“You think they’ll deal with you without your sister?” Destiny asked.
“They’ll remember me, Dest, trust me,” Barbara said and stepped into the street to hail a cab. In addition to getting some weed, Barbara was hoping she’d run into Ram again since they didn’t exchange numbers and since Tenikka wasn’t there to look on, that meant they could really talk.
When they got there, Barbara paid the driver and they got out. She told her girls to wait and Barbara walked to the house. Barbara rang the bell and waited. Dequain opened the door and looked Barbara up and down for a moment.
“What you want?”
“You remember me?” Barbara asked, and was now wondering if this was a good idea and was she about to be embarrassed in front of her girls.
“Yeah. You Butta’s sister, right?”
“Right,” she breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m Butta’s sister,” Barbara said and laughed a little hoping that Butta’s sister wouldn’t become her name, but if it got her in the door, it was all good. But then she remembered that the name Butta carried weight because she was Bobby Ray’s daughter, and once they learned her name, the name Barbara would carry weight too.
“You can come in,” Dequain said and held the door open for Barbara to come in.
“I got my girls with me. Is it cool if they come too?”
He looked over Barbara’s shoulder at Destiny, Jolina and Kayla. “Hell yeah, tell them to come on.”
Barbara waved her girls on, and they followed him in the house, where Dequain made an announcement to the other guys who were there.
“Y’all remember Butta’s sister,” Dequain said.
“I remember you,” Azibo said. “But where’s your sister?”
“I don’t know,” Barbara said sheepishly because by that time, all the guys in the room were staring at them like they were on display and she started to feel uncomfortable. Trig stood up from his chair and walked toward Barbara.
“You wanna get something?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Barbara said nervously, suddenly less confident that coming there without Tenikka was the smart thing to do. But at the same time, she knew that she would be all right. If for no other reason than because she was Butta’s sister.
When she handed him a twenty-dollar bill, Trig nodded at Azibo, and he put a bag on the table close to Barbara. As she reached to pick it up, the door opened, and Ram came in.
“What’s up, y’all,” he said and that was when he saw Barbara and he approached her.
“It’s good to see you again, Barbara.”
“It’s good to see you too,” she said, smiling because him remembering her name had to mean something.
“Did you come by to see me or—”
“No. Me and my girls came to get something.”
“Did my boys take care of you?”
“They did,” Barbara said, and Ram stepped a little closer to her.
“So, now that you got what you came for, you gonna go, or do you have a minute to talk to me?”
Barbara looked at her girls, their eyes were opened wide and they were all discreetly nodding their heads, especially Jolina. She had been looking at Dequain since he let them in.
“We were on our way to Fat Larry’s,” she said and paused for effect. “But I got a minute to talk.”
“Cool,” Ram said and looked at Destiny, Jolina and Kayla. “Y’all ain’t gotta stand there like statues, you can sit down,” he said, and they finally moved off that spot. Destiny went and sat down on the couch, while Kayla and Jolina sat at the kitchen table.
“Is it okay if we smoke?”
“Shit, yeah,” Dequain said.