Chapter 20

The next day, Boss was there waiting to drive me to Angie’s school. Before we picked her up, he told me he had a little surprise for me; well, it might have been little to him, but it was the biggest gift anybody had ever given me. Inside of a slim, black velvet rectangular-shaped box was the most beautiful diamond bracelet that I ever laid eyes on. It was a full 10 carats of flawless princess cut diamonds in a glowing platinum setting. I was speechless. I didn’t understand what I did that was so special. I was nobody. Girls like me didn’t get gifts like that; we watched the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls on TV get showered with jewels that sparkled like the stars in the far away night sky and dreamed that it would one day happen to us – but in the back of our minds, we knew it never would. When stars fell to earth, they didn’t land in the ghetto – that is, not until Boss. He was a superstar, and he landed right at my feet.

“Come here and let me put it on you.” Boss took the velvet box from my hand and removed the bracelet. “I want you to wear this to always remind you of this day.”

“I’ll never forget.”

When he pushed up the sleeve of my pink Walmart sweater and put the bracelet around my wrists, I felt like I was in the middle of a fairy tale. Two days ago, I was sitting in our apartment praying for something good to come into my life; now, he was here.

“Meesha, I’m not a perfect man. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I wanna make up for that now. With you.”

“Okay.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I would have agreed to anything with that gorgeous bracelet on my wrist.

The next few days were like a dream for me. Boss picked me up every single day, we’d head to Angie’s school to pick her up, then he’d take us somewhere for dinner. On Wednesday we had pizza, Thursday it was Chinese, and Friday we were back at McDonald’s - Angie wanted another Happy Meal. That Saturday, my mother had the day off so I was free to spend the entire day with Boss. We went to the mall, where he treated me to a surprise shopping spree. He dropped three hundred and eighty dollars at Lady Footlocker on three new pairs of Nikes for me, then we stopped at the nail salon, where he got my nails and toes done. Next, we went to Macy’s, where he counted out seventeen one hundred dollar bills like it was nothing. When it was all over, I had enough new clothes to last me an entire month. I felt like a queen. Boss was a perfect gentleman; he opened doors for me, he held my hand as we walked through the mall, and he even carried my bags for me.

We didn’t have fast food that night; instead, he took me to Landry’s Seafood House for a nice intimate dinner. It was my first time dining there. We sat out on the patio and watched the people go back and forth across the lake in their rented paddle boats. I was having such a good time, I began to wonder whose life I fell into and when they were going to come back and claim it.