UnPretty

UnPretty - Chapter 1

1986 – April

I'm tired of crying. Beyond tired of feeling this way, Patricia 'Peaches' Solace thought, angrily wiping her face free of tears yet again.

She used one hand to fling away the emotional dew from her cheeks. The other hand steered her red Pinto around another sharp curve of the winding country road. Both were as bare as her feet on the pedals.

Although Peaches had been long gone from her mother's home for months now, it was not Flora's rejection that generated her abundance of tears. These tears were solely derived from the knowledge that her ex-boyfriend, whom she still loved, was getting married to someone else...today.

Today, as in right at this very moment Kenan Kinchlow was preparing to marry a woman he didn't love...in a fancy Washington, D.C. church...before God and man. A woman he said he didn't even like anymore. And for what? Because his parents told him to do so.

Those were the same parents that told Kenan to break off his engagement to Peaches and break up with her altogether. He eventually surrendered to their demands right after the Christmas holidays, three weeks after asking her to marry him.

Taking me to meet his family was a big mistake. Huge! We should've just eloped. Peaches pressed down harder on the gas pedal. More tears filled her eyes, but she stubbornly blinked them away. Her heart felt like the sugar cookies in her purse – stale, broken, and unwanted.

The wealthy upper-class Kinchlows did not approve of the fact that Peaches was from the inner-city or the 'ghetto' as they liked to call it. Nor did they approve of the fact that she wore long braids and beads to celebrate her African culture when so many other Black girls were perming their tresses and wearing straight styles like their White counterparts.

Mrs. Kinchlow, who wore long straight wigs, seemed particularly offended by Peaches' native hairstyle, as if it was too much of a reminder of what she left in Africa, specifically the poverty of her youth. She and her husband barely said three words to Peaches during that visit. Their disdain for her and all that she stood for was quite obvious, which made her cut the visit two days short.

No wonder it took him so long to take me home with him. He knew how snobbish they were all along. But still after two whole years of dating, how could he drop me so easily? How could he choose them over me? And what kind of man reneges on a marriage proposal? Peaches thought, pressing down even harder on the gas pedal.

The fact that Kenan acted like an obedient boy rather than a grown man was the main reason she hid her pregnancy from him all these months and was super relieved that she hadn't shared the news during her blissful and extremely short engagement period. It was also the reason she dropped out of college in the middle of her junior year when she started to show. She didn't want her ex-boyfriend, who was now a graduate student, to know that she was carrying his child.

Peaches really hadn't wanted anyone to know, but her observant mother noticed the change in her appearance after the fourth month and demanded that she either get rid of the baby or get out of her house. She chose the latter option. She'd been living with friends ever since until she could have the baby and give it up for adoption. She saw that as the only way for her unborn daughter to have a better life than the one she had, a much better life than the one she could give her.

Peaches banged her moist fist on the leather steering wheel of the dilapidated little car she drove. Although the Pinto looked like it was on its last leg and was in vital need of repair, it was hers, bought with her own money. Two hundred dollars to be exact, which was a fifth of the money she got from pawning her engagement ring. She kept the rest to live off of, along with the income from her fast food job.

Most days the car took Peaches wherever she wanted to go. On this springy April Fool's Day, she wanted to take a quiet ride in the countryside, away from the smog and crowded city of Moxley, North Carolina, which was several miles north of the border city of Quail Springs, South Carolina.

Today's ride was anything but quiet. Not only did the car seem noisier than usual, Peaches' mind was click, clack, and clanky too as so many painful memories bombarded it.

Truthfully the car was no louder than it normally was. It was just a lot harder to hear its clamor above the noise of the other cars in the busy city she lived in. What was it about quiet settings that made even the smallest things stand out? That made even the secret whispers of the heart louder than cymbals?

He's probably singing her an original love song right now. Peaches nearly choked on a sob at the very thought of Kenan using his talented voice and fingers to serenade another woman.

Twenty-year-old Peaches had an excellent voice, as well. In fact, it was their love of music that brought the two together in the first place. She and Kenan were both music majors in college.

Even though he was two years ahead of her and was also an accomplished pianist, he always treated Peaches as an equal and had highly respected her talent. He said he loved and respected everything about her, particularly her naturally husky voice.

Too bad he didn't have enough love for the woman behind the voice. Peaches accelerated the gas all the more as the ache in her heart moved to her lower back.

Above storm clouds gathered in the darkening sky. Drops of rain begin to hit the windshield of the car. The pregnant young woman in the denim overalls was oblivious to her physical environment as a different kind of storm continued to rage within her.

* * *

Teardrops were like close cousins to raindrops. They both ascended from earthen vessels and came pouring down when the right circumstances were present. The amount of the flow depended upon the heaviness of the carrier.

As the dense clouds wept, Madeline Smallwood sniffed back a fresh set of her own tears. Her manicured hands clenched the fur lined steering wheel of the black luxury sedan she drove. She held on for dear life as she tried to steady her emotions and her mind.

Madeline was distraught yet again and it had nothing to do with her myriad of pregnancy hormones. Today's tears stemmed from her husband's latest indiscretion. Dale had, once again, violated their marital vows. He'd done so while she was pregnant with their second child. A child that she deliberately conceived to save their declining marriage. If only that child was a boy.

Madeline tried to give her husband a son for years now and only yielded one female offspring, a beautiful daughter named Amelia. When the word came that this child was also female, she'd seen the disappointment in Dale's eyes. She knew then that it was only a matter of time before he reverted back to his old playboy ways.

But Madeline knew something else about her handsome husband. Something that worked to her advantage. She knew that as long as she kept having children by him, he would never leave her. Never...ever.

Dale would be ostracized by his socially conscious family and cut off financially in a heartbeat if he even thought about abandoning his wife and children. He was too spoiled, too accustomed to the good life to let that happen.

Dale wouldn't know how to live without money and monetary connections. Madeline didn't want to live without them again. She'd gone through enough poverty in her past to last a lifetime.

I guess a piece of a man is better than no man at all, she thought, willing to settle for less than she wanted or deserved in her desperation.

Just then, an old beat-up Pinto came blazing around the corner of the sleek winding road. It was going entirely too fast for conditions. It was also coming too close for comfort...rapidly.

Shocked out of her thoughts by the skidding car, Madeline braked suddenly and soon felt her own vehicle spin out of control.

Oh no! I can't lose this baby, she thought right before their cars collided and darkness fell upon her.