ghetto as hell when she wanted to be, but underneath all that was a woman who had survived too much and still found a way to be somebody’s peace.
Seein’ her go from that broken lil’ girl Grandma Glo used to hold close, to a wife, to a mother, to a woman who could stand in a house like this and actually belong here, did somethin’ to me every time I really sat with it.
And My’Love’s lil’ ass had all of us wrapped around her fingers without even tryin’. She was eight months old and already runnin’ and bullyin’ us around. A bitch wasn’t ain’t lyin’ when I said she was Kay’Lo all up and through! She had his whole damn face and attitude.
Toni called her everything but her birth name when she was bein’ sweet on her, and I had my own lil’ names for her, callin’ her my Lil’ Baby, Phat Mama and anything that felt soft comin’ out my mouth.
I loved my baby bad. I loved watchin’ Toni love her even more ’cause there was somethin’ healin’ about seein’ my cousin give her daughter the kind of softness we used to pray for without even knowin’ what we was actually askin’ God for.
Still, bein’ here came with its own mess.
Our family back home was still split up over Toni and Kay’Lo, and it wasn’t no lil’ misunderstandin’ that niggas could laugh off at a cookout.
Kay’Lo had killed our cousin Deuce a few years back after Deuce tried to break into his Airbnb, and even though anybody with sense knew Deuce had put himself in a dangerous situation, blood ain’t always let people think with sense.
Some folks acted like Toni chose a man over family, and some acted like Deuce was some innocent angel who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Then, Uncle Darnell went missin’, and that made everything worse.
Nobody had proof Kay’Lo had somethin’ to do with that, but Greystone ain’t need proof to start whisperin’.
They just needed a story that sounded possible enough to repeat.
Darnell was Deuce’s daddy, and with everything that happened, of course people started puttin’ Kay’Lo’s name in it.
They said it at family houses, in group chats, outside corner stores, and probably in the church parkin’ lot too ’cause my family knew how to turn grief into gossip real quick.
I understood the hurt, but my loyalty to Toni ran deeper than everybody’s opinion.
That was my cousin for real…
We grew up together, shared too many hard days together, laughed through too much pain together, and survived some of the nastiest family secrets that made you look at muthafuckas different once you got old enough to understand what was really goin’ on.
Toni’s daddy and my mama was siblins, which meant Grandma Glo belonged to both of us, and that connection wasn’t somethin’ I could just put down ’cause the family was mad.
Toni ain’t always been right, and Kay’Lo damn sure wasn’t no saint, but I knew one thing for muthafuckin’ certain…
Kay’Lo loved my cousin out loud, in private, in public, and in every way that mattered.
He loved her like she had never been touched by pain, and that was somethin’ I respected even when I ain’t always understand all the ways their world moved.
Maybe that was why I still had hope for love...
I had been single for a long time, and not ’cause I couldn’t get nobody. ’Cause, bitch, please.
I knew exactly what I did when I walked into a room.
I knew how niggas looked when they tried not to look too hard, and I knew how they got stupid when I smiled at them like I might give them a chance.
Niggas loved to act big and bad until a woman with confidence, curves, a slick ass mouth, and a lil’ mystery stood in front of them.
Then, all of a sudden, they forgot how to hold they drink right, forgot what they was sayin’, and started clearin’ they throat like they was about to preach a sermon or some shit.
I enjoyed that shit too, and I wasn’t even about to lie.
I liked watchin’ a nigga squirm when he thought he had me figured out and realized real quick that he didn’t.
I liked knowin’ I could make somebody nervous without liftin’ my voice or doin’ too much.
I liked flirtin’ when I felt like it, disappearin’ when I got bored, and lettin’ a nigga wonder if he had a chance, even when I already knew he didn’t.
Especially Renza’s simple ass…
That nigga got on my nerves in a way that almost felt personal.
Me and Renza could sit up and talk shit all day like we had been doin’ it our whole lives.
He had that dry, serious kind of funny where he would say the most outta pocket shit with a straight face.
I had to give it to him, though, he could keep up with me.
Most niggas couldn’t. They either got offended too fast or tried too hard to be funny, but Renza ain’t have to try.
He just was who he was, and somehow, that made him funnier.
The chemistry was there, and I wasn’t dumb enough to pretend I ain’t feel it. But chemistry ain’t mean a bitch had to lose her damn mind.
Renza had a girlfriend, and that was that. Reni wasn’t my favorite person by a long shot, mostly ’cause every time the bitch came around, she had her damn nose turned up like somebody had invited her to a place beneath her standards.
I spoke ’cause I was grown, and I wasn’t no nasty actin’ fool, but I wasn’t about to be in that girl’s face laughin’ and kiki’ing like we was friends.
My loyalty was with Toni and Pluto, and since Reni already had lil’ funky ass feelins about Pluto askin’ Renza if he wanted a plate that one day, I already knew what kind of energy she was on.
That whole situation was stupid to me…
Pluto could barely ask a nigga if he wanted food without Reni actin’ like somebody had bent over in front of him.
But even with all that, I respected the fact that she was Renza’s gal.
I wasn’t out here tryna be nobody’s homewrecker, and I damn sure wasn’t about to let a bitch put that on me ’cause I knew how to laugh with a nigga.
If a nigga was weak enough to fall apart ’cause I joked with him, that sounded like a problem between him and his woman, not me.
My mama’s voice pulled me back into the FaceTime.
“Mama, sit still,” she fussed, partin’ Grandma Glo’s hair with the pointed end of a rat tail comb. “You keep movin’, and I’mma put this oil in yo’ ear.”
Grandma Glo sucked her teeth. “Girl, I been gettin’ my scalp greased before you was even thought about. Don’t tell me how to sit.”
I grinned, rollin’ over on my side so I could see them better. “Grandma, you know Mama be actin’ like she work at somebody salon when she get that oil in her hand.”
My mama looked at the screen and pointed the comb at me. “’Nelle, don’t start with me today.”
“Who startin’? I’m just sayin’ you partin’ her hair like you finna do a silk press.”
Grandma Glo laughed, that deep raspy laugh that always made me feel like I was back home for a second. She was sittin’ in her favorite chair by the window with a towel around her shoulders and her house dress on, lookin’ just like herself.
The livin’ room behind her looked cleaner than usual ’cause my mama had clearly been over there handlin’ business. The pillows was fixed, the coffee table was wiped down, and the plastic bag full of scratch off tickets was sittin’ right beside Grandma Glo.
That woman loved a scratch off and playin’ her numbers. She could be half asleep and still remember what number hit last week, who played it wrong, and which store had “good tickets.”
Grandma Glo swore certain gas stations had luck in the walls, and certain clerks had bad hands. If a clerk handed her a losin’ ticket twice, she would start callin’ them unlucky and go to another store for three months like the person blocked her blessin’.
“Richie,” Grandma Glo called my cousin, lookin’ away from the phone. “Come here. I need you to run to Peaches and play my numbers before the afternoon cut off.”