Bad Apple - the Baddest Chick(10)
Apple browsed through some of the things that she knew would take months for her to afford. She picked up a pair of black Manolo Blahnik shoes with a price tag of $700. “How much for these?” she asked.
Jay-Ray looked at the shoes and replied, “For you, three hundred.”
It was a bargain, but the shoes were still out of Apple’s budget range. She put the shoes down and decided to go cheaper. As Apple looked through a ton of clothes in the bedroom, she knew, if she was able to take even a few items home, Kola would envy her.
Mesha picked up a pair of Apple Bottom jeans, smiled, and looked over at Apple. “See, here you go, Apple, wit’ ya name on it and everything—Apple Bottom.”
Apple laughed. “Nah, not my style.”
“Girl, you better get you a pair of these. They would kill on you, wit’ ya shape, and they for fifty dollars too. Niggas gonna love seein’ your ass in these.”
Apple laughed again. “Mesha, you crazy, girl.”
Mesha sucked her teeth playfully and replied, “Well, I’m gettin’ them. They my size too.”
Apple smiled and continued searching. She needed to find the right attire for the concert, something that would catch Cross’s attention. She wanted to be a diva. She wanted to be noticed by her love, and the right wardrobe said a lot about a bitch.
The girls spent an hour in Jay-Ray’s place looking and buying. He was cool with the length of time they spent there because he was making money. He had a team of teenagers under his wing, and shady employees he paid off in the department stores to get whatever he wanted. In the business of stealing since he was a kid, Jay-Ray had graduated to a professional booster by the time he reached puberty.
Apple smiled at the right thing to wear to the concert. She spent a total of three hundred dollars with Jay-Ray, who was pleased to have her business. She bought an assortment of things for her cash and knew that the money she’d spent at Jay-Ray’s apartment was a bargain, because the stuff she walked out with would have totaled up to a thousand dollars in a department store.
Apple and Mesha exited the building with smiles on their faces. They were like two kids on a merry-go-round. They joked and laughed and strutted down 125th Street joyfully.
“I’m hungry.”
“Me too,” Apple replied.
“McDonald’s dollar menu,” Mesha suggested.
“Girl, you read my mind.”
Being on a budget after having spent money on their clothes and shoes, the two rushed to the nearest McDonald’s and strutted into the packed fast-food restaurant on 125th Street.
“What you want, Apple? Just get us a table. It’s lookin’ crazy in here,” Mesha said.
Apple looked up at the dollar menu and said, “Get me that McDouble with two apple pies and a sweet tea.” She then slipped Mesha five dollars and went looking for a table to sit at. Apple had noticed the fellows in the place gawking at her and Mesha the minute they’d stepped in, but she ignored them.
Apple got a window seat, and while waiting for Mesha with the food, she looked through her bags of clothing, smiling with excitement. She couldn’t wait to be seen in her new outfits. She had the body and curves to fill out everything she bought. If Cross didn’t notice her at Summer Jam, then he had to be blind, because Apple knew she had it going on.
She looked around the restaurant and shook her head at all the hungry black people in the place. Most were overweight and out of shape, but not Apple. She was always watching her figure and knew that obesity wasn’t coming her way anytime soon.
Mesha came to the table with a tray of food and sat opposite Apple. The two began tearing into their burgers and downing the sweet teas that they loved, especially on a hot spring day.
“Oooh, I needed this. This tea going down my throat is better than sex right now,” Mesha joked.
Apple laughed. “Shit, you crazy, girl. I don’t know about that. It’s a’ight.”
“Whateva. You know it’s hot, and ya pu-ssy probably sweating like a runaway slave.”
“My shit a’ight,” Apple said. “See, she cooling. You’re the one in the skintight jeans who got these niggas lookin’ and breaking their necks at you.”
“Girl, and like you don’t, wit’ them shorts you got on, legs showing and teasing muthaf*ckas. You a mess, Apple.”
“I’m a mess that’s gonna be lookin’ fly at Summer Jam.”
“I hear that shit. You and me both, bitch,” Mesha chimed, slapping Apple five.
They continued eating their meals and feeling the eyes of men watching them from all over the room.
Mesha noticed two cuties in the place that she wouldn’t have minded getting with, but she was content with her boo, Naquin. The couple had been together since freshman year in high school, and he was Mesha’s first.
Mesha was a sultry, long-legged, ravishing beauty with light skin, hazel eyes, and shoulder-length black hair. When it came to beauty, she and Apple were running neck and neck. Still, they never hated on each other and had been friends since junior high school.
Apple was petite and curvy. Mesha was too, but she had thicker hips and more butt for the men to stare at. Both girls were able to stir up a man’s heart without even a thought. The two couldn’t even eat their food in peace without several men trying to approach them for conversation and a minute of their time. But the two girls, used to being hit on and approached, sometimes with good manners or just plain rudely, turned the eager men down.