“Good! Now we are done with this unpleasant conversation.” She opened the door and led me into her outer office, where a group of students were gathered in front of the fire.
I joined her, partaking in the roaring flames, tapping my foot on the wooden floorboards beside my matching Louis Vuitton luggage. I threw on my designer sunglasses and quarter-length fur despite the heat being produced by the fireplace. Felt good to be out of my school uniform, so I bit my tongue and kept my impatience to myself while the jealous hoes who were my classmates looked on. They’d never be as fly as me and they knew it. Nor would they know how close I came to being a former student.
Psh . . . finishing school.
Luckily, my electives—while not my raison d’être, but my reason for being here—were da bomb dot com.
“Mademoiselle Duncan, you will be sure to enjoy yourself back home in the U.S., no?” Madame Joan Marie asked as she kissed me on both cheeks. Right before removing my sunglasses and placing them back in my hand. Of course, she meant the opposite of what she and her big-ass smile said. You had to look beyond that and into those tiny, cold eyes of hers. She wanted me to behave myself back home. Rein a bitch in ’n’ shit.
“Oh, I will most definitely enjoy myself,” I replied, meaning exactly what I motherfuckin’ said. Couldn’t wait to get out of here and back in the NYC, specifically Jamaica, Queens where my family lived and ran things like motherfuckin’ bosses. Yeah. To sleep in my own bed, eat some less bougie food, and see my fam would be all to the good.
Oh, yeah. And some good American dick, too. Don’t get me wrong. These Euros could eat some * like nobody’s business, but I missed the rhythm real niggas had back home when they were layin’ it down.
But that could come later. For now, I really missed my family. And that was most important in this fucked-up world: Family.
There was my daddy, Lavernius Duncan, who everybody called LC, head of Duncan Motors, the largest African American– owned car dealership chain in the tri-state area. My beloved moms, Chippy, had his back and was the rock of the family. Held it down for me and my four brothers: Junior, the big diesel one who was loveable as fuck; Vegas, the heart of the family whom I would die for; Orlando, the calculating one whom I would have to think about dying for; and Rio, my wild and crazy twin who I lived for. Oh, and my older sister London was part of the family too, but the less said about her the better. She and her lawyer husband, Harris, already thought their shit didn’t stink, but now that she was pregnant? Fawk. Would never hear the end of it. Was almost enough to make me want to remain in Europe over break.
Almost.
Once I touched down back home, I’d just have to be civil. Steer clear of her, Harris, and the demon spawn in her gut.
Besides, it was only a month after all. Then back here to complete my schooling.
“Is your family sending a car for you, Mademoiselle Duncan? Or will you need transportation arranged?” Madame Joan Marie asked before she turned her attention to the next departing student, this Croatian bitch with bad skin. Madame Joan Marie liked everything to run with Swiss precision. And when it didn’t, heads rolled.
The text I’d been waiting for came through on my phone, leading me to tune her ass out momentarily.
“No, Madame. My ride is here now,” I said as I looked up at her, flashing my first genuine smile of the day.
“Very well, mademoiselle. Adieu,” she commented as she took a slight bow and gracefully stepped aside. Funny that she never referred to me by my first name. Probably thought being named Paris, after a city, was ghetto or sumthin’. But not ghetto enough to refuse our money.