Chapter 9 Farrah
Stay out the hood, Farrah. You don’t belong there.
I hated how Mekhi’s voice stayed in my head, like he paid rent in there or something.
A whole week later and I could still hear him saying it all low, like a warning.
I woke up hearing it. Heard it again brushing my teeth.
Heard it when I was driving or eating or studying.
Yep, Mekhi’s deep ass voice would slide across my thoughts like he had the right to be there.
He’d talked to me like I was some little girl who didn’t know the world.
Like I hadn’t grown up in and around the hood my whole damn life. Like I didn’t know how to move.
I sighed and kept finger-combing my curls, trying to get them big and fluffy the way I liked.
I knew what I wanted to feel today—light, bright, normal.
I hadn’t felt that in a week. Kera had given me the perfect opportunity.
Her women’s league softball team had a game today.
So, I was about to go watch my best friend crack home runs in a dusty park right in the middle of the hood.
I wasn’t going to worry about school or my internship or Mekhi Venzant.
I was going to be the regular old Farrah, not the woman who still felt the fear instilled by ducking behind a car a week ago to avoid bullets.
Stay out the hood, Farrah. You don’t belong there.
Ugh! My mind kept circling back to his annoying ass.
His tone. His eyes that night. I couldn’t figure out if he was insulting me or complimenting me, and I didn’t know which part bothered me more.
And then there was the part that I didn’t want to admit, the part that didn’t feel complimented or insulted by his words.
Some little bit of me felt protected when he warned me away. Almost like his mean self might care.
He can’t stand you, Farrah, my common sense asserted itself.
Like, right? What the hell was I thinking?
Either way, one rude, bossy nigga wasn’t about to dictate my life.
My people were still in the part of town he considered his—my best friend, my grandparents, my cousin. No way in hell I was staying away.
I slid some gold hoops in, glossed my lips, and spritzed my cocoa body spray, all the little steps that helped make up the big picture of me.
Looking at my reflection dressed in a soft blue tee and white skater skirt, I nodded.
I was cute but comfortable. I grabbed my crossbody bag, shoved my phone into it, and walked out of my room and down the stairs.
“What do you want to eat?”
“It’s up to you. I know whatever you make is going to be good.”
“You’re so sweet.”
My parents’ voices drifted out of the living room, and I rolled my eyes affectionately.
Married twenty-five years and together for thirty, they were still deeply in love.
I wasn’t surprised when I walked in the living room to find my mom cuddled all up under my dad like a teenager instead of the fabulous fifty that she was.
They looked up as I appeared, smiles on both of their faces.
An only child, I had always known that I was the much-loved realization of my parents’ dreams. I adored them right back.
“You look cute, suga! Where you going?” Mama asked.
“Kera has a game today. I’ma go support her.”
“Tell her good luck,” Daddy said.
“I will. I won’t be out too long. I want to spend some time with y’all before you leave tomorrow.”
They were leaving for a month’s vacation in Bali tomorrow.
I was going to miss them, but I was happy for them, too.
They worked way too hard, and I couldn’t believe they were leaving their jobs for four weeks.
Walking over to the couch, I dropped kisses on both of their foreheads before I exited the house.
I climbed into my little BMW and pulled off.
The drive flew by as I listened to a true crime podcast. I was studying to be a forensic psychologist, and I loved this kind of stuff. I pulled onto my grandparents’ driveway and blew my horn before shutting off my car’s engine. Before I could even get out, my MiMi was in the doorway.
“What I done told you about pulling up in my yard and blowing? You better get out and speak like you got some sense!” she fussed as she leaned against her door frame.
I shook my head as I smiled at her. “MiMi, please. Everyone around here knows you raised me right.”
She stepped out onto the porch and hugged me as soon as I made it to her.
“Sorry. I just wanted Mariah to know I’m out here. I know she’s not ready,” I said, speaking on my first cousin who lived with our grandmother.
“Mm-hmm,” she mumbled as she led me into her house.
I breathed in deeply as I walked over the threshold.
MiMi and PawPaw’s house always smelled so good, like vanilla and whatever she was cooking.
Everything felt familiar, the sound of “Matlock” on the TV, the throw pillows with their seasonal covers, the family photos that needed updating—hell, I was snaggle-toothed on a couple—but everybody knew better than to touch them.
I smiled when I saw her sister-in-law, my Aunt Nette, flipping through channels.
“Hey, Teedy,” I greeted her, walking over to get my hug.
She embraced me tightly, and I reveled in it. Aunt Nette had the best hugs, I swear. It just felt like she meant them, every single time.
“Look at you! I believe you get prettier each time I see you,” she complimented.
“She get it from me,” MiMi asserted smugly.
Aunt Nette kissed her teeth. “This girl looks just like the little red, freckle-faced women running around my farm. Those Miller men got strong genes.
MiMi waved dismissively. “Whatever. Where y’all fast asses going anyway, Farrah?”
“To the park to watch Kera play softball.”
“Mm-hmm. Softball, my ass. Y’all going to the park to watch some niggas,” she sassed, pulling on my skirt as she said it.
“MiMi!” I gasped dramatically. I was so fake. I knew my grandmother was a character. If she thought it, she was saying it.
Aunt Nette laughed. “Marian, leave that baby alone.”
“Girl, please. I ain’t that old.” Her attention suddenly shifted. “Mariah, hurry yo ass up! Got this child up here waiting!” MiMi yelled.
“I’m coming, MiMi. Farrah ain’t in that big of a hurry!” Mariah yelled back from the depths of the small house.
MiMi and PawPaw could afford more, but they refused to leave the place they’d first bought. My PawPaw’s brother, Aunt Nette’s husband, tried to get them to move on his big ol’ farm, but my grandparents weren’t going.
I rolled my eyes as I sat down on the cream-colored sectional, knowing I had a wait ahead of me. If there was one thing Mariah Miller was gon’ do, it was be on CPT.
“I don’t even know why you fool with her,” MiMi muttered. “You want something to eat while you waiting? Just some oxtails, cabbage, mac and cheese, cornbread, caramel cake.”
I shook my head. “Just? MiMi, you be feeding the neighborhood. I eat that, I’ma be too lazy to go to the game. Can you make me a plate to take home when we get back after the games, though?”
She nodded as she snatched her remote control from Aunt Nette and settled into her favorite recliner. For a few minutes, I watched Ben Matlock’s old crotchety ass set a trap for some defendant before bouncing up.
“Let me go see what this girl is doing,” I said, before walking down the hallway to Mariah’s room.
She was staring at herself in the mirror, twisting and turning to see how she looked in her strapless, purple maxi dress. She shook her head at her reflection and started to pull the dress off. I took one look at the pile of clothes on her bed and realized she’d been doing this a while.
“Uh-uh!”
She jumped when she heard my voice, then made a face at me.
“Uh-uh what?”
“Don’t put on another thing. Let’s go, Riah!”
“Farrah—”
“C’mon!”
Sighing, she fixed the dress then walked into her closet.
“Riah!”
“Damn, can I get my shoes?” she snapped, walking out with a pair of gold sandals.
I waited, tapping my foot as she slid on the shoes, applied another coat of lip gloss, and smoothed her hair. She turned to look at me.
“Let’s go. What you waiting on?” she teased.
“Bitch,” I mumbled.
We kissed MiMi and Aunt Nette bye; we actually had to kiss MiMi twice—her crazy self claimed that the first wasn’t “real”—and headed to the car.
They followed us onto the porch, still chattering away.
Mariah and I climbed into the car and waved one last time.
I started the car and threw it into reverse. And then everything shifted.
MiMi’s scream and a quick look at my rearview camera had me slamming on the brakes.
A black car had pulled behind me and wasn’t moving.
My heart dropped as I remembered the black car involved in the drive-by from a week ago.
This car wasn’t an Impala, but that feeling of being trapped had me almost ready to hyperventilate, like all that fear I’d buried came clawing back up my throat.
“Who the fuck is this?” Mariah mumbled, reaching for her door.
Reflex had me grabbing her arm. “Wait! I got this!”
I refused to let my cousin walk into the kind of trouble I had. Unfortunately, I couldn’t beat my grandmother who had stormed down the steps, moving like she wasn’t in her seventies, her face in a frown. Ugh! This was one of the times that I hated the fact that they refused to move out of the hood.
“MiMi—” I began as I climbed out.
“What the hell you doing? Get out of my yard!” she demanded.
Aunt Nette had gone back in the house, but she re-emerged quickly, digging in her big bag. “He better, if he know what I know,” she snapped.
Oh, shit. Just what I needed—this pair armed and angry. I knew my PawPaw and my uncle Lee Earnest would come behind them heavy, and Lord, I didn’t need the Millers on go.