Get Me Right Again: Shaniqua and Desmond

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Shaniqua Carter

It was Christmas morning. Most people woke up on this day happy as hell, anticipating opening gifts from their loved ones, giving gifts to their loved, and just taking the time out to actually sit down and ponder all the things that they were grateful for. Truth is, I had so much to be grateful for. I had my family, friends, and I was lucky enough to be employed, affording me the luxury of buying anything that I wanted and never need to have my hand out for a man or my family.

While I had so much to be grateful for, I still couldn’t help but notice that every year was the same shit. I watched everyone else around me as they exchanged smiles with their significant others and they expressed, ‘I love yous’ to each other and even exchanged kisses damn near every five minutes. Truth is, I wanted that. I wanted to wake up to someone who genuinely loved me for me one Christmas morning. Hell, it didn’t even have to be Christmas; it could be two weeks, or maybe even two months from now.

I had watched my parents for as long as I could remember love on each other, and then I watched my brother love on his wife. Was it really too much to get a man to love me and look at me the way that my daddy looks at my mother? Or even the way Jah looks at Antonia? I had standards when it came to the type of man that I planned to bring home, so I couldn’t let just anybody meet my family. Even though I had standards, my goal wasn’t to find the perfect guy because I knew that would never happen, and that I would probably die single.

I wasn’t like Chilli from the R&B singing group TLC, where I had a whole list of expectations that I wanted in a man. All I wanted was someone who was handsome, smart, funny, and would not only respect me as his woman, but respect me as a woman in general. I didn’t want the type of nigga who felt that he could buy me, because truth be told, there wasn’t a pair of Christian Louboutins that I didn’t already have. There wasn’t a Chanel purse that I couldn’t buy, and there wasn’t a credit card that I didn’t already have in my wallet that I couldn’t swipe myself! I didn’t want the next dude that I dated to feel like he had to show case his money to win me over.

Niggas have to understand; my daddy used to be the biggest dope dealer in Miami before he went away to prison, so I’m used to money and expensive things. Show me something different than taking me out on a Saturday morning and have me go crazy in Saks Fifth Avenue. Show me something different than putting a few bands in my purse. I wanted a nigga to get into my head. I wanted him to build me up. I just wanted him to get me right again, that’s all.

After watching one too many episodes of Being Mary Jane, I took it upon myself to start writing down motivational quotes and using them to help me get through the day. Since I was still at my brother’s house for the Christmas weekend, I wasn’t able to have my paper labels that I would hang up on my mirror. So, instead, I was looking at motivational quotes online. The quote for today was from one of my favorites, which was Maya Angelou. That quote said, my mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive, and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

After repeating that line about ten times, I swear I felt ten times better. I was taking advantage of this break that I had from work, so after going downstairs with my family and friends at seven in the morning to open the gifts, I was right back in my bed. I wasn’t trying to distance myself or anything from my family, it’s just that every morning, I was up faithfully at five or six on the dot, so excuse me if I wanted to get a few more hours of sleep. I’d received so many gifts this morning too, my favorite of them all would have to be the Birkin bag that my big brother got for me. He knew how much of a sucker I was for a good purse. Before I made it back into my bed, I purposely made sure to go to sleep with my door locked so nobody tried to come in my room and attempt to pull me out of the bed. Many attempted, especially my little niece, Tori, and my nephew, PJ.

When I woke up, I looked at the clock to the left of me and realized that it was a little after twelve. I knew that my mom was going to have a lot of shit to say once I made it downstairs because most likely, I’d slept through eating the Christmas meal with my family. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and headed for the bathroom to shower. I stayed in the shower for about a good twenty minutes and when I stepped out, I wrapped the towel around my body.

I stared at myself in the mirror, and not to come off as cocky and conceited, but I honestly felt bad for the people who had me in the past but just didn’t know how to handle me. Not only was I beautiful, with my tall, slender frame and an onion booty that damn sure poked without me tooting my ass up, I had the same hazel colored eyes as my brother. All that long, pretty hair that I once had was now cut into a shoulder length bob. I’m sorry, but Miami was just too damn hot to be wearing long hair. I often rocked my hair in a feathered bob, but every now and then, I would rock braids or even have bundles sewn in.

I had so much more to offer than my looks, though. I cooked, cleaned, worked hard, and when I loved, I loved so fuckin’ hard. I would treat my dude as if he was a king, and I was his damn servant. I’m talking back rubs, having dinner served by the time he walks through the door, and my fuckin’ skills were through the roof. I often wondered if niggas were bothered by the fact that I was too much of a woman to them, so that caused them to cheat.

The love of my life was my ex-boyfriend, Travis. I swear I used to worship the ground his ass walked on, and he took everything that I did for granted. I would come home to find condom wrappers under our bed, which would only proved to me that he was fuckin’ bitches while I wasn’t home because him and I had long ago stopped using condoms. I felt like I was fighting different bitches in the streets damn near every day over his ass. I had bitches popping up on my job to confront me about him. I swear, the disrespect was so real, but when you’re so stupidly in love with a person, you just continue to take them and all the bullshit that comes along with them.

Not only was Travis disrespecting me, but toward the end of our relationship, he started putting his hands on me. The time when he almost killed me by beating me with an extension cord, I had to tell Jah, and my brother popped up on his ass and beat the shit out of him. It’s crazy because I never told Jah or my mother that Travis had started putting his hands on me. It’s just that I loved him so much at the time, and I didn’t want to lose him, so I stayed.

It took me getting fucked up with an extension cord for me to realize that this man didn’t love me, and I haven’t looked back ever since. Karma was a bitch though, because about a month after Jah beat Travis’ ass, we found out that he was murdered, and I didn’t shed a tear for his ass. He wasn’t even worth it. I cried so many tears being with him, so I damn sure wasn’t about to cry because he had left this earth.

I finished applying my makeup, which had me looking two times better than going to Mac and having them do it for me. Truth is, doing makeup was my side hustle. When I wasn’t working at the bank, I was doing makeup in the living room of my condo. My family was all in my ear, telling me that I should take it serious and open my own business doing makeup and selling my own products, but I honestly didn’t think of it like that. I just thought of it as another source of income to have in my pocket.

I mean, having my own business did sound tempting as hell. Some days, I hated working at the bank, and I wanted to just walk out in the middle of the day and quit, but this was something that I would have to just put in God’s hands.

After putting on my makeup and feathering my bob, I went back into the bedroom and threw on the clothes that I had laid out on the bed for me. It was Christmas day, but it was hot as hell in Miami, so I was wearing some jean shorts that stopped a few inches above my knees. They were distressed, with all types of rips in them. To go with the bottoms was my nude body suit that had a low dip on the sides, so it showed a little bit of my tiger tattoo that started from the side of my right breast and went down into the middle of my stomach. When you have a brother who does tattoos for a living, you have no choice but to have a love for art as well.

Since I would most likely be staying in the house all day with my family, I slid my white painted toes into a pair of gold Christian Louboutin sandals. The only jewelry I wore was my 10k white gold earrings that my daddy bought me for my birthday and my Movado bold watch. After checking myself out in the floor length mirror and smiling at my appearance, I headed downstairs. I looked so good on the outside, but if only people knew how ugly I was on the inside.

There was a lot of noise going on downstairs as I made my way down the spiral staircase. My stomach was literally rumbling as I smelled whatever food was being cooked in the kitchen. I found my mom standing over the stove, and I went behind her and kissed her cheeks a few times. I am obsessed with my mom. Like, I really love this lady to death. She is my best friend, and I feel as if I could talk to her about anything without her judging me.

Like I was a little kid again, she reached her hand back and flicked me a few times on my behind. Back when I was younger, that would have me screaming to the top of my lungs. My spoiled ass would run and tell my daddy on her, and he would get on her about hitting me. Now that I was grown, that shit didn’t hardly hurt me.

Girllll, I was just on my way up there to drag your ass out of that damn bed! Shaniqua, it’s Christmas, and you sleeping your ass in the bed until the middle of the day! You came downstairs and participated in giving out gifts and receiving them, and then you just dipped! my mom snapped on me with her hands on her hips.

I chuckled inwardly because she was now the pastor’s wife, yet her ass was still cursing like a damn sailor. No matter how grown I am, my mother will still get in my ass when she felt like I was fuckin’ up. This lady still called me and cursed me out on the first Sunday of the month if I didn’t get my ass up and go to church. It was all good, though, because I knew she was only doing it because she cared.

Mommy, you know I’m up every morning at six. I’m trying to take advantage of the little break that I have. It will be Monday again before you know it, I told her as I took a seat on one of the wooden stools that faced the island in Jah’s kitchen.

I looked at the table over to the left of me and there was all types of food there. Honey ham, turkey, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, ribs, chicken, just everything that I wanted to pile on my plate at one time. The way that everything was already out in the open proved to me that everyone had already eaten. I felt bad because I was laid out in my bed knocked out, while I should have been with my family.

Shaniqua, I know you, and I know how you thinking. You think we care that you are the only one that’s here without a mate? That doesn’t mean anything to us because we are family. Stop feeling like you don’t belong, and like you’re left out of certain things because you’re not. You need to enjoy this time that you have with your family and stop moping around, my mom told me, calling me out on my shit. It was crazy how she was able to know what was wrong with me before I even spoke on it. Your brother and his greedy ass kids ate all of the cornbread, so I had to make some more, my mom said as she opened the oven.

I laughed because ever since Jah was younger, he’s always loved cornbread. As soon as I stood up to go to the sink and wash my hands so that I could fix me a plate, I heard a knock at the door, and a few seconds later, PJ walked into the kitchen. But it wasn’t my handsome nephew that I was staring at, it was who was behind him that had my attention. It was Dee, and damn, he looked better than he did when I saw him last night. He didn’t come alone either; he had his beautiful one year old daughter, who I was just now seeing for the first time, but I’d heard of her already.

I admired him in the burgundy and gold Fila polo shirt that he was wearing. His bottoms were a pair of distressed jeans that stopped right at his knees. I don’t know if it was due to the fact that he was holding his daughter or the giftboxes that he had in his hands, but his pants were slightly sagging, showing the waistband of his Polo boxers. On his feet were a pair of crisp, burgundy and gold Fila sneakers that matched his shirt to a tee. His shirt was short sleeved with the first buttons undone, showcasing the tattoos that he had on his neck and his arms. His waves were definitely swimming, and his goatee looked like it was getting longer every time I saw him.

He was about ten feet away from me, and I was already lost in the scent of his cologne. Dee was just too damn fine. Too fuckin’ fine for me. I mean, it literally defeated the purpose of me even taking a shower because one look at him and I had already messed up my panties. I had to look away from him because it just wasn’t fair to me for him to stroll his ass in there looking like that.

Merry Christmas, everybody, he spoke, showcasing the golds in his mouth. He was only addressing myself and my mom because everybody else was outside in the backyard.

Merry Christmas, Dee. Oh my God, she is adorable, my mom cooed as she went over to him and took the baby out