Browse Articles in "You Think You Know"

Monique had taken the position of manager under one condition that she had sworn Velle to secrecy on.  She took her new position very seriously; running the place like a well oiled machine. Customers were beyond pleased with the new level of service they were receiving, employees were relieved by how efficiently smooth things ran while Velle was amazed by how quickly the salon’s revenue had almost doubled. Monique crossed every “t” and dotted every “I”, all while keeping Velle’s mother’s Thursday appointment in place, an appointment during which Velle’s mom spent the entire time trying to convince Monique that her son was a prime catch.

Monique found that the manager’s position involved more contact with Velle than she had expected.  He insisted on a daily report via email, a phone call twice per week and a face-to-face ...

Across town in their new bachelor pad, Ricardo and Jay were entertaining a guest in their cramped two-bedroom apartment.  Their guest Justice, Jay’s cousin, had become a regular at their place ever since Jay and Robin officially split, coming from out of town every other weekend to supposedly make sure his cousin was handling the separation well.  He would listen intently to every word Jay said about his fail marriage and the situation he now found himself in.  He even tried to offer some insight as to how Robin may be feeling, along with suggestions on how to get her back.  He came to lend an empathetic ear and shoulder to lean on for someone who had been more like a brother than a cousin to him while growing up.  Even though he didn’t approve of him having an outside child with this woman Sasha, he tried not to judge Jay for the mistakes he had ...

Turns out that Tia was, in fact, pregnant and was due to give birth any day but it wasn’t the joyous occasion that she thought that it would be.  Ricardo had packed his things and moved into an apartment with Jay upon confirming the pregnancy with her after learning about it from his wife.  He had even accused her of getting pregnant on purpose as a way to trap him into a relationship with her.  Tia, who had been somewhat delusional about her relationship, now found herself facing life as a single parent, which was a fate she hadn’t foreseen or wanted for herself or her unborn child.  She had lost her shop due to her inability to keep any good help, which caused her to lose clients, which inevitably lead to a substantial loss in income and her closing the shop.  To top it off, all of the stress had caused her numerous problems throughout her ...

Time moves on as time does and while some things changed for the better other things undoubtedly changed for the worse.  Monique had gotten the schedule and money she wanted by working at the new salon but she still hadn’t escaped having to act as manager while someone else held the title and received the pay.  Neither Nikki nor Velle had a cosmetology license, which meant that they could not order professional grade products, so they had hired a girl named Tabitha who possessed a 30-day old cosmetology license to manage the shop.  Since Tabitha had been there, the supplies hadn’t been ordered correctly unless Monique herself put in the order, not to mention that Tabitha was double booking clients unbeknownst to the stylist, which left Monique resolving a mountain of customer service issues.  She didn’t do a stitch of hair and instead of trying to ...

The next day in the exclusive Beddington Fields subdivision, Ricardo was making his way up the driveway to the side entrance of the house he once called home, with all intentions of making it resting place again.  In light of the bombshell Nikki had dropped on him earlier about wanting to get back together and not to mention the fact that Tia had caught them in her bed the day before; he felt pretty confident that he would be able to regain his place as king of the castle.  Habit caused him to reach in his pocket to fish for his house keys but reality helped him remember that he had been thrown out in quite a dramatic fashion.  He smiled as he pressed the doorbell, thinking about how unreal it seemed that he no longer lived there, but that was all about to change.

He had remained confident that Nikki would eventually come to her senses and take him back.  She must ...

Later that evening Robin’s mother, Bernadette, insisted on watching the girls so that Monique could take Robin out to dinner to clear her head.  Ross and Sterling had called to invite themselves to dinner, so they all agreed to meet up at Catherine’s, a small southern cuisine restaurant located on the seedier side of town. The food was well worth the drive and the staff treated its customers like their money mattered, even if they could only afford a two-dollar chicken sandwich.  It was a Saturday night so the restaurant was packed and there was a twenty-minute wait for a table. The girls signed in with the hostess and waited in the lobby for the guys to arrive.  Robin talked excessively about her plans to purchase a new condo and how she wanted to remodel it. She seemed extremely excited and to Monique she appeared to have forgotten all about the issues she ...

Tia wasn’t sure exactly how to run her business, anymore. She had given full responsibility of everything from payroll to ordering to scheduling to Monique. She was severely understaffed and clients were literally walking out of the shop because they were tired of waiting for hours to be seen, which amounted to her losing money. Not to mention that her top stylists had taken a huge chunk of her business with them when they walked out on her. Her shipment of supplies hadn’t arrived on Thursday because she hadn’t ordered them by 11am on Tuesday.  She hadn’t made the deposit before 2 o’clock on Wednesday, which meant that some of her checks might not be covered. She had money in her other accounts to cover any oversight that she may have overlooked but she had forgotten to call Greg and have him code her account for any such occurrence. It was a Saturday ...

Monique arrived at her new place of business twenty minutes early, as it had been instilled in her to always show up early on your first day at a new job to make a good impression. She was nervous as she approached the front door and worried that she may have shown up a little too early. The inside of the shop was still sort of dark. Nikki had informed her to wear very casual clothes, something she didn’t mind getting dirty, in preparation for the opening ceremony. She had chosen a pair of form fitting stretch denim jeans that had seen better days but were still fairly presentable, an old community college t-shirt and the only pair of sneakers she owned. She was confused as to why Nikki had asked her to dress so casually but she didn’t question her for fear of over stepping her bounds.

She used her hands as binoculars making sure not to actually touch the glass as she ...

Monique had arrived home after picking her daughter up on time from after-school care, to find a puffy eyed Robin with her gleeful baby girl, Justine, sitting on her front porch complete with her overnight bag.  She was quickly reminded of the scene that had played out in the salon that morning. She grabbed the baby from Robin’s arm and opened her front door. She had been here with Robin time and time again. She even knew what would happen. She would put the girls to bed and then she would listen as Robin told her whatever heartbreaking thing Jay had done and she’d console her while she cried. Then in the morning Robin would pick up her unpacked bag and go back home to forgive Jay, like she always did.

Robin sat in the living room quietly thinking, while Monique feed the girls and got them ready for bed. Monique read her daughter Bree’s favorite bedtime story to ...

Nikki’s revenge on her husband was swift, harsh and down, right evil. Ricardo had gotten off work just in time for him, as well as, many of his co-workers to see his luxury sport utility vehicle being towed away. After waving down the tow truck, the driver informed him that the car had been called in for a voluntarily repossession by the owner, who just so happened to be his wife.  He was steaming mad when he had to go back inside to get security to call a taxi to take him home, which was something he would have normally used his cell phone to do had it not been turned off by his wife. He had never been so embarrassed.  To be served with divorce papers at his workplace was embarrassing enough, but to have his car repossessed in front of co-workers, upper management, not to mention his potential female admires was taking things to extremes.


His anger escalated once his ...