CHAPTER 24

“What happened to you last night? I waited for you for over an hour!”

“I’m really sorry. Things have been crazy. I’ll make it up to you…”

“That’s what yesterday was for, remember? You were supposed to be making it up to me about frontin’ me in front of Jackie. Now you telling me you gonna make it up to me for standing me up? What’s going on with you, Yolanda? It feels like I haven’t talked to you in months. You haven’t showed me your office, you haven’t called me. What’s going on?”

“I know. Look, Natalie, can I call you back? I’m right in the middle of something,” Yolanda said, looking through a stack of paperwork.

“They got you that busy you can’t talk to your best friend? I really need to talk—”

“Natalie, I know, but can it wait? I’m getting buried under paperwork and I have a deadline to meet. I promise I’ll…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’ll make it up to me. Fine,” Natalie said, letting out a long exasperated breath, “I’ll let you go.”

“Thanks, girl. I’ll call you later.”

Natalie hung up, and put the cordless phone on the end table. It fell, and she kicked it hard under the couch. Ever since Yolanda got this promotion she doesn’t have any time for me anymore. She kept hanging around Dee Dee’s daughter, Jackie, a stuck-up brat. Natalie was glad she didn’t get promoted to creative director, served her spoiled self right. I hope Yolanda don’t start acting like Jackie. Although she is starting to act funny. It’s probably too late.

Natalie walked back to her small pine breakfast table and started studying for her first quiz tomorrow night. She had been in school only a little over two weeks and already was overwhelmed by schoolwork. She had been late for work twice this week, something that rarely happened, but she was losing sleep by staying up and doing so much work. She really needed to talk to someone. She had hoped today would be the day she could tell Yolanda her great news. But it would probably wait. The more Natalie waited to tell Yolanda, the more she no longer wanted to tell her. She didn’t think Yolanda deserved to know her good news.

* * *

“Okay, everyone listen up, I have some very exciting news,” Dee Dee said.

“Essence magazine will start a new column on what’s hot in select cities, and Houston will be spotlighted in their upcoming January issue. The editors feel that Behave Hair Salon is one of Houston’s top salons so…we’ve been selected.”

“All right!” Maxwell said, clapping and encouraging everybody else to do the same.

“This is going to take a lot of hard work from everyone,” Dee Dee said, looking around the room. “This is August, and Essence has a four month lead time, so that doesn’t give us much time to come up with a concept and execute it. Theresa, that will be your job. You need to think of a creative concept that will actually portray Behave. Since it will be in January, I’m thinking clean, sexy, fresh. I want this to be modern with a traditional slant. We’ll use the same ideas for our spring ad campaign,” Dee Dee continued. “Maxwell, I need you to pick the styling team. We need four of our best stylists and two nail technicians. Also talk to Andre from Forward Boutique and see if we can get clothes for the models. Tell him there will be a free plug in it for him.

“Yolanda, work closely with Maxwell. Since you just got off the salon floor, maybe you can suggest a few stylists. You’re still fairly new, so watch and learn. All right, any questions?” Dee Dee asked, taking a deep breath.

She answered everyone’s questions, occasionally glancing at her watch.

“Okay, you guys, get to work,” Dee Dee said, standing. “Theresa, by the way, I want a daily report on everything, every evening.”

“Yes, Dee Dee, that won’t be a problem.”

The briefing over, everyone left the conference room. Everyone except her daughter Jackie.

“I assume you want something?” Dee Dee asked, walking back to her office and sitting at her massive desk.

“Why do you always think I want something, Mama?”

“Dee Dee. At work, refer to me as Dee Dee just like everyone else.”

“I’m not everybody else! I’m your daughter!”

“I’m well aware of that fact,” Dee Dee said, turning her computer on.

“Could you pay attention to me for one minute?” Jackie said, beating an angry fist on Dee Dee’s desk.

Dee Dee sat back in her chair and looked at her daughter.

“I’m listening,” Dee Dee said, her voice cool and steady.

“Why didn’t you have an assignment for me at the meeting?”

“I didn’t feel you needed an assignment. But if you’re feeling left out you can assist Theresa…”

“I don’t want to assist Theresa! I want my own thing! I want to feel important, too!” Jackie yelled.

“Lower your voice,” Dee Dee said icily.

Jackie took deep breaths, trying to get control of her emotions. “All I’m saying is that I would like to feel needed.”

“You are needed. You teach and instruct all those shampoo technicians how to become Behave stylists. You are very important. What more do you need?”

“I want you to love me.”

“I do love you!” Dee Dee said, frustrated.

“Not the way you loved Michael.”

Hearing his name sent sad chills down Dee Dee’s spine. Had it only been three years since Michael died? She looked at his picture on her desk and her heart twisted in pain. Her arms ached knowing she would never hold her son again.

Dee Dee sighed. “I don’t know what else I can do to show you my love, Jacquilyn. You’re just gonna have to believe me.”

She looked up at her daughter and saw the pain in her dark eyes. Did I cause that pain? I want to hug her, hold her so tight she can’t breathe. But I can’t move.

“I have work to do,” Dee Dee said finally, returning to her computer.

“Of course, you do,” Jackie said, walking out of Dee Dee’s office and letting the door softly click behind her.

Dee Dee sighed and rubbed her hand down the back of her head, missing the long strands that she would gather up in a high ponytail. She had been feeling like she was getting too old for all that hair and had cut it all off the day before Michael’s funeral. For goodness sake, I just turned fifty last year. Oprah says fifty is the new forty…

A year after she and Jonathan were married she got pregnant with Jacquilyn. Nothing had come easy with her— not the birth, her childhood, her adolescence—nothing. They had spoiled her, and Jacquilyn grew up feeling entitled, feeling that everything that came her way was owed to her and she should not have to work for it. When she was a teenager, she would ask her to help at the salon, to sweep the floors and make herself useful. Every chore was met with resistance until Dee Dee stopped asking, giving them both less headache. After high school Dee Dee pushed college on her, saying that it was important for her to have a business background.

“You didn’t go to school and look how well you turned out! There’s no way I’m doing it, either.”

Dee Dee relented and gave her a small position shampooing hair, believing that everyone should work themselves up the ladder, even if she owned the ladder. Jacquilyn balked, saying she shouldn’t have such a menial position. After several jobs, she finally settled on being assistant technical instructor and then moved up to being head technical instructor.

But it wasn’t enough. It seemed it was never enough. Jacquilyn wanted more, more, more. She wants me to die. Then she thinks my empire will be hers. She felt that was Jacquilyn’s secret prayer, for her mother’s death.

When Dee Dee saw that the salon was about to burst at the seams from so many people she made the decision to find a bigger salon. That’s when everything came to a head, when Dee Dee saw all the hate that was bubbling just underneath the surface in her daughter’s heart. Jacquilyn was ecstatic to learn they were expanding to a new salon location. She saw this as her opportunity to branch out on her own. Dee Dee played along, dangling the salon in front of Jacquilyn so she would cooperate with their move to their present location. She told her to wait a year, and she could do whatever she wanted with the old property. In that short time, she saw a transformation in her daughter. Jacquilyn became a hard worker and listened to her mother’s every word. She was helpful and took the initiative on projects. Her motives were still in the wrong place; Jacquilyn was only helping because of what she thought she was getting out of it, but even still, Dee Dee relished those short months. She really did intend to give it to her, but an offer came on the property that she couldn’t pass up, so she sold it without telling Jacquilyn a word. She knew it was wrong, and promised herself she would tell her when the time was right, but that time never came up.

Six months into their new location, Jacquilyn stormed into her office and screamed at her that the old salon had been leveled and that someone was building a car wash there.

“What’s going on? There’s got to be some mistake—”

“There is no mistake, the owner can do whatever he wants to his property,” Dee Dee said, keeping her voice even.

“The owner? I’m the owner! I never told anyone—”

Dee Dee looked at her. “I sold that property six months ago. You never owned it.”

“What?”

“You never owned it.”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said!” Dee Dee said, guilt making her voice go sharp. “You weren’t ready—”

“You wouldn’t have done this to Michael,” Jackie said, her voice flat and even. Her hands were clenched, as if she would strike her.

Dee Dee gave her a steely gaze. She wouldn’t dare…

“Michael has nothing to do with this.”

“He has everything to do with it. Did he put you up to this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He would never do such a thing.”

“It’s always about him! Everything is. Somehow he weaseled his way into my business deal—”

“It’s not Michael! It’s you! You are not ready. You can’t cut it!”

Jackie flinched.

Dee Dee let out an exasperated sigh.

“What I meant to say is that I don’t even know who you are anymore. You didn’t want to go to business school—which your father and I agreed to. But then, you didn’t want to learn anything around the salon—”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all this time! I’ve been here busting my butt for months—”

“That’s just it, Jacquilyn. That isn’t enough time to learn how to successfully run a salon. Now, Michael comes into my office—oh, baby, I’m sorry,” Dee Dee said, when she saw tears falling from Jacquilyn’s face.

“Not yet, but you will be,” she said, storming out of Dee Dee’s office. Things had not been the same between them ever since.

She looked at Michael’s picture again, and couldn’t believe that those two had came from the same womb; their personalities were like night and day. While Jacquilyn complained about doing every menial chore, Michael would insist on helping with everything. He rarely had to be told to do anything and took the initiative with chores around the house, as well as the salon. He would love to come into her office after school and listen to her tell him how the business was run, how to make something grow from nothing.

It’s never easy for a mother to admit that she favors one child over another, but Dee Dee did. Michael was like Cool Whip on apple pie, he made everything just that much sweeter. Jacquilyn was lemonade that lacked enough sugar, you could see the potential, but needed to keep adding sweetener to get it there.

The phone rang and Dee Dee jumped. She picked it up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Oh, hello,” Dee Dee said, irritated by the sound of her husband’s voice.

“I was in the neighborhood and wanted to know if I could stop by? Maybe take you to lunch?”

“I’m busy.”

“We don’t have to go out. I could bring lunch to you.”

“I told you I’m busy. I’ll probably have to skip lunch altogether.”

“Well, what about dinner?”

“I have to work late.”

After a long pause, he said, “I’m really trying, Dee Dee.”

She didn’t respond. She looked at Michael’s picture.

“You’re not making this easy for me.”

“Why should anything be easy for you?”

“I miss him, too.”

“You’re supposed to. You’re the reason he’s gone.”

“You don’t care, do you, Dee Dee? You don’t care about me at all.”

“No, Jonathan, I don’t.”

She hung up.