Page 6 of Fraudulent Beauty

“Hello?” she answered the phone in a professional sounding voice.

“Hey. Is this Tahli?”

“Yes.”

“This is Khalif. I’m sorry it took me so long to reach out. I’ve been busy as hell.” I walked into my closet and scanned the array of shoe boxes.

“It’s cool. How have you been?”

“I’ve been good. How about yourself?”

“I can’t complain.”

“Good. Now, you want to get all the cliché shit out of the way? Favorite color, favorite food, your zodiac sign, and all that jazz?”

My question made a soft giggle push from Tahli’s throat. “I hate those questions. I’ll just tell you the important stuff like I work part-time at a bank. I’m waiting on a full-time position to open up, and since I don’t work full-time, I live with my mother, but I’m not looking for a man to save me.”

“That’s good to know,” I laughed. “It’s just you and your mom? No siblings?”

“In the house and from my mom, no. I have nine siblings on my father’s side.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, I know right.”

After a short time in the closet, I decided on wheat colored Timberland’s. “Some people that come from big families want ones of their own. It also turns some people off from them. You want a big family?”

“If you’re asking me if I want a lot of kids, hell to the no. For one, who in the hell will push all of them out? Secondly, it’s just my personal opinion that having that many kids in one house, it will be almost impossible to give them all of the time and attention they need individually. My father is the epitome of a dead beat. I’m not too pressed to have kids but if I have them, I’ll be good with two.”

My head bobbed as I checked my reflection out in the full-length mirror. “I agree. And as a man without a college degree and millions in the bank, I’m not trying to spend my entire life struggling, and kids are far from cheap.”

“Amen to that. What do you do?”

It was crazy how I always hit a slight pause when a woman asked me what my occupation was. When I say most of my people had a bad taste in their mouth regarding the police, I wasn’t exaggerating.

“I’m a police officer.”

“Oh, okay that’s cool,” Tahli didn’t miss a beat. “Even though I haven’t heard good things about dating officers of the law.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I grabbed my keys. “What horror stories have you heard?”

“Just that there are quite a few police officers that are abusive, and that there’s no point in calling the police on the police because they look out for one another.”

“Again, I won’t say that’s not true in some instances, but I can only speak for myself. I’ve never put my hands on a woman, and I never will. I don’t do verbal or physical abuse.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Will you be free for me to take you out anytime soon?”

“Um yeah, my schedule is pretty flexible. Just let me know the date and time.”

“I’m about to go to Social, that sports bar in The Hills. If you’re not doing anything you can come out, and I’ll pay for your drinks. I’m meeting Nook though, so I don’t know how you feel about that.”

Tahli sighed. “I’ve been around Nook and Sheniah so long that their arguments are something I choose to stay out of. I don’t get involved at all, but I do have to do a wig install and shoot the video before midnight, so I’ll take a rain check.”

“You do hair?”

“No. Well just my own. I kind of accidentally became a wig influencer. It’s pretty cool. I get checks from social media, free hair, and I get paid to post the wigs. It’s not a bad deal. It’s holding me over until I can get on full-time at the bank.”