Just Make Him Beautiful (21 page)

“Excuse you?”

“Give me your number.”

“For what?”

“So I can call and pick
you
up at
seven
p.m. sharp.”

“I’m not giving
…
”

“I said, give me your number,” he replied in an angry tone.

I don’t know why, but I blurted out my number, hoping he would at least get out of my car. Fortunately, he placed my number in his cell and left.

I grabbed the money from my dashboard and just stared at it. Was this Negro serious? Was he seriously expecting me to go buy a five
-
hundred
-
dollar outfit
,
like some hoochie, just to take me out?
And his stupid ass don’t even remember who I am.

Paying his black ass back for killing my brother was gonna be easier than I thought.

*

By the time I finished stuffing my face and watching back
-
to
-
back episodes of
Next Top Model
, I finally dozed off to sleep. But as soon as I got into a deep sleep, my
ringing
cell phone
woke me up
.

“Hello,” I said
,
trying to wake myself up.

“Hey
,
Sunshine
.
Y
ou ready?”

I sat up in the bed.
“Who is this?”

“This is Junior
. Y
ou ready?”

“What time is it?”

“It
’
s
seven
p.m.
,
Sunshine
.
G
ive me your address so I can pick you up.”

“Ah, why don’t I just meet you somewhere
,
because my folks really don’t like people coming to our house
.
” I didn’t want this murderer to know where I lived.

“Dayum
,
Sunshine
!
B
ut that’s cool. You know where the Radisson Hotel is downtown, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Be there in thirty minutes. Go to the front desk and tell them you are Sunshine. There will be an envelope waiting for you
.
B
ye.”

“Hello, hello.” I looked at the phone
.
“No
,
he didn’t just hang up the dayum phone in my ear.
Chile
, this muthafucka here
…
O
ooo, no
,
he didn’t. 

I looked at my phone to check the time and it
said
7:11
p.m. I jumped out of bed, took a quick shower
,
and
put some clothes on.
I really didn’t care how I looked
,
but I was curious
about
what he had planned.  

*

Honey, I finally made it down to the hotel, parked my car in the hotel garage
,
and approached the front desk.

“Ah
,
yes, my name is Sunshine
.
I believe you have an envelope for me
,
” I
said to
the old gray
-
haired female clerk
.

She
looked at me as though she smelled something funny.

“Ms. Thang
,
is there a problem?”

“No, I’m sorry
.
P
lease forgive me. Here is your envelope
,
m
a’am
…
I mean
s
ir
.
”

“It
’
s
sir
,
biotch
.
” I snatch
ed
the envelope and walk
ed
into the lobby area to read what was in
side
.

Dear Sunshine,

I’m glad you came. Enclosed is a key to room 4225, I hope you will use it.

Junior

P.S. I have a surprise for you

Well, I have to admit
, that was
very nice of him to arrange all of this. I mean
,
really, no one ha
d
ever done this kinda thing for me before.

Junior has a little class
,
I see,
I thought as I caught the elevator to the forty
-
second floor.

I thought about calling Robin and telling her what Junior had done
,
getting us a room at the Radisson
,
but I realized she would probably talk me out of it
,
saying
shit like, “All he wanna do is fuck you. Why would you let him do that after what he did to your brother?”

Yeah
,
yeah
,
yeah, I know
.
B
ut for the past several weeks, I’
d
been somewhat sad and depress
ed
. And who could blame me
?
Especially
after witnessing what my dad
was
doing behind my mom’s back, I didn’t know what to do. My dad
’
s words that night, “I
will kill you and your sister
,” still haunt me to this day. 

I found
R
oom 4225, place
d
the card in the slot
,
and the door opened.
I walked in
,
and the room was fabulous.
Junior must have ordered dinner because there were silver serving trays placed on the dining room table with candles lit on both sides.
And h
e had rose pe
t
als scattered throughout the room
,
le
ading
up to this large king
-
size bed.
I was so surprise
d
that
Junior
had done all this just for me, I found myself liking
him
just a little bit more. My
eighteenth
birthday was in a few days
,
and in my mind, this was a celebration, just for that occasion.

I walked over to the table and noticed that Junior had poured two flute glasses of
c
hampagn
e
. I stood there sipping on
it,
feeling like the
d
iva I want
ed
to be and wondering where Junior was. 

I was beginning to feel a little bad because Junior had gone t
hrough
all this trouble
,
and I didn’t even bother to dress up for the occasion, even though he gave me
five hundred dollars
to get a new outfit. I stood in front of
large mirror on the left-hand side of the wall
to try to fix myself up a little. But to be honest, I didn’t look that bad in my slim fitted jeans, my one
–
of
-
a
-
kind purple T-shirt with rhinestones that Robin had made for me
,
and a pair of purple sneakers with rhinestones that I had tac
ked on the front of each shoe.
I still had the extensions that Robin had put in my hair
,
and they were holding up quite well.

I reached in my handbag for a rubber band to at least pull my braids back into a ponytail.
I also pulled out my compact just to add a little foundation to my face because I was looking a little pale.

“There, that’s better,” I said out loud.

Junior walked into the room, catching me off guard.
“I’m glad you came
.
”

“Oh, hey
.
”

“So
,
what do you think, Sunshine?” he asked
,
arms stretched out wide, referring to the room.

“It’s fabulous.”

“Are you hungry?”

H
e pull
ed
the chair out from the table for me to sit
, and I sat down at the table.

“A little
.
”

For the next
forty-five
minutes or so, Junior and I ate and talked about everything under the sun. I found out that today was his
twenty-fourth
birthday
,
and he wanted to spend it with me.

Which really touched me
.
B
e still
,
my beating heart.

He also told me that he had been selling and dealing in drugs ever since he was
twelve
years old.
Junior also told me that he had a girlfriend and a
three-and-a-half-year-
old daughter name
d
Brianna. But
,
most importantly, he wasn’t gay, but enjoyed having his dick sucked and fucking dudes from time to time. 

I didn’t really say too much to Junior about myself because I know how much guys like talking about themselves. And the less said about me, the better.

We had finished eating
,
and Junior invited me to have a seat on the couch with him.
Chile
, I have to confess, he did look pretty good with his white Calvin Klein sweat
suit on, his silver chain with
crossbone
s
medallion
hanging
,
and his new white Air
F
orce
O
nes.
H
e
’d
obviously been working out because his tone
d
physi
que
was
apparent
in his all
-
white attire. 

Junior made himself comfortable on the couch.
“So
,
Sunshine, did you enjoy the food?”

“Yes
,
I did
,” I replied, sitting next to him. 

“Well, tell me more about you
.
”
H
e look
ed
me dead in the eye.

“What do you wanna know?”

“What’s your real name?”
H
e
got
up and grabb
ed
the
champagne
bottle and glasses we
’d
left on the dining room table.

“You’ve been calling me Sunshine, so you can continue to call me that,” I cooed, batting my eyes at him.

“But I wanna know your real name
.
”
H
e poured us some more
champagne
.

“My name is Sunshine, sweetie. That’s all you really need to know, right?”

H
e handed me my glass of
c
hampagn
e
.
“Is that right?”

The next thing I knew, Junior took the
c
hampagn
e
bottle and bashed it up against my head. He hit me so hard
,
the bottle broke
,
and I fell off the couch onto the floor. My head was pounding so bad
,
I knew something in my head must have cracked.

I tried reaching for the couch to pull myself up
,
but
he
grabbed me by my shirt, pulled me up off the floor
,
and with all his might, punched me dead in my right eye. The pain was so excruciating, I couldn’t even scream.

All I could hear was Junior yelling, “You seriously didn’t think I knew who your faggot ass was? Are you fuckin
’
kidding me? You think you were going to get away with that shit? Do you know who the fuck I am?”

H
e continued punching me
,
throwing my body from one side of the room to the other
, sending
pictures crashing down from the walls
,
and lamps from end tables.
He then grabbed me by my ponytail and swung me so hard on top of the dining room table
,
it broke in half.
I was in so much pain, I thought I was dying.