When The Sun Rises | ✔

13 | One Bad-Ass Grandma

Chapter 13 | One Bad-Ass Grandma

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        I twiddle with a loose string on the lining of my jeans as the vibrations in my pocket come to a halt. Miss Doll studies me carefully, the roots extending from the corners of her eyes deepening.

        "I know I said I know everything, but I'm not a mind-reader, sugar, and going by ya face, you either constipated or workin' some crazy arithmetic in ya head."

        Her lips tug back into a teasing grin. I open my mouth to tell her why I stopped by, and end up staring at her wispy eyebrows, unable to make direct eye contact. It's embarrassing as hell to know I came because I'm scared of where I'm going to end up after graduation. 

        Despite how hard I pretend to be, I can't help but wonder if I'm ready to be on my own making decisions for myself. I chuckle and squirm in the seat, my thumbs tracing circles on the arms of the chair.

        "No, I'm just worried bout a few things. Like, I've never had to make big decisions for myself, ya know? Or at least not any that would really affect me. And in a few months, every decision I make could be changing my life."

        She nods. "You're scared."

        Flashes of brown and white circling the drain is the first thing to come to mind. I blink. 

        My thumbs halt their figure-eights and I lower my gaze to meet hers, my expression hardening. "I'm not scared of anything. I just need to know I'm gonna be making the right decisions, I'm not tryna screw up my life and end up like – ." I bite the insides of my cheeks. "I just don't wanna mess up." 

        "Well, if you're looking for me to tell you what to do, I can't help you. Because to be frank there ain't no such thing as a wrong or right decision. You got the choice you make and then you got the consequence that comes with it."

        "How can a decision not be right or wrong? That's like saying ain't no good or bad."

        "Well, in most cases there isn't," she says plainly, leaning back into her chair. She picks up a mug of tea that I hadn't noticed and sips from it in a Godfather-y fashion.

        The mug is black, and in white lettering says, One Bad-Ass Grandma. The words paired with the way she sips from it makes me imagine a scenario where she's using the restaurant as a front for her real hustle as a Queen-pin drug mule. She'd get her products from a man named OG Cinder Block and they would get shipped in with bags of flour and sugar. A perfect decoy for what's really being traded. Angel Dust and White Girl. 

        When I snap out of it, I'm not sure she's sipping on green tea and not Grape Vodka. 

        "Okay, but how? It's not rocket science to know if a decision was a bad one."

        "Alright, let me ask you this here. If somebody gets fired, is that a good thing or a bad thing?" She sits her mug down and crosses her hands in front of her. She was definitely running the streets in a past life.

        "That's easy. Bad."

        "Are you sure about that? One person being fired opens up a position for someone else, someone who might have needed the job more than the one who was fired. And who's to say that getting fired wasn't just a way to free them up for somethin' better?" 

        "Well, what if it wasn't a way to free them up and they just got fired? No open doors or fall back plans. They're just out of a job."