Nicole be Thinking...

I arrived too early. I sat nervously stirring the ice in my water thinking maybe I could create a wave and let it swallow me. "We need to talk," were the words. The days had been lonely and long enough to create an impressively large gap between us. "I love you," had been the bridge, but neither of us dared to cross it anymore. This meeting wasn't a surprise. Our eyes met and immediately rejected each other. I returned focus to my water as if to erase the sighting. Only I noticed the offensive noise the chair opposite mine made when its legs weren't allowed to pick their feet up from the floor to move. "Oh, hey," The overly polite waitress came back before my displeasure was able to linger. "Jack and Coke, please." She'll have it right out. There was a smile, awkward, unmoving. "Let's cut the bullshit." Words spewed onto the table. "I think we need to see other people. Or… at least n...

My life is like a dream. Daddy's always telling me, "Jane, get a job. Don't you want to get anything for yourself?" But why would I want to do that? He pays for everything. I do as I please. I have everything I could ever want. Daddy gets me a new BMW every year. My penthouse condo is huge. I don't even have to touch my trust fund. The money supply is endless. This is the American dream. I'm educated, too. I went to the best prep schools. And scholarship was very important to my sorority. We had to maintain the chapter GPA to have parties, so thanks to them I graduated college cum laude . And Daddy knows just about everybody in this town. I could work. If I wanted to. I know I'm lucky. I could be poor. Ew . The thought gives me chills. I don't know much about poor people, but it seems to me that if they just went out and got a job things would be ok for them. I mean, nobody tells them to have all those kids if they can't afford it. But the govern...

I want my American dream. Yeah, I'm in this cell right now, but my situation ain't always gonna be messed up. I'm gonna get my Navigator with the rims. I'm gonna have a ass mansion. With an elevator. Jacuzzis in every bathroom. I'm gonna have money out the ass. And the bitches . They're gonna love me. I can hear them calling my name: " Rahim!" Forget middle class. I'm going all the way to the top. That's what this country is about, right? Starting with nothing and ending up with everything? I want Bill Gates money. I'm not trying to be just comfortable. I gotta buy my mama houses. I gotta make sure my baby mamas got all my kids straight. I'm going for mine in these streets daily. I flip my cash on the regular. And until I got the money I want, if you got something I want, I'm gonna take it. Simple as that. What? Education? Fuck that. It takes too long. I got my diploma because high school gave me constant customers...

Joey never got used to being a husband or a father. He loved Alicia and he loved their kids, but he always thought they started too soon. The two had been college sweethearts, everybody's favorite couple. Joey was the popular frat guy, Alicia the sexy sorority chick. Things were great for them. When Alicia got pregnant halfway through their sophomore year, they eloped and were married before finals. He figured he always would, so it didn't matter when or how he married her. Besides, Cecelia's birth didn't slow them down at all. He never missed a function or a frat party and she took the baby to all her sorority meetings, thrilled that one day her daughter would be her "soror." In his the drunken haze that were his undergraduate years, Joey managed to graduate on time and be there for the birth of their son, Junior. Degree in hand, Joey took the first job he was offered so Alicia wouldn't have to work while she finished her studies during the summer. Soon, ...

Bernice never wanted to go to her high school reunion to begin with.   They were never nice to her. But things had drastically changed in the last ten years. Her undergraduate years were spent at predominantly black Howard University and the hell they gave inspired change. Weight Watchers helped to rid her of the extra twenty-five pounds of "baby weight" she carried. Her teeth were perfectly straight thanks to the braces she wore through college. Lasik had repaired her vision and no longer were her light brown eyes hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses. Her inner diva had emerged. Convinced she could do anything in the world, Bernice took the high-profile divorce of a Hollywood starlet as her first case. She channeled all the anger she had repressed from high school bullies and directed it at the poor man. Bernice took him for everything he had. Over the past three years she had built a reputation for being one the most sought after divorce attorney in Los Angeles. With her cred...

It was the first day of the fall semester. First Year Composition. I sat in the back of the classroom and watched them enter, their nerves all over their faces. The white board in the front of them read, "EXTRA CREDIT will be given" in red. There was a neat stack of paper on the table by the podium. The class filled quickly and the students sat quietly, waiting. The space in front that was generally reserved for the professor was vacant. Students began to stir, unsure what this freedom meant. "She's not gonna show. I heard this is her first class and she's only 24." a guy by the door said. "She better be hot." a masculine female in the back offered. The class laughed nervously. "But come on guys. She can't be 24. It takes a lot to become a professor," the studious girl in the front of the room interjected. "That just means she's gonna be one of those nerdy types who finished college at 12." More laughter welled in the cl...

David left me two months ago. I shrugged it off. The break up was inevitable. Seven years my junior, he never had much to talk about. He called me "his cat" and I hated it. Thirty made me too young to be a cougar. Still, something about his smile made me feel at home. That smile made me forget that he stared at younger women when we were out, that I had paid tuition his last year in college, that he insisted I keep my hair long because, since I was the color of smooth chocolate, I wouldn't look right "bald headed." I told myself that the sight of his house key on dining room table was a godsend. I took a long bubble bath, as if that would wash away the last year and a half of my life. Now, I'm making the biggest step I can. I'm having my hair cut. Lorelle, my beautician, looked at me knowingly. Seventeen years prior, she had been the woman scorned sitting in the chair at the beauty shop. She chopped her hair off as a sign of her new-found freedom. She de...

Overview I decided to combine Kate Chopin’s “ Desiree’s Baby ” and “ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I liked the twist at the end of “Desiree’s Baby” and knew when I got the assignment that I wanted to use that in some way. The film version of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” gave me some idea about the plot of that story and made me want to use it. Although the story is very different from the movie, I still enjoyed and thought that its element of fantasy could work with the twist from “Desiree’s Baby.” I also really liked the idea of naming my mash up “The Curious Case of Desiree’s Baby.” The stories basically picked themselves. Mash Up Desiree wanted to leave Nashville. So at nineteen years old she tied up her long auburn-gray hair and bought some new orthopedic shoes. She looked in the mirror at the diminishing wrinkles on her face through eyes that seemed to be seeing more, better. Yes, she thought, I’m reaching my prime. Desiree set out to see w...