Picasso's Promise

Episode 41| In the Text

I bought a pack of cigarettes for Martin in the hopes of getting him to talk about Picasso. For being my boyfriend, he sure as hell wasn't acting like one. He wasn't returning my calls, my texts, and everything was off.

Hanging around Picasso got me to be aware of my cousins' bad habits. Martin didn't smoke anywhere near my aunt or her apartment complex. He hid his smoking addiction well enough that it shocked me when I discovered a pack in his jean jacket. The brand I had found, assuming they were his favorites, were the kind that I bought. I went down to a liquor store I knew never carded teens for buying alcohol, let alone a pack of cigs. Which, considering that we lived in California, was alarming. You had to be twenty-one to buy tobacco. That was why, after asking for the menthols, I was shaking and sweating up a storm. I'd seen Martin walk out of this exact location with Colt 45s one hot Sunday. And even though that image was plastered in my mind, the nerve didn't give up.

"Ten ninety-five," she read aloud the total and my breathing went easy.

"Can you throw in a red lighter with it?" I pulled out my card, ready to pay. "I'm paying with card."

"Thirteen even."

"For a lighter?"

"It's because of your card. There's a fee for using a debit card."

"That's ridiculous," I murmured, but kept any other complaints to myself. I was getting away with a crime, buying these cigarettes. "Fine."

Nervous that they'd spot my poker face, I left my eyes low to the floor when walking out. It felt like I had robbed a bank, shivering from no real cold weather but rather my nerves getting the best of me.

***

By five, I was crying and half considering open the box of smokes for myself.

"Fuck it," I puffed. Martin was dodging me. He had to be. I was waiting outside the gates to our apartment complex, holding the cigarettes like they were a bogue of flowers and I was the doting husband, waiting for his wife to return home. I felt silly, deranged and high strung from the bright, beating sun directly above my head.

"What the hell..."

I turned and saw my aunt, standing with her hands on her hips and her eyes fixated on the box in my hand. If I hadn't realized she was standing there quick enough, then maybe I could've hidden them faster.

I gulped. "These aren't..."

I couldn't rat out my cousin.

"These are for Picasso. He told me to buy him some and then he—"

"I don't care what who said to whatever. Get yo'ass inside, standing out in the corner like some prostitute. Who the hell you out here waiting for? Picasso? He's always up to no good with that ... girl."

Stung by her choice of words, I wasn't sure which bit of information to sort out first. Brushing the sweat off my brow, I stuffed the smokes into my pocket and jugged to where she was. "I'm sorry."

I wanted to ask her what girl she was talking about, referring to my boyfriend as always being around him. Aunt Tina had eyes all throughout this complex, or so Martin had warned. This was why he had high paranoia when it came to who was around him when he decided to smoke a cig.

"Don't be smoking those inside my house," she warned, "did you do your homework?"

"I have a classmate coming by."

"Is it a boy or girl?"

"A demon," I said, "but you could call her a girl as well."

She squinted at me, or maybe it was at the sun. Her eyes twinkled for a moment and she touched my shoulder. "What she comin' here for? School project?"

I nodded and we started walking in the direction of our apartment.

"Well, I'll be out your way if you need the living room."

"I need the kitchen."

"I was working on something, but I finish it up real quick so you can have the space all for yourself," she said sweetly, opening the door for me. "Is it a cooking class you're taking? If so, there might be a cooking book your mama left behind inside those boxes Aiko left for you."

"You think so?"

"I could've swore I saw it when you were going through it in front of me. Your mama, she loved to cook. Couldn't get her out of the kitchen."

"Really?"

Running to the room, I went under my bed in search of what my aunt mentioned.

I wanted to learn more about her, but the pages of her diary hurt to read. The lovely woman I thought she was now was reduced to the yellowed sheets inside of a dingy journal. I wanted more than words; I wanted clothing, photos. I wanted her life in all its glory.

But that was all gone, or so I was told. I was left with one book, a few off handed trophies from her youth...and.... I paused. Rummaging to through her things, something had fallen out in the process.

A photo slipped out from between the pages of the cookbook.

There was a baby girl resting on the hip of a woman that looked exactly like my mother. I knew her face by memory because of how often my father would bring out her photo, still in his wallet even after he got remarried. This one, the one in my hands now, resembled the one he always showed me—but this time a baby was in the picture. The one he always showed me, it was only the two of them because I was always told that I had killed my mother at birth.

Flipping the photo around, my heartbeat jumped.

It was the year of my birth.

"Auntie?" I yelled out. She came rushing in, laughing to her friends on the phone pressed to her cheek and shoulder.

I flashed the photo in her direction and the phone slipped out completely from her grasp.

"We need to have a talk."

"Uh...yes, we do. Because from the looks of it, my mother didn't die when I was born."

"Your mama never died." 

I had to get back inside my parent's house.

It was a mission now. 

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