I threw my arms around his neck and whispered, “Yes.”
“Yes?” he asked with a nervous chuckle.
“That’s the answer you wanted to hear earlier, right?” I kissed him on the cheek and spoke it directly in his ear the next time. “Yes.”
A wide grin spread across my face, then his.
“Yes,” I said for a third time, and pulled him into my place.
Less than an hour later, we were in the room he’d booked for Momma at the Hilton, and my engagement ring was on my finger.
Thirty-one
Rayne
August 2004
“How’s my girl, Arjay?” Boom asked me as she put the finishing touches on my hair once again.
“She’s fine, Boom.”
From Naps to Baps was packed. Sisters weren’t joking about looking good. The summer was coming to an end so they would have to give up the miniskirts, bikinis, and shorts riding up the cracks of their asses before too long.
Boom placed her hands on my shoulders. “I’m still planning on getting down there to see her. I wanna check out some of that Alabama black snake firsthand.”
Yo-Yo spoke up. “Don’t forget me, Boom. I’m going with you.”
“Me, too,” Tamu said.
I was thinking if the main stylist, the manicurist, and the shampoo girl all left town at once, it would put a serious wrench in the business.
“Damn, who’s going to run From Naps to Baps while all of you are down South getting your backs blown out?” I asked.
I could hear Tamu’s lips smacking clear across the room. “Shit, with all the drama we have to put up with up in here, we all need a fuckin’ vacation.”
“Word up!” Yo-Yo exclaimed.
“Momma’s not home right now anyway. She’ll be back in a few weeks,” I informed Boom.
“Cool, I’ll give her a call then.”
“She’d like that.”
I drowned them out for a few moments while they started talking shit about this homosexual brother who had opened up a salon around the corner from Boom. She wasn’t feeling that at all, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was already devising plans to sabotage his business. She’d never be stupid enough to talk about that out in the open though. Calling him names was one thing; revealing actual covert operations was another thing altogether. Either way, I wouldn’t have put it past her.
I was thinking about Momma. She was in a treatment center in Atlanta that specialized in not only rehabilitation, but they offered serious psychological counseling as well. Not the basic stuff they had at most centers; really intense counseling. I was hoping that Momma could face her demons, get over my father, and move on with her life. I’d told Yardley and Chance about my dad. It felt funny to even be able to refer to someone as that; even though I never got the chance to know him.
I zoned back into the conversation in the shop when Tamu asked, “Rayne, when are you getting hitched? Have you set a date?”
“November,” I responded. “Early November.”
Jada, another regular Thursday customer, said, “I still can’t believe your ass is gettin’ married; leaving all the rest of us heifers single to wrestle over the pitbulls.”
Yo-Yo said, “Humph, there are a couple of poodles out there you can tame before they become vicious.”
Boom took the comb she was using on me and started swinging it from left to right in the air. “Shit! Ain’t no poodles nowhere ’round here. Not unless they’ve got a little sugar in their bowls.”
“Boom, I want you to start thinking about a special hairstyle for my wedding day.” I didn’t even comment on what they were saying. I’d found my man; they were on their own. “You know I love the way you hook me up every Thursday, but I want to walk down the aisle and blow Yardley’s mind.”