LITMIR.BIZ

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is a troublemaker and always hot on Mickey’s trail. Always in and out of jail, Mickey’s man is notorious in her hood for being a coldhearted gangster, and loves to be in control. He also has a thing for Jayd, but Jayd can’t stand to be anywhere near him.

      Nigel

      The new quarterback on the block, Nigel is a friend of Jayd’s from junior high and also Rah’s best friend, making Jayd’s world even smaller at South Bay High. Nigel is the star football player and dumped his ex-girlfriend at Westingle (Tasha) to be with his new baby-mama-to-be, Mickey. Jayd is caught up in the mix as a friend to them both, but her loyalty lies with Nigel because she’s known him longer and he’s always had her back.

      Chance

      The rich, white hip-hop kid of the crew, Chance is Jayd’s drama homie and Nellie’s boyfriend, if you let him tell it. He used to have a crush on Jayd and now has turned his attention to Nellie.

      Bryan

      The youngest of Mama’s children and Jayd’s favorite uncle, Bryan is a dj by night and works at the local grocery store during the day. He’s also an acquaintance of both Rah and KJ from playing ball around the hood. Bryan often gives Jayd helpful advice about her problems with boys and hating girls alike. Out of all of Jayd’s uncles, Bryan gives her grandparents the least amount of trouble.

      Jay

      Jay is more like an older brother to Jayd than her cousin. Like Jayd, he lives with Mama but his mother (Mama’s youngest daughter) left him when he was a baby and never returned. He doesn’t know his father and attends Compton High. He and Jayd often cook together and help Mama around the house.

CULTURE CLASH

      Contents

      Prologue

      1 Black Girls

      2 The Administration

      3 Pride and Prejudice

      4 So Fine, So Furious

      5 Bunny Boilers

      6 Not the Mama

      7 Survivors

      8 Culture Shock

      9 I’m Not

      10 A Hot Mess

      Epilogue

      A Reading Group Guide

      Discussion Questions

      Prologue

      This weekend was the first one in a long time I spent hanging with my crew. After our hellish holidays it was nice being back to normal with my friends. Well, all except for my ex Rah. He’s completely lost his mind if he thinks allowing his daughter’s mother, Sandy, to be under house arrest at his house is the way to go. If it weren’t for his daughter, I know he would’ve had no problem letting her trifling ass be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for stealing his grandfather’s car.

      I just got my conditioner set in my hair for the next thirty minutes. I feel like cooking a big breakfast this morning, but it’ll be nothing like the spread Mama made for me yesterday. My memory’s still coming back from our collective vision quest Friday evening. I walk into the kitchen and check the fridge for some food. As usual, there’s nothing in here to cook. Damn. I hope there’s at least some grits in the cabinet. My mom loves hot cereal and so do I.

      I check the cabinet and find what I’m looking for, but not before I’m interrupted by someone at the front door. Who’s this knocking so early on a Sunday morning? Maybe it’s my neighbor Shawntrese wanting to get her hair done before church. I look through the peephole and see Jeremy, my ex, looking back at me. What’s he doing here?

      “We’re making this pop-up thing a habit, aren’t we?” I say through the door, unlocking the multiple bolts and letting him in. Jeremy has seen me look all kinds of ways. Now he gets to see me with my plastic shower cap on and I could not care less. That’s what he gets for coming by unannounced.

      “Good morning to you, too, Lady J. I had to come check on you since you’re not returning calls,” he says, walking inside and kissing me on the forehead, but not before he looks at my shower cap and shakes his head in amusement. I haven’t even checked my phone this morning. I passed out when I came home from Nigel’s last night and put my phone on silent mode to make sure I stayed that way.

      “You want some grits?” I ask, sashaying back into the kitchen to finish cooking my breakfast. I open the freezer and find some protein to accompany my meal. Thank God for frozen food. Who knows how long these turkey sausages have been in here. In my opinion, they still look good enough to eat.

      “What’s a grit?” Jeremy asks, as serious as a heart attack. I turn around and look at him, shocked he’s unfamiliar with one of our staple foods. He’s a white boy, so I guess he’s not familiar with chitlins and pig’s feet either, although I haven’t had either one of those since I was a child.

      “How can you not know what grits are? Your mother’s from the South.” I gesture for Jeremy to sit at the dining room table while I get out the necessary tools needed to cook. I put water in both the pot and the skillet, ready to heat this small kitchen up.

      “Yeah, but she doesn’t cook everything Southern. My dad’s Jewish, remember? Some things we never got accustomed to, a grit being one of them.”

      “It’s not ‘a grit.’ You don’t just eat one,” I say, smiling at my silly friend. “And it’s like porridge made out of ground corn. Interested?” I begin pouring the white grains into the measuring cup, waiting for his response. From the look on his face, I’d say the answer is no.

      “I’ll pass.” His loss. I pour the cereal slowly into the boiling water and check on my sausages cooking in the skillet. This is going to be a slamming meal. “So, how was the dance?”

      “It was okay. I didn’t stay for long,” I say, mixing the cereal until it’s thick and smooth. I reach back into the refrigerator and pull out the butter. I take a knife out of the dish drainer and put about a tablespoon of butter into the grits and then sprinkle in some salt. All I need now is brown sugar to make this meal perfect. I have about five minutes before I need to rinse the conditioner out of my hair. I hope Jeremy wasn’t expecting my undivided attention this morning because I’m all about me right now.

      “And how was your Valentine’s Day?” he asks as I pour the grits onto a plate and place the sausages next to the cereal. I sit across from Jeremy at the table ready to dig in.

      “It was cool. I chilled with the crew, nothing special. And on Friday night I was busy with my family, so I was glad for the session last night,” I say, offering Jeremy a sausage. He takes it. Something about Jeremy’s eyes tells me that I’m missing something here.

      “You were so busy you couldn’t respond to my text about plans we had for the holiday?” His text? I forgot all about him asking me to be his valentine and about the stupid movie he wanted us to go see. But I can’t tell him the truth about why I didn’t remember until just now.

      “You seem to pick and choose your holidays, Jeremy. I’m sorry I was caught up, and I told you I didn’t want to see a horror movie anyway, especially not one as demeaning as the one you chose.” I continue eating without apology. If I told him that me, my mother, and my grandmother were busy fighting off Mama’s neighbor Esmeralda and my frenemy Misty in the spirit world because they were trying to steal my dreams, I don’t think he’d believe me.

      “How is a movie about voodoo dolls and shit demeaning to you, unless you’re a voodoo witch?” I stop in mid-bite and look into Jeremy’s eyes, now full of anger. He’s about to piss me and the women in my lineage off if we don’t end this conversation right now.

      “It’s priestess, not witch.” Did I just say that out loud? From the look in Jeremy’s pretty blues, I guess I did.

      “What’s the difference?” he asks, taking another sausage from my near-empty plate. I can

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