Sweet Bye-Bye Read Free Page B

and I had some good times. He was funny, and he had this really deep, sexy voice. We usually took advantage of all that the Bay Area had to offer. Salsa dancing, Rollerblading, festivals, concerts. We’d do whatever sounded good. He liked to project a bit of a bad-boy image, but basically he was a pussycat. He liked excitement. And although I was happy when we began dating, I sometimes still found myself feeling a little lonely. Sometimes I questioned us. When I found myself doing that, I’d remind myself to stop being silly and look at what I had. I mean, Eric was Boris Kodjoe fine. Eric was make-you-wanna-haul-off-and-slap-somebody fine! He had a six-pack that a lot of models on television would envy, and he was always dressed to the nines.
    People always said that I was beautiful too. I don’t think that I ever completely bought into it, though. I didn’t necessarily think that I was bad-looking; I got hit on often. I was five feet eight inches, curvy, and 140 pounds. I had brown skin, the color of caramel, and blunt-cut shoulder-length hair that Tia normally took great care of for me. I was experimenting with it then, though, and had taken to washing and conditioning and just letting the air lock in the body and natural texture. I had curious eyes that slanted, and pouty lips, and a little mole above my right brow that every boyfriend that I ever had found irresistible.
    However, of all the people in my lifetime that had said to me, “Wow, that’s a great mole,” or “I wish I had a little mole on my face,” I never forgot a comment from my childhood, made by the little boy next door. Little Timmy said it looked “jus’ like a booger on yo head.” Oh, I laugh now, and I punched him in the stomach then, but that’s the kind of thing that one doesn’t easily forget.
    So it wasn’t so much that I thought I was unattractive. No, no, I used what people saw when they looked at me, when I needed to. It was just that, well, I had a good mind. And I worked hard to show people that I was smart. But lots of times folks weren’t interested in that.
    My mole, my eyes, my looks, they came from my real mother. I didn’t know her, though, because she died when I was five years old. She had sickle-cell, and she lost so much weight that I thought she was melting. A strange thing about that, however, is that when she died, I started to cry, and Dad told me not to. He’d hug me and say, “Don’t cry, princess, everything will be okay.” So I’d wipe my eyes and try to smile. Every time the tears started to fill my eyes, Dad would get really anxious, and he’d try to tell me jokes or take me to a movie, and he’d tell me to “just try not to think about it.” I didn’t like to see my dad act so strange, so I learned to stop crying. It had been twenty-three years, and I’d never cried another day over my mother.
    I suppose I got my theories on soul-mate-ism from my parents. I remember once, my dad told me that he married my real mother because from the moment they first conversed, she tugged at his soul. I wasn’t sure what tugging at your soul felt like, but I’d guess that Eric and I did that, sometimes. Tia herself said that we looked like black models from a Gap commercial. And that’s important. You should look happy and vibrant. People treat you better when they think you have money, or are beautiful. They want to be your friend. Besides that, if you keep up the front, then people never really know how bad you feel.
    Dad always said I was a princess, and I believed him . . . In a way I still did. A princess was attractive, and single, and she had beautiful clothes. Yeah, I tried to fill the bill, but I didn’t like it when people called me snooty or stuck-up. I just wanted to put my best foot forward so people saw me in a positive light. Just because you want to look presentable, that didn’t make you “a piece of work.” Just because you didn’t go around showing everybody your pain, that didn’t mean