09/14/2025
Think you can create a 15-30 second video for this manuscript that might become the official ad for the book?
Your task: Reflect the tone from your perspective with a brief video that includes clips for the beginning, middle, and end of the piece.
Relevant story information: Love triangle including the main character and her two male love interests.
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SECRETS by Elizabeth Thomas
PART ONE: SHE SAID
CHAPTER ONE
Shenetta had just rolled a fatty, so I was standing in the doorway, waiting for my little cuz to come out on the porch and smoke with me. We were chilling while we waited for her friend, Ricky to pull up. Her Mazda 626 was on the blink, again, and he was her mechanic. Of course, she only allowed him to be her mechanic because she never had to pay him in currency for his skills. It wasn’t really the greatest arrangement for her though, considering how she constantly complained that he was too big and always wanted to ram himself inside her so hard that she couldn’t walk straight for hours afterward. Yet, the truth remained that Shenetta was not about to shell out money for any services that could be paid for with her goods. Needless to say, she had a few brothers with whom she did business.
It was a beautiful day in “Sunny South Dallas”, and I had opted for the experience of watching the sights and sounds with which I had become so familiar during the year I had been there. There was always some sort of activity on Booker Street, and my house was situated right on the corner where Cooper Drive and Booker met. I rarely missed whatever traffic came through, because most of it stopped at the house across the street from me. Although I never told anyone, I really got a kick out of watching the day-to-day activities of my neighbors, as they tried to keep from getting caught making that street pharma money. The problem? They didn’t know how to keep a low profile. It seemed like every other day, somebody from their crew was pulling up in some new vehicle, or carrying mad shopping bags from expensive stores into their itty bitty, lime green duplex.
As I pushed the security screen door wide, I heard the roaring of an engine. A beat up, old truck came flying around the corner. I frowned because of the noise that was coming from under the hood of the truck. Shenetta’s mechanic, Ricky, was grinning broadly as he manipulated the steering wheel.
I watched the decrepit looking contraption as it flew to the alley at the end of Booker, turned around, and headed back up toward my house. He slowed down long enough for me to catch a glimpse of the brother on the passenger’s side… and for him to catch a glimpse of me. The moment seemed like one of those you might see in a scene from one of those cheesy ‘80s, beach babe reruns. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion.
The smooth brown of his face was pulled into a smile, broad, and one-hundred times more captivating than the one that was goofily plastered across his friend’s face. His eyes looked like large, almond shaped jewels, so bright that they appeared to sparkle. As he blinked, his long, thick lashes came together and separated slowly. Our eyes locked and held until the truck rounded the corner again and headed toward the driveway at the back of my house.
I was so caught up in that moment that I didn’t even hear Shenetta the first time she asked if the noise she’d heard was her mechanic’s arrival.
“Kinfolk!” she said again loudly, jarring me out of my reverie. “Is that my boy out there?” I slid the joint back into her hand as her face came back into focus.
“Yeah, that’s him,” I answered. “Hell, might be my boy too,” I added.
“What?”
“Hold up, bitch. Don’t take that s**t outta context. They went around to the back yard.”
“They?”
“Yeah, he got some other dude with him.” Shenetta’s eyes lit up, and she quickly asked, “What he lookin’ like girl?”
“He a’ight I guess”, I said with as much nonchalance as I could muster, hoping that I was convincing. Shenetta was very interested to hear this, because she had been trying to “find” someone to hook me up with. My latest romantic tragedy had just ended a few days earlier, and she was worried about me. I appreciated her concern, but I resented the insinuation that I couldn’t get a man on my own. After all, I could get a guy’s attention with little or no effort, even on my worst hair days.
I have to admit now though, that Steven had not been the best example of good judgment on my part, and would, therefore, not be a good example of how well I could work my s**t.
When I think back on it now, I don’t know if I was really in love or just infatuated with the idea of being in love with him. We never really had any of the important things in common. For example, even though we both had some big ideas about family and loyalty, his were as far removed from my own as heaven is from hell. His father had been abusive to both Steven and his mother when Steven was younger, and that made him a real mama’s boy. Not that there is anything wrong with being loyal to the abused rather than the abuser, but he didn’t know when to let go. He would do anything for her, including walk away from a woman who was good to him and for him. His mother was a true undercover beyotch, and that didn’t help the situation at all. She hated me, and the feeling got dangerously close to being mutual before Steven and I broke up.
If what Steven told me about his childhood was true, his father had really mellowed in his old age. When I met Mr. Ray, he was not even close to the picture that had been painted by his son. I know one thing, he must have loved my big yellow legs, because he always talked about them. He would say, “Come here girl. You love my boy don’t cha? You better hold him tight with them big ol’ yella legs. Don’t, he’ll get away from ya!” Turns out, the way I held Steven had nothing to do with what I came to call his “great escape”.
To his credit, Steven loved kids. In fact, he was nothing but a big ass kid himself. He referred to himself as “Big Dog” and went around barking like one when he was “feeling real good”, which was far too often for my taste. Unfortunately, not everyone understood the humor of his barking. My sister Ann thought he might have been suffering from Turret’s Syndrome, but the rest of my family just thought he was irrevocably “learning disabled”.
The thing I liked about Steven was his willingness to have a good time. He liked a lot of the things that I liked and did not hesitate when he felt like doing some moving around. We were always going to the movies or out to eat. He would pay someone at the drop of a hat to babysit my three kids so we could hit the club. Showing me off at his favorite clubs was his thing. He was a good dancer, and I was a whole vibe, so we always stayed on the dance floor whenever we went clubbing.
There was one problem with that form of entertainment though. Steven was a second-generation alcoholic and a serious w***e. That meant my good time was usually dependent upon his level of intoxication. He always felt like it was his duty to respond to all the other eyes that watched him as we tore up the dance floor. Oh, he thrived on attention. That was the one, character flaw we could both call our own.
He was from a small East Texas town where football was king, and he had been a star athlete. The high school he attended was predominantly white, so he had jungle fever early on. Being the baby boy in a large family had not helped grow his character either. That fool was so spoiled that he had absolutely no desire to be responsible for anything but having a good time.
Yep, I was convinced that I was in love with that tall drink of water that I had met on Shenetta’s birthday. I had been sitting outside on the porch that day when my only admittedly gay neighbor, Mickey, had come from Dale’s house. Dale was the one man on the street who had the respect of everybody else there. Maybe that was because he had lived there longer than just about anybody else. People referred to him as the mayor of Booker Street. Everybody usually just flocked to his yard to hang out, so it was not odd for me to see the tall, muscular specimen of manhood sitting in the yard talking to Dale’s younger brother, Marcus. I had been watching them for a while that day, so when Mickey staggered his drunk ass into my yard to tell me that Steven wanted to meet me, I jumped at the chance.
Shenetta’s little Mazda came flying around the corner after I sat there making small talk with Steven and Marcus for a while. She had just come from visiting her fiancé at the federal prison facility in Seagoville, Texas. When I saw her drive up, I excused myself from the conversation I had been having with them. Trying to be cute and keep my butt from jiggling too much, I ran across the street and up the sidewalk to my house. As I got closer, I belted out, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Ms. Shenetta. Happy birthday to you.”
“Hey, kinfolk,” she smiled. “Where you coming from?”
“Over there.”
I pointed toward Dale’s house. She immediately noticed a new face sitting in Dale’s yard and asked me who he was.
“Oh, that’s Steven.” I tried to sound uninterested. “He’s a friend of Marcus’ I guess. Mickey told me that he wanted to meet me, but his conversation so far ain’t about much. Are you having a good birthday?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. I went down to the damn prison and cried like a fu***ng baby. I miss him so much, girl.”
I shot her that “Been there…done that” look, but my verbal reply was almost a whisper. “I know.”
I had my son, Eric, take a picture of the two of us on the porch. Shenetta was looking especially beautiful that day. Her round face, fair skin, and high cheekbones were accentuated by long, reddish blonde cornrows. Her jeans hugged her slight hips and slender waist, and she wore a spaghetti strap halter top with them. We both leaned against the poles that supported the porch, in opposite directions, with our hands underneath our chins.
We sat that way for a while talking about how depressed she was. At least, she talked, and I listened. I was beginning to get fidgety when her best friend, D’Marla showed up. Trying not to let my anxiety show, I listened as she started to tell D’Marla the story. D’Marla was high (as usual) and had the munchies, so she didn’t really give much credence to Shenetta’s state of mind. She rushed into the house holding her stomach and announcing her hunger. Her mouth was full of the meatloaf I had cooked for dinner when she stepped back onto the porch.
D’Marla let out a muffled, “What’s wrong with you, girl?” Shenetta rolled her eyes and said, “Bitch, you got Alzheimer’s or something?”
D’Marla looked confused.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, I’m on my way to Glendale to catch some ni**as. Wanna ride?”
“Hell, I might as well. Ain’t s**t else to do.”
I knew Shenetta would go in search of someone to help drown her sorrow about her fiance´. I knew that someone would be male, and he could not know that he could never completely satisfy her longing, but I knew they sure would have a good time while he tried. I watched the two of them as they stumbled together down the front porch steps. D’Marla tripped on the hem of her dress and giggled as she caught herself. She was wearing a black, sleeveless, spandex number with a high hip split.
They were flawless, and there was no doubt in my mind that the fellas were going to flock when they stepped out of their ride. When they drove off, they were both laughing and yelling.
“Bye Chante!”
The singer blasting on the car radio was letting the world know she had a man at home. Seeing that s**t for the shade it was, I shot them the finger, went into the house to check on my kids, and headed back over to Dale’s.
Once I got back to Dale’s yard, the conversation picked up quite a bit, and it appeared that Steven and I had a lot in common. One thing led to another, and when it was all said and done, Steven had my digits, and he was standing on my doorstep saying goodbye. I was glad that Mickey had introduced us, but I would look back on that day and realize that I should have stayed in the freaking house. Then I would not have been hurt at all by the six-foot four, black as night, s*xy ass, cheating bastard that Steven Ray Jones, Jr. turned out to be.
