Dirty Rotten Liar by Noire

other and I was gonna hafta cover up real good.
    What I really felt like putting on was a pair of old sweats and a raggedy T-shirt, but rich folks like the Dominions didn’t roll like that at the dinner table, not even on their worse damn days. So I put my hair up in a ponytail and pulled on some tight jeans and a long-sleeved clingy shirt, and then I swung by Bunni’s room and we headed downstairs to eat.
    Selah hadn’t shown up yet, but the rest of the crew was already sitting around the dining room table. Dane, Jock, Fallon, Dy-Nasty, and Barron. Pilar’s uppity ass had shown up too, and she had a tart look on her face like she had smashed her damn finger in a car door.
    Dy-Nasty was sitting beside me with her elbows propped on the table and talking real loud on her cell phone. She was wearing my ear out and steady running off at the mouth as she bragged to some hood chick on the other end about all the fly shopping she was finna do and how much she was gonna pay for so-and-so luxury items from so-and-so expensive-ass stores.
    Bunni was sitting on my other side, and I wanted to crack up when she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “That hood bitch is so damn ghetto !”
    I nodded and then went straight back to iggin’ Dy-Nasty’s ass because listening to her talk I could tell she didn’t know shit about no real shopping for no quality items. Matter fact, her guttersnipe ass wouldn’t know classy if somebody slapped it on her breakfast plate and poured syrup all over it, because almost every designer she was naming was second rate and their gear coulda been had for basement-bargain prices at some slum little outlet mall.
    I squirmed my aching ass around in my chair and tried to get comfortable as the kitchen staff carried in steaming platters of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. We went ahead and fixed our plates even though Selah hadn’t shown up yet, but the only ones who seemed happy as fuck to be at that table was Bunni and Dy-Nasty, and both of them was about to work my last nerve.
    Bunni was chewing with her mouth open and busy gnawing a chicken bone down to the marrow, and Dy-Nasty, with her wide-hipped self, was spreading about two inches of butter around on a thick hunk of white bread.
    I barely had an appetite, myself. All I could think about was the fact that my backbone was on fire and my heart was still missing Mama.
    I was glad when Selah finally decided to show up. Her eyes were damn near dancing in her face as she walked over to the table and stood beside her chair and said, “Good evening, everyone. Sorry I’m late, but I have some good news and I wanted to share it with everybody at the same time.”
    She was grinning all hard like she knew the best damn secret in the world and could barely hold herself together, so it was only natural that I started grinning too.
    â€œYour father’s doctors called today,” Selah said with big-time excitement in her voice. “They summoned me to Houston right away, and Dy-Nasty and I flew down there almost immediately.”
    She glanced around the table, beaming like crazy at each and every one of us and then she finally spit it out.
    â€œThere’s really no way to ease into something like this, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you. Viceroy is awake! One of his experimental treatments worked and your father is out of his coma !”
    Fallon busted out crying and Pilar looked pissed like a muthafucka.
    â€œHold up, Mama Selah!” Dy-Nasty wailed. “I’m the one who flew way down there witchu and you didn’t even tell me Daddy was woke!”
    â€œI’m sorry, Dy-Nasty.” Selah smiled at her. “I wanted to keep it a surprise until we were all together and I could tell everyone at the same time.”
    I forgot all about the pain that was radiating through my body. I was so damned stunned by the news that all I could do was sit there frozen in my