7. Gemini Black #2
“I guess. Oh, and for your information, I don’t have a SUV back home in London. I actually have a couple of cars,” she said that shit sassy as hell, rolling her neck, doing all the things that I loved for a woman to do. Seeing her go there with me, she made me smile, as I pulled out of the lot.
“Oh yeah? What couple of cars you got, love?” I wanted to know.
“I push a BMW 7 series, and a Mercedes S-Class, love,” she responded, being sarcastic, calling me the name that I would often say to her in conversation.
Because I was a car man and knew everything about cars that there was to know, I could actually see her pushing both whips. The whips were fitting. I was just fuckin with her when I told her that she probably had an SUV.
“That’s cool. You give that,” I said, and with a smile on her face, she dropped it.
I was able to get us out of the lot, and onto the main road.
It didn’t take me long to hop on I-85. God must have known how tired I was, and that I didn’t have the energy to sit in hour long traffic because once I was on, the highway was opened, with no bumper-to-bumper traffic, and according to the navigation, it might be a clear shot getting there.
“I’ve never been to Fayetteville before. Only Atlanta and that was years ago. I was probably eleven or twelve. It was right before my dad was killed. What is Fayetteville like?” she wanted to know.
“It’s slow out there. Much different from Atlanta.
I feel like it’s for a lot of retired people.
They got some beautiful ass houses out there though.
Wait until you see my grandma’s house. Her shit look like a private estate.
It’s peaceful out that way too. She’s been living here for twenty years, and has never had any issues,” I shared with her, and she nodded at that.
“Because I wasn’t at your house everyday growing up, I didn’t see your grandma often. I think we only met a handful of times. I didn’t ask Gianna about her often. What made her leave Miami and move to Georgia?” she asked.
I knew she would ask me that. Being on this truck with Amina, I could tell that she was one of those people to really pay attention to details.
Hearing me say that my grandma has only been in Georgia for twenty years, was going to have her a little curious, wanting to find out the cause for the move.
“She retired and just wanted to get out of Miami. Georgia wasn’t new to her though.
My grandma went to Spelman for college, so when she retired, it wasn’t like she was moving to a place where she didn’t know anyone.
She’s what the world will call a social butterfly.
She knows everybody and their mama, so she had a gang of homegirls already waiting for her when she came out this way,” I shared.
“What did she retire from doing?” Amina wanted to know.
“She worked in the healthcare field. Healthcare executive is the actual title. I don’t know all the specifics that come with it though.
Just from the talks that I’ve had with her over the years, I know she dealt with the business and operations side of things.
She retired early though. She was only fifty.
She planned that shit though. She used to always tell me that her plan wasn’t to always work forever.
As soon as she graduated college, she jumped right into healthcare.
She worked her way up, made good money, invested, saved, and she was able to walk away early.
Now, she think she a hot girl, when she needs to sit her ass down somewhere,” I joked, and it caused Amina to laugh.
“I heard her tell you over the phone that some of her Sorors were at her house. Just from the little that I already know about her, and listening to her get with you over the phone, I’m going to assume that she’s a Delta?
” Amina asked me, and this time, I laughed at her ability to call that shit out.
“Hell yeah. That’s exactly what her ass is.
It’s two kinds of Greek members in this world.
It’s people like me; unless you went to school with me, know me personally, or it just comes up, you’ll never really know that I’m Omega.
The second type is members like my fuckin grandma.
Man, her ass bled crimson and cream. Fuckin hats, license plate frame, pajamas, nails, all the paraphernalia.
You not going to catch her without that shit on.
I can bet my last dollar that when we pull up to her house, she’s going to have on her crimson and cream.
She literally can’t help it,” I was talking shit, and Amina was cracking up in the passenger seat.
If my grandma was in this truck, hearing me sell her out like this, she would have went in, defending her chapter, and telling me to stop talking shit about her.
“You two are close, I’m assuming. I can tell by the way you interacted on the phone with her that you all share a close bond,” she picked up on. Hearing her say that, caused me to smile. I smiled because of the bond that I had with my grandmother, along with the memories that we shared.
“Yeah, that’s my girl. Our bond goes back from the moment that I was born. You know she raised me for the first four years of my life,” I stated, and when I said that, Amina let out a gasp as if this was new news to her.
I figured she knew this, especially since my sister couldn’t hold water. I just assumed that Gianna would have told her every detail about my life.
“What? No. I didn’t know that,” she stated.
“Yeah. My mom got pregnant with me during the summer when she was in high school. She had me during her senior year though. When it was time for her to start putting in her applications for college, my grandma made her apply to all the schools that she wanted to attend, even if they were outside of Miami. My mom’s dream school was FAMU.
She loved everything about the culture over there.
She applied, got accepted on a full ride too.
From her grades, high test scores, and the scholarships that she applied for, my grandma didn’t have to come out of pocket for anything for my mom.
They made an agreement. My grandma told my mom that she would raise me while she went on to Tallahassee for school.
All my grandma asked was for my mom to get her degree.
She did that, came back home for me, raised me, and went on to get more degrees,” I shared with Amina.
That’s how you knew that shit was getting deep with us because I didn’t go around telling people that there was a point when my grandma was raising me.
“Wow. I never knew that. That’s so inspiring to hear though. A teenaged pregnancy didn’t stop anything for her. She still went on to college, graduated, and she’s doing so well,” Amina stated. I nodded at that, knowing that the things she was saying were true.
My mom got her bachelor’s in education. Once she graduated, and came back to Miami, where she raised me, she quickly began working as an elementary school teacher. It’s more to the story because she came back from college with Gianna’s dad, but I’ll talk about that another time.
She went on to get her master’s in educational leadership.
After Gianna was born, that’s when she went back for a specialist degree in school administration & supervision.
Took shit even further and went for her Doctorate in educational leadership.
My mama was one of the smartest women that I knew.
She was one of the reasons why my love was so strong for black women.
Her smartness, the way she could articulate herself, and the way she knew how to adjust to any room that she walked in, were all things that were admirable to me.
Also, like Amina pointed out, I liked the fact that she didn’t have a baby in high school and let that stop her from handling her business in life.
“So, when your grandma raised you while your mom was away in college, was it just you two? Did you have your granddad too?” she wanted to know.
“Only for the first three years. He died when I was three years old. I don’t remember the years that I had with him.
I was too young. My grandma has hella pictures though, and a bunch of stories, so even though I can’t personally recall the memories that I have with him, when I hear it from her, it feels like I can.
My mom had a special bond with her dad. Kind of like the bond that my sister has with her father, so when he passed while she was away in college, my mom tried to move back home.
My grandma wasn’t having that though. She made her lift her chin up, and handle her business out there in school,” I shared, repeating things to her that were told to me over the years.
“And your dad? You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to. I know that he’s incarcerated, but you don’t have to dig deep into it if you don’t want,” Amina said, and I laughed while shaking my head.
“In all honesty, fuck that nigga. I don’t mind talking about him with you though. Sharing stories about that goofy ass nigga doesn’t make me emotional,” I went on to tell her.
She kept quiet after I said that. Probably just waiting for me to move forward in the story and let her know what the deal was with my father.
“Him and my mom were a thing back when she was in high school. He was older than her though. Like two years older. She met him during the summer of her junior year. Went to some kind of kickback party. He was a street dude. Selling drugs, killing people, the whole nine. The kind of man that she knew she couldn’t bring home to meet her parents.
You know teenagers going to have a mind of their own, and do what they want to do, so that’s exactly what she did,” I started.
The way I was telling the story, you would really think that I was there to live in those moments too. That wasn’t the case, but I’ve heard it plenty of times over the years from my mom, and my grandma.