Read Online Naughty or Nice by Eric Jerome Dickey - Free Book Online Page A

up.”
    She says, “I want my hair braided, not in ponytails. I want six braids.”
    â€œIf your daddy says it’s cool, I’ll hook you up tomorrow if we have time, okay?”
    â€œOkay.”
    Blue asks, “Why are you out of bed, Mo?”
    â€œI heard Scooby-Doo.” She wears a sad look on her face. “Is it morning time yet?”
    â€œCome here.”
    She goes to him. He hugs her. Sad look gone. An actress in training. A daddy’s girl. With Monica, Blue changes. His voice is filled with love, but it’s the firm love of a parent.
    â€œSun is still sleeping.” He kisses her forehead. “Still nighttime.”
    â€œMommy coming to get me?”
    Then there is silence. A moment of sadness.
    He sighs. “Mommy . . . she . . . something came up.”
    â€œShe said she was coming to get me for lunchtime. Lunchtime and dinnertime are over.”
    â€œI know.”
    Monica is anxious. Blue hugs her, tries to take her disappointment away.
    â€œDaddy, can I tell Tommie I’m learning allllll about Kwanzaa on the computer?” She rubs her eyes, yawns, struggles with the word, “Ooooo-moe-jah and—”
    â€œTomorrow, Monica. Time to go night-night.”
    â€œMay I have some water, Daddy?”
    â€œYou had water before you went to bed.”
    â€œI want water out of my green cup.”
    Blue puts her in my lap and gets her green cup. “Water, then back to bed, understand?”
    â€œTommie, are you going to braid my hair like ’Licia Keys?”
    â€œAlicia Keys it is.”
    â€œI’m I’m I’m doing a spoken word project at school.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œWhen I grow up I’m going to be a poem writer just like you, and you can help me!”
    She drinks the water, then asks if she can do this, can she do that, tries her best to keep talking, but Blue makes her give me a good-night hug, then takes her to the bathroom and lets her use it before taking her back to the bedroom. I hear them talking. So much love is in this space.
    I sit at the table for a while, waiting and thinking, feeling like I should go.
    I met Blue because of Monica. I used to see him going out in the morning, struggling to get her in the car seat so he could get her to the sitter and get to work on time. Monica’s hair would be jacked up, halfway plaited, halfway Afro. Crooked parts. Nooil or moisturizer. Even when Monica’s mother had her and dropped her off, her hair was jacked up. Actually, she did a worse job than Blue. Blue and I were on the way out at the same time one morning and we both waved. He was in his driveway and I was backing out so I could get to ’Bucks and write a bit before I went to open at Pier 1. I drove down the street, then turned back around, pulled up in front of his place, introduced myself as a neighbor, told him that I wasn’t trying to get in his business, then asked if he needed me to do her hair. He offered to pay me. I told him it was pro bono. He told me that his baby momma wasn’t good at styling hair, either that or wasn’t patient enough to try and learn how to plait and braid hair as gifted as Monica’s, so he did his best. Had the poor child looking like Buckwheat in the electric chair. I have to give him credit for trying to hold his own. That was how we met. That was how we became friends. Through Monica.
    Twenty minutes goes by before he comes back, that parental irritation all over his face.
    I ask, “She sleep?”
    â€œYeah. Had to make sure no monsters were under her bed.”
    â€œShe makes a sucker out of you.”
    â€œI know. That damn Monsters Inc. movie . . .”
    We laugh and yawn.
    I ask, “What are you gonna do about work tomorrow?”
    He makes another cup of tea, sits down again. “I’ll have to call in.”
    â€œYou can’t keep doing that.”
    â€œNo choice.”
    â€œYou could