“Get the fuck outta here!” she screamed and now Venus always locked the door, so Sterling had to knock to get in.
“Open the door, Venus. It’s me.” Venus deleted the texts she’d been exchanging with RJ and then she got up to unlock the door.
Chapter Thirteen
Tenikka pulled up to the curb of the school and Barbara had to force herself not to roll her eyes and it had nothing to do with her relationship with her sister, which was still a bit strained. That was mostly because they didn’t know each other very well, and Barbara still felt resentment over finding out that she had an older sister.
The reason that her eyes were rolling was due to the fact that Tenikka was driving a candy apple red CLK 350 Mercedes Benz that Barbara knew their father bought for her. RJ got a car for his sixteenth birthday and here she was seventeen and still no car, nor an explanation of why she didn’t have one. No matter how much she asked about it, and no matter how many different arguments she made about it being a good idea that they get her one, she still had to rely on the train, Uber or Lyft to get her around when all else failed.
“You coming or not?” Tenikka called out to her.
“Yeah,” Barbara said and walked to the car. “Destiny wants to hangout too.”
“Nah, maybe next time. I wanted for this to be about me and you. Come on,” Tenikka said. Barbara didn’t like it, but she understood that Tenikka was trying and she could try too.
“One second,” Barbara said and hurried over to where Destiny was waiting. “Sorry, Dest; she said maybe next time.”
“It’s cool, Barbie. I understand.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, go hang out with your sister,” Destiny said. “Call me later.”
“I will,” Barbara said as she got in the car she was now jealous of and Tenikka pulled off.
“You learn anything today?” Tenikka asked.
At first, Barbara just looked at her, thinking that she was taking the whole big sister thing too far. “No, but I wasn’t trying to learn anything,” she said.
“You need to be. First, because you’re smart and can go far in this world. Further than I ever will, but not if you are hanging out all the time and getting caught up with your friends that aren’t going anywhere. It’s okay to have fun, but there has to be some balance. Feel me?”
“Yeah,” Barbara said, thinking that this was going to be boring if all she wanted to do was lecture.
“Good. You never want to have to make the choices that I had to make.”
“Like what?”
“Dancing naked in front of a room full of horny ass men for money.”
“Oh,” Barbara said. It always made her feel bad that Tenikka had to do that and she wondered if she could do it if she had to. The answer was no.
“Now, do you smoke?”
“Cigarettes?”
“Don’t play stupid. Do you smoke?”
“Yeah.”
Barbara watched as her sister opened the console between them and pulled out a blunt and a lighter.
“Here, light this. And you know the rules, right?”
Barbara lit the blunt. “What rules?”
“Puff, puff pass.”
Tenikka and Barbara laughed. “I know that rule,” she said and hit the blunt again before passing it to Tenikka.