Read Anytime Soon Online

Authors: Tamika Christy

Tags: #ebook, #FIC043000, #FIC049020, #FIC044000

Anytime Soon (7 page)

Uncle Riley introduced Troy to Uncle Allen and Roscoe, while Aunt Marie and I exchanged curious looks. Aunt Marie was different from Mom. She didn't judge people—not with her mouth, at least. But one of her looks was worth a thousand words. Before I could speak or laugh, Mom came out of the kitchen.

“I
thought
I smelled Cool Water cologne,” Mom said in her loud voice, walking to the living room. “What's going on, baby boy?” She gave Uncle Riley a hug.

“Hey, Anita, how you doing, girl?”

Uncle Riley was closer in some ways to Mom than he was to Aunt Marie. Whenever he had a problem, he called Mom. Whenever he needed advice, he called Mom. But whenever he needed money, he called Aunt Marie.

“Well,” Mom said, “I'm doing much better now that my brother's here. And who's this pretty lady you have with you?”

Troy stood up and extended her hand.

“Anita, this is Troy. Troy, this is my other sister, Anita.”

“It's nice to meet you, Troy,” Mom said politely.

“Nice to meet you, too, Anita. Riley has nothing but nice things to say about you.”

This was the first time Uncle Allen or Roscoe had heard Troy speak. They both stopped looking at the TV set and stared at her. Uncle Allen looked at Uncle Riley, then at Roscoe. Over his glasses, Roscoe looked Troy up and down, stopping at her feet.

When in doubt, they say, check out the feet.

“Well,” Mom said when she finally recovered her own voice, “dinner will be ready shortly. Make yourself comfortable. Ny, come in here and fix Miss Troy something to drink.”

No matter how old we got, Mom insisted that we call our elders “Miss” or “Mister.” That is, unless they were family or close enough to be family—in which case, our family elders could be called “Uncle” or “Aunt.” It was an extreme contradiction on mom's part because I'd been calling Roscoe by his first name for years. When I was ten years old, Roscoe's drinking was at its worst and it took quite a toll on my family. He and mom weren't getting along and my siblings and I were in the middle of the craziness. Roscoe had ruined countless family outings and birthday parties with his drinking and, unless absolutely necessary, I had all but stopped communicating with him. I had become so tired of all the unhappiness Roscoe's drinking caused our family that I decided to stop calling him dad. The first time I did it, he was lying on the couch drunk and throwing up. My mom asked me to get him a towel and I yelled to Andrew to get “Roscoe” a towel. I remember her shooting me a look, but she never commented. I never called him dad after that day and what surprised me the most was that neither of my parents confronted me about it. In retrospect, I imagine they felt guilty and let it continue for so long, so they couldn't go back. As time passed, I learned to deal with my anger toward Roscoe. I didn't hate him, and my anger had subsided, but there were still times when I was disappointed in him. I guess along with age comes tolerance and wisdom.

I went to the kitchen to fix Miss Troy a glass of lemonade. I wasn't in there ten seconds before Mom whispered something to Aunt Marie, but I heard every word.

“That's a
man
, Merle!”

“Shh! Anita! What's wrong with you?”

“Your brother walks into my house with a man in a jean skirt, and you have the nerve to ask what's wrong with
me
?”

“Anita Goode! You don't know Troy's a man. Besides, what would that make Riley?”

“I didn't see,” Aunt Deb interjected, “but I heard, and what I heard sounded like a man!” Aunt Deb was clearly enjoying the red wine that Mom had sitting on the counter. “I'm gonna go see for myself.” She stood up and wobbled out of the kitchen.

“Merle,” Mom said, “stop playing games. Troy sounds like he played high school football. I don't know what's going on now, but she wasn't born a woman. And why did you let Deb get hammered? You know she doesn't know how to act when she gets that vino in her.”

“Deb's an adult, Anita,” Aunt Marie said with a laugh, and she walked out of the kitchen.

Mom looked at me with raised eyebrows. I held in my laughter and walked out, too.

Dinner went nicely until Aunt Marie had downed one glass of wine too many.

“Merle, you might want to slow down on that wine,” Mom said.

Aunt Marie gave Mom a wicked smile as she stabbed her steak with her fork.

“No, no,” Aunt Deb said out of nowhere. “I think we need
more
wine.”

“Perhaps the Goddess of grapes can provide you with some,” Ava chuckled.

“Ava, watch your mouth!” Mom snapped. “Don't be disrespectful.”

“I apologize,” Ava said.

“Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it, Anita?” Aunt Marie said. Mom waved her hand and stuffed a spoonful of Aunt Marie's cabbage into her mouth.

Conversation over.

Uncle Riley whispered something in Troy's ear, and she laughed out loud.

“You are so silly, Pookie Bear,” Troy said. Uncle Riley blushed.

Pookie Bear?

The rest of dinner was largely uneventful, aside from when Troy spilled her wine in her lap and started laughing hysterically. She laughed so hard that Roscoe and Aunt Marie started laughing, too. I didn't find anything funny about it and neither did Mom, who shot Roscoe a look that clearly said so.

It turned out that Mom and Miss Troy had more in common than anyone would have suspected. For one thing, they both loved celebrity gossip.

“Did you hear about that basketball coach who's getting stalked by his mistress?” Troy asked.

“Oh, yes!” Mom said. “I heard she went to school with one of his kids!”

“Scandalous!” Troy said.

“Oh, you two!” Aunt Marie cut in. “You can't believe everything you see in those rags. They say a lotta stuff without confirming whether it's true or not.”

“Shut up, Merle!” Mom commanded.

“What? It's true. Half of those stories are made up.”

“Well,” Roscoe said, in between bites of greens, “I know one thing. I can't wait to get some of that peach cobbler.”

The last thing Roscoe wanted to do was talk gossip at dinner. Mom knew that and broke off the banter.

“Dessert, anyone?” she asked.

Aunt Marie had made a lopsided double chocolate cake, and Mom had made the peach cobbler. Everyone opted for the cobbler, including Aunt Marie herself.

After dinner, Ava went to her room, Adam went to my room, and the rest of us went to the den with our drinks and desserts.

“That's the problem with those Hollywood types,” Troy said. “They have too much going on and can't stay in a marriage.”

Roscoe pursed his lips together.

“No offense, Twinkie,” Uncle Riley said to Troy, “but maybe the problem is people like you, who care about other people's lives more than they care about their own.”

“Amen, Riley!” Aunt Marie said, holding up a spoon filled with peach cobbler. She didn't hold her liquor any better than Aunt Deb did, and she was already beyond tipsy.

Troy looked like she wanted to cry.

She can't be that sensitive.

Uncle Riley leaned over and put his hand on hers. “I'm sorry, sugar plum, but it's true. If you keep reading what those magazines say, they'll keep turning out those stories.”

“Yeah,” Troy wailed, “but you don't have to embarrass me in front of your whole family!”

“I didn't mean to embarrass you, sweetie pie.” Uncle Riley sounded like a mom trying to talk a toddler into getting a vaccination shot.

“Yeah, Riley,” Uncle Allen said, chuckling. “Don't be so insensitive, man.”

Aunt Marie looked at him hard, but he just ignored her and stuffed his mouth with more cobbler.

“I don't think it's funny, Allen,” Aunt Marie said. “That's your problem, you can't seem to figure out when people are really hurting.”

“Yeah, and
you
can't seem to figure out when to shut your mouth! I wasn't even talking to you, Marie. Besides, I
did
tell him she was hurting.”

“Yeah, but you were joking about it.”

“Hold on!” Mom said. “Everybody calm down. We were just having a harmless conversation. Miss Troy, Riley didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Just everybody calm down.”

“I'm sorry,” Troy said, sniffling. “It's that time of month, and I get a little emotional.”

When he heard that, Uncle Allen choked on his cobbler.

“That's quite enough from you, Allen,” Aunt Marie said.

“And that's quite enough from you, Merle,” Mom said. “Hush, girl!”

I'm sitting with a bunch of loons.

Things calmed down a little after that, and between the gossip, grunts from Roscoe, and Troy's voice sounding like gravel, I had had enough and went up to my room.

Adam was looking through my pictures again.

“How are Aunt Marie and Uncle Allen getting along?” I asked. That was probably a dangerous question, but I asked anyway.

Adam just shrugged his shoulders. Everybody in the family knew that Aunt Marie and Uncle Allen fought like the Bloods and the Crips. It wasn't just your regular get-in-a-fight-and-make-up-the-next-day kind of thing, either. Aunt Marie and Uncle Allen had fights that lasted for days.

“Do they still fight?” I asked.

“Not like before,” he said. “They hate each other, though.”

I just looked at him. For a brief second, he looked angry. I didn't know what to say, but I wouldn't have been able to say anything anyway, because at that moment Aunt Marie came into my room. She was flushed and smiling, which meant that she had had too much to drink. When she walked in, she picked up some of the pictures that Adam had been looking at. She flashed one of my friend Sophie in front of my face.

“You know J.Lo?” she asked, slurring her speech and wobbling a bit.

“Mom, that's Ny's friend, Sophie,” Adam said.

“Who?” she asked, blinking.

“Sophie, Mom.” Adam was impatient.

“Don't you remember my friend Sophie, Aunt Marie?” I asked.

“Oh! Carmen and Terry's daughter! Wow! She sure turned out to be beautiful. Who woulda thought?”

She put the picture down and walked out of the room, never stating why she had come in, but Adam and I had already figured that out.

“Time to go,” he said to me, and gave me a fist bump before heading downstairs.

My cell phone rang. When I looked at the number, I knew it was Carl. I hadn't called him, but we had exchanged text messages earlier that day.

“Hello?” I said, pretending not to know who it was.

“Hello, Anaya Goode!”

I smiled.

“How did you get my number?” I asked playfully.

“I found it on the bathroom wall. It said to call you for good conversation and a pretty smile.”

I beamed.

We talked for two hours. I can't remember the last time I talked to somebody on the phone for two hours straight. He was interesting and liked to talk. We covered every topic from kissing to tithing.

“Why do you think you should give your money to a church,” he asked, “when you don't know what they're gonna do with it?”

“Because that's what the Bible says for us to do. It doesn't matter what the church officials do with the money once you give it. What matters is your heart.”

He didn't agree. He had issues with religion, he said. Bigger issues than I had. Finally, we ended the conversation with him inviting me to dinner. I told him I would think about it, and we got off the phone.

When I went back downstairs, everyone had gone home. Roscoe was sleeping upstairs, and Mom was still in the kitchen. I started putting the dishes away. Mom had always given us chores when we were kids. She kept a list on the refrigerator, so there wouldn't be any question about who was supposed to do what. She never let the list get outdated. Now cleaning up and helping were like second nature to me. Ava had a cleaning disability, but that's another story.

“Hey,” Mom said. “You don't have to help me, honey, I got this.”

But I just wanted to be in the kitchen with her and listen to her ramble about the night. She was so funny after a few drinks, especially when her sister and brother were around. She already had everything put away, just as I knew she would. The leftovers were neatly packed in containers, and she was bleaching the sink when I walked in.

“Did you enjoy dinner?” she asked me, wobbling a little to her left. I smiled.

“Do you need help, Ma?”

“No, I said I got it.” She laughed a little. “I need to be able to clean my kitchen, whether I've been drinking or not.”

I put the leftover containers in the fridge and cut a small piece of sweet potato pie for myself.

I shouldn't, but I want it!

“I know
you
aren't eating pie this late at night!” Mom said.

“What about the carbs? What about the fat content you're always worrying about? What about you turning into a balloon?” She laughed at her own joke.

“Don't make fun of me, Mom.”

“Anaya! You could gain twenty pounds and still be underweight, girl. You need to stop worrying so much about fat content and concentrate on nutritional value and exercise. You're in good shape, Ny. Don't stress yourself out by counting calories and depriving yourself of my good cooking, 'cause it ain't necessary. Besides, you're too skinny.”

Her smile made me love her a lot at that moment. She was so lighthearted and free. She really liked entertaining and feeding everybody. It made her happy. She picked up a bottle of water and drank long and hard.

“So, what did you think about Uncle Riley's girlfriend, Mom?”

She laughed so hard that she almost choked on her water.

“Girl, you're crazy! I don't wanna talk about Riley's girlfriend. That boy is sick in his head for bringing her here.”

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