PRETTY BRIGHT (19 page)

“Mom, why do we really have to go to visit cousin Rosette in the hospital in the first place? It's not like y'all get along, or ever speak to one another,” Ryan said, having morning coffee with her mother on her bedroom patio.

“Well, her son is still here, and from the looks of things, she could use some family support,” Shanna said, smoking her cigarette, looking into the morning skies, lost in deep thought.

“Well, I'm not going, I'm staying here,” Ryan pouted, tucking her arms inside her pajama shirt to warm them.

Breaking her daze, Shanna gave her oldest daughter direct eye contact. “If you’re not going with me, then you’re not staying here, because I can tell that you’re itching for a piece of crack, and this time you won’t be removing anything from this house to get it,” she snarled.

Ryan rolled her eyes in the back of her head. “Oh wow, I did that one time, and you’re gonna seriously continue to hold that against me?” she said seriously.

Shanna stood up and drank the last of her coffee. She wasn't in the mood to argue with Ryan, nor was she gonna put any more energy into it. “I'm going to shower and dress, and I advise that you do the same,” she said, dumping the remains of her cigarette in the ashtray, then walked inside her room. Ryan stood up in a tantrum, then went to take a shower. Fuck, I wanna get high, she thought as she drew herself up some bath water.

Bright kissed her mother on the forehead. She was happy that she was okay, but the doctors did tell her that her memory may be a little shocked - short or long term. “How you feeling, Ma?” Bright asked her mother the next morning as she laid comfortably in her hospital bed. They had all stayed overnight in the hospital worrying about their mother, and Ramon stayed the night with Shanna. Rosette opened her eyes and looked at the strangers surrounding her bed. When the young beautiful girl asked her how she was feeling, she was unable to get her words out right properly. “I'm…k,” she struggled to say.

“It's alright, Ma, just relax,” Bright said, seeing her mother trying to lift herself up in bed. The others all agreed.

“Just lie down and get better, Mama,” Deja added, then kissed her on the cheek.
It had been a long night for them all. Barely able to sleep in the waiting area, they were all really tired, and after they all kissed her, they decided to go home to get some rest. Before they could step out the door, Bright was slapped with the presence of her reflection and a woman who she assumed to be her mother's distant cousin Shanna. She told Bright that she would stop in to visit her mother and drop Ramon off. Bright looked the girl up and down, both of them amazed at how much the two of them resembled each other.
Ryan said, “Wow, this is really freaky, Mom, she looks more like my sister then Kesh,” she said, covering her mouth in shock.
Ignoring the statement, Shanna stepped in front of Ryan then cleared her throat. “You must be Bright,” she said, extending her hand to shake.
Bright smiled and shook the hand of the beautiful, crippled, but wellput woman before her. “And you must be cousin Shanna,” she said, shaking her hand. Then Bright introduced the rest of her siblings to them. After the introductions, they all walked back inside the room, and Bright walked back over to her mother's bed side. “Ma, your cousin Shanna and her daughter came to visit you,” she said, removing her hair from her face. Her mother never told them much about her and her cousin’s relationship, all they knew was that she didn't like her very much.
Shanna moved closer to her cousin’s bedside with a warm, friendly smile on her face. “Hello, darling Rose, even a stroke couldn't deny or take away such beauty,” she said, then bent down to kiss her on the face.
“Is she alright?” Ryan chuckled, looking at her strangely. Rosette looked confused.
“She's good, her memory is just a little off from the stroke,” Bright said, then quickly rolled her eyes at her
. How dare this bitch walk up in here and look at my mother like that, in her sick bed,
she thought. It was evident from their expressions that Deja and Cordell were wearing on their faces that they had both picked up on to Ryan’s tone and the funny look on her face.
They must think they uppity or something,
Deja thought, looking Ryan up and down.
I see why Mama doesn’t fuck with they funny acting asses,
Cordell thought, mean mugging Ryan.
Shanna cleared her throat, looking into Ryan's direction, then lifted her brow. Ryan laughed. “I didn't meant it the way it came out, I was asking because she looked confused, that’s all, no disrespect intended,” she said to everybody, recovering from laughter.
“I don't see nothing funny, though cuz,” Cordell said, getting an attitude.
“Neither do I,” Deja said.
“I didn't catch on to the joke either,” Bright chimed in. Though they fought and bickered with each other, it was clear that in their household they fought and rode together up against anybody who wanted it, cousins and all.
“I told you I should have stayed home, mom,” Ryan said, feeling like she was being attacked. “Because people are always misunderstanding me,” Ryan started to walk out of the room. “I'll wait for you in the waiting area,” she said, then exited the room.
“I think that might be best,” Bright said, following her out of the room with her eyes.
With her arms folded across her chest, Shanna said, “Please excuse her; I'm sure she didn't intend to offend anyone, she is really a very sweet girl.” She smiled, then she directed her attention back to her cousin. An awkward silence filled the room as the siblings exchanged expressions of dislike for their newly introduced family.
“NOOOOOO,” Rosette yelled, snatching her arm away from her cousin Shanna. “OUT,” she said in a loud and firm voice. Though she was out of it, she knew that the lady standing in front of her had done something very wrong to her, and she didn't want her around. The siblings all gave each other puzzled looks.
“It's okay,” Shanna smiled. “I'm your cousin, Shanna. I'm not here to hurt you, I'm actually very concerned about you!” Shanna spoke as if Rosette was deaf.
Rosette balled her fist on top off her stomach, turned her face away from Shanna, then mumbled, “No.”
“You getting her upset,” Cordell said. “Maybe you should roll and come back another time,” he suggested, stepping to his mother's bedside. He didn't like his mother's response to Shanna.
Bright felt bad for Shanna, but she agreed. “Yeah, she had a rough night and is probably very tired,” she said looking at Shanna.
Ryonna clung on to Deja, nodding her head in agreement. She didn't want her mother to be bothered after everything she had just been through.
Holding her head high with pride, Shanna swallowed hard. “I understand, but if you need anything, please call me, I'm always willing to help family,” she said, preparing to leave the room. Then she stopped in midstep and looked back at them. “I tried to bring little Ramon here with me, but he just didn't want to leave. He's at my house with my son, he's really very shaken up too, maybe one of you should come over, talk to him...then take him home,” she said, with a genuine look upon her face. All she really wanted to do was help out, she thought;
after all these years, does Rose still really hate me that much?
Bright nodded her head. “I’ll have my boyfriend bring me, can you text me the directions to your house?” she asked.
Looking as if she wanted to release a few tears of her own, Shanna said, “I'm not really good with texting, but my son Jasper Jr. is. I'll have him text you as soon as I get back to the valley.” Then she exited the room. After making sure their mother was comfortable they all kissed her again then went home. They were all really very exhausted.

**********
“I don't like them, Mom, family or not,” Ryan pouted on the ride back home. “They remind me of ghetto trash, and my God, I can’t believe how much Bright and I look alike!”

“Yeah, you’re definitely family,” was all Shanna said as she thought back to the good and not-so-good times she and her cousin Rosette shared together.

Shanna's biological mother had passed away while having her, and because her mother was a known prostitute in Southern California, her father went unknown and could have been anybody. At the age of two, Shanna was removed from a foster home and adopted by an older couple in their late forties named William and Marlene Johnson, upstanding residents of Compton California who were unable to conceive children of their own. Though from a happy home, by the age of ten, Shanna realized just how boring it was being an only child. She would tell her parents she wanted someone to play with, and she started bringing her second cousin Rosette Clark around every weekend and practically the whole summer up until their late teens. After that, the girls were inseparable, and would be seen together all the time, up until sometime late in 1976 when things took an unexpected turn.

It was 1975 when eighteen-year-old Shanna and her seventeen-year-old cousin Rosette went along with Shanna's white suburban friends to a rock concert. Neither had ever been to one before, so when they were presented with the opportunity, they figured why not? It was free. Inside the concert, they had a blast, partying like real rock stars, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs. Both girls were acting wild and crazy and were having a good time.

Growing an immediate attraction to the lead rocker, Rosette yelled in Shanna's ear, “White boy is outta sight, and boy is he gorgeous!” She said, melting in lust with him.

“Out of sight, alright,” Shanna said, looking at her cousin like she had lost her mind. “I do black, now where they at?” she teased seriously.

Rosette laughed then directed her attention back to the show. Getting wild, Rosette lifted her blouse and shook her breasts with her hands in the air, as she yelled and screamed. “OUCH!” she yelled once she gained the lead rocker's attention. He winked at her and Rosette almost passed out. “Oh my God, Shanna, did you see that? He noticed me!” she said, snapping her fingers, trying to gain his attention again.

“Yuk!” Shanna said acting as if she was gonna purge. “I think we’re looking at two different people,” she said, nodding her head at her cousin.

Rosette laughed, “He 's beautiful, so I guess we aren't looking at the same guy,” Rosette smiled, admiring his long blonde hair and golden tanned skin. He had ripped his shirt off and revealed his small, but muscular build. The way he performed onstage turned Rosette on; she just had to meet him. Happy that they had backstage passes, Rosette went to the ladies room to make sure she looked good. Rosette believed in showing lots of skin because she always got complimented on how she had the body of a super model. Shanna, on the other hand, dressed more on the conservative side. After making sure her soft curls were in place, she freshened up her lipstick then shot out of the ladies room to go backstage with the girls.

Backstage was a whole different world than the world she grew to know. It was the rock star lifestyle at its finest: sex, money, and drugs! Shanna, not being as drug prone as Rosette was, kept a close eye on her. She had seen the excitement in her eyes when she saw the rich and famous sniff up top-of-the-line Peruvian flake cocaine. When it came to partying, Rosette partied hard; she wasn't like Shanna, who was known to hold the wall up at parties.

“Beautiful Nubian Queen,” the lead rocker said as he crept from behind them, squeezing a chunk of Rosette’s ass. Rosette smiled seductively, then purred like a cat.

“You'll never know if you don't try it for yourself,” she whispered in his ear.
The lead rocker smiled, “I like the sound of that! How about you meet me back in my room in about an hour?” After he gave her his room information, he walked away. “By the way, great tits!” he winked.
Rosette smiled, biting down on her bottom lip, and then winked back at him. An hour later, Rosette was in the hotel room with the lead rocker whose name she later found out was Bret Sheldon, high on cocaine and feeling above the clouds. He had bought in two white girls to join them in bed; he told Rosette he wanted to see if black pussy was better than white pussy. Up for the challenge and willing to fight for the lifestyle that Bret offered, Rosette did many things that night that she never imagined she would ever do. Hours later, he put the two white girls out of his room and declared black pussy as being the best type of pussy in the world, and from there, he and Rosette would have made history.
Jealous wasn't even the words to express how Shanna felt about Rosette and Bret's new relationship. They hardly ever hung out together and besides that, Rosette had turned into a real cocaine addict. She dressed like the singer Tina Turner, lots of times with short skirts and no undergarments. And because she had a light complexion, he asked that she wear blond wigs sometimes when they went on the road to avoid racial tension. Many people in passing thought she was white, so it worked to their advantage. Bret Sheldon couldn't get enough of Rosette, and he took care of her fruitfully, labeling her as his Black Rose.
A year later, sex, drugs, money, and rock and roll was Rosette's new lifestyle. Life was great. She had met many respectable entertainers being Bret's latest girl, but the good times came crashing down when racial tension caused them to keep their relationship under the scope. Bret lost money and fans over his open relationship with her until he made a statement that hit newspapers worldwide. “She was nothing more than a bed monkey, and something that I like to call, a little fun in rock and roll!”
Devastated, Rosette contemplated committing suicide. Her heart had been broken for the first time in her life, and Shanna was there to pick up all the pieces and get Rosette back on track. Deciding it would be best to visit her older sister who had gotten married and moved to Cincinnati, Rosette caught the next flight out. A few days after Rosette's departure, Bret had just got back to the states off of a very successful tour, and he wanted to make things right with his Black Rose. He actually loved Rose more than any woman he had ever been with, but because of times and politics on interracial dating, he had to say and do things that he wished he could take back.
In searching for his Nubian queen, he only had luck in locating her cousin Shanna. Desperate to speak with his Black Rose, he gave Shanna five hundred dollars and a note to where Rosette could meet him at, but she never came. It was a stormy night and after his concert, Bret laid in bed alone with Rosette weighing heavy on his mind. Moments later, he got a knock on the door. Excited, thinking it was his Black Rose, he got up to open the door only to see Shanna standing before him. Seeing something in her eyes that he had never seen before made things happen between the two. It was a night that Shanna wasn't proud of, but it was the same very night that they conceived her first born...Ryan. So not only were Bright and Ryan cousins, but they were blood sisters too.