Real Wifeys: Get Money by Meesha Mink

spotless, but there wasn’t shit you could control about your neighbors when you lived in a big-ass apartment building. And we knew for a fact that Michel was triple fucked because his upstairs and downstairs neighbors was straight nasty: leave their stove greasy–, never clean their fridge–, clothes piled up in the corner–, food left for days around the apartment–, trash-overflowing kind of nasty. He was in the middle of two roach motels.
    Now roaches were everywhere regardless of the type of hood but thankfully the Twelve50 had freed me from those chasing-after-a-roach-with-a-shoe days. Fuck that shit.
    “Sheee-it, I had fuuuuuun,” Eve said, playing with the short layers of her hair as she flipped the page.
    I blinked away an image of Goldie and Make$ fucking on his tour bus and focused on my cousin. “It needed better drinks, and I would’ve hired somebody to perform or host, upped the entrance fee, and made more money than I know they did,” I said, fingering my blunt bangs. “People pay artists, radio personalities and all that, to come and get more people through the door. More people, more fun, more money and profits.”
    Eve looked thoughtful for a minute as she crossed her legs in the ruffled jean romper she wore. “See, I’m thinking fun times and you’re thinking money.”
    “If I take my mind off of money I’ll wind up back in this motherfucker . . . no offense,” I added, even though I didn’t sound like I meant it. Eve had a studio apartment down the hall.
    In fact, when I moved into the building last year it was Michel who figured out that his new bosom buddy on the sixth floor and his friend down the hall were related.
    The short of it was that my parents were bougie and pretended my mother wasn’t one generation out of Newark’s low-income projects. That meant Naomi Jordan barely saw, talked to, or acknowledged my aunt Nola and her five kids—Eve being the youngest of them. So my parents hated that Eve and I were close. Like I did with Make$, to avoid the drama, I just avoided taking Eve to my parents’, because I liked my crazy cousin. Minus the few faults she had—which I thought were mostly on account of immaturity—Eve was the comic relief of our little group.
    “Hot wings and moscato,” Michel said, strolling out of the kitchenette holding a bright fuchsia tray and wearing a tight pair of jean shorts and a ruffled strapless shirt. Makeup in place. Lace wig pulled up in a ponytail. Long, shapely legs greased.
    Sometimes I forgot he was a dude.
    I eyed his crotch as he slid the tray onto the white coffee table. “Where exactly is your dick?” I asked, leaning forward to accept the plastic cup of wine he offered me.
    Eve laughed into her own cup.
    Michel stepped back and posed like he was at the end of a runway or in a beauty pageant. “Ready to drop down when your man ready for it,” he said, playfully sarcastic.
    Luscious arched a brow. “You mean Goldie’s man,” I reminded him, sipping my wine as my left eye jumped.
    Michel pouted his glossy lips and shook his head. “We are not going into another long discussion on why Make$ and Goldie need to be fed Ex-Lax brownies—”
    “And magnesium-citrate milk shakes,” Eve added, leaning over to slap the hell out of Michel’s smooth hand.
    Okay, that made me laugh out loud.
    “They gone get theirs; you don’t even have to pray or wish on it, baby-boo,” Michel said, snapping his slender fingers in a full circle.
    “That caramel is a bitch,” Eve added before biting into a hot wing.
    Michel frowned and looked at me before we both looked at Eve. “What?” we asked.
    Eve was busy getting the hot-wing sauce from under her acrylic tips. “That caramel,” she repeated. “What goes around comes around.”
    “Lord, help this dumb bitch,” Michel said, falling back against the fuzzy turquoise area rug and fanning himself.
    “What?” Eve asked, looking lost as hell.
    “You mean karma. It’s karma ,” I