Free Sexy Little Liar by Noire

“One bag? Mink how the hell we gonna fit all our stuff into one bag? You got more gear than me, so tell me how the hell we gonna do that?”
    â€œEasy. All we gotta do is pack real light. We only take the stuff we really, really need.”
    â€œI don’t know about you and your stuff,” Bunni said as she dragged another suitcase out from under her bed, “but I needs all minez, okay?”
    â€œUh-uh, Bunni! We ain’t getting outta no taxicab lugging thirty suitcases behind us like we did the last time we went down there! We’re part of the family now, so let’s roll up in that mansion like we got some sense this time. Whatever we don’t take with us, we can shop for when we get there. Remember, the Dominions got accounts at all the fly malls, and as long as I sign my name on the account we get to buy anything we want, okay?”
    I could tell Bunni wasn’t cool with leaving none of her outfits behind, but she had no choice but to go along with my program. I picked through my stuff and chose only my very best gear to take with me, and I made sure I had the right accessories to match every single stitch too. I packed my wigs in a separate carry-on bag and stuffed about ten pairs of cute summer shoes in there too.
    Peaches had borrowed his friend’s car to take us to the airport, and since our flight wasn’t leaving until late that night and we had plenty of time to kill during the afternoon, I asked him to give me a ride to the nursing home where my mother lived. I couldn’t stand hospitals, and just thinking about going up in one had my head in a bad space. Wasn’t nothing good or glamorous about a place where sick people laid around waiting to die, and visiting my mama here was always a mood buster for me.
    I had ditched all my makeup and I looked real regular as I jumped in the car with Peaches. There was absolutely no designer labels on my ass today. I had on a pair of navy blue sweats and a plain white T-shirt. Instead of my usual six-inch fuck-me pumps, I had slid my feet in a pair of regular old Nikes. I had ditched my Glama-Glo too. There wasn’t no reason to plop no outrageous wig on my head and make my scalp get all sweaty. Instead I styled my own hair, and brushed it down my back in soft shiny curls.
    I had been coming to the nursing home to see Mama for a long time, but no matter how many times I visited I would never get used to seeing her looking so hopeless or helpless. I was only thirteen when my mother got up one morning and drove her car straight into the Hudson River. She had been trapped in her seat belt under all that cold water, and by the time a bunch of strangers were able to pull her out she had gone without oxygen too long and she suffered some brain damage. My aunts and cousins liked to talk a lotta shit and say Mama had brought her situation down on herself, but I wasn’t tryna hear none of their high-and-mighty project blab. Who the hell was they to judge her, and where the hell was they when she was down in the gutter and coulda used a little help?
    â€œYou straight?” Peaches asked as he stopped the car and let me out near the front door of the rickety old nursing home. “I ain’t gonna have to come in there and put my foot up nobody’s ass, am I?”
    I smiled and shook my head. “Nah,” I said softly. “I’ma be good today.”
    Back in the day I used to raise all kinds of hell every time I went to the nursing home to see my mother. I didn’t give a damn what Jude Jackson had done, or why she had ended up all twisted up in that bed the way she was, she was still my mama and I couldn’t stand to see her being disrespected and ignored by the workers who got paid by the state to take care of her. It used to fuck my heart up to have to pull off her nightgown and change her grown-woman diaper while she cried and looked embarrassed, and the only way I knew to express the helpless rage I