9. Keyshawn St. James #3
I pulled my knees up to my chest, and I broke.
I broke the hell down, as the words that Ariel told me replayed repeatedly in my head.
I thought about the times that Riot wouldn’t want to video call while she was locked up.
This girl would tell me that she didn’t want to see us over on video because it would make her depressed that she couldn’t be home.
You could forget about us coming down to the jail to see her because she made sure that she didn’t add us to the visitors list. My daughter wasn’t one of those people where it was easy for her to tell someone that she needed them, but as I was sitting here crying, I thought back to the times when we talked through video.
Those big green eyes of hers would be pleading, telling me that she needed me, but of course she wouldn’t say it.
I took this news hard. I was never the kind of stylist to step away from my clients for too long because I’ve been doing this long enough to have proper stylist etiquette, knowing that when clients came to me, they probably had other things to do with their lives after getting their hair done by me, so I never wanted to hold them up.
It was hard to get up and go back out front.
Each time that I would calm down, I would picture the things that Ariel told me that they were doing to my daughter while she was locked up, and before I knew it, I would cry again.
Yes, I was hurt because of the physical pain that my daughter quietly went through while she was locked up, but then I was also crying because I could have received a phone call from that jail, telling me that my daughter was found dead in her cell.
That would have broken me. To lose the only child that I had left was a feeling that caused me pain when I thought about it.
I eventually pulled it together, stood up from the floor, and I wiped my eyes. I looked in the mirror before going back out, and there was nothing that I could really do to hide these blood shot red eyes. Knowing that, I just went ahead back out front, so that I could finish with Ariel’s hair.
“I’m sorry Key. I hate that I even told you that. I would have never brought it up if I didn’t think you knew,” Ariel said to me the second that I stood behind her.
“It’s okay. It hurts, but I needed to know that. A lot of things make so much sense to me now,” I told her, and she just nodded, leaving it at that.
It took me a little over an hour to finish with her hair.
The burgundy color came out beautiful on her.
It matched her brown skin perfectly. I was able to style it into the bob that she asked for, and even with the damaged, and split ends that she had, she still had so much full, thick hair that was left over, even after I chopped most of it off.
Her reaction to seeing her hair with all the screaming, pulling out her phone so that she could immediately start taking pictures and videos of it, along with the other compliments that she received throughout the salon, was enough for a smile to appear on my face.
I was still hurting, but Ariel did get me to smile.
I took a few videos and pictures of her hair, so that I could post it later on my social media page.
Ariel paid me, tipping me big, and before she left, she pulled me in for a hug, apologizing again for the things that she’d shared with me about Riot. I had to remind her again that it was fine, and that I wasn’t mad at her.
After that, I cleaned up my station, swept around my area, where there was hair on the floor, and once I sanitized my area down, I went around the shop, saying my goodbyes.
Brenda, who was one of the stylist and was also a very close friend of mine, she was going to be in charge of locking up the shop tonight.
She stayed just as booked as I did, and with it being the weekend, she was basically going to be here all day.
I told her to call me if she had any problems locking up, and from there, I jumped in my car, heading home because I needed to start cooking for this dinner.
I had to pull Riot to the side today so that I could talk to her about the shit that Ariel told me.
I knew my daughter. She was going to be pissed that I knew.
The fact that she never even hinted at it to me proved to me that she didn’t want me to know.
I knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation that we had, but we had to have it.
Hours Later
“Here. Taste this. It ain’t that strong,” my sister Rasheeda said, walking over to me, holding a double red cup in her hand.
I was in the kitchen, stirring around the seafood salad that I prepared, with an apron wrapped around me.
My mom wasn’t too far away from me, standing over by the stove, looking into the pot that had her collard greens in there.
She made the greens at home, but when she came over an hour ago, she put them on low heat on the stove.
Me, and all my sisters knew how to cook.
I think my mama would disown all of us if we didn’t.
I had one of those old school mothers that just believed that a woman was supposed to know how to do most domestic shit, and cooking was at the top of her list. She swore that her cooking skills had kept my daddy around for all these years.
As kids, you know when your parent is cooking, and most kids would just be laying around the house chilling, waiting for the food to be done?
Chile, not my mama. She had the four of us in the kitchen with her, as she explained to us how to make certain meals.
Once we were older, she would sit down in the kitchen, give out orders, and make us cook, while she just micromanaged.
You would think that I would have gone on and taught my daughter the same thing that my mama had taught me growing up, but nope.
Riot couldn’t cook shit. I don’t even think that girl can boil noodles.
As strict as my mom was, you would think that she would have got on Riot the same way that she got on me, and my sisters growing up, but nope.
She was a different kind of parent when it came to her grandchildren, but mainly Riot’s ass.
Riot couldn’t do any wrong when it came to my mama.
She played her part in why my daughter was so spoiled growing up.
“What is that? I gotta be real mindful with your ass. You’ll have me drinking something, and then I’ll be passed out on the couch,” I said to my sister, leaning my head in, so that I could sniff the drink that she brought to my lips.
My hands had gloves on them because I was in the kitchen cooking.
“Girl, it’s light. Ain’t nothing in here but a little reposado tequila, a little lime juice, with a little agave. This shit is light,” she said, putting it to my lips, and I took a quick sip of it.
It was actually pretty good. You really had to stand over Rasheeda while she made you a drink because she would hand some shit over to you that she swore was light, but it would kick in, and before you knew it, you were flat out drunk.
Trust me I know because it’s happened plenty of times before in the past.
“It’s good. You can make me one,” I told her.
Rasheeda was the oldest sister, and we weren’t twins, but we might as well have been because we were close as hell.
If I could live in my sister’s skin, I probably would.
Our bond has always been like this. Don’t get me wrong, I was super close with all my sisters, but Rasheeda was the one that I could say I was closest with.
Because of that, our daughters were super close.
Ari, and Riot didn’t act like cousins. As close as they were, you would think that the two of them were sisters.
When Grim was killed, and then years later the same thing happened to my son, my sisters were there for me.
I mean, there for me in a way that kept me alive.
Grim’s death hit me hard, fucked me up to pieces, but when I lost my son, I started having thoughts of suicide, feeling like I could no longer live.
My daughter kept me here. I know for a fact that if I didn’t have Riot to still be here for, that I would have checked out after my son was murdered.
The front door opened, and although I was in the kitchen, I could just look over and see who it was.
Amir walked in first, and he was holding a couple of bags in his hands, and behind him was Riot, and Ari, and both of them had bags in their hands as well, coming with the items that I sent them to get me at the store.
It’s no telling the stops that they made along the way because they should have been here hours ago.
Amir came in, and he quickly sat the bags down, and he went right for his grandma.
Rasheeda was his grandmother, and this boy didn’t play about her.
Even though Amir was six, it still felt weird knowing that my sister was a grandmother.
Nothing about Rasheeda gave off grandma vibes.
Her ass didn’t even want to be called that because Amir called her ‘ma’.
My sister stayed in the gym, so her body looked really nice.
She kept a mean outfit on, she was always in my salon chair getting her hair together, so she just gave off a younger woman, that was probably in her 30’s.
“I came with my bag ma. Ima spend the night with you. That’s cool?” Amir asked my sister, already coming over with his little plans.
He liked staying the night with his grandma because he knew that she was going to let him get away with whatever he wanted to at her house.
“That’s cool,” she said to him, lifting him up, so that she could plant kisses on his face.
He wanted to walk around, and act like he was so grown, but Amir loved all the ladies in the family and would soak up all the love and affection that we would give to him.