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BOOK: Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue
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When Selah finished introducing us to everybody we went back to the picnic area. Waiters were going around picking up behind the kids and throwing away half-eaten plates of food and bringing beer and drinks to all the grown folks.
“Y’all must be hungry,” Selah said and I nodded. I had heard a lot of good things about Texas barbeques, and the smells coming off the grills had my stomach rumbling. “We have a wonderful cook on staff, but Katie’s getting up in years and she keeps setting kitchen fires, so we hired chefs to cook the meat and catered the rest of the food.”
Me and Bunni were fixing our plates when a dude came outta nowhere and spoke up behind us.
“So you’re Mink, huh?”
I turned around. A brown-skinned guy wearing nothing but a pair of sky-blue swim trunks stood there us checking us out.
“Who’s
you
?” Bunni blurted out, and for once I couldn’t blame her.
He grinned and flashed us a perfect set of bright whites. I’d seen a lot of fine-ass men so far today, but this one here had a few drops of New York grime on him and he was packing mad sex appeal.
He had short, wavy dreadlock twists that looked nice and fresh. His skin was cocoa-butter smooth and his hairline looked like it had been edged up with a straight razor. I could tell he lifted weights ’cause his chest was rocked up just right, and his lumpy six-pack had a curly river of fur that ran from his navel into his swim trunks.
“I’m Dane.” He grinned. “Better known as the black devil of the family.”
“Brother Dane!” I laughed. Just like Barron and Sable, he had been adopted as an infant by the Dominions too. “Oh
you’re
the black devil?” I cracked the hell up. “That’s what I just called that chick Pilar!”
Dane laughed, and him and Bunni both got a plate full of barbeque ribs while I just took a spoonful of potato salad, a barbequed wing, and a little bit of Texas baked beans. There were big pans of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and peach cobbler. I wanted to slap Bunni as she licked her fingers then picked all through the pan of franks tryna find a burnt one. There were two large champagne coolers full of ice, juice, and bottled water, and I got me an apple juice and we all sat down at a table.
A bunch of little kids were jumping rope right across from us, and Bunni pushed her plate away when she spotted them.
“Ooooh! I wanna jump!” she said, and jetted before I could check her.
Bunni showed the little girls how to take two ropes and stretch them out to play double-Dutch. Most of the little black girls already knew how to jump, but them little Asian girls were all over Bunni, and the white girls were too. They was loving her up. All the grown folks were watching and smiling as they sat around having a good time. Shit was all good while Bunni was showing them how to turn and how to jump in for double-Dutch, but when they put the ropes down my girl took it to the hood and started showing them lil kids how to play some project hand games like “I Tagged you, Miss New Booty” and “Under the Sheets Is Where We Gotta Meet!”
I fuckin’
cringed
as Bunni got them kids to recite a real loud chant that talked about peeing and farting and doing things under a blanket that no little kid shoulda been thinking about doing.
I was really done when she hit ’em with a throw-back guessing game that we used to do in the projects when we were real young.
“Half past?” she went around asking all the little girls. “Half past?” she demanded, grilling them babies with her Harlem hood-wrecker face on. They were supposed to guess the time of day she was thinking of, but of course none of them did, so she finally blurted it out to them. “Half past a monkey’s ass, a quarter to his
balls
!”
“Bunni!” I hissed tryna get her attention. “Bunni!”
Ignoring my whispers, she walked right past me and dug into one of the brass ice coolers and pulled out a bottle of Fuji. My ghetto girlfriend posed, holding that expensive-ass water up real high in the air, then twisted up her lips and said loud enough for the whole damn world to hear, “Hey now! Forget all this here
fancy
shit! Y’all got any quarter-waters or maybe some real sweet red Kool-Aid?”
CHAPTER 15
 
W
e had just finished eating when Barron came over carrying a big-ass shopping bag and squeezed in between me and Dane. He waved at the DJ and gave him the cut signal, and when the music stopped he waited for a few seconds and then hollered at the crowd.
“Listen up!” Barron said real loud, and almost instantly he got everybody’s attention. He was all in my mug. Staring me down. Looking in my eyes like he was a mean cop and I was supposed to break down and confess to all my crimes.
“I wanna thank everybody for joining us today, and for all the prayers you’ve been sending up for my father. Today is not just a Fourth of July celebration. It’s also a celebration of God’s grace and mercy for allowing our father to survive a whole month with the kind of injuries he got in that rig explosion, so please keep praying for his complete recovery.”
Every hand on the property clapped in applause. A lot of “Praise Gods” and “Bless him Lords” went up in the air too.
“By now,” Barron said, keeping it moving, “you’ve all probably met Mink LaRue, and you know she’s here in Texas because she thinks she might be my little sister, Sable. Let’s welcome Mink with a round of applause.”
Everybody smiled and started clapping again, and me and Bunni sat there looking real sweet and innocent as we cheesed our asses off right back at them. Barron opened his shopping bag and whipped out a big ol’ gold-framed picture of three little kids sitting stair-step between each other’s legs. He held the picture up and turned it from side to side so everybody could see it.
“This is a portrait my parents had done of me, Dane, and Sable,” he announced. “Right before Sable was taken away from us.”
I put my fork down and crossed my legs as everybody got real quiet. I knew it was hot-seat time and I was ready. All eyes had been on me since the moment I stepped outta the house, and it was all good. I had shit buzzin’. I could hear their lips flappin’. They were grillin’ me hard, tryna figure out if my game was legit or if I had a hustler’s heart.
“Mink,” Barron said like I was a prisoner and he was interrogating me. “Do you remember this picture?”
“Oh!” I said after a soft pause. I had always wanted to be an actress and this was my chance to shine. I made sure my bottom lip trembled a little bit as I stared at the kids in the picture and went into lie-mode. “I’ve never really seen any photos of myself this young before. I can’t believe how happy I look.”
I touched my napkin to my eyes and blinked a few times. “My mother—the woman who raised me—just wasn’t into taking pictures and that kinda thing. She was always ... sick. I don’t think I took a real picture until I was in the third grade... .”
I waited a few seconds for that to sink in, then I looked up like I had been taking a solo trip down memory lane. “I ... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go there. It’s just that parents usually take pictures of their children as a sign of their love. I never had much of that when I was a child.”
My last line fucked Selah up. I heard her gasp, and then she clutched her throat. One of her girlfriends reached over and started patting her hand.
“Tell everybody where you grew up, Mink,” Barron said all loud. “Did you go to college? What kind of work do you do?” He gave me a fake-ass grin then gestured at me like,
Speak up, bitch, speak up!
I pushed my chair back and stood up real straight. I had everybody’s attention so I knew I had to make it good.
I flashed the crowd a sweet, bright smile and let about ten gallons of honey just ooze all outta my pores. “First of all, hi everybody, I’m Mink LaRue. Thanks for welcoming me to the great state of Texas!”
A bunch of “Welcome, Mink’s” flew up in the air. All the dudes were checking me out with big grins on their faces, but the sistahs were looking at me like I was an intruder tryna snatch up their men and their money, so I needed to hook them with a little bit of honey too.
“Wow. I just can’t believe I’m here,” I said, talking in my phony white girl voice again. I looked around slowly, like I was taking it all in. “It’s so good to see such a beautiful group of family and friends. Everyone is just so lovely, especially the ladies. Growing up, I never had a sister or a close aunt, and I’d like to thank all the women here for being so warm and welcoming me with love. You ladies really know the meaning of Southern hospitality. Thank you.”
I had ’em. Now all the women were smiling too, especially the older ones. I caught Selah’s eye and she nodded her head and beamed like she was a proud mama for real.
I thought about all the gutter shit Barron had probably dug up to use against me and I decided to mess him up by throwing it out there first.
“As you’ve probably heard already, I grew up in New York City. In one of the poorest of the city’s housing projects. I didn’t have a lot when it came to material things, but I always had a great imagination and an eye for the unusual. My mother couldn’t afford to send me to college, so after high school I enrolled at a small art school in Manhattan.”
I smiled, then gestured at my wig and my clothes.
“As you can tell, everything about me is pretty unique, and I think it just comes from me being so
lonely
when I was a kid. My mother worked two jobs trying to keep us off the streets and out of homeless shelters, and sometimes she trusted the wrong people to look after me. And as an innocent little girl I really suffered because of that.”
I spun them suckers a hard-knock tale about how I had been dragged through drug dens, approached by pimps, chased by rapists, and robbed at gunpoint, and I swore all out that even though I had made some mistakes from time to time, I had still managed to hold tight to my dreams by believing there was a better future waiting for me somewhere under a flippin’ rainbow.
I had them suckas softer than butter, and when I finished yakking everybody started clapping again. My girl Bunni clapped the loudest. She knew how bad I was lying so she was impressed the most.
“So what are you doing with your life now, Mink?” Barron took another dig at me before the applause was even over. “Do you have any special talents? I know you said you’re creative, so does that mean you model, or sing, or maybe you like to ... dance?”
I flashed him my brightest grin and nodded. Oh yes, muthafucka! I knew where he was tryna take me, and hell yeah I went there!
“I work part-time in an art gallery, but actually, I do a little bit of everything you mentioned Barron. I sing a little, and I like to model and I definitely dance too. On a stage, and sometimes in front of the camera. Matter fact, I landed a contract last year with that hot urban clothing line called Birthday Cake. You know, the one Marshall George and all the bigwigs in hip-hop fashion are promoting on TV? I danced and modeled in a lot of their videos, and I did photo shoots all over New York, and they want me to come back in a couple of months to do a few more sessions. I’ll admit I love the camera and I come across pretty sexy on film.” I clasped my hands in front of me, grinned, and lowered my gaze. “But it’s all a front for corporate advertising. I’m much shyer than that in my private life.”
I kept my cool as Barron mean-mugged me again. I winked to let him know I wasn’t scared of his ass. He knew exactly what the hell he was doing when he brought that damn picture outside. I had just played his game and used it to my advantage.
Pilar went in for hers next. She was sitting next to Ray, a chubby dude with a huge, gorilla dome. He was Pilar’s boo, and he looked like the last dude on earth I woulda expected her high-flossin’ ass to be fuckin’ with.
“Does your family know you’re here in Texas, Mink? I mean, do they know what you came down here to try to do? I know I would be like, “yeah, right” if somebody in my family woke up claiming to be somebody else after all these years.”
I gave a real gentle shrug. “My aunts and cousins know I’m here. But my mother? Unfortunately, my mother died,” I lied softly, and a bunch of hushed
a www s
rang out. “Yes,” I sniffed. “She suffered from liver disease,” I said, which was definitely true. “From being an alcoholic.” Which was even truer.
My last line seemed like it punched Selah in the gut. I heard her gasp and then she clutched her throat again. Tears welled up in her eyes and that doofus-ass Barron was by her side before the first one could fall.
“It’s okay, Mama.” He shot me a “bitch,
please
” look as Pilar rushed to hold Selah up on the other side. “C’mon, now. You don’t need to get upset.”
I could tell my little child-of-the-ghetto story had all the ladies feeling me.
All of them except Cousin Pilar.
Her lips were still twisted as she eyeballed me with the shit-look. Mami was cool on me, and I was cool on that ass too. Pilar might not have been from the projects, but she was damn sure living on the shady side of the street, and I had peeped her game when I first came out the house.
Yeah, while Barron’s cute little thing thang Carla was sitting off to the side conversating with big-headed Ray, Miss Pilar had been over there chomping on Barron’s jock like a meat-lover with a sausage jones.
I beamed inside as I enjoyed the sympathetic looks that were plastered on everybody’s face. I knew Barron regretted putting my ass on blast now, because my little sob story ended up being a buster on everybody’s mood. He tried to kick the party energy back up by waving at the DJ and hollering that it was time for all the swimmers to get in the pool. I stood there and grinned as he picked up some of the little kids and they laughed and squealed as he tossed their butts in the shallow water.
Almost everybody was heading toward the pool when Pilar came over to get at me again. I had to give it to her. This rich bitch was bold. She glanced at the framed picture I was holding in my hands, and then that trick had the nerve to get up real close in my face.
“Sable doesn’t look a goddamn thing like you.”
I looked at Bunni and both of us busted out giggling.
“No?” I held the picture up next to my smiling face. “You don’t think so?” I straight clowned that trick as I cracked the hell up right in her mug. “That’s okay, my cousin. Trust and believe, by the time I roll up outta Texas me and Sable are gonna look just like
twins
!”
BOOK: Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue
5.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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