Beauty

I slid my First Trust little black book under the plexi glass between me and the teller. “Would you like the balances to your accounts Ms Burst? All I would need is your passwords.” I come to this bank every Friday for a balance to my one account that never has more money than I expect to be in there. I'm praying for a miracle, sometimes even a bank error at this point. My business is failing and I'm behind on so many of my bills but I haven't lost faith yet. The teller asks me these questions every week and she always says accounts and passwords, I only have one account, why does she keep asking that? Was it protocol, who knows but I know my account was -$432.16. A couple charges that I forgot about while dealing with the final details of my grandmother's funeral came through and now I'm worse than before. Angela the teller could see the despair in my face when she gave me the news. I promised her I would clean it up by Friday. The crazy thing is she asked me again but this time she had a weird look in her eye, ``Would you like the balances to your accounts Ms Burst?” Girl you know I only have one account , why do you keep asking for passwords? She slid a piece of paper to me with my account balance that she had written in the little black bank book. On the paper it said “BEAUTY and LBB”. If I were you I’d look into this.

I thought about her words all the way home. Beauty, that was my nickname, how could she know that? Anyway I had no time at the moment to think about it. My grandmother had passed 2 weeks prior and the funeral had been a week before my bank visit. It was she and I , the only members of our family left. She was my best friend and grandmother. I moved into her home after my grandfather died 10 years ago. Every dream I had as a child and adult she made sure it came true. That's how I became a plus sized model with my own agency. She pushed me after she caught me binge eating one night in the garage when I was 17 years old. From that day on Beauty was my nickname. I made it through college, grad school and now have a business of my own. Chance the agency was very successful until the pandemic hit and everything was canceled. We had plus size models in all types of ads like Torrid, Savage fenty and my own lingerie line Love and Lounge. But the pandemic put a halt to my small business for what seemed like forever.

Giving the okay to go back to work was a wake up call to have multiple streams of income so I went to work. The money wasn't flowing because everyone was afraid. I remembered the times my grandmother would sit in her favorite chair and read her bible which I called her little black bible and her First Trust little black bank book as a bookmark, she would always say Beauty you will soon reap your rewards, just remember my good book. I was no stranger to the word or the book but i didn't have it memorized like her. She was always reading and writing in it. I often teased her about how many numbers she had in her little black bible. We’d laugh and she would say all the words you will ever need are written out in here for you.

That night, I sat in her chair with her little black bible clinched to my chest and cried. As I cried the edges of the book started to get wet and I noticed a little shading on the edge. I opened the book up to that area of the book and to my surprise her little black bank book fell out. I picked up the book and inside was my granny's handwriting with pages of handwritten dollar amounts. I flipped through hundreds of pages and each page ended in the word beauty. I looked back at the bible and “Beauty read here and remember who you are” was written in my grandmother’s lovely handwriting . The words were written above the scripture of Proverbs 31 a noble woman. I read the scripture all the way through and at the end was more of my grandmother's handwriting, “You’re the password Beauty LBB “. I'm the password? What did that mean? I sat there and read Proverbs 31;10 over and over again until I fell asleep.

I was awakened the next morning by the ringing of the telephone. It was Angela from the bank. Before she could get a word in I started asking if she could reduce the amount of fees because I wouldn't have the money by Friday. She cut me off mid sentence and asked had I found the password? What password, what was she talking about? A flashback of my granny's little black book and the messages left inside, Yes I've found something. “Why don't you bring what you have over to the bank and let's figure it out. I got dressed, gathered the little black bank book , the bible, the note from Angela and ran over to the bank.

I sat down in her office and she asked me the same questions as before, “ would you like the balances on your accounts Ms Burst, all I need is your passwords” She had this grin on her face as if she had just saved a life but at that moment she had. I gave her my usual password to the account -$432.16 and another password that my grandmother had written in her little black book. She turned the computer to face me and I saw it with my own eyes, two accounts. Both in my name one negative and one nicknamed Beauty And positive $20,000. My grandmother had left me $20,000 to further my business knowing the insurance would only cover the house and medical bills. She was secretly adding money in this account with the help of Angela. The only thing she asked of her was to wait until I was in need of her uplifting.

We were back in business and doing great. A little black book was now handed to every model at the agency to add all their hopes and dreams. The little black beauty book was a part of the agency now. Chance Agency started a LBB scholarship to help young ladies and we remind them to always read what's written in the little black book because blessings can be found among the words.