“Why the fuck you got to give your aunt your whole paycheck for? Didn’t you say you have an older cousin that stays there with you?” I asked her.
This was new news to me. I never knew that when Antonia was getting paid, that she had to give her paycheck up. Damn, this lady was really putting Antonia through some shit. No wonder when I saw her at Walmart that time, she was in there stealing pads.
“Yeah, and she doesn’t work or anything. My aunt only charges me for rent,” Antonia said.
I shook my head, wondering what the fuck type of people she was staying with? Even if Antonia had to help pay rent, it didn’t mean that she had to come up out of her whole paycheck. I decided to just altogether leave that conversation alone because I swear if we kept talking about it, I was going to be on the hunt for Antonia’s people today to shake some sense into her auntie’s dumb ass.
“You want to go to the prom?” I asked Antonia.
“I would have loved to go to prom but I just told you my situation,” she told me. Obviously, she didn’t get the point that I was trying to make.
“Go put your books and shit back and meet me in front of the store,” I told her, standing up.
“But Jah, I only have about thirty minutes left on my break,” she said.
“The less talking you do, the more time we’ll have,” I told her and walked away.
I went and stood by the prom dress store, and two minutes later, Antonia was speed walking to me with a smile on her face. I grabbed her hand and we walked into the store together.
“Go, pick out whatever dress you want,” I told her.
She let go of my hand and I went and took a seat in the seating area that they had in the front of the store. I’m sorry, but I was not about to participate in no damn dress shopping. The only participating that I would do is the payment. I watched as Antonia went over to a beautiful gold dress. She looked at the price of it, and judging from her facial expression, I could tell that the dress was expensive. They had a section in the back of the store, that was marked down and I watched as Antonia made her way in that direction.
“This girl is going to be the death of me,” I said aloud as I got up and went after her.
“Why you left the dresses up front to come back here and look at these. When we came in here, I told you to pick up any dress you want. Don’t matter the price, just get it,” I told her sternly.
She left the items that were in the back and went back up front.
She went over and pulled one out, and on some real shit, that dress was beautiful and I couldn’t wait to see her in it.
“Beautiful choice. That right there is our newest arrival. It’s the beaded mesh illusion dress,” the sales lady said, coming over with the measuring tape around her neck.
I didn’t know what all of that shit meant, but all I knew that I was looking at a beautiful dress, with a bunch of silver and rose gold rhinestones on it.
“Would you like to try it on?” she asked Antonia and she nodded her head.
“I don’t want you to see me in it, so you stay back here,” Antonia said, causing the sales lady to laugh.
I threw my hands up, letting her know that she was running this show, and I went and sat my ass back down. I waited for about ten minutes, and then Antonia finally came back over.
“The dress was made for her body. It didn’t need any alterations or anything,” the sales lady said, once they had come from the back.
I nodded and paid for the dress, which was $549.99 by the way. This was Antonia’s da,y and I wanted it to be special for her. I draped the dress over my shoulder as we walked out of the store and Antonia had thanked me about a thousand times already.
“Damn, it’s going to be hard as hell for me to find a tux to match this dress,” I said.
Antonia looked at me with wide eyes and started jumping up and down.
“Oh my God! Jah, you’re going to go with me to the prom?” she asked me with the widest smile that I had ever seen her wear.
“Did you think I was going to let you just shut the fuckin’ senior prom down like that all by yourself? You damn right I’m going, and we going to shut that bitch down together,” I said, causing her to laugh.
“Well, wait. You have to ask me first. All of the boys were going around school making their prom proposal romantic, so I want you to do the same thing,” she said with a sly grin on her face.
I looked around the mall, and in the middle of the mall was a live band playing. I don’t think that they were famous or anything, maybe just doing that to bring exposure to themselves or something. As people walked past, they would put money in the bucket that they had in front of them.
“You really want a nigga to give you one of them corny ass prom proposals?” I asked Antonia, and she wasn’t giving up because she nodded her head yes.