“Don’t try to deflect blame for the mess you two made on me.” Uncle Corey turned and made a silly face at Keylisa. “Two of the people in this room are innocent bystanders. Caught in the line of fire between an ambitious, beautiful adult and an independent, intelligent young lady with opposing motivations and desires.”
I rolled my eyes. “This is why I’m not going to law school. You’re at home now. You don’t have to talk like this, Uncle Corey.”
“Now we agree on something.” Aunt Tanya threw her hands up in an exasperated manner.
Uncle Corey turned so his back was to my computer desk, and everyone was facing each other. “This is not my fault. Don’t hate on a man for enjoying using proper diction. Kids at school weren’t able to bully me into talking slang. Neither will you. Now, back to the matter at hand. What can we do to resolve the media frenzy your passive aggressive post caused thanks to your niece’s aggressive aggressive first comment?”
“Aggressive?”
Uncle Corey turned to face me. “Speaking of which, how were you able to get a response up so fast? It’s been years since you were the first person to reply to a post. Don’t ask me how I know. Just know. I know.”
“Tell me I’m passive aggressive…” Aunt Tanya mumbled and crossed her arms over her midsection.
I sighed. “To be honest, I don’t check the page often anymore. Natural hair and social media aren’t related to the colleges I’m interested in attending. You’d know what I’m interested in if you talked to me more than you tagged me to gain what is it… social proof with my peers.”
“JeShaun, you know I care about you. Why is it so hard to believe I’m doing all of this to make sure you, my family, my only sister’s children have the life she passed away working hard for you to live? We wanted to give you every advantage and opportunity. Now she is gone. I’m doing my best to make good on my promise.” Aunt Tanya wiped a tear from her face.
Keylisa pulled her knees to her chest and started rocking. “I don’t like when you fight. Don’t worry about JeShaun. I’ll take all the pictures of all the hairstyles. That is better because I AM going into the family business. After they Ask Tanya B, they’ll love Keylisa. I’ll have a podcast, a YouTube channel, and hologram hair school.”
“What?” Uncle Corey, Aunt Tanya and I said in unison.
Keylisa stopped rocking. She dropped her knees into the criss cross applesauce position. “They already have hologram concerts, AR, and VR. By the time I’m your age, they’ll have hologram school. Technology moves really fast. We learned about the speed of imtration in my technology class.”
“Iteration.” Uncle Corey smiled. “You know what, Keylisa has a point. Let her do all the hairstyles.”
Aunt Tanya shook her head. “They have different textures, face shapes, and product lines. I can’t showcase how each line works on one type of hair. You don’t have to do the shoot, JeShaun. Your uncle is right. Posting the poll… trying to pressure… just wrong.”
A weight lifted from my shoulders.
“Your turn.” Uncle Corey tapped me on the knee.
Keylisa clapped. She shot up from the pillows toward Aunt Tanya.
“My turn?”
Aunt Tanya pulled her arms around Keylisa and rolled her eyes. “See Corey, I told you.”
“Your turn, JeShaun.” Uncle Corey leaned back in the chair.
I took a deep breath. “For…”
“Apologize to your aunt for your tone and not handling this in a more sensitive manner.”
A look of confusion covered my face. “Huh?”
“You’re allowed to feel however you want about this entire situation. Our offer for you to go back to counseling stands. Always stands. Losing a parent is hard. You’re at the age where missing her can be more pronounced because of all the things you’re getting ready to do. We can’t replace her. We’ve never tried. All we ask is you respect our home while we care for you.” Uncle Corey said.
A tear welled up in the corner of my eye. I sniffed. I averted my eyes toward the ceiling and forced it down. No. Not today. Not here. Not now. “You’re right. Aunt Tanya, I apologize for the disrespectful things I said on the post on Instagram.”
“And.” Aunt Tanya said.
I looked at Uncle Corey.
“Don’t look at me, kid. I don’t know what else you’ve done. Been a busy week at the office.” Uncle Corey shifted his head to look at his wife.
“Trying to run me out of business. Your little post is all over every natural hair blog, forum, and has been reposted on Instagram more than fifteen hundred times. Who can trust a natural hair stylist with a child who doesn’t see the benefit of being natural?” Aunt Tanya shook her head.
Uncle Corey held up his hand as I opened my mouth to speak. “She’s not wrong for wanting to look into trying another way to style her hair, Tanya. JeShaun is not perfect, but she is not malicious. You have been controlling how she wears her since she was five.”
“Five?” I croaked.
Uncle Corey nodded. “She’d do it on the weekends when your mom had to leave or do assignments for work. You two used to get along better than peanut butter and jelly.”
“Wait, I remember. We used to play in that other shop like we were Queen Latifah and her crew in the movie.” I smiled. Me and Aunt Tanya were close. Back in the day.
Aunt Tanya smiled down at Keylisa, then looked at me. “Yeah, I remember. I miss those days. You pinky promised and Gummi bear swore you’d never put harsh chemicals in your hair.”
“Pinky promises aren’t binding in court.” Uncle Corey chuckled.
Aunt Tanya shook her head and rolled her eyes at her husband.
“You both made this a much bigger problem than necessary by getting the brand and social media involved. So, whatever you decide, you need to include social media.” Uncle Corey looked at Aunt
