Hypothetically, Of Course

Chapter Numero Uno : Because Every One Wears Louis Vuitton.

Islabelle

I glanced out of the floor-to-ceiling window adjacent to my kitchen island seat, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear while taking a sip of my French Vanilla coffee. Usually, the view of the New York City skyline drove me insane at the dawn of the morning (which is why I’d decided to rent this ridiculously expensive apartment), but the thickness of the clouds gave the appearance that the sky would open up and give way to a ferocious stream of rainfall that I would not enjoy. I sighed, disappointed with the morning, and looked over at the Microwave clock, impatience and anxiety beginning to get the better of me. “Leyarie needs to hurry her ass up.”

“For Christ’s sake Lea, put you hair up, please!” I slammed my coffee mug back onto the kitchen counter as my sixteen year old daughter zoomed past the exterior kitchen island, a flash of luxurious brown and mahogany red hair obscuring my vision, and inadvertently sending me into a fury.

Lea sighed in my direction as she rounded the corner and took a bite out of her Pop Tart. I’d always hated those things, especially since she’d become obsessed with them (along with Power Rangers) as a baby.

“It’s going to rain,” I continued my rant, raising the pitch of my voice to ensure premium clarity, “And I do not have the money to pay forty bucks to have your hair straightened every time you decide to neglect it.”

“Since when?” Lea grumbled as she padded her way through the kitchen, dropping the pastry ends into the trash.

“Don’t start, Lea…” I said, in a warning tone. It always worked on her before, but it seemed to have less and less of an effect on her as she grew older.

“Look!” Lea began; surrender painting her naturally hoarse voice, as she pulled the elastic band from behind the baby pink watch that nested on her wrist. “See, I’m putting my hair up, okay? Happy?”

I watched as she struggled to push her thick, moderately long hair into a semi-neat ponytail. I nodded as she put the elastic into place, and smiled. “Now I’m absolutely ecstatic.”

“Yea,” She started, walking out of the kitchen area, and towards the front hallway, “I bet.”

I followed after her, grabbing my car keys from the little rack that was nailed to my kitchen wall.

We’d just moved from our Harlem apartment to an Upper East Side apartment, nestled somewhere between Columbia University, where I taught Kant’s Philosophy to Undergraduate Philosophy majors, and NYU, where I took my last six months of PhD classes to become a Kant Scholar. Yes, it was convenient, but more than anything, I’d done it for Lea.

She was, and still is, a lot like me. Lea began to grow into a lot of my old bad habits; hanging out with the wrong people, growing the wrong sort of attitude, and neglecting what she’d once valued so much. Never once did I mind her hanging out with the kids from her school, or a few people from the block. I'd only given birth to her at sixteen, so, much of the people were still the same and she hung out with children of my old friends. But then came the parties; the same sorts that I used to fear for my life as a teenager in Harlem. I made the choice to raise Lea in The City for two reasons; One, because I felt that being raised in ‘boo’ York City gives any person a sense of strength that you simply cannot attain anywhere else. “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” Is what I’ve been told.

Two, because I wanted her to have a sense of the same sort of culture that I’d been raised with. She was a beautiful girl, that can’t be denied, but she needed to learn how to ignore her looks and how to survive on nothing but intellect. New York taught me that and I was hoping it would relay the same message to her.

Thankfully enough, she’d learned these lessons, and more.

I thought I could be a strong enough mother to prevent her from making the same mistakes I had made, but life was beginning to prove me wrong. A single parent household can only give a child but so much, and I, apparently, was not giving enough. So, my gut instinct told me that I should act on intuition, and my intuition told me to enroll her bad ass in private school and move further into Manhattan. I didn’t exactly know why, but when my gut talks, I’ve learned to listen.

I sighed impatiently, as Lea rolled her almond-shaped emerald green eyes at her own reflection in the hallway mirror. Her brown skin, which matched the color of my own, glowed, and I could feel the anxiety rolling off of her.

“This school uniform shit sucks.” Lea growled, bending over to stuff her stocking clad feet into her black Ugg Boots.

“First of all, watch your fuckin’ mouth.” I said, adjusting the burgundy and grey plaid pleated skirt on her hips, “And this uniform flatters you, love.” I finished, smoothing her white short sleeved peasant shirt under her beige Calvin Klein cardigan, and kissing her plump cheeks.

“Brent Academy for Young Scholars, here I come.” Lea said, with the most sarcasm she could muster as we made our way to the car. “You know I couldn’t have gotten into that school if you didn’t have, like, two hundred degrees, right?”

I ignored her, and shook my head at the way her signature knapsack slung off her shrugged shoulders. She was staring at her feet as she walked. “Aye, head up, Lea. What did I tell you about that?”

I stepped in front of her to unlock the car doors, and she rattled off our quote unenthusiastically while taking her place in the front passenger seat. “You only get 10 seconds to impress someone, I know.”

I wasn’t worried about her though, she was the best little actress I knew and she knew how to impress someone who needed to be impressed, no sweat.

We pulled up to the front entrance just as the very first rain drops started to scatter across my windshield, and simultaneously, all the students scampered inside the building. I watched Lea watch everyone else, and gently patted her knee.

“This is nothing new, Lea. Do what you always do.” I said, as light hearted as I could.

“This is different though, Mom. These people are so…different from me.” She said, solemnly, and for the first time I felt the first pang of guilt. I’d uprooted her, and removed her from her comfort zone. But it was for the best.

“Yes they are, Lea. Look – there’s a girl with the same backpack as you.” I said, trying again.

Lea chuckled, “Ma, everyone wears Louis V.”

“Okay, well, fine lets take a different approach,” I began again, pleading. She raised her thin eyebrows at me. “How many of them, do you think, know who Immanuel Kant is? And how many of them have written high school essays on the Critique of Pure Reason?”

I’d thought I was winning this tit for tat battle, I really did.

My beautiful, way too mature sixteen year old daughter shook her head at me. “Ma, this is one of the Sister Schools to Regis Academy. The have the Best Policy Debate team in the country. Trust me; they all know who Immanuel Kant is.”

“But, you’re a debater! So you’ll probably know most of the other debaters, right?” This was my last attempt, if I loss this round, I’d lost the battle.

“Yea and they hate me for being a bitch in tournament rounds and still whopping their asses.” Lea gave me one last meaningful sigh, and pushed open the car door. The ringing of the ‘door open’ signal snapped me out of my defeated stupor, and snapped me back to life as the car door slammed gently.

I shook my head, and drove off. “This kid needs a father, I can’t do this alone.”

If I would’ve known what we were soon to crash into, I might have taken that statement back sooner.