Page 36 of For the Love of City
PORSHA
“YOU STILL HIDING that man?”
“Hey to you too ma.”
All I was trying to do was clean my house after a long day of work and my mama called me starting shit. I knew it was because she wanted the best for me, but I didn’t know how to go after it in a healthy way. What City and I had was good, as evidenced by her actually knowing who he was. She met him last Thanksgiving and immediately told me she could see the connection between the two of us all over our faces.
“Ohhh sarcasm I must’ve touched a nerve.”
“Ain’t nobody sarcastic, because ain’t nobody hiding anyone.”
“Mmmmhmm. If the roles were reversed I’d be telling you he had six other wives in Zamunda or somewhere. But you wanna tell me you not playing that boy.”
I cackled cause she knew she was doing too much with that. “NotZamunda,mama.”
“You know what the fuck I mean, Prissy. Why you playing with him?”
My eyes landed on the photo of us from the rodeo earlier this spring and my eyes went straight to Lyric. And the guilt immediately rose again. “I’m not trying to lose my friendship—”
“Girl, stop using Lyric as a scapegoat.”
“Ma!” I was pissed she’d called my ass out so fast.
“Nah, I’m tired of you giving that excuse cause you been using it for too fucking long. If you can’t see by now that girlwould love to have y’all together. It’s because you don’t want to. A blind person could see how y’all feel about each other. And I know you got better than 20/20 vision with the way you be putting them wigs on people’s heads and shit.It’s giving scalpain’t that what you say? And you my child so I know you not dumb. You just pretending to be stupid and for what? You can’t be a pretty fool, Prissy. You got the pretty part down pat so sorry you gotta pick another lane.” My mama’s voice was serious and I knew she wasn’t going to let this rest.
I flopped back on the silk sheets of my bed and closed my eyes, trying to get control of my temper. “Ma-”
She sighed like she was already over my foolishness when she hadn’t even given me a chance to defend myself. “You ain’t got to say it. I can already hear it.”
“I lost a lot of friends—”
“No, your path was cleared for you for your life to unfold the way it needed to. You ain’t have no problem, not one, making friends when you got up there. You befriended Billy and all these years later y’all still tight. Make that make sense.”
I chuckled thinking about the first time Wilhelmina Briggs walked into the salon, took one look at me and requested that I do her hair. She said she could tell I wasn’t about to play with her curls and she was right.
“Well, I knew Billy was a real one.”
“And just how did you know she was a real one?”
The question had me stuck because I didn’t really have an answer. “I just knew.”
“Same way you just knew with him, right? Cause I know my girl. You might get down on the first night specially if you ain’t gotta see him again. Cool. But you in a whole damn relationship, Porsha. A whole ass relationship that you keeping secret. And for what? Cause you scared?”
“Mama—”
Ma sucked her teeth and I could hear the attitude even before she spoke. “Don’tmamame. I watched you become scared and scarred behind a lame ass nigga who didn’t deserve to even sniff around your pussy in the first place. Puppy love will be the one to dog you out the quickest, Porsha.
“You crack me up, Toots. Ain’t got a lick of sense.”
My mama’s real name was Tabitha but she refused to let anyone call her that shit. She was so pissed at her mother for naming her after the Bewitched daughter. The richness of her skin and her love of Tootsie Rolls gave her a nickname that would stick for life.
“Yeah, okay. Call me crass or whatever but that boy didn’t deserve to be anywhere near you. Me and your brother told you that shit. But you wanted to be flattered. Let him talk you out of all your good damn sense and training. You think I don’t know all the shit you got into behind that damn boy? You lucky you never got caught. But just because you were a fool for love once doesn’t mean love is gonna make a fool out of you every time. You ignored all the red flags and right now you trying to hide all the green ones.”
She was right and I would take the hint but right now I felt there was so much getting ready to happen that anything else on my plate was going to make me shut down. I didn’t want to push Corey away simply because I couldn’t handle what I had going on in my life.
“Mama you just want tall grand babies.”
“And if I fucking do? I met that man twice and he earned my respect on the first day. He catered to you. Cared about you and spoke to you. To your soul. The desire to be cared for without having to ask. That’s what he gives you. And more than anything, the way you speak about him says it all.”
