The Personal Trainer's Ex-Girlfriend

The Oreo

Kehlani

After hanging out with the girls and the kids, Tessa and I are heading back to Long Island when I hear the ringing sound of my car phone. I keep my eyes focused on the road before taking a glance at the caller ID, to see that my Mom is calling me. Looking down at my car phone briefly, I press my finger onto the answer icon. "Hello?" I reply.

"Kehlani Monroe Brown, it's about time for you to pick up the phone to talk to your own mother after she's been trying to reach you for the past three hours! What the hell were you doing that doesn't make you use your hands to talk with your mother over the phone?" Mom queries.

My eyes widen at her words and I shake my head before I begin stifling my laughter. "Mom, Tessa and I went to the movies with the girls and the kids to see Girls Trip while Adriane brought the kids to see the Emoji Movie." I elucidate as I take exit 63 to 1-495 E all thanks to using the E-Z Pass.

"What the hell? You and your friends went to see the movie that has people talking on and on about without me?" Mom raises her voice, sounding appalled. "Giselle's Mom wants to invite you to go see Girls Trip, so you and the other Moms can go see it." I add.

"When do they want me to come out there?" Mom inquiries.

"Whenever you come to Brooklyn to see your girlfriends." I mention. "I have gotta stop cleaning everyday and go to the movies with their mothers." I snicker briefly. "Anyway, I'm calling yo to see if you and Tessa would love to come over for dinner. I even made your favorite; fried chicken with corn and white rice!"

"Okay, thanks, Mom! Tessa and I will be there in the next hour." I vow.

"That's fantastic, baby! I'll see the two of you when you get there!" Mom chimes.

An Hour and Forty Five Minutes Later...

Pulling up on the driveway of my Mom's house in Shirley, NY, Tessa and I get out of the car before putting the doors in lock and the two of us walk to the entrance door of the bungalow. My knuckles knock on the door and almost a minute, an adoring tone belonging to a female chimes to know who it is behind the door.

"It's your Healthy Butternut along with your Pumpkin Tee!" I announce with my mouth drawing inches away from the door and the door immediately opens with Mommy squealing our names along with spreading her arms as they encircle around me, squeezing me tightly in her arms before she moves on to embrace her granddaughter. "Come on in!" Mom allows with a flashing smile expanding on her face while I take Tessa's hand in mine as we walk into the interior home of my Mom's house since she and my Dad recently had an amicable split from each other after twenty three years of their marriage. And right at this moment, he's living around the corner from Mom's house.

As soon as my Mom, Tessa, and I enter Mom's abode, I notice the two out of my three brothers are already here with their girlfriends along with my niece Harper from my brother, Kevin's previous relationship, including their Yorkie, who is standing on his feet. I begin chuckling at Benny's rapacity to human food.

"Benny, no!" Savon scolds at my nephew or my nephew-pup before letting out this manifest of whimpering. Benny turns his head to my direction and he starts running to me before he stands at my legs, reaching for me to pick him up. I pick Benny up as he begins to lick my face. I chortle at his lickies because they are so cute!

"Kehlani!" Savon exclaims and nearly trips when she pushes the chair back, closing the chair to the table. She then proceeds to meander towards me with her arms spreading open and wide. As soon as my arms open, Savon's arms are already encircled around my lower back and my arms squeeze around her. After our hug, Savon moves on to embrace her future niece in law. Walking under the threshold of the kitchen, my eyes wander to the stove with pots of corn and white rice and fried chicken in the aluminum foil pan. I make a plate for Tessa prior to making a plate for myself and we sit our plates on the table as we pull the chairs from the table and pushing them in once we sit in our chairs, joining with some of my family on the table.

I have Tessa and myself bow our heads, clasping our fingers in a ball, and squeezing our eyes shut. "Dear Heavenly Father, for this and all we are about to receive; make us truly grateful, Lord. Through Christ we pray. Amen." Tessa and I pray in unison before beginning to eat. While I'm eating a forkful of corn and rice, I hear someone smacking their mouth in the dining room table. "Tyler Bronson Brown! Chew with your mouth when you eat before I pop the mess out of your mouth and duct tape it shut for you to chew!" Mom disgustingly scolds.

"We're already eating in peace, Mom! Chill out!" Tyler sucks his teeth. I shake my head in disagreement.

"You already disturbed the peace since you were eleven! You are twenty six and you're still chewing like a cow. You should stop making those noises that are causing your brothers and sister going to their rooms to eat their dinners!" Mom then imitates a person smacking their mouth while eating. Then, I hear the opening of the door by someone and everybody in the table, including myself turn our heads to my Dad and my third brother Anthony with his common in law wife, Antoinette and their son, Maxwell. "Hey, Healthy Butternut!" Dad joyously greets, opening his arms and I pull back my chair, standing up from my seat and swathing my arms around my Dad.

"Hi, Dad!" I chuckle and we pull away from each other's embrace, so we can play fight. And after that, my Dad and I squeeze each other in our arms, laughing at the past when I used to practice fighting and exercising at my Dad's former job at the gym back when I was a little girl living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

"That's my girl!" Dad chuckles and he goes to hug Tessa while I hug Anthony, Antoinette, and Maxwell. However; Maxwell has other plans stored for anyone. He runs to me with his arms out and open and stops to have each of his thumbs placing on his temples, blowing raspberries and cackling. "Ha ha!" Maxwell taunts.

"Ooh, you weasel!" I exclaim.

"Oh, you Oreo weasel!" Maxwell mimics my voice, calling me by one of the nicknames I received when I was coming of age and grabs my daughter's ponytail in his hand. "Ow!" Tessa shouts.

"Maxwell!" Half of my family and I yell while he runs to the kitchen. "Kevin, you better do something about that Tasmanian Devil or I will. Since you failed that, I'ma give him something to cry about." Mom excuses with Antoinette by her side and I hurry to Tessa, petting her ponytail. "Are you okay, honey?" I caringly query. Tessa nods her head. "Yeah, I can't stand Cousin Maxwell sometimes." Tessa huffs.

My arm drapes around her, rubbing her arm. "I know, sweetheart. He really needs to grow—" My sentence gets cut off by a loud smack following by this ear-splitting bawl. "That's what you get for not listening and for pulling your Cousin Tessa's hair! You know better than that!" Antoinette scolds while Tessa and I pick up our plates of dinner from the dining room table as we walk to my room. With my available hand, I twist the knob as the door opens to reveal a dark bedroom. I flick the lights on as the lights display a room containing a big trundle bed that is made neatly as if no one slept in it. The TV is stacked on top of the dresser along with the drapery of the curtains on the windows and posters of NSYNC, Aaliyah, 3LW, Backstreet Boys, B2K, and Spice Girls along with my drawings, pictures, and awards from high school.

A reminiscing smile spreads on my face when I notice a picture of the girls and I dressing up as the Spice Girls as the 90's nostalgia returns to me. It was around the time when the Spice Girls were dominating girl power and my friends and I dressed like them in Halloween of 1997. Laia was Baby Spice, Adriana was Posh, Giselle was Sporty, Chaiza was Ginger, and I was Scary Spice because of my curly mane. Even though there are the six of us; we give Sasha the nickname Coco Spice because of her zealous desire of chocolate candy and we could've called her Cray Spice for Halloween since she loves adventure and being crazy like Chaiza.

"Oh, Tessa?" I announce while I rummage through tapes in the shelves of the drawer below my TV. "Yeah, Mom?" She asks, looking back at me. "How would you like to watch a movie with me?" I pick the Spice World tape out of the drawer and before I put the TV on to put the tape into the VCR, Tessa asks me, "What movie are we gonna watch?"

A small smirk displays on my face as I feel my dimples deepening. "You'll see." I insert the tape and begin to watch the movie while Tessa and I are continuing to eat our dinner before memories of my early life commence from me listening to certain music that labels me an Oreo or a sellout such as; Blind Melon, the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Kaskade, and Late Night Alumni to my preference in boys. Yes, I admit that I love to get my swirl on. It began when I was a year old and I had a zealous crush on Blind Melon's lead singer, Shannon Hoon. Oh, my goodness, he was very hot! I didn't even know he died until I was watching VH1's 40 Greatest One-Hit Wonders. So, yeah. I may be labeled as an Oreo, but I don't give a damn about what people say about me not being African American enough. I already am. Not only am I labeled as a sellout out in reality, yet on social media, too for making up my mind that I would not be attending to this year's YouTube Black summit that would take place next month. I don't understand why people are tripping about the music and I attire I prefer as well as the way I act. I'm just being myself and it pisses me off to see my fellow African Americans of our community to be shoved against the hardened surface by the authorities. Some are supposed to serve and protect us, not hassle us and shoot us without considering. Not all of us are bad guys.

**********

After Tessa and I finish watching Spice World, we walk to the kitchen with empty plates that needs to be washed. I notice that my brothers and their girlfriends are not visible in the living room, so they must be either having a smoke or in their bedrooms, except Harper who is sleeping like a log on the living room couch. I go to the kitchen to see the sink half full of unclean dishes. My nose crinkles and my lips curl at the piling of the dishes in the sink. I set my phone into a stand as I go through my song list on YouTube and select Hardrive's "Deep Inside". Tessa comes forward to me with a volunteering smile. "I'll help you, Mom." I beam at her and run my hand pass the start of her hair. "Thank you, sweetie." I thank before Tessa and I begin cleaning. As Tessa is cleaning the counter-top while I put the dishes on the dish rack, I hear a loud thumping noise taking place in the hallway.

"GET UP AND GET YOUR LAZY BUTT OVER HERE NOW!" Mom hollers as the thud of a body hits the wall. I turn my head to see Mom pushing Kevin in the back as she storms to the door, striking the palm of her hand against the hard-glass door of the backyard. Mommy pushes the slide door open, not slow enough that I listen to the glass shattering. "PUT OUT THAT SMOKE AND TAKE YOUR BUTTS TO THE KITCHEN!" Mom berates and I lower my head to refrain from laughing because when my brothers and I were little, Mommy made a chart of chores for us with one position and once we finish our chores, our parents would reward us with gift cards, clothes, and money. If not, we would get popped and our allowances would be deducted.

"Why can't you three lethargic, immature buffoons be more like your sister? No wonder she's the first to move out after graduating high school and going to college. I've raised a mature young woman and your father and I are raising you to be mature men because Anthony, Kevin, and Tyler," Mommy exaggerates, glaring at the three of my brothers. "We raised you to clean up after yourselves and act your ages! Your father and I are done cleaning up after you shiftless bum-heads when your little sister knows exactly what to do. It should've been the other way around with Kehlani being the oldest!" Mommy scoffs.

As soon as Mommy criticizes my older brothers, the song "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls begins to fill the kitchen. Tessa and I begin singing one of the classic songs of the 90s.

♪ Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want ♪

♪ So, tell me what you want, what you really, really want ♪

While Tessa and I are singing the song, I can hear my brothers sucking their teethes. "Shut that song up, Oreo!" Kevin complains.

"Don't call her an Oreo! Kevin, you are gonna get five pops a week for saying what you just said to your sister and your allowance is being deducted." Mom argues, defending me and hands me two ten dollars. "Thank, Mom." I thank and put the allowance in the back pocket of my jeans.

I face Kevin and oppose with my hands on my hip, resting my weight. "You didn't call me an Oreo when we were singing KC And the Sunshine Band in Mom's car when she was taking all of us to Play Land." Kevin's smirk falters with his mouth agape while his eyes widen. "That's because they recorded good music in the disco days!" Kevin reasons. I shake my head and chortle while I finish washing the dishes. After Tessa and I finish cleaning the kitchen, my Mom gives Tessa a twenty dollar bill. "Thanks, Grandma!" Tessa exclaims and hugs Mommy. Mommy's arms squeeze Tessa in her arms and after hugging Tessa, she pulls me in her embrace while my arms encircle around her back. "Thank you so much for coming and I hope the two of you enjoy going school shopping for Tessa tomorrow." Mommy then crouches to level Tessa's height.

"Are you ready to go back to school, Tessa?" Mom inquiries.

"Eh, I'm most likely excited for new classes that I'll have this year." Tessa says, hunching her shoulders. "You sound just like your Mom when she was your age." Mommy lightly laughs, pointing her finger at me as her gesture causes Tessa to look up at me with a smile on her face.

"Oh, yeah, Kehlani Armani. Harper wants to sleep over at your apartment." Kevin notifies me. "Okay." I nod my head and walk to the living room, vigilantly picking Harper up in my arms. She stirs in my arms and her eyes begin to flutter open like the birds fluttering their wings. "Mommy?" Harper queries sleepily.

"No, honey, this is Auntie Lani. Are you ready to go?" I ask her. She nods her head and her eyes squeeze shut, resting her head on my shoulder. I turn around to face Tessa. "Are you ready to go, sweetie?"

"Yeah, Mom." Tessa agrees and I grab my stuff, including my phone. "Bye, you guys!" I bid my family to see them later before Tessa, Harper, and I head out of Mom's home and driving back home in Farmingville.