Chapter Two - Wifey Material.

Carmella

100% nerd. 100% uptight, with a stick up her ass. 100% my best friend and 1000% my sister. That was the formula God used when he was making Janelle. But today, she was also 100% my favorite person in the world because, with her help, I was one step closer to my dream.

For decades, I made a lot of money off my looks and natural sex appeal, but I was tired of that shit. I was tired of being called the ‘Black Kim Kardashian’ and told that I was only famous for being famous or because of my connection to Cree. I wanted respect along with notoriety and fame. I wanted people to see me as a woman who was not just sexy because I had many other qualities.

The problem? I just hadn’t had a chance to discover what those other qualities were just yet.

I knew what my passions were, and I also knew what I was good at. I was great at nutrition and fitness. I was almost dogmatic about it because it was how I kept my body tight.

Dancing was another passion of mine, and even though Cree hated it, I regularly posted videos doing choreography that Byron put together for me. He opened three dance studios because of them, and his businesses were all doing well. But teaching wasn’t my thing, and I didn’t want to be tied down working for anybody. I knew I wanted to make something of myself, but I wasn’t sure how to make my passions work.

Flipping over onto my stomach, I made myself comfortable under the heat of the California sun. Black people didn’t tan, but I sat my yellow ass under the sun every day. I didn’t bake for hours, just enough to maintain the golden glow that my 212 million followers expected whenever they saw a picture of me.

I was an influencer and made a lot of money from it, but I had no product to offer the people I was influencing. I’d had plenty of offers to come up with my own make-up or skincare line, but everybody was doing that shit, and, to be perfectly honest, I had professionals who put in the time to perfect my complexion. No lemon scrub or magical sunscreen on Earth could do everything my private aesthetician did. It just wasn’t for me. I wanted a product I could stand behind; otherwise, it felt too much like a job. It was bad enough that I’d gotten caught up selling this flat-tummy tea.

Reaching for my phone, I scrolled to Byron’s name and waited for him to pick up the phone.

“Guess what?” I said as soon as I saw his face on the screen.

“Let me guess.”

Placing a finger to his cheek, he poked his lips out as he scrolled his eyes to the ceiling to think. As usual, when it came to my craziness, Byron wasted no time diving in.

“Beyoncè’s team called you and said they want to work with me after seeing all the dances I came up with for you?”

“Boy, please.” I sucked my teeth. “Do you think I would be this calm if Beyoncè’s team called me asking about you?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Good point. If that had happened, I would at least expect not to see them big-ass worry lines on your face.”

“You’re lying!”

I shot up from my cabana chair and squinted at my reflection on the screen.

“Don’t worry about it, boo. One visit to Dr. Nyce, and he’ll give you a shot to clear it right up. You see, he’s done wonders with my face.”

Grinning, Byron framed his face with one hand as if to demonstrate.

“Nah, boo, you can have that. I might get a little nip and tuck every now and then, but I draw the line at getting that liquid cement shit pumped into my face.”

“Suit yourself,” he said before popping a cherry Dum-Dum into his mouth. If nothing else, Byron was sure to prove to me every day that no matter how old he got, he would always act like a little ass kid.

“Anyways, I called you because I have an idea about my next new product. As you can see from how I’ve been handling this tea partnership, selling other people’s stuff ain’t for me.”

“I told you when you first agreed to do that shit,” Byron quickly reminded me. “You only like doing things when you don’t have to do them. You will post a million videos daily, but as soon as someone tells you what you have to do, that’s the second you start having a fit about posting any little thing.”

He was right, so I couldn’t say a thing about it. At this point in my life, outside of my sisters and Cree, Byron was my oldest friend. He knew me.

“Yes, you were right, but I still had to do it to see if it was for me. And now I know that it’s not.”

“Well, congratulations. You finally found the final clue. Good job, Blue. You want a Scooby snack?”

“You’re mixing up your cartoons, dummy.”

Raising my middle finger at the screen, I waved it at him and then laughed. Byron was such an asshole, but sometimes I needed that energy in my life.

“Anyways, I was thinking that what I should do is….” I paused as if waiting for a drumroll. Instead, I got Byron’s wide eyes staring back expectantly at me. “I think I’m going to come up with my own clothing line!”

Smiling hard, I watched Byron and waited for his expression to change from the dull, blank, ‘are you serious?’ look he was currently hitting me with. He sat there for so long, not moving a muscle, that, for a moment, I thought that maybe the screen had frozen.

“Carmella, what the fuck?” He squinted his eyes tight as he looked back at me. “That might be the craziest idea—Carm, you don’t even like to wear clothes. Look down at yourself.”

It probably wasn’t a real ask, but my dumb ass still bent my neck to look.

“You’re naked right now. Your ass is always naked or halfway there. You don’t even like clothes. How the hell do you expect to sell them?”

Once again, he had a point.

“I just thought that since people are always complimenting what I’m wearing—”

“They only compliment you because you wear shit that shows off your body. When you do wear clothes, you look damn good in them. But other people ain’t about to look like you do in it!” Smacking his lips, he slapped his hand over his face. “Bitch, I swore I would never bring this up again but remember when that Park line hit the internet, and I copped that leotard just because the queen was rocking it?”

I laughed out loud as the memory came to mind. Byron was so happy to be one of the lucky ones to grab exactly what he wanted before the supplies ran out, but when he tried it on, he called me in tears because of how it fit.

“The description said it was unisex, but whoever wrote that was a motherfuckin’ lie, and I wish I could reach out and slap them to sleep. That shit was so far up my ass, it’s a miracle I wasn’t shitting nylon and latex. And the front gripped all my man meat. That material wrapped around my nuts so tight I might have to tell my mama it’s a wrap on her having any grandkids.”

I squinted at the screen. “It’s always been a wrap for her. You don’t want kids.”

“You know me too well—only people with no purpose breed. Us lucky ones who know why we’re here; we’ve got other things to do. I just wish she would get that.” He rolled his eyes. “Whenever I call her, she asks me when I will settle down and have kids. I haven’t the heart to tell her ‘never.’”

I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t even breathe. Byron was the type of friend I needed; I could never guess what was about to come out of his mouth, but it was always guaranteed to be crazy. It didn’t matter what bad mood my life had me in, he always found a way to pull me out of it.

“Moral of the story," he continued. "Unless fashion is really your thing, don’t deal with it because all you’re going to do is fuck us up. And by ‘us’, I mean the people who love you enough to buy it.”

I sighed, not even wanting to verbally acknowledge that, once again, he was right.

“Anyways, what are you getting into today?”

He sucked his teeth before he answered me. “Chile, not a damn thing.”

“For real?”

“Yes. Girl, these days, I ain’t got shit going on. My phone has been dry as fuck. Ain’t shit going down in these DMs.”

“For once,” I rolled my eyes. Byron’s ass always had a date. I was genuinely shocked that he was alone for the first time since I met him. “That might be what you need. Some time to yourself. A little bit of self-love.”

“Yeah... you might be right. I was thinking the other day that ‘self-love’ might be exactly what I need to get my life right,” he said as if he were thinking about it. “Bitch, I’m lying!”

He laughed. “I was gonna keep the lie going, but I ain’t totally single. I still have my lil’ thing in the background, but he doesn’t count.”

I poked my lips out into a full pout at that. “Why doesn’t he count?”

“Because I don’t want him. I only have him around because he’s the only thing keeping me from turning into a nun or a whore, and you know me can’t have that.”

I rolled my eyes. His ass was so dramatic.

“So, I’m just gonna hold onto my old flame until the new one comes in.”

“Oh, I see,” I nodded my head. “Makes sense to me.”

I remembered those days: knowing you wanted to be single but not wanting to be without dick. Wanting to go out there and explore your newfound ‘singledom’ but not be judged for it It was an odd place to be in. I was just thankful that I wasn’t in that crowd anymore. Cree and I were still together after twenty-plus years. We were in our forties... and still unmarried.

Ugh.

Just the reminder of that fact instantly put me in a renewed fucked-up mood.

“You remember how hard it was to find a decent man before you found Cree? Well, it’s even harder than that now. And I’m living in Atlanta as a gay man who has my shit together—good credit and fresh to death. You’d think I’d found somebody by now. I’m the cream of the fuckin’ crop.” He snapped his fingers to further dramatize his statement.

“Yes, you are!” I agreed with a snap of my own.

“But my point is...” he started back. “Be thankful that you got what you got. And don’t be so quick to leave him.”

Nodding my head slowly, I thought about what Byron was saying. He was right. I was lucky to have Cree. Not only was he sexy, rich, and was packing an anaconda in his pants—sorry, I got a bit caught up, my bad—but he was a generally good guy. Still, we had our issues, and I couldn’t help but think if I should be unhappy about them and deal or if I should leave and risk ending everything. It’s not something I’d ever considered. Because we always had a backup plan. I’ve never totally experienced being alone. And the thought of it seemed scary.

Imagine me, as fine and sexy as I am, and I end up single because I never took a break from my ambitions to have children and a family when I could have. Maybe I was too obsessed with my career. I didn’t want to build an empire to sit and cry in it alone. I wanted a family legacy. But Cree wasn’t having it.

“Still having issues with Cree?” Byron poked after a while of my silence.

“Yeah....” I admitted. “I’ve dropped all kinds of hints and all. He isn’t feeling it. He says he’s not there yet.”

“Well, how long does it take for him to get there? Y’all have been dating for almost twenty damn years.”

“Not consecutively,” I reminded Byron.

“Well... true.”

Yep, that’s right. We have been together for almost twenty years, but not consecutively.

So, I guess I’ll update you on what’s been happening with Cree and me since you’ve been gone. Let me tell you a few things that may further explain his cold feet about the ‘m’ word that I could no longer even whisper around our house: marriage.

Cree asked me to marry him a total of two times. And I canceled the engagement both times. Now, I’m ready to get married, and he isn’t trying to hear it.

It sounds bad that I turned him down but let me explain. The first time was because I landed an opportunity as a model in Milan. It meant that I would have to move to Italy for three years. Cree gave me an ultimatum and said if I wanted to be his wife, I had to live in New York because that’s where his family lived. So, guess what I said? 'Boy, bye!'

It doesn’t sound good because you’re supposed to give it all up for love. Or at least that’s what they say. But for real, ‘they’ must be some ‘Fortune 500 child of an heiress’ type shit because where I come from, we don’t give up opportunities for anybody. Especially not a man who, instead of compromising on following me to Italy, or doing long distance, issued an ultimatum.

Daddy raised no fool, and he taught me that when a nigga acts up, you better make sure you got your own coins. Or, in other words, get that bag, girl, because the reality is that even the most perfect man is still a man, he will do some stupid shit sometimes. But if you got your own money to fall back on, you won’t be stuck putting up with some bullshit you can’t stand just because you don’t have enough to take care of yourself.

So, I said all that to say my career was why I broke each engagement.

The first one was because of Milan, and the second was over his jealousy concerning my choice of a career. It wasn’t a secret that Cree has always been possessive, but damn! Just being me and doing what I loved constantly caused issues. Especially when I started dancing and posting sexy dance videos, pussy-popping, and ass-twerking all over the screen. It had his ass about to lose it over the attention I was getting once we got back together. And it got worse when he proposed to me for the second time.

We had a big fight after some rapper made a song boldly stating that he wanted to fuck me. He even went as far as saying in a verse that he could take me from my man. When one of the DJs played it, Cree flipped his shit right in the middle of my club appearances. It was hard keeping it off The Shaderoom and TMZ. I’m still not sure how we did it, but Cree has connections.

Anyways, we broke up right after. I gave his ring back and told him to work on his problems, and we went our separate ways. We both grew up, and then about six months later, we got back together. Now it’s been almost four years of being together consecutively, and I was over 40. I wanted to be married. I wanted to settle down and have a baby. But the problem was it was damn near impossible to get Cree to ask me to marry him again.

“Would you ever consider asking him instead?” Byron asked, offering a suggestion that I instantly rejected.

“Me ask him? Hell nah! I’m not doing that!”

“Why?” He frowned.

“Because I’m a traditionalist. He needs to ask me.”

“Hunny," Byron began, pausing for a beat to smack his lips. "First of all, nothing about you is ‘traditional’; second, it is not the 50s. You have your own power now, so you don’t need to spend your time around here waiting for a man to ask you a damn thing. If you want it, ask him. Then if he says no, you can move the hell on. Boom! You got closure and don’t have to waste time doing the same ole song and dance around the same ole bullshit.”

I heard what he was saying, but I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t a Christian, but the Bible says that he that seeketh a woman findeth her--or something like that.

Hell, I haven’t touched a Bible in years, so I don’t know how it goes. I just know it doesn’t say a damn thing about a woman finding a man. I’m the modern woman but to a point. I believed I could do everything as well as a man (probably better), but I wasn’t burning any bras.

I was a hopeless romantic that way. I wanted to believe that chivalry wasn’t dead and that I would find my prince one day. I liked a man who was a gentleman and a woman who was a lady. I was a lady. And, in my opinion, ladies do not ask men to marry them.

“Thanks for the pep talk, Byron, but no thanks. That’s just not my style.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged it off without another word. That’s what I loved about him. We could talk, disagree and move on. He didn’t get an attitude if I didn’t take his advice.

His image blurred on the screen as his phone paused the video, letting me know he had another call coming in.

I said nothing before ending the call to let him handle his business. I knew I was being petty hanging up on him like that, and he would likely call me out about it, but I was in a mood--And it made no sense.

I was an influencer, living out the life I’d once thought of as a dream, but I was still unsatisfied with my life. I wanted more. I wanted a legacy. And for so long, I’d thought that creating a legacy meant establishing a brand, but the more that I looked at my friends and family, I realized it was more than that.

Building legacy wasn’t the same as building wealth anymore. For the first time in my life, I wanted a family.