9. Nourah Marcell
Ihad my speaker turned all the way up, dancing, singing and twerking while making breakfast. It was smelling good in here, and my greedy ass couldn’t wait to tear this food up!
I was in a great mood today, and I didn’t even know why, but I wasn’t complaining one bit.
My eggs were in a little pot on the back eye, so I gave them a stir, humming to the current song, and that’s when I saw my phone light up on the counter.
I didn’t wanna miss his call. He would be gone for two weeks, so I slid the slider over to the green answer button. Right before I did, I reached over and stabbed my fork into the eggs, trying to be greedy, but when I stuffed them into my mouth, I immediately regretted it.
I burnt the hell out of my tongue.
“Helwoh?” I said, mouth full and burning up.
I started fanning my hand in front of my face, sucking air in fast and pushing it back out. I couldn’t do anything but hop from foot to foot and blow.
“Oh my God,” I finally said, laughing at myself about the whole thing and glad it was over. “Good morning, baby. Sorry about that…I stuffed hot food into my mouth and—”
I heard a lot of shuffling and looked at my phone, confused.
Then a woman laughed.
What the fuck?
“Okay, okay. Do it again. I’ll be Nourah.” She said.
I frowned but before I could fully process what she’d said, Carl’s voice came through faintly.
Then the woman spoke again. “I love you too.”
I froze. There was no way in hell I was hearing what I thought I was hearing from Carl’s phone.
It had to be a prank. Or maybe he’d let somebody borrow his phone.
My hand flew to the speaker that was playing music, and I turned that shit all the way down so fast I damn near broke it with how hard I was pressing the buttons.
I stayed quiet, listening.
My heart started doing something funny. I felt that shit in my ears, ass, and belly button.
I placed both hands flat on the counter to brace myself.
“Hello?!”
Then Carl’s voice came through clearer. “So… you’ll marry me?”
The woman laughed again. “Oh my God, yes! Yes, Carl!”
“Huh?” My eyes grew so wide I knew I looked crazy. Deranged as hell, actually. “HELLO? Nigga, what the fuck are you doing?”
I quickly hung up.
“Nope.” I was already hitting his name to call back, pacing from my stove to my sink and back.
It rang. And rang. And rang.
“Pick up the damn phone!” I said through clenched teeth.
Instead, I got that stupid-ass voicemail.
“Heyyy, you’ve reached Carl, the tech guy. I’m probably fixing somebody’s WiFi right now but leave me a message and I’ll get back to you fasterrr than dial-up.”
Beep!
“You need to call me back right now!”
I hung up and set the phone down on the counter, putting my hand on my hip, and just stood there in disbelief.
That’s when the smoke detector went off.
“Oh, shit!”
I spun around, and my eggs were burnt as hell. I cut the eye off, grabbed the handle with the bottom of my T-shirt and ran that pan over to the sink, twisted the faucet all the way on and shoved it under.
Steam came straight up into my face as I waved my free hand around while the smoke detector kept going.
“Shit! I’m not in the mood for this right now!”
I turned the water off, then snatched the kitchen rag off my oven door and took off toward the hallway, jumping up and swinging the rag at the smoke detector until it stopped.
“I don’t even wanna eat anymore,” I mumbled.
My phone started ringing on the counter, and I ran back in there so fast I slid across the floor but caught myself on the island.
It was Noree calling, not Carl.
“I was just about to hang up. I didn’t know if you were up,” she said.
I pulled a chair out from my dining table and plopped down into it, annoyed. Not with her, but with Carl. “Yeah, I’m up. What’s up, sis?”
There was a pause on her end. I could hear Oaklynn babbling and a cartoon going.
“Well, I was calling to tell you the good news, but is everything good?”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Girl, no…I just got the weirdest fucking call from Carl.”
“Weird how?”
So, I told her all of what I’d heard.
“WHAT?” Noree damn near busted my eardrum. “Bitch, you lying!”
“No and I’m low-key shaking right now because what the hell is going on? He told me he was going out of town for some type of tech meeting, as he always does, but bitch, has he been lying this whole time?”
Noree got quiet for a second, then said, “Okay, well, let’s not panic. Let’s maybe just wait for him to give you a call back. I like him for you, so I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt. But if he’s up to no good and doing dirt, Nou Nou, I’m riding at dawn with you. You already know.”
I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “Okay, fine. Let a bitch woosah right quick ’cause I’m about ready to cut somebody…anybody!” I inhaled and exhaled a few times, just trying to calm myself down, and she sat on the other end of the line waiting for me to speak again.
“Girl, he better hope that I didn’t hear what I think I heard. This shit got me in a bad mood automatically.”
“Damn.” She sucked her teeth. “I was just about to ask you if you wanted to ride with me to drop Oaklynn off at Mama’s house because I ended up calling Opal back, and girl, I got the nanny job.
But I get it if you aren’t able to come with me.
I didn’t want to ride over there alone. Like, you know it still be a little awkward around her, and I’m pretty sure she’d wanna see both of us.
But like I said, I get it if you can’t.”
“No, it’s cool. Just come pick me up. What time you going?”
“Probably around, like, three-ish. I just wanted to spend a little bit more time with my baby.”
“That’s cool.” I needed to get the hell out of this house before I started throwing things. I was that pissed off.
Honestly, I wasn’t giddy. Wasn’t anywhere near as excited as her, and I hated that because my sister deserved somebody to be excited with her. So, I made myself smile, and I let it come through in my voice.
“I’m so glad you got this job. This is gonna be perfect for you and my niecey pooh. Plus, you’ll get to find the right time to drop that bomb on his ass.”
“I know right…and thank you. Me too.” She got quiet for a second, then, “Oooo, wait, you wanna go grab some drinks? Maybe after we leave Mama’s house? I already know I’m gonna be a horrible wreck, tears all over the place, so a drink is gonna be had.”
I laughed. “Girl, I already know, and yeah, that’s cool. We can go get a drink. I’ll see you at three, Pooh.”
We hung up, and the kitchen went quiet again.
I stood up for a minute in all that leftover smoke, then went to fix myself a plate of whatever wasn’t burnt. I sighed.
“Alexa, play Jazmine Sullivan, ‘Bust Your Windows.’”
The music started just as I poured syrup on my pancakes and cut a piece. I put a bite in my mouth; mad they were now cold as hell.
“Ain’t this about a bitch.” I shook my head, stuck in my own thoughts for the next few hours, then cleaned up and got ready.