Chapter 4
“What’s up wit ole girl?” my best friend Beyon asked.
He was my ace and had been since we were in the sandbox. His daddy and my mama were brother and sister. He was also Beyuna’s older brother.
I slapped my ace on the table to cut that king. My face scrunched when I glared at him. “What you mean, what’s up wit ole girl?”
“What you mean, what I mean? You was over there for a lil minute. I know y’all ass wasn’t talking about Jolly Ranchers and Starburst,” he joked.
Everyone at the table chuckled. “Shit, she Amish so we ain’t know what they been talkin’ about. Her quiet, weird ass mighta been talkin’ ’bout that shit,” my homeboy Scat said.
My forehead creased and my brows knitted. “Aye, Scat, watch ya mout’ about dat one there. Keep ya mout’ off her.”
The game paused and all eyes fell on me. The eyes of my partners that were just around within earshot stopped what they were doing to gawk at me. These niggas. I knew it was about to be some shit. I couldn’t remember the last time I defended a female.
Scat lifted his hands. “Oh shit! My bad, my dude. I ain’t know e been like dat.” No smile appeared on his face. They knew when I meant business.
My life outside of the hospital was different, but in some ways the same.
Out here, I had to demand my respect too.
Niggas thought because I was a doctor that I was soft.
It was crazy they thought that when I had never been soft.
When I was in high school, college, and medical school, I was on the block getting it in.
The difference between me and these niggas out here was that I had the guidance of my uncle Beaunir.
He taught me how to move differently and to stay dangerous to survive outchea.
Beyon’s head vigorously nodded. “Yep, my dog about to make her his gal. I ain’t seen you defend a girl since yo ass was wit Hope’s ass. Hell and that was only like the first lil bit of y’all relationship.” He looked behind me. “Damn, speak of the baby mama and she will pop the hell up.”
We resumed our card game. Hope and I were cool as fuck. We weren’t on that drama shit and co-parented like champs. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that we didn’t break up on bullshit. I didn’t cheat and she didn’t cheat. We just knew that we weren’t the end all for each other.
“What’s up, y’all? Who winning?” she asked.
I met her when I was at University of South Carolina at a party.
She wasn’t a student, but she stayed on campus to do hair.
She came here from Maryland to go to Columbia College.
A year into school she realized that the school thing wasn’t for her.
Now she had her own shop that was extremely successful.
Yeah, I took care of her, but she could take care of herself with no issues.
I looked up at her. “Now you already know we cuttin’ they ass.” Beyon and I were the players to beat.
“I’m already knowing.” She patted me on my shoulder. “I see you got a new lil friend. She’s cute, baby daddy.”
I chuckled. “Man, hush. I’m chillin’ playing cards.”
“Don’t act like that. She’s actually a good look for you. Way better than the other bitches that you like to frolic with,” she said with a giggle. “Plus, Ayriss loves her.”
She was over here advocating for a relationship that I wasn’t even in. That was her though. She was never on that jealous bullshit. “Hope, carry your jokey ass over there.”
She laughed, pushed my head, then walked back over to her homegirls. All of them looked in our direction. Yeah, she was over there running her mouth. I never cared for them, but they were her people.
We played a couple more hands before we switched the game to bones (dominoes). Shortly after we started the game, Beyuna walked over with Lovina on her heels. “Y’all, guess what? Lovina knows how to play dominoes.”
Everyone’s head snapped to Lovina. She’d just become more attractive. With a smile, I asked, “You know how to play bones, I mean dominos, Love?”
“Yes, I do. It was a game that I played often with my family until I was banned.” When she was asked why she was banned, she rolled her eyes but caught herself.
It was like she had to show no real emotion or something.
“Um, I got a little overzealous during a game. I won and slammed the last domino on the table.”
Beyon shifted in his seat with a smile. “Oh, hell yeah you can play with us. If you slappin’ down dominoes, then that means you can play. Scat, get ya non-playin’ ass up.”
Scat got up with no argument because he knew that no lie was told. That man couldn’t play dominoes to save his life but always wanted to be on the damn table. Beyuna pulled a seat up and sat next to Lovina.
I watched as she smoothed out her dress while Beyon dealt the bones.
As soon as those shits hit the table in front of her, I saw her focus zone in.
When she picked up all her bones with her hands and not one at a time, I knew that she was about to be with the shits.
Ah, shit. This is about to be a good fuckin’ game.
An hour later, Lovina had beat all our asses with no effort. I knew she was happy with her wins from her small smile. When she noticed that we noticed it, she wiped it right off her face. I guess that was a part of that humility thing that the Amish community had going on.
After I learned that she was Amish, I took the time to do some research.
I wanted to find out how to make her comfortable and not offend her.
When I called Beyuna to ask about Lovina and why she was here, Beyuna told me that Lovina wanted more for her life than she had.
I admired her for wanting more and taking the steps to get it.
That said a lot to me about lil one’s perseverance.
A Very Short Time Later . . .
“Have a good rest of your day, Dr. Carson,” Nurse Fields said to my back.
I didn’t break my stride as I chucked her the deuces.
I didn’t fuck with her, and she knew that shit.
She was the loose coochie of the hospital, and I didn’t get down with that.
She tried me on my first year here after I was hired after my residency.
One thing that I always promised myself and stuck to was that I would never fuck on any doctor, nurse, or staff member at the hospital I worked at.
One mention of sexual harassment to her slut ass and she was off my dick.
At first, I planned to get my cousin to fuck her ass up, but then I opted to handle it like a professional.
I was on my way to my mama’s house. It was Sunday and the bakery was closed.
She called me earlier to tell me that Ayriss was over because she wanted to go to church with her and Lovina.
I thought it was cool that Lovina wanted to attend church with my mama.
I could only imagine how different a black church was compared to her previous church.
I would pay half my year’s salary to see her reaction the first time she saw someone shout or run around the church in the spirit.
It had been a couple of weeks since my baby girl’s birthday party.
As busy as I had been, I still found time to make it to my mama’s house.
Most of the time I didn’t get to see Lovina because she spent most of her time in her apartment.
If I did see her, she was in the kitchen with my mama cooking, or my mama had her watching ratchet television.
My mama was trying to taint that poor girl.
“Where are my ladies at?” I yelled as soon as I crossed the threshold of my mother’s front door. I smelled food, so I went straight to the kitchen. It smelled good as hell.
My feet stopped when I turned the corner. What the fuck? I turned around, walked out, and stood in the hallway for a moment. Let me try this again. “Where are my ladies at?”
I walked back into the kitchen. My mama wore this smug ass expression. Lovina was dressed in her normal black attire. She switched between black and gray I noticed. The biggest difference today was that she didn’t have on her bonnet.
“She looks beautiful, don’t she? I got her to take that bonnet off. I wanted ta box her off when I saw all dat beautiful hair she had under there. I had Mercy come ova early dis morning and press it. Hair down her back and she got dat bonnet on.” My mama gushed over Lovina.
The entire time my mama talked, I couldn’t take my eyes off Lovina. Yeah, she was beautiful with her bonnet on, but with it off she was fuckin’ gorgeous. Her face still lacked makeup, and she didn’t ever have to wear any. There was a glow to her. “Damn, Lovina! You look amazing.”
She used her fingers to push her hair behind her ears. “Thank you, Erygon.”
“Daddy, you’re here!” A little voice called out behind me. She jumped into my arms and wrapped her arms around my neck. “You coming to the craft store with us? Lovina bought some stuff to make a quilt. She’s gonna teach me.”
My mama cleared her throat. “You might as well come wit’ us. She got a whole sewing machine and all kinda stuff. You can help us get it in and out da car. After you can come eat dinna wit’ us. You in ya truck?”
It wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t in my truck. If I told her that I wasn’t, she would have told me to drive hers. I was still in my scrubs from work with my go bag on my shoulder. I planned to take a shower when I got here, but Beauvia had a different plan. “Yeah, Mama, I’m in my truck.”
I blinked and we were all in my truck on our way to the craft store. “Lovina, you ordered the stuff from this place yourself?” I asked her.
When we came out to my truck, my mama insisted that she sit in the front. There was resistance at first, but there was no use. Lovina shifted in her seat. “No, Ms. Beauvia helped me. She said that I could turn the second bedroom in the apartment into a craft room. I’m so excited about it.”
She was giddy, like actually giddy. “Damn, you must be excited. That’s the most emotion that I’ve seen from you since I’ve known you. It suits you.”
Her cheeks were high. I liked to make her blush. For the rest of the ride, Ayriss asked her questions about quilting. I could tell that Lovina loved quilting. It was the spark in her eyes when she talked to my baby girl with her body leaned and turned in the seat to make eye contact with Ayriss.
“How’d you like church?” I interrupted their conversation. I had to hear this. I saw Ayriss’s little smart ass roll her eyes because I cut into their conversation.
Lovina shifted in her seat to face me. She glanced back at my mama who giggled. “Go ahead. You can be honest.”
She giggled before she responded. “It’s been interesting. My church back home is nothing like the one that your mother goes to. It’s a lot different and more, um, I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s just a lot more, but not in a bad way.”
“Daddy, Lovina said that dey don’t play drums, piano, and stuff in their church. It just be them humming.” When my mother reprimanded her for how she addressed Lovina, she tightened up. “I mean, Miss Lovina.”
My mother didn’t play about children not addressing adults correctly. From time to time, my mother was known to say, I’m not ya lil friend. Talk to me right.
I peeked at Lovina. “Oh, then I can understand your different and more statement. It can take some getting used to, especially the shouting and speaking in tongues.”
She smiled before she adjusted her body in my direction.
“Yes, that was a little crazy, I’ll admit.
I thought everyone was going crazy. When I got back to my apartment, I pulled my bible out because I needed to understand.
Ms. Beauvia and I studied verses in 1st Corinthians, Acts, and Mark.
It was like all my years of reading the bible, those verses were skipped over or something. ”
“Do the Amish believe like in the Holy Spirit and stuff?” I asked her. This was an interesting conversation.
When I was younger, my mother had my ass in church every Sunday until I was like sixteen.
After a certain time, she told me that it was my decision if I wanted to open my heart to God and she wouldn’t force it on me.
She felt that forcing God on a person was the easiest way to have them turn from God.
Lovina paused for a second. “Well, yes, but not in the way that other denominations do. The Holy Spirit lives in us. It guides our humility, forgiveness, and those kinds of things. Our modesty tells us not to have an outward show though. Does that make sense?”
I told her that it did as we pulled into the parking lot of the craft store.
I opened the door for each of the ladies.
Lovina went to the pickup counter in the store.
The man behind the counter told her to hold on for a moment before he walked to the back.
When he came out with a cart of shit, I looked at Lovina and my mama sideways.
“I guess it is a good thing that I came.”
I pushed the cart outside and loaded the truck, then we headed back to the house.
Lovina tried to help me, but I told her to sit her ass down somewhere.
I asked my mama what she was going to do with the furniture in the room.
I was a little shocked when she told me that she was going to give it away.
To me that sounded like she planned for Lovina to stay for a long time.
“Ayo!” Beyon’s voice came through the front door of Lovina’s apartment before he did. “I’m ready to move furniture around this ho.”
Oh, my mama had this shit all planned out.
I’d just take a shower, eat, and sleep here after we moved everything in the garage.
A battered women’s shelter would pick it up tomorrow.
It took an hour to move the furniture. Beyon didn’t come back up to the apartment because he had something to do and Ayriss was asleep on the couch.
I would let her sleep because I knew she would wake up hungry.
“Let me go downstair ta warm dis food up so we can eat. I’ll call y’all when e ready,” my mother said. She walked toward the door.
Lovina jumped up from her seat. “No! Please don’t leave us alone.”