Ex-girl to the Next Girl by Daaimah S. Poole Read Free Book Online Page B

applauded them.
    â€œVery good, now sit y’all butts down and watch TV.” The kids had a seat and we continued to wait for Toya.
    Finally Toya walked in the room with a tiny t-shirt that looked like it belonged to Monet. She didn’t have a bra on, and was trying to put her hair in a ponytail.
    â€œWhere are you going with that t-shirt on?”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with my shirt?”
    â€œYou are not going out with me looking like that. Go put on a bra, and hurry up! I would like to leave!” Aunt Connie yelled.
    Toya changed her shirt and put her little bomber jacket on. As we headed for the door, Destiny started crying. “I go with you, Granma.”
    â€œNo, I’m going bye-bye,” Aunt Connie said.
    â€œNate, come grab her—I’m trying to go to the store with my mom,” Toya said. Nate came out with his boxer shorts on and said, “How you doing?,” grabbed Destiny, and shut the door.
    We all got in the car.
    â€œWhere we going?” Toya asked. Aunt Connie didn’t want to tell her she had money, but somehow Toya already knew.
    â€œMom, can I borrow, like, a hundred dollars?”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œMom, why you frontin’? You know you got money.”
    â€œHow you know I have money?”
    â€œYou gave Ariel a hundred dollars.”
    â€œSo what? Ariel is thirteen. How are you going shopping if you don’t have any money?” It was obvious that Toya was on her freebie mission. Whenever one of us got money, we would always treat to a restaurant or a little shopping trip. It was mostly me and my aunt taking each other out and Toya coming along for the ride.
    â€œIs there a Wachovia Bank around here?” Aunt Connie asked.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I need to use the ATM machine to get more money.”
    â€œThere is an ATM machine right there in that gas station,” I pointed out.
    â€œI’m not using another bank—they are going to charge two dollars!” I looked at my aunt like she was crazy. “You’re going to spend two dollars’ worth of gas riding over to the bank.”
    â€œI just don’t like giving my money away,” she insisted.
    â€œI think they take only fifty cents.” She went into the gas station and came out scratching a lottery ticket. She had no problem giving her money away to the lottery, though.
    We went to the King of Prussia Mall. I didn’t need anything else, but I still found myself in the shoe department of Bloomingdale’s. Sometimes I don’t like shopping with my aunt because she was always trying to search and dig for sales. I don’t have any time for the clearance rack. I like this-season clothes and shoes. I’m going to spend this two-hundred-plus to do some damage to my credit cards.

    We took the shopping experience down a notch and hit the Target. I loved Target; they had everything. I bought towels and a digital camera. After Target, it was on to my other favorite store: the dollar store. This was a place I loved and hated. I loved that everything was so cheap and that you could walk out of the store with a lot of bags and only spend twenty-five dollars, but I hated the fact that some people thought it was the damn supermarket. Spending a hundred dollars in the dollar store and tying the line up. Toya filled her cart up. I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t paying for her stuff.
    â€œMom, I need some more money.”
    â€œWhat, you mean to tell me you been laying up with that man and don’t have money to get something out the dollar store?”
    â€œMom.”
    â€œDon’t Mom me. You ask me, you ask your father and everybody else for something. But scared to ask that man you sleep with.”
    â€œMom, stop playing.”
    â€œI’m not playing with you. If you don’t have a dollar you better get it. Shit, when I was single and young, I didn’t play that shit. A man couldn’t even be in my