Chapter 21
Keyshawn St. James
“Ican’t believe you let me put these layers in your hair, Bean. You look so pretty. Your hair is nice, and healthy,” I cooed to my daughter, as she sat in my salon chair.
I just finished using a thick comb to comb out the big curls that I added.
Riot let me cut her hair today in layers, so now that I combed them out, and I was seeing the final result, I couldn’t stop smiling.
She used to never let me do styles like this on her.
She dreaded wearing her hair straight anyways, so the fact that she sat in my seat and she let me straighten it, layer it, and curl it was a big win for me.
Her sandy brown hair with these curls were to die for.
“I’m not going to know how to keep up with it ma,” she said, leaning up in the chair, so that she could get a better look in the mirror.
I had my phone propped up on my tripod because I recorded this entire session.
Later on tonight, I was going to edit the video and post it on social media.
I knew that it was going to go viral. Every time I did Riot’s hair, the posts always went viral.
Plus, people were going to fall in love with this style.
“You have to put the rods in at night. I have some, and I’ll give them to you. You like it?” I asked her, removing the cape from around her.
She giggled at my question, as she stood up from the chair, and she walked closer to the mirror, so that she could fully check it out. Even if she didn’t verbally tell me that she liked her hair, I knew by the way she was looking at herself in the mirror, and smiling, that she was in love with it.
“I do ma. It’s beautiful. Thank you,” she said.
Riot called me at the last minute today.
She told me that her, and Dolo were going out on a date tonight, and she wanted to know if I could do her hair.
If she was anyone else, I would have told her hell no.
Everyone knew that I didn’t do squeeze in appointments.
I was always booked up, so it was no way that I could squeeze someone in to get their hair done.
For my baby though, I skipped out on taking lunch. I just ate in between doing her hair.
I gave Riot a good wash, a nice treatment because it was time, trimmed her ends just a little bit, and I worked my magic. Seeing the way the layers framed her gorgeous face, had me standing back here in amazement.
It made me think about Grim. That man used to tell everyone in the world that he had the prettiest daughter out.
He liked for me to keep Riot’s hair done, and dress her up nicely.
I knew that if he was standing here right now, and seeing the beautiful daughter that we had, that he would be boasting, carrying on terribly.
God really showed out when He gave me this girl.
So hard, yet so beautiful. Riot was softening up these days though.
She was clearing out time in her busy ass schedule for me.
These days, she would join me at the nail salon, so that we could get our nails and toes done.
She even went to dinner with me and my girls last weekend.
I knew she would much rather be home, but she came out.
Yeah, she might have left early with Dolo, after growing tired of us, but she still came.
She was working on her relationship with Major, and that was big to me.
It’s something that I’ve always wanted to happen.
I was proud of this change in her. When she came home from jail, the version of her that I had scared me.
That rough version. She was cold. I was glad that she was able to shake out of that shit and turn into this new person that she was.
Riot stopped looking at herself in the mirror, and I watched as she dug into her purse.
She had a few stacks of money in there, that were tied together in rubberbands.
It made me think of her daddy and her brother.
They used to do that same shit. As pretty as her ass was, she’s always had ways about her that were so rough. She couldn’t help it.
I watched her as she peeled back a few hundreds, and she tried to put it in my hands, but I pushed her hand out of the way like I always did. I never charged Riot to do her hair. No money in the world would ever compare to having her here with me and just bonding like this.
“Keep it. You know how I am about that,” I fussed. Like my word meant nothing to her, she reached her hand out and stuffed the money in the front pocket of the cape that I was wearing.
As soon as she finished, I could hear the loud roar of a car pulling into the plaza.
The truck parked right in front of the salon.
I knew the truck belonged to Dolo. It was his G- wagon out there, making all that noise.
Riot turned to look, and the same way that I smile, and get all giddy inside when my man pulls up on me, she did the same thing.
“Hold on, ma. I’m coming right back,” she announced, leaving her purse right there on the seat.
Dolo had already got out of the truck. He was standing in the back of it, as Riot made her way out of the salon.
I wanted to see his reaction to her hair.
It’s like all the women in the salon wanted to see his reaction because I swear, damn near everyone stopped what they were doing, as they looked out of the big, floor to ceiling windows that my salon had.
We could only look out and see. We couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other. Dolo started smiling really big, and he had Riot stand right there, so that he could walk around her, and examine her hair.
“I know that’s right!” Keisha, one of the stylist at the salon blurted out, seeing Dolo place his hands behind his back, and like he was in deep thought, and just utterly impressed by how nice Riot’s hair came out, he continued to walk around her, smiling.
I think what stole the show for me is when he pulled his phone out, and like he was Riot’s biggest fan, he started recording her.
I could see his hand movements, where he was telling her to spin round, so that he could capture a full 360 of her hair.
Riot did it for him, and once he finished with the video, she jumped in his arms.
My daughter loved him. It was in her eyes whenever she would talk about him.
I saw it in the way that she quickly left out of the salon, leaving her purse in the chair, just so that she could get to him.
It was the way her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist, and just melted into him.
When I saw that they took their affection from PG to rated R, having Dolo slowly bounce her in his arms, and they begin to kiss, that’s when I turned my head.
“Oh Ms. Keyshawn, you might as well put her back on your schedule for tomorrow. He going to sweat that out tonight. You going to have to touch her up,” Pat, one of the older stylist said to me, making me, along with everyone else in the salon laugh.
“See, I gotta get back in the gym. I can’t tell you the last time that a man picked me up like that,” Gina, another stylist called out, and she got us all to laugh too.
“Keyshawn. Your daughter is in love boo. How does that make you feel?” Pat asked me, stopping from tending to her client for a second, just so that she could put her hands on her hips.
It’s like everyone stopped what they were doing, so that they could look at me.
I didn’t mind the question though. This was a salon filled with women, and we had girl talk all the time.
I never went into deep information about my child though.
I’ve never been that kind of person. Anyone that I loved, I kept them close to me, and I never wanted to over share when it came to them.
“It makes me feel happy. My baby has been through a lot. She’s lost a lot, so she deserves that kind of love, you know?
If anyone deserves to be loved out loud like that, it’s Riot,” was my response, as I moved Riot’s purse out of the chair, sat it on the counter, so that I was able to take a seat.
My response made all the women gush over it.
I meant what I said to them. I didn’t just say it because it sounded good, either.
My baby took the kind of losses that would make the sanest person lose their mind.
I know how it felt to have a father. Even at my grown age, when life gets rough, I can call my daddy at any moment, vent to him, and whatever the problem was, he’ll quickly jump on it, looking for a solution.
My baby didn’t have that. That bond was taken away from her at two years old.
I remember the way Grim loved her. I can only imagine how he would have been here to love her during her adult years.
Even though Riot never spoke to me again about the cop that killed her father, I knew my child, therefore I knew that she went out, found him, and she killed him.
I knew this because she never brought it up again.
Had she brought him up again, I’m sure she would have talked about him in a sense as if she was mad that she didn’t have a location on him.
Killing him wouldn’t bring Grim back. It’ll probably only make her feel better temporarily.
I’ve already accepted it in my heart that Grim was gone, and I think that’s why it didn’t make me feel any kind of way on whether that cop lived, or he died.
I think about Roman, and the bond that Riot had with her brother.
She’ll go to war with anyone about her brother.
I remember when they were kids, and I would discipline Roman, and she would always feel the need to jump her lil ass in, trying to defend him.
The bond they had was so unique. When it was taken from her, I felt like my daughter was taken away too because I got a version of Riot that was so hard to understand, and so hard to get through.
Knowing all that she’s been through and knowing that she had a man like Dolo to come in, and love her, even though I knew that she wasn’t the easiest to love, I would always support what they had going on.
The world knows her as this 90-pound lil thing, that has strength and the heart as someone that’s almost three times her size.
I’ve even been hearing rumors around Miami lately, hearing people label her as the Street Heiress, or whatever else it was that they continue to come up with for her.
They knew the tough version of her. The one that carried on, and acted just like her daddy, and her brother whenever she was pushed to take it there.
But for me? That’s still my baby. That’s still my little girl.
I still look at her as the five-pound, eight- ounce baby that I brought home from the hospital.
The little girl that I prayed for. Cried for and fought for.
Lord knows that we may not always see eye to eye, but I’ll take it to hell when it comes to my daughter. That’s all that I have left in this world, you know? I buried a husband. Dropped to my knees and buried a child as well.
I ride Riot the way that I do, and I love her the way that I do for a reason. Forgive me if I ever hold on to my daughter a little tighter than most. It’s just the hurt of burying a loved one is something that I never want to experience in this life ever again.