Miss Lola.

Daughter.

Chapter 3.

As soon as I entered the bathroom, I pulled the mobile phone from my purse and called their mother.

"Hello?"

"It's your mother, Rhonda." I said, loud and clear.

"Duh. I got caller I.D." she said.

"What did you just say to me, Rhonda?"

"Ma, gosh. I know it's you."

"Well, I was only checking." I huffed, backing up against the sink.
I'd chosen one of those stalls with the changing tables for your baby and the top part of it was still down.

I hate it when mother's leave those things hanging down like that.

You'd think that once they changed their baby they'd have the courtesy to put the top back up.

"Rhonda, when are you picking up your kids?"

"In a little while. Why? They haven't broken anything have they?"

"No, thank the lord. But I have something to do tonight and you need to come get your kids long before then."

"I'm..well, I'm kinda busy right now." She was whispering and it struck me that my daughter was up to something.

"Where are you?" I demanded. "And what's all that noise in the background?"

"I'm at work..Ma. Don't you remember me telling you about my new job?"

"Heck no. What new job? The last I heard you were still working at the Bargain Barn."

"Well, I don't work there anymore." Rhonda whispered. "Listen, can you please watch them until 7 p.m. and I'll pay you extra."

"Girl, you don't have to pay me for keeping my own grandchildren." I was scandalized that she'd even suggested such a thing.

"Oh, well okay. So can you please keep them until 7 p.m.?"

"I guess so." I said with a big, put upon sigh. "But don't try this mess anymore Rhonda. I have a life too, you know."

"I know. Thanks Ma. Love you."

She hung up so fast that I never had a chance to say duck, cow, boo or goodbye.

"What are you up to, Rhonda?" I said,  squinting at the phone before tucking it back inside of my purse and washed my hands at the sink.

I had my children at sixteen years old which was a result of my being fast in the tail and thinking that I was so in love with their father who was the star basketball player at my highschool.

His name is Merlin Watts and he'd been this tall, dark, sex machine on two legs who'd swept my naïve behind off my feet one night at a houseparty and the next thing you know we'd been

regularly slobbing each other down in the back seat of his Daddy's Cadillac, his best friend's house or the abandoned barn out on route 34.

Well, to make a tragic story even shorter, the romance dried up pretty quickly once I got pregnant.

Merlin must have been truly magical like his namesake because he quickly disappeared to Houston, Texas to live with his grandparents and I haven't seen or heard from him since.

Nine months later I gave birth to beautiful twins whom I named Rhonda and Merlin j.r. 

My parents were terribly disappointed in me, which hurts to this day, but thank goodness they never threw me out on the streets or shunned me like so many of their uppity family suggested.

I'd become that statistic which girls my age dreaded the most; An unwed, teenaged mother.

I could have just given up on life right then, but I'd wanted to prove everyone who had bad mouthed me wrong and so I finished highschool, found a part

time job and signed up for cosmetology school because I'd always been fascinated by anything to do with beauty culture and it was rough at first but I managed.

My motto is if I can do it then so can anybody else. All it takes is dedication, hard work and a strong support system.

Well, Rhonda has always been the more devious of my two children and the one I've always worried about the most because she's beautiful but not too bright.

I used to be afraid that she'd end up strung out on drugs or in prison somewhere but instead she kept hooking up with the wrong men and having random babies out of wedlock and she can't keep a job or a man to save her life.

Meanwhile, my son has his life together.

Merlin j.r has a steady job at First National bank, has a good wife and one perfectly home trained child and unlike his sister, Merlin has never caused a strand of my hair to prematurely turn gray from worrying about him.

Drying my hands on the rough, brown stuff which passed for paper towels in this funky bathroom, I check my make-up in the water spotted mirror and use another clean tissue to unlock the door on the stall.

When I returned to our table the kids were still sitting in the same place where I'd left them and they'd even cleaned up their mess, for a wonder.

"Come on kids, let's jet." I say and they obediently follow me outside to the car.

"Granny, can you take us to the park?" Bella asked, real sweetly and now I realized why they'd been acting like little angels.

They'd been hoping to sucker me into taking them for a nature outing.

"Listen, homegirl, we ain't going to any parks no time soon. Big Mama's got plans for tonight and I'm gonna find y'all another babysitter."

"But...we were real good at Macdonald's." Bella whined, which isn't like her at all.

I folded my arms across my chest and slowly looked her little bow- legged behind up and down.

"Did Tommy put you up to this?"

"No.." Bella said, avoiding Tommy's guilty stare.

"Well, I'm so very proud of y'all for being good but no parks. Okay? Now get in the car."

Groaning and complaining, they reluctantly piled inside of the car and after ensuring that everyone was securely strapped in I drove us home.

The kids were plopped in front of the t.v engrossed in another Disney movie so I sneaked into my bedroom and called my B.F.F, Nancy Freeman.

"Hey, Lola. What you got going on?"

"Girl, nothing but Rhonda's kids. As a matter-of-fact, I need to ask a favor from you."

Nancy and I go way back to our first few weeks at beauty school.

She'd dropped out within a year of graduation to marry her highschool sweetheart and she's now fat, happy and has ten, eleven kids and runs a daycare on the West side of town.

10/4/21.
1/31/23.