Streetlife

28 - A Talk With Her Aunt

LENA POV

It had been a long two days, and I can't believe I had only just arrived yesterday as I was more stressed than ever. For one, my aunt wouldn't speak to me, and two, Rae was blackmailing me and I still wondered if her ass was bluffing. What if she had seen me with Warbucks? Or knew what I was really doing? But how in the fuck would she figure that out? I didn't look like a hooker. Or did I?

As I try not to think too much, I really did miss all my friends and I was actually feeling lonely. Warbucks had given me a ton of money, more than I knew what to do with and I didn't even want it. I was partly upset with him for sending me away for an entire week and making it seem like I was the one who wanted it. I wasn't! He was the one who wanted it so that he could bang that blonde.

"Lena, no. That's not nice. That's your friend's sister. And hell, maybe she didn't even go. And if so, who gives fuck. He can do what he wants. I am not like Tess. I am not clingy." I mumble to myself as I start to wipe down the kitchen counters as I had thoroughly scrubbed the floor and fridge before organizing the food and scouring the sink. I had already scrubbed the bathroom and vacuumed and dusted as cleaning seemed to calm me and help me work through my thoughts.

I soon turn around to see my aunt in the doorway. "Auntie, I can make you something. You must want lunch you didn't each much dinner or the breakfast I made." I say as she doesn't even look at me, and I don't understand what I've done. All I was trying to do was my best to take care of her and to make sure her health was okay, and she was acting, I don't know. "Did I do something?" I finally come out with it as she gently pushes me to the side to get the bread as I go to help her and she pushes my hand away.

"I'm not a cripple."

"I know that. But I'm here to help you. You've barely said two words to me since I've been home, and you seem...I don't know, hostile!" I place my hand on my hip as she shakes her head and clucks her tongue.

"I don't need your help, Lena. I get along fine. Didn't you hear me tell you that yesterday or you gone deaf? I'm telling you all them late nights you pulling doing whatever you do gonna get you backfired."

"I'm working, Auntie. IN a restaurant and..."

"Girllll, let me tell you something," she turns and starts shaking her bony finger at me as her eyes narrow. "If I was dead I'd be rolling over in my grave listening to you lie! I can smell the lie on you. You don't fool me! Just like Ibiza! Just like her, coming up in here spewing all kinds of fables and stories like I was born yesterday or something. Well, I wasn't. I ain't believed her and I sure as ain't gonna believe you neither!"

"But I'm not lying, Auntie. Where would that get me? You taught me better than that. I was promoted, and I run all the NYC restaurants for Mike. I don't get where all of this hostility is coming from, and no, I'm not...I'm not like my mother, and you know it. I'm not some drug addict running a con on you, Auntie! That's hurtful!"

"Mike is a con artist. A sleeze, a leech, AND abusive. I smell it a mile away. He looks at you like you're a piece of chocolate meat. I'm been around a long time.  A good long and I haven't talked to you because I CAN'T. I know what kind of man he is. He can't hide SHIT from me. And neither can you. Bringing that dirty money in here. You wear it all over you. So you stay here for a week, but you gonna be talking to the walls, Lena Elizabeth!" Aunt Reba scowls even more as my stomach turns and I can feel the tears burning my eyes badly as I refuse to cry.

"Aunt Reba, please! Listen to me..."

"I am too damn old to sit up in here and listen to your sob story or whatever it is you wanna tell me. Either Mike is a drug lord or I don't know what. You're either working for the mob or the maffia, and I live a quiet, peaceful lifestyle. But you're up there pretending to be some rich snob, riding in a Rolls and dripping in diamonds and sex! I done raised you better! You might not like what I have to say, but I don't care! I promised myself that I'd not fall down the rabbit hole like I did with Ibiza, and look at me! I'm here in my own house yelling at her twin!"

By now, tears are running down my face rather fast as I'm thankful that Rae is at work, and it's just me and my aunt. My emotions never get the best of me, but somehow she always knew how to dig down deep and she had hit a nerve big time as I wipe them and jump as she slams her cane down.

"Are you listening to me, girl?"

"Yes. Yes, Auntie," I whisper as she steps closer to me, her dark eyes blazing.

"Now I don't need no warmonger coming up in here in his fancy ass suits and rings bringing a gun to shoot me or your cousin dead because you crossed him! I don't need it! So you can take your pretty little rich ass and all those silks and rubies back to Wall Street and get the hell out my house!"

"Auntie, NO! It's not like that!" I find myself full blown sobbing now as I also feel the back of her hand stinging the side of my face, and I know that no amount of blubbering or crying will convince this woman otherwise. She was incorrigible, and like a pitbull in that when she had her teeth clenched down on something, there was NO letting go. Ever.

"Quit your blubbering, girl, and SCAT!" She thumps her cane again as I nod and back up. "GO! Get the hell out my house!"

"I'm gonna go pack. I'll...I'll leave, Auntie," I nod profusely as I regain my bearings and scramble to my room to gather all my belongings, even the hidden money. I know I can never come back here...and I can feel my heart breaking into a million pieces as I cry quietly, walking down the steps to the only place I've been able call home since I was a little girl with pigtails, living on sugar milk and crusty bread pieces while my mother was gone for days getting high as a fucking kite.

My time with Mike was only supposed to be a short term solution to help pay for my aunts medical bills so that she wasn't stressed. To help her keep her place, to make sure she ate and wasn't starving. To make sure her place was clean, and my help, it all backfired and I had done my best. But I had fucked up in the meantime and had let my life and lifestyle get the best of me, and in some sense I was now  no longer little Lena from Jamaica, Queens. I guess in some sense  I had lost myself more than a year ago as I let my second persona take over. And it had cost me my family as I look back and see my aunt standing in the kitchen doorway as get ready to leave for the last time.

"I love you Auntie." I say as she says nothing and turns around walking away and at that my heart is completely broken as I make my way back to the city to my friends who had become my new family.