Somewhere in the distance I heard a piercing high pitch sound, it was rather insistent that sound. As I floated on a cloud of oblivion that sound seemed to corrupt the tranquility of my peaceful state. It continued to grow louder and louder until the only thing I could concentrate on was that sound. I began to feel my much deserved slumber slip away to the cold reality of a ringing phone. As I rolled over and opened my eyes I quickly closed them against the noon day sun that streamed through the curtain of my bedroom window. Beyond heated I grabbed the phone from the nightstand and opened one eye to take a peek at the caller I.D. I stabbed the talk button with my finger and pressed the phone to my ear.
"Thought I told you I planned on sleeping in today, Jamiah," I said with a patient voice I only reserved for my baby sister.
"I know what you said, Kayla, but I have news...huge news, and I wanted you to be the first to her," she said jumbling her words.
My sister only stammered when she was extremely nervous. This hijacked my attention.
"What is it, Miah?" I asked getting ready to talk her out of any decision she may have made without my regard.
"Kayla, please don't use that tone with me." She begged before releasing an exaggerated sigh. "What tone Miah? There's no tone." I said, waiting for her to continue.
"Yes there is. It's the tone you get when you believe you're gonna have to talk me off the ledge of another bad idea."
"Am I?" I asked with dwindling patience.
"Are you what?"
"Am I going to have to talk you off the ledge of another bad idea? Because if I am, damn it, I'm telling you right now I'm gonna need at least six more hours of sleep!" I kicked all pretenses of patience to the left.
"Ugh, you're in a mood aren't you?" A smacking sound came from her end of the line.
"Not a mood just exhaustion. You try holding an intelligent conversation coming off a thirty-six hour rotation." I snapped my irritation full grown.
"Wow, you're just like mom and dad! All work and more work." She said.
"Jamiah, I know you did not call and wake me to express me your disapproval on the amount of hours I spend at the hospital," I said crossing the line from mild irritation to a full fledge attitude.
"Okay, your right. I didn't call for that. The reason I'm calling is to let you know I'm getting married in three weeks," she mumbled in a rush of words that was so low I had to strain to hear her.
"What did you just say?" I asked sitting straight up in my bed all thoughts of sleep forgotten.
"I'm in love, Kayla. Don't judge, okay? Just be happy for us."
"Who the hell is us, Jamiah? Because the last time I checked you weren't even seeing anybody!" I said, while mentally going through a list of my sister's no good ex boyfriends from the past six months.
"I met him four months ago and I didn't tell you about him because you know how you get." she said, while adopting the patience that I'd just tossed away.
"What do you mean, how I can get?" I asked.
"Always judging. Never giving anybody a chance," she said, talking down to me.
"That's not true and you know it. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, it's not my fault that the men you choose to get involved with never take long to turn that doubt into a confirmed fact," I said, sliding off my mattress and pacing back and forth around my bedroom.
"You're so boujee! If a man doesn't have a Graduate's degree and employment options you think he is not worth your time." She accused in her holier than thou voice she used right before she picked up her long suffering cause of the oppressed black man.
"Oh please, Miah. Give it a rest! We both know that's not true."
"Not true? Okay what about Al?"
"Al?"
"Yes Kayla, Al!"
"Wow, if you're gonna prove my point why do I even bother?" I asked.
"Al is an artist who had to rely on his wits and street sense to get him by until his hip-hop career took off." Miah argued with compassion that in my opinion was wasted on the likes of Al.
"Al is a part time rapper and full-time drug dealer with an unhealthy love for abusing people he deems weaker than himself. So please tell me how're you able to find sensitivity in any of that?"
More than anything I wished my sister could remember things how they were and not how she wanted them to have been. Oh yes, I remembered Al. He'd wreaked havoc on my sister's life for nearly two months before she realized she was in over her head.
The bastard decided there was more money in pimping than in drug dealing. He told my sister if she loved him she would always have his back even if it meant selling her body so he could pay child support. She told him to go to hell and he beat the hell out of her, and then locked her in his bathroom until she had a change of heart.
Al, who was never accused of being a thinker, forgot to take away her cell phone. Needless to say I showed up before she could even hit the end button. I also brought along a little insurance in the form of an automatic Smith and Wesson and a two hundred and fifty pound electrician who did work around my parents clinic and moonlighted as a bouncer at one of Atlanta's more popular strip clubs as well. Let's just say, when Big John and I finished with Al he no longer had trouble distinguishing a ho from a housewife.
"Because I'm able to understand that Al is a product of his environment. All of the things he went through when he was younger had a negative impact on his character. Trust me, once Al gets his madness together he'll be prime hubby material. Some lucky queen is going to be really happy with him," she squeaked from her end.
"Yeah well Al's mother would've made me a happy a queen if she would've decided to keep her knees together and you can make me even happier if you would stop stalling and tell me who it is you think you're marrying."
"As I was saying." Attitude drenched her tone. "We met four months ago and it was just like mom and dad said. You'll know when you know and, Kayla, I knew!"
"Okay, where did this one come from?" I stood and moved over to the closet to grab my favorite robe.
"You know what I'm going to ignore that cynicism in your voice and tell you that this guy is not in any way, like the others. Not only is he, kind and caring just like daddy, but he also is the type of guy even you would have no choice but to like." Miah bragged her voice dripping with pride.
"Okay, where did you meet this winner?" I asked heading for my kitchen and the coffee pot that I was now so dependent on.
"At school."
"Hmm, so Spelman is coed now?" I said, pouring coffee grounds into a filter.
"Funny! He was there visiting his sister. I bumped into him on my way into the dorm. And just like that I knew. Mom always said it would happen this way." Miah sighed, her voice going all syrupy.
My eyes damn near crossed from all the rolling they were doing. I doubt my parents would've ever told her the story of how they met if they would've known she'd use it as a basis for always falling for brain dead losers and criminals.
"Okay, so where is he from, what does he do, how old is he an-"
"I can only answer one damn question at time, Kayla?" She snapped.
"Sorry, your right. Where is he from?"
"His sister and he are from a small town in Jamaica called Yallahs. When he turned ten, his mom moved him and his sister to Miami." Miah answered without a stutter or stammer to the first. She must've stayed up all night rehearsing for this conversation.
"What does he do?" I asked, sitting down and bracing myself, because with Miah there was just no, damn, telling.
"He's an entertainment lawyer." She replied with a smugness that didn't really suit her.
"Where did he go to school?"
"He went to the University of Miami because he wanted to stay close to his family." She explained, throwing in that last bit about his family to try and give him an unselfish vibe.
"Oh really? What firm is he with?"
"None, him and a friend from college are looking to open up an office here in Atlanta. Which is a brilliant move. Since Atlanta is the new entertainment place to be-"
"Says who?" I interrupted.
"Me, and the rest of the industry's titans," she hufffed.
Great, all Atlanta needed was another out of work lawyer.
"Well tell me this." I continued. "How old is this once in a lifetime catch?"
"He's thirty-one."
"He's too old for you," was my automatic response.
"He is not. He's a grown man." What the hell did that have to do with anything?
"He's a grown man who's too old for you."
"He's a grown ass man who's uniquely made for me. A fact which he proves to me every night. Now I know what Ariana means when she says, he's got me walking funny," she said, intentionally giving me a mental image that would haunt me for the rest of day.
"Oh God, Jamiah, please! Can you wait until I have had at least one cup of coffee, before you start painting mental pictures of your sex life?" I cut my eye at the coffee pot and found it had yet to start brewing.
"Well don't use our age difference as an excuse not to like him. Fact is I'm over the age of eighteen, so that angle has no weight in this conversation."
"Why would I think about using his age as a reason not to like him, when it's one of many reasons not to marry him?" I asked.
"And what reasons other than his age could you possibly have?" She asked, attempting to keep her tone respectful.
"First of all, you barely know him. Yeah you may know some surface things about him and that would be fine if you guys were casual. But that's not the case. You're talking marriage and that goes beyond the surface Miah." I said, damn near kissing my coffee pot when it begun to brew.
"I know this may all seem impulsive, but I can't explain it, Kayla. I feel as if I've known him all my life. No other place on this earth feels more familiar to me than his arms wrapped around my body. There is no doubt in my mind we're meant to be."
Her declaration sounded like real talk, but this was Miah we were talking about. Her taste in men was down right chilling.
"Miah, I'm not trying to discount your feelings. I would never do that, but what's the rush? What's wrong with getting to know each other better first?" I asked, attempting to be diplomatic.
"Caleb says we're not promised tomorrow. All we have is today, and he's right. Kayla, you probably can come up with a million legitimate reasons as to why I shouldn't marry him, but I can think of only one reason why I should...I love him. And even if I decided to wait a thousand years that one reason would never waiver," she said with a quiet acceptance that I had never heard her use.
Her resolve scared me, because it meant she truly believed everything she'd said.
"Is that his name?" I calmly asked.
"What?"
"Caleb."
"Allen...Caleb Allen." She answered with a smile in her voice.
"So when do we get to meet him?" I asked, deciding that arguing would only make her dig in further on the decision of marrying a man she barely knew.
"I'm bringing him to family dinner next week. And you better act like you have god given sense."
"I hear you."
"I'm mean it, Kayla. There will be none of that angry black woman nonsense you love to pull when we're in mixed company." Miah's voice soared to an eardrum shattering pitch. "I don't know how things are gonna go with mom and dad. It'll make me feel better if I know you're on my side."
"Can't wait to meet him." I refused to make any promises.
"Alright, Kayla. Get some rest and I'll call mom and daddy to give 'em the good news," she said before hanging up.
"Yeah, you do that," I said to dial the tone before pressing the end button.
After a scorching gulp of coffee, I sat the cup back on the counter and replayed the conversation in my head. Maybe she was in love but honestly what was the rush?
The entire situation felt wrong. She'd just turned twenty. Wasn't she tired of playing the fool for every foot dragger who called her pretty? Yes, my sister is very beautiful, but she is also very naive. Because of this, men always took advantage her.
Jamiah's flawless chocolate brown skin inspired pure lust in men and black hatred in women. Although she could probably give nubian empresses like Cleopatra a run for her money, her looks wasn't even a tenth of what made her special.
My sister is a compassionate person. This was so even as a child and because of her blind naiveté, people always got over on her and when I say people I mean, trifling, men.
She has what I call 'The Stray Dog Syndrome.' This particular affliction entails finding the lowliest mutt of the litter, taking it home, cleaning, the mangy pooch, up and attempting to teach it new tricks. More times than not, the stray is not worth the time or effort, which it proves by pissing and shitting all over your life.
I climbed back in bed to get a few more hours of sleep before I was due back at the hospital for rounds. As I closed my eyes and attempted to clear my head, my mind veered recklessly towards the unthinkable.
"Please, God! Don't let her be pregnant."