Brooklyn Bombshells: Part 1

“You’re my first boyfriend.”

“You serious?”

She nodded. “I am . . . and I already told you that I’m a virgin.”

“Curious, a pretty girl like yourself and no boyfriend—not ever? And you’re seventeen . . .”

“I know, I’m the oddball, but I have the right to be. Originally, I wanted to wait until I got married to have sex. And, yes, it does sound like a cliché, but if you know my family, you would understand why.”

“Is your family that bad?”

Chanel sighed, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “They’re the worst.”

“You care to elaborate?”

“My sisters have been using sex from the time they were young, and my oldest sister had two abortions before she turned eighteen. And it wasn’t special. When I finally have sex, I want it to be special and I want it to be with someone I love and who loves me,” she proclaimed. “And now that I’ve met you, I know you’re gonna be my first.”

Mateo was flattered—so flattered that he said, “I’m gonna marry you.”

Chanel was surprised by the statement. Why did he say it? He didn’t know why himself, but it made her happy. Yes, she would marry him when the day came.

“Would you really marry me?” she asked.

“Yes. I would.”

It was becoming the best day of her life. She beamed so brightly that she could blind the entire room. Mateo moved closer to her and they kissed. It was a brief kiss, but it was passionate. Chanel was in love. She had never been in love, and the feeling was so overwhelming that sometimes it felt like she was going to explode from it.

“I love you,” she blurted out.

He didn’t hesitate to say it back. “I love you too.”

Their dinner together was perfect. She could talk to and stare at Mateo forever. She was only seventeen, but Mateo made her feel like a woman—like she was a queen. The weeks they spent together were the best weeks of her life, and Chanel felt like she couldn’t go one day without him.

After dinner at the Riverside Café, Mateo drove into Midtown Manhattan, and they stopped at Central Park. There, Mateo paid for them to take a horse and carriage ride through the park. It was the perfect summer night for it, warm and a full moon above. During the ride through the park, Chanel nestled against him and grinned as he held her in his arms. She’d never felt so secure and so safe. She was so happy.

The following day, Mateo took her shopping on 5th Avenue.

“My Chanel should have Chanel.” Mateo beamed as he purchased his lady three very expensive handbags. And then he took her to the Dominicans in Harlem to get her hair done, where they washed, set, and blew out her beautiful long hair. They cut her bangs and evened out the back. Her hair looked like a long weave, but it wasn’t.

“Should I dye it next time?” she asked Mateo.

“Dye it?”

“Yes. I was thinking maybe red?”

“Nah, baby. I love your hair as is.”

“Really?”

“No doubts, okay?” Mateo leaned in and quickly kissed her.

Chanel looked in the mirror and drank in her new look. Mecca did a nice job, but the Dominicans did a fabulous job. She looked like a new woman—not a seventeen-year-old girl, but a gorgeous model. She was breathtaking, and Mateo couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

Chanel had spent nearly three weeks in Harlem, and she knew it was time to go back home. Mateo was willing to take her back to Brooklyn in his Range Rover. He wanted to see where she lived, to see the nightmare of a place she told him about. Chanel didn’t want to go back home, but she knew that she couldn’t stay at Mecca’s place forever. The only upside was that Chanel was going back to Brooklyn in style, with a new wardrobe and a new hairdo.

She stared out the window as the Range traveled across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was another beautiful night in the city. The balmy weather thickened the traffic into Brooklyn, and they were at a standstill.

Chanel turned her attention from the East River to her man, and asked him out the blue, “What is it that you do? I know I never asked you this before, but I’m just curious.”