Da baddest, p.4
Da Baddest, page 4
A couple of years into our friendship, Big M broke up with his girlfriend. Once I turned sixteen and my mom allowed me to date, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said yes. It’s what we’d both wanted for a while. The transition from friends to lovers was easy because we knew each other so well. My classmates thought it was cool that I had an older boyfriend with a car who could take us wherever we wanted to go. Nessa approved of him and got to know his family, so she was comfortable with us spending more time together. I liked how grown I felt when he picked me up from school or after games when I had to perform with the majorette team. Once we were a couple, he was protective and sweet in a way he couldn’t be when we could only talk in my yard. I enjoyed getting to know that side of him. He made me feel special and went from my neighborhood crush to the first boy I ever fell in love with.
Within a few months, things started getting more physical between us. Big M evolved from wrapping his arm around my shoulders and planting light kisses on my lips to tonguing me down while he rubbed my butt. I didn’t mind. One day, we went to eat at Red Lobster and had the place to ourselves when we got back to Big M’s. We were doing our normal thing, kissing and carrying on, but this time was different. He was kissing me deeper and touching me in places he hadn’t touched me before. I knew he wanted to have sex. I did, too. But now that it was right in front of me, I panicked. Immediately, I recalled stories my friends told me about losing their virginities, and none of them were good. They said “popping your cherry” is painful and bloody. I wasn’t prepared for any of that. All of a sudden, I had all the sex questions in the world. So I paused our fooling-around session and suggested we eat some of our leftover lobster. That gave me a chance to call Nessa.
“I think something is about to happen,” I explained. “I don’t know what to do.”
She didn’t try to talk me out of it. She just asked me a loaded question. “Are you sure this is something you want to do?”
It was. I loved Big M, and I enjoyed the physical connection we’d been building. I trusted him to be the first person I shared a full sexual experience with. Knowing that my mind was made up, Nessa answered my questions about what to expect. She confirmed that it might be painful and that I should pay attention to my body telling me I might not be ready for full penetration yet. She said my friends were exaggerating about the blood. She told me not to, under any circumstances, do anything without a condom. I hung up the phone reassured and returned to my date night ready to let the events unfold.
Big M picked up where we had left off, and I followed his lead. He undressed me with a carefulness I’d never seen from him before. I didn’t feel uncomfortable letting him see my body. As he hovered over me on the bed, my thoughts raced with anticipation. It was like I was being let in on the biggest secret, but I was also making it happen. I was still a little nervous but more excited than anything else. He was on top of me in his bed, and I lay there trying to predict what sex would feel like. I waited for the moment to come when I crossed over into “not virgin” territory and saw the world in a whole different way. He pressed against me, gently at first, hoping to glide in.
It wasn’t working. He tried again, this time with more force, and it hurt like hell. I gave him another chance to get it right, and that time hurt even worse, so we stopped. It went just like Nessa said it might. He made sure I was okay as we got dressed. I was—I just felt awkward and a little disappointed that I had to go home still a virgin. I told Nessa what happened, and I could see the told you so smirk on her face. She didn’t judge me, though. She was satisfied knowing that I decided to go there with Big M on my terms and not his. Within a couple of weeks of our first attempt, Big M and I got it right.
We’d been together for over a year when Big M broke the news to me that he was moving to Atlanta. He wanted to start a new life for himself somewhere fresh. It was the beginning of the ’90s in Miami, with drugs and gangs still going strong. There were only a handful of routes out of that lifestyle, and Big M wanted to take one of the better ones. I understood why he was leaving, but it hurt to see him go. I loved Big M. I was used to seeing him every day, and I was going to miss him dearly. We promised each other the distance didn’t mean the end of our relationship, and for a little while, we meant it.
I started senior year of high school with a long-distance boyfriend. Big M and I talked on the phone every single day. I kept him updated on my life at school and in our neighborhood. He told me about his job hunt and plans to get settled in Georgia. We often shared how much we missed each other, and he kept suggesting that I come visit. That was out of the question. Yes, my mother trusted my judgment and allowed me to have a lot of independence as a young lady in my teens. Yes, she knew Big M and I were sexually active. Yes, she chose to support me through that experience instead of trying to stop me and running the risk of me doing it in secrecy. But I was still her underage high school daughter, and she was not giving me permission to fly out of town to visit my boyfriend in another city. I knew better than to even ask her. But Big M didn’t drop it, and the longer we were apart, the more I wanted to see him. I knew my mother would never let me go, so I decided not to ask her.
I looked up flights and roped Pinkey into yet another one of my schemes: a day trip to Atlanta. Everything went smoothly with our quick morning flight. Big M picked us up from the airport and showed us around the city. We went to the mall and ate at a really good soul-food restaurant. He was living with relatives in a nice, spacious house in the Stone Mountain suburb. He drove us to see the mountain the city was named after, and it was the first time I’d seen such a beautiful landscape. Pinkey and I weren’t ready to leave when he had to drive us to the airport for our return flight, but we had to be back in Miami before Nessa suspected anything.
Before we went through security, we learned that our flight was delayed. I wasn’t too worried, because it was still early enough for us to have a little wiggle room. We left the airport to have dinner before we flew out and when we returned, the flight was delayed even more. It was time to worry. Then it was delayed again. My stomach dropped. We weren’t scheduled to land in Miami until two in the morning. I had no choice but to call my mom and tell her where we were.
“This is what happens when you lie to me. It can blow up in your face just that quick.”
That’s all Nessa had to offer before she hung up and went to sleep. I knew I was in a shitload of trouble when I got home, but spending time with Big M and Pinkey in a new city for a few hours was worth it.
Chapter 4
Growing up, I often found myself drawn to architecture and real estate, a personal interest probably passed down from my grandfather. Before starting a family, General Archibald Taylor worked for the Crown (the official head of state) in Bermuda and the Bahamas as a builder. He owned property in the Bahamas, but like so many Caribbeans, he knew there were even more opportunities in the United States. Miami is only thirty minutes from the Bahamas by plane, but my grandfather arrived by boat. He initially set himself up in Overtown, a mostly Black neighborhood that many immigrants called home until the ’50s when I-95 was constructed right through it. He put his skills to use and built the Taylor house in Liberty City from the ground up with his bare hands.
He died before I was born, but my grandfather is probably why I loved any opportunity to drive past the huge mansions in Miami’s affluent neighborhoods. We’d take weekend trips to Haulover Beach, riding past pristine homes sittin’ right on the coast. I stared at each structure, curious about who lived there, what they did for a living, and all the decisions and steps that went into the design and construction—the placement of the windows, the wood used to make staircase railings, or how the garage was attached to the rest of the house. All of it fascinated me. When I learned that architects were the people who brought properties into being, I thought that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up. The older I got, the more it seemed like a pipe dream. I didn’t learn about architecture in school, and any time an architect was mentioned, it was never a woman, let alone a Black woman. My interest in properties never left, but architecture stopped being a career aspiration of mine when I realized it was a specialized field that required a degree and years of specific training.
College was never prioritized in my household as the only route to success. Most of the people around me were hustlers—either entrepreneurs, street cats, or both. They spent a few months learning a trade like carpentry and went into business for themselves, or they got a job and worked their way up, or they got money illegally. Either way, they made sure they had the money to get what they wanted: New cars. Apartments. Clothes for them and their kids. Jewelry. Anybody who wasn’t going out and making it happen for themselves was struggling. I had a deep desire to be a powerful, independent woman who could stand on her own and have the finest things in life. That was my definition of a bad bitch. There was no doubt that I would make it, even if I didn’t know how.
I always thought college made the most sense for people who were incentivized to go. An athletic scholarship or a guaranteed job after the completion of the degree seemed like hustles that made college worth it. I was a decent student in high school and didn’t struggle to pull good grades in any subject that I was interested in and put effort into, but I wasn’t what anyone would call a passionate learner. I wouldn’t have passed a single semester of college if I only went because I thought it was the next step after high school, and Nessa made it clear that she wouldn’t foot the bill for higher education if I wasn’t locked in and focused. By the time I was a senior in high school, a diploma felt like more of a formality, one of the necessary steps I had to take because I was underage. I was most passionate about making my own money, and I didn’t think I needed four more years of studying and tests to achieve that.
Plus, Pinkey and I had the party bug bad in the early ’90s. Every weekend, and sometimes on weekdays, we found ourselves out late. We went to house parties, club let outs, pretty much anywhere that let us in. We didn’t even need fake IDs for the eighteen-and-older spots if we wore the right outfits and smiles. The only thing standing in the way of our good times was school: 7:30 a.m. start times, homework, and finals meant we couldn’t stay out all night, every night. High school was fine, especially when it was football season and I was most active with the majorettes, but it wasn’t special. I attended senior prom with my cousin Stella, which was fun, but it didn’t feel significant, because mentally, I was already done with high school and looked forward to the last day.
Unfortunately, I hit a major roadblock when I had a mandatory meeting with the guidance counselor to go over my transcripts and make sure I was set to graduate. I was a class credit short of fulfilling the requirements to get a degree because I’d failed another science class. I struggled with the subject from ninth through twelfth grade. I never thought I needed to know anything about science in my life outside of school, so I never committed to trying to do well. The final straw was when I walked into the first day of biology in twelfth grade and the dead frogs were waiting for us on trays, ready to be dissected. It freaked me out, and I just never went back to class. I hoped the rest of my grades and overall GPA would be enough for me to earn my diploma anyway, but that was wishful thinking. Not graduating wasn’t an option, though. Nessa would have kicked my ass, and after four years of hard work, I felt like I’d earned my spot to walk across that stage. I pleaded with my science teacher and administrators to give me an opportunity to earn the credits I needed. It was too late in the year for me to make the class up without having to re-enroll the next school year. Summer school was the only option. While everyone else was finally free from academic responsibilities, I had to attend several weeks of classes before I could graduate. I was pissed, but I begrudgingly got it done and got my diploma.
I didn’t throw a graduation party or anything. Pinkey, Stella, and the rest of my crew just kept the turn-up going with a new sense of freedom. Even though I was only seventeen, I no longer had to worry about the constraints of school nights. The week I was finally done with summer classes, Pinkey and I went to a party at a lounge. I had my hair in an updo with a tight dress on, and my lip gloss and liner were popping. It was another epic night of dancing and celebrating. “Baby Got Back” had just come out, and it was an anthem for us thick girls, so I was definitely letting loose. We left as the party spilled outside and took our time walking back to our car. We played it cool as guys sized us up while we switched by, and I felt one of them gently grab my arm. I looked up at a tall, milk-chocolate-complected man with a gold grill in his mouth that said HOLLYWOOD. I could tell his parted haircut was fresh. He was fine as hell. His touch was smooth and confident, but he had a laid-back swagger that made me want to know everything about him. I was instantly drawn to his energy. I gave him my phone number and looked forward to hearing from him.
* * *
Within a few weeks of finishing school, I got my first job answering phones and doing administration work at an insurance company. It was so boring, but I was so happy to be earning my own money. They offered me $800 every two weeks, and I was eager to put it to work. I didn’t think $1,600 a month was going to make me rich, but I assumed it was more than enough for me to live alone. As soon as I knew the job was mine, I set my sights on a place. My mom owned a beautiful three-bedroom house, complete with a lawn. It was one of her investment properties, and I knew it was still unoccupied. The rent was $800, only half of my new monthly income. One room would be my bedroom, the other would be a closet, and the third one could be a guest room, or more closet space. My imagination was already running wild.
“Are you sure you’re ready to take on that kind of responsibility?” Nessa asked me when I told her I wanted to move in.
I didn’t understand why she was being so hesitant, and I insisted I could handle it. She didn’t seem convinced, but she agreed to let me rent the house. She turned serious, with an all-about-business tone: “The rent must get paid every month. This is not up for debate or discussion, and it has nothing to do with me bringing you into this world.”
Well, damn. That’s what I thought to myself, but all I said out loud was “I understand.” I was too giddy to make my dreams of independence come true. I felt like a million bucks when I moved in with my bedroom furniture from my mom’s. At seventeen, I was the only one of my friends who had their own crib. I was already getting a head start on the boss life I wanted.
Then the bills started to come in. On top of the rent, I had to pay for cable service, phone service, yard services to keep the lawn up to code, and electricity. That brought my monthly housing expenses closer to $1,000 a month. I also had to have food, toiletries, and cleaning supplies. That brought me to $1,200 a month. Up to that point, I had only ever counted and spent money, not worked for it or managed any of my own. Not only had I underestimated how much living on my own would cost, but I also hadn’t realized my checks would be subject to taxes and cut down to $600 every two weeks. That left me with just enough money to pay for rent, utilities, and essentials, and not a single thing more.
With Nessa’s warning about the rent ringing in my head, I knew I had to figure something out. I needed a job that paid more. My godsister Angie was doing customer service at an AT&T call center and suggested that I apply. She vouched for me, and I was offered a position right away, so I quit the insurance company job. After making it through training and my first couple of weeks at AT&T, I was so relieved that my paycheck was over a hundred dollars more than the ones at my last job. I was able to pay all the bills as they came, instead of picking which ones I could afford in the moment. But I still couldn’t splurge on new outfits and go out every single weekend, even though I tried. I would pull up to my mother’s house to get good home-cooked meals instead of having to stock my own refrigerator if it meant I could keep my social life going. Unfortunately, the penny-pinching couldn’t stop me from falling behind on rent. I had to accept that I was stuck and fucked.
This was not the life of comfortable independence that I had imagined for myself, but I had too much pride to bow out gracefully. I tried not to mention the unpaid rent in hopes that Nessa would show me some grace, or that I would figure something else out in the meantime. She let me slide for the first month I didn’t pay. When two months passed without the debt being settled, she told me I had to get out. I stayed put for a week to call her bluff in case she was just trying to scare me. Would my mother actually kick me out of my crib? The answer was yes. I was back in my room at her house before two months of past due rent turned into three.
Fumbling my first rental helped me let go of this fantasy I had that shit would just work out for me because I wanted it to. I needed a plan for how I was going to achieve whatever I wanted to have in life. I had no clue how many hours of grinding, how many failures, and how much “figuring it out” women like my mom and aunts had to do. But I would eventually find out.
Chapter 5
Hollywood started calling me the same week we met. He took me out to eat for our first date, and we hit it off instantly. We talked for hours, and I was so impressed to learn that he and his best friend, Ted Lucas, were big-time promotors who hosted parties and concerts all over the city. They brought acts like Frankie Beverly & Maze and Earth, Wind & Fire to perform. Ted wanted to get even deeper into the entertainment industry and had started building the record label of his dreams: Slip-N-Slide Records. Hollywood was loyal to him and planned on sticking by Ted’s side to make sure it was a success. Hollywood was intelligent, charismatic, and respected in the streets. Knowing that I could attract guys like this, who were making big moves, made me feel accomplished in my own right. I felt like I was headed in the right direction by surrounding myself with people who were ambitious and successful.
