Lies of a Real Housewife Read Free

education. She never stopped stressing the fact that I needed to achieve more in life than being a juvenile delinquent. I was a teenage mother, and a high school dropout, but my mother stayed on my side. She always wanted what was best for me, and she was serious about that.
    In 1994 she packed up everything that she could fit in the back of
    her vehicle, and we headed south. We bot h put Buffalo, N.Y. in our rearview mirrors. I never looked back because I knew the only things I was leaving behind me were all the bad memories of my childhood. I wanted to distance
    myself from that. Honestly, I was glad I made it out alive.

    After driving for hours, we finally arrived at our destination. We put
    our roots down in Greensboro, North Carolina. My mother wanted to move
    closer to her family in Atlanta, but not too near. She was the seventh child out
    of ten children, and yes, some were very dysfunctional.
    The scenery was much different from what I had imagined. It was
    more laid-back and peaceful. I had heard stories about the south, but there was nothing like witnessing it in person. You could actual ly see the beautiful greenery. To me, this was something very foreign. I would often be stunned by the comparison to the broken concrete, and abandoned buildings I’d
    grown up around during my early childhood.
    Everything just appeared to move so darn slow. The people of North
    Carolina even talked, and moved at a slower pace. Buses and cars didn’t go flying by. Everybody there seemed to be compassionate and caring. This was amazing to me and was like a breath of fresh air. I remember thinking I could learn to really like this place. Hope suddenly returned and positive thoughts started to fill my psyche. Maybe I could go to school, get a part-time job, and take care of my baby-girl, Aleea. I put a plan together and started doing
    exactly that. Then all hell broke loose!
    But I’m moving real fast here. So let’s take some time and return
    to a couple of years in my past life of horror in Buffalo. It was 1991 and my mother had met a man. She fell hard for him. He was a con artist and a scammer who went by the name of Curtis. As you already guess by now, I hated Curtis. From the beginning, I knew he was not right. But hey, what do you
    tell a person blinded by love?
    By this time, my brother had graduated high school, and was up-
    state New York. Having received a s cholarship for his athletic talents, Lee was living his dream of playing basketball at Sienna College and my mother couldn’t be prouder. Her son had made it out of Buffalo, and all she had to worry about was me. Lee eventually played basketball for Sienna College from 1988 to 1992. I was sure that he would never have approved of Curtis,
    and I actually couldn’t wait for the day when they would meet.
    Before meeting Curtis, my mother had already made a name for
    herself. She was a very successful woman who w as working in her field of choice. Joan Milling was an ambitious black woman with an entrepreneurial spirit who owned her own successful business. With nothing more than her
    faith, she had established a successful real estate business from scratch.
    We were not by any means filthy rich, but were definitely not poor.
    If I had only learn to follow the rules, I could’ve had my heart’s desires. But I was rebellious, and breaking rules became a bad habit. I didn’t feel it was in my DNA to follow or be confine d by anyone’s rules.
    Curtis was a homebuilder who wanted to start his own construction
    company, and saw my mother as an opportunity for his selfish gains. In her real estate business, she would purchase abandoned homes, and he was hired to renovate them. Well, that was the initial plan. The second time in my life I ever laid my eyes on Curtis, he was introduced to me as my step-father. My blood instantly began boiling at the thought of this man being anything significant in my life.
    Things immediately st arted to change the moment Curtis