Page 110 of The Prodigy

32

Malika

Istaredattherows of gel polish and tried my best to make up my mind. It was only my second time here, and the options were overwhelming.

“Girl, would you just pick one? Damn!”

I laughed at Jaz’s impatience. She was right behind me, looking over my shoulder and sucking her teeth.

“It’s so hard to choose…”

“I’ma choose for you.” She came around and stood next to me, her eyes scanning my outfit. “You seem like a baby pink kinda bitch.”

“I hate pink.”

“No you don’t.” She selected a pale pink one and held it against the back of my hand. “See how pretty that is?”

It actually was. Very princess-y, which is how I’d been feeling lately.

“Okay. I trust your taste, especially since I don’t have any.”

“Mm hm.”

“You were supposed to tell me I’m getting better,” I teased.

“I will. Whenever that day comes,” she laughed.

We took our seats next to each other and waited for our nail techs to get started.

“This is ours,” Jaz said, gesturing around us. “So I guess it’s partly yours, too.”

“The nail salon?”

She nodded.

“I doubt I’m included in any of this,” I said. “Not that I wanna be. I’m just saying. Kari doesn’t really tell me stuff. And that’s fine. It’s not a real—”

“Fuck both of y’all!”

“O…kay. Where did that come from?”

“Y’all are annoying as shit. ‘This ain’t a real marriage’,” she said in an exaggerated deep voice. “’Oh, I’m not part of this and that’s fine’,” was her high-pitched mockery of me. “Y’all are in denial and I’m over it. For real.”

Before I could respond to that, our techs took their seats in front of us.

“Hey, y’all. This Malika, Kari’s wife. That’s Kareema and Krystal. They’re twins, but as you can see, Kareema’s prettier.”

My eyes widened as the three of them dissolved into giggles. Once again, the humor was lost on me, but I pushed out a laugh anyway. I wasn’t fluent yet, but I was starting to understand better.

Two hours later, I admired my baby pink coffin nails, and the white cursive Jakari they convinced me to get painted on both ring fingers. It was cute, I had to admit, and I was looking forward to showing him.

I remembered high school, when girls would get boys’ names airbrushed on their nails. All I had was bitten stumps, so no airbrushing for me. No boys, either, except for Dario and a few dates.

What a difference ten years made.

“Ihaveasurprisefor you.”

Jakari looked up from his phone. “Oh yeah? If it’s pussy, you ain’t never gotta surprise me with it. Just climb on.”

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