BAD REPUTATION.

04

Brandy Mae

While I'm still on board the honest train, I might as well point out that I'm not the person I used to be four years ago.

First of all, I'm not reckless anymore and although I might still be stupid, I can't afford to make stupid decisions anymore. The last stupid thing did happened five years ago and it's the only one that matters.

The stupidest thing I did was believing that a guy with perfect teeth would be a solution to all my problems.

First of all, the boy I'm talking about is Noah Mwendo.

Noah Mwendo is by far the most holiest- bible thumping- fakest-choir boy in Simeima Redeemed Church.
The Mwendos own probably half of the real estate in Simeima. The Mwendos didn't use to rich but all I remember is when we were young  two of the oldest  Mwendo sons died in unclear circumstances, one year apart. Then the Mwendos started getting rich and now everybody says they used dark magic .
They sacrificed their sons for wealth.

But even with the rumors, that are said behind their backs obviously, they are one of the most respected families, hence , of course the church members worship the ground they walk on.
African churches are notorious for putting statues on people who have money.
Therefore by association Noah is the golden boy of this crappy ass town.
He hides his hideous personality under sweet words and a phony smile.
He's a staunch church goer, sings in the youth choir, is always called upon to do the readings in church,teaches sunday school and always has a smile and kind words for all the old ladies in town.
If you woke up ten random church ladies in the middle of the night and told them to point you in the direction of a young responsible and well behaved man, ten out of ten would point at Noah Mwendo.

I laugh at their blindness.

If I didn't know any better, I would agreed with them if I didn't know better.
Noah and I have been in an off and on relationship ever since I was sixteen and he was seventeen.
It's not really a relationship, more like a situationship that doesn't extend beyond being physically with each other.

***************************
Growing up, I was very unsupervised.
My mother usually spend her days nursing hangovers, her evenings selling alcohol and her nights in the company of Ben the Sheriff or any other Ben.
That left me with an empty house, older guys telling me how beautiful I was, boys like Noah seducing me with small things like bringing me the kind of snack bars that we couldn't afford and big things like promises they didn't keep.

Though I didn't think of it , getting pregnant at a young age was kind of pre destined.

It was exactly two months after my sweet sixteen when I discovered that in those two months, I'd missed my period.

I told my mother, thinking that I'd developed some sort of complication.

She looked at me like I was the most stupidest person ever, then asked me,"please tell me, what kind of a complication do you think you've got Brandy Mae?"

"I don't know, maybe cancer or one of those diseases with long names."

She'd clicked her tongue a few times, sighed a lot, glared at me, then left. I thought that was the end of our conversation until she came back with a white stick labelled pregnancy kit.

Three minutes later in a very sober voice, she'd proclaimed "Well damn! You are pregnant!"

"Who is the father?" She'd asked.

"Noah Mwendo." I'd told her. Because he was the one I was currently sleeping with.

"Well damn! You are fucked." She'd said.

Because I was sixteen and I was stupid, I thought that if I told Noah that I was carrying his child, he'd immediately drop down to his knees and profess his love for me.
When he wasn't being an asshole, he was actually very lovable and romantic.
He was the only person who knew  things about me that I'd never told anyone. To put it simply, I was in love with him and I thought he was in love with me.
I mean which boy sneaks to your house in the middle of the night just to cuddle you?

So,Instead of being panicked, I started daydreaming about what would happen if I told Noah I was carrying his child. In my daydream, I saw him overcome with so much happiness that he'd fall down on his knees, hug me around my soon to grow belly and profess all kinds of love for me and our unborn child. Somewhere in his pocket, he'd remove a huge ring and tell me that he always knew I was meant for him and how had been waiting for the right moment to propose to me. Of course I would accept his proposal and then together,we'd tell his parents the news. They'd be so happy and start planning our wedding.

Meanwhile, I would move into Noah's huge house and although his parents would offer to buy me my own car, I would politely say no and Noah would have to drive me around town. From the passenger seat, I would roll down my window and sneer at all those old church ladies and mother's who were always pushing their daughters in Noah's direction.
I'd make sure that they knew me, Brandy Mae, the girl they loved to hate, had snatched up their golden boy, right in front of their gossip sniffing noses.

★★★★★★★

Harmed with my daydream and the pregnancy kit in my hand, I'd gone to break the news to Noah.

The whole confrontation with him took less time than it took for those two stripes to show.

Long story short; he'd laughed in my face,then called me dumb, stupid and a slut a few times,thrown a few notes at my feet."Hope that takes care of everything." He'd told me.

I'd threatened to tell everyone in town that he was the father of my unborn child.
He'd laughed again and said,"go ahead, see if anyone believes you." Then his heavy mahogany door was slammed in my face.

He was right. Even if I stood at the tip of the huge cross nailed at the roof of the church and screamed at the top of my lungs that Noah Mwendo had impregnated me, no one would have believed me.
The town's people would have scoffed at my audacity to associate a respectable person such as Noah Mwendo with a low life like me.

That's when I realized what my mother had meant when she said,"well damn! You are fucked!"

Nothing says you are utterly fucked like being single, rejected, sixteen and pregnant.

That was the end of me thinking other people could solve my problems. It was also the end of my education.

★★★★★

Nine months later at the same hospital where I was delivered, I delivered my baby boy.
I had a good sense to name him Romeo( better to be associated with a tragic love story than alcohol).

His full name is Romeo Zawadi and I always thank God because he's all me.
He doesn't look anything like his father.
A lot of nosy- can't- mind- their- own- damn -businesses- mothers have tried to uncover my baby daddy, but that information is only known to me, Noah and my mother.

Romeo is four and half now and he will be starting kindergarten soon.

Unlike me, he's not going to be raised in a bar. He's going to be raised in a bookstore.

When I'm not spending time with him, I'm always at Dirty bastard.

I run it now, since my mother moved to the next town with Sheriff Ben- they are not married, they just live together.

With her departure, business has not been good ( she had a way with her customers- she was too friendly with a majority of men who frequented Dirty Bastard). I'm not friendly with them so they don't feel the need to buy more than two beers at most(just out of loyalty to my mother and her good old times)

I don't mind running a bar, I just hate how right the town people were about me.

Ever since I was born, they expected me to be a failure in life, or worse, turn out like my mother.

Dear ol' me didn't disappoint them. I have no hopes or dreams of ever getting out of wasteland Graceland, and I have slightly turned out like my mother.

★★★★★