Last Christmas, she “forgot” to send Santa his check so the kids didn’t have anything under that stingy little fake tree except what me and Leon had sent them: a black Barbie with a change of clothes for a week, a jewelry-making kit, PlayStation 2 with four games, a Jerry Rice #80 jersey that LL begged and pleaded for and a pair of Air Force One sneakers he said that everybody at his school was wearing. Plus, we put substantial gift certificates to JCPenney and Target inside Christmas cards addressed to them, which I later learned that Joy sold. This is why Lovey started hiding her checks, but my sister figured out how to intercept them.
At this rate, these kids don’t stand a chance. They don’t understand grace or tenderness or pride. I do not believe they even know what it feels like to be loved. Except what Lovey may have shown them before they started getting on her nerves. Last summer they spent a week with us, but then didn’t want to go home, so we stretched it into two. I was caught completely off guard when LaTiece just blurted out that she wished I were her mama because she didn’t like hers. LL concurred. I was in shock. But the real blow was when they said their mama doesn’t like them either. I asked what would make them think that and LaTiece said because she tells them. “Sometimes she say: ‘I can’t stand yo’ little grown ass,’ or ‘You make me sick,’ or ‘I wish I could give y’all to somebody.’”
Somebody gave her away. Maybe you can’t forget that fact no matter what happens. But now, her kids are being forced to fend for themselves. “Okay. I got it,” she says.
“What took you so long?”
“’Cause I had to pee.”
I am grateful to her for sharing that. “Can you read, LaTiece?”
“Not cursive.”
“Where is Lovey?”
“Sitting on the couch over there.”
“What is she doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Where’s LL?”
“Upstairs playing video games.”
“Ask Lovey if she would come to the phone, please.”
“Gran’ma Lovey, Aunt Marilyn said come get on the phone.”
That is not what I said.
“Here her come.”
“It’s here
she
comes,” I say, because I have to.
“Hello there, Marilyn. How are you?”
I cover my mouth with my hand. But that’s not going to help the situation. I’m only five or six minutes from my house but I slow down to a crawl and let other cars pass. It’s almost dark and through the rearview mirror I see San Francisco all lit up. It doesn’t move me tonight. I take a deep breath and say very slowly, “Lovey, can you look on that paper pad and tell me when you see your friend Miss Saundra’s phone number? And before you ask me whom I’m talking about, it’s not important right now. Just look for the name: S-a-u-n-d-r-a-N-o-r-m-a-n, and tell me when you see it.”
“I’m looking. I used to do somebody’s hair by that name. I see it.”
“Would you read it to me, please?”
“Why you want her number?”
“Because I would like to talk to her.”
“About what?”
“Lovey, just read me off the number, please!”
“You just wait a minute, sister! Joy just walked in. She can read it to you. Joy, take this phone before I pop you upside the head with it. Did you bring us something from McDonald’s like you said you would?”
“Shit, I just walked in the house and my head is killing me. Who is it?”
“I don’t know but she wants a phone number. Here,” she says, and that damn phone hits the floor for what I hope is the last time.
“Marilyn, hey, Sis, what’s going on? I was in a car accident a couple of days ago and was laid up at a friend’s house trying to get back on my feet and they put me on some kinda medication that knocked me out and that’s why I just got myself together in time to come home to feed the kids and get Lovey her Big Mac but I’m all right except my head is hurting like a motherfucker—what number was it you wanted?”
“Never mind. Just tell me something, Joy. Are you staying home tonight?”
“I can’t go nowhere like this. Yeah.”
“Then I’ll call you back tomorrow. Do you have any money?”
“I might have ten dollars.”
“Go look in the kitchen drawer under Lovey’s straightening comb and bumper curlers and get that twenty-dollar bill I left just for this occasion and order those kids a pizza or something.”
“You love telling people what to do, don’t you?”
“Can you just do it?”
“Tiecey,” she yells. “Go look in Lovey’s hair drawer and find me a twenty-dollar bill and when I hang up this phone I want you to call Domino’s like I showed you and order a pizza and tell ’em to deliver it to this address and don’t act like you can’t remember where you live.”
“I know where I
live,
” I hear her say to her mama like she’s thirty. “But I don’t remember the address.”
“It’s done,” Joy says. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Were you driving Lovey’s car?”
“I wasn’t, but somebody else was. It wasn’t his fault and that car is all right.”
“Where is the car now?”
“I’m trying to thank,” she says, slurring so bad now I can hear the drool.
“Come on, Joy,” I moan.
“My bad! It’s getting fixed at the wrecked-car place. Ma’bad. But don’t worry it’s gon’ be all right. Can we finish this conversation tomorrow?” She doesn’t wait for my response and I hear her struggling to put the phone back in the cradle, but of course she misses and it hits the floor.
Chapter 11
E
very single light in the house is on like it used to be when Spencer and Simeon were little and they were having a sleepover. I wish the people who lived here were having a party and that I was an invited guest. I want to ring the doorbell. I want to make small talk with people I don’t know. I want to eat food prepared by someone else. I want my real feelings to be so well disguised that even I’m fooled into thinking I’m having a great time. I also want to offer to help clean up so that the hosts can say, “Don’t be ridiculous,” and push me out the door with a plate of food to take home.
But I am home. And there are enough cars in the driveway and parked out front so that it looks like a party could be going on. Not telling them I was pregnant was a smart move: no explanations are now necessary.
As soon as the garage door goes up, that Harley is the first thing that catches my eye. It looks like a shiny steel bumblebee. I have yet to see Leon ride it. I pull in between his boring beige Volvo and Arthurine’s 1990 white Coupe de Ville. It’s been parked in this exact spot since she got here and her night blindness set in, but then she also doesn’t have a license anymore because she’s afraid to take the test. Our Tahoe lives outside and its black body has dulled some, but what can you do?
Even with my windows up I can hear that hip-hop music thumping through the door and then when I get out of the car, the infectious laughter of what sounds like an entire basketball team trampling through the kitchen toward the stairs. There’s a house full of happy people inside. I’m praying no one will detect anything remotely close to grief on my face. I don’t want to ruin the mood.
Later, when I’m marinating the steaks and Leon’s turning on the grill, I don’t want to pretend to be looking for my special renegade sauce or the seasoned rice-wine vinegar even though I know precisely where they are but it’ll be because I need to turn away from all this insulated joy just for a second, to get centered and grounded, enough to make myself feel their presence so they won’t notice my absence. And as the mixer is swirling through the yellow cake batter I’ll let little Sage pour in the peach juice and I’ll add the peach schnapps myself. I’m going to try my hardest to feel the pleasure of the moment.
When I pull into the garage, Spencer is standing there. “Mom!” he yells, like he’s been waiting all day to say it. He grabs the bags out of my hands and drops them on the concrete floor without even thinking if there’s anything breakable inside and in one continuous motion he kisses me on my cheek and forehead and squeezes me so tight that my body rises and my shoes fall off. “What took you so long, woman? We’ve been waiting for you to make your grand entrance for the past couple of hours!”
“I had to stop by the store. Plus, it was rush hour.”
“Why don’t you leave your cell on? Did you not get our messages?”
“No. I haven’t checked them all day. Is that food I smell? I know Arthurine didn’t cook, did she?”
“No, we stopped by Le Cheval on the way home from the airport and Dad picked up a ton of Vietnamese food, so don’t even think about cooking. I’ve missed you, Mom.”
“I miss you, too, Spencer. And your missing-in-action twin brother. But ‘it’s all good,’” I say, mimicking him.
“Mom, what’s going on with Dad?”
“What do you mean?”
“That Harley over there for starters. What’s up with that?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s going through something. He might be a little depressed.”
“About what?”
“He said work has been stressing him out a lot lately.”
“He’s been saying that for years. That’s one of the things I thought he got off on.”
“Maybe, but short of being a schizoid, I don’t know what else it could be.”
“Well, he’s tripping hard, whatever it is. You’ll see. Anyway, it’s good to be home,” he says, ushering me into the house and down the hallway into what suddenly feels like a stage in an auditorium and the curtains are about to go up any minute. But this is my kitchen. And this is my nineteen-year-old son Spencer standing right here in front of me. He looks like a leaner, taller, younger, and much better-looking version of his father.
“Hey, Dad, Mom finally made it home!” he says, when we turn that corner and it’s curtains up.
At first, I don’t believe my eyes when I see Leon coming toward me in baggy jeans and a gigantic blue jersey on top of a white T-shirt. On his feet are light blue suede boots, just like Spencer and Simeon wear. After all this, he still has the nerve to have on his head a light blue Kangol cap turned backward. He is clearly confused about his identity today. Even his face looks extra clean and shiny, like there’s more of it or something. And that’s when I realize it’s because this idiot has gone and shaved off his moustache and goatee! I’m staring at him, trying to remember what it was about him that ever appealed to me, but I’m drawing a blank. Just what is he trying to prove?
“Hello, Marilyn,” he says. “You finally made it. Did everything go okay?”
“Everything went just fine. What happened to you?”
“You like it?” he says, twirling around in slow motion.
“This is what I’m talking out, Mom. I didn’t even recognize Dad at the airport. I told him that we might have to start calling him P. Diddy Senior if this is the track he’s on. But it’s all good.”
Leon is grinning his butt off. Like his son has finally accepted him into his club. He can’t be this stupid all of a sudden, can he? In fact, he’s actually blushing. He doesn’t seem to realize that he hasn’t impressed anybody but himself, that if he had only spent a few more minutes in the mirror he might have seen the truth staring back at him: a middle-aged conservative businessman dressed up for Halloween as a chubby old hip-hopper twenty years later.
Leon’s demeanor is much looser than I’ve ever seen, almost as if he’s under the influence of something besides a couple of chardonnays. But he never has more than two glasses because the thought of being out of control scares him. Which is why I’ve never seen him drunk. Maybe he’s just gotten what he apparently needed: an audience. No doubt people will notice him in this getup. I just hate that Spencer’s girlfriend had to see his dad like this—and I certainly hope she doesn’t think Leon is
representing
us. I wouldn’t dream of leaving this house with him looking like a complete fool. And where is the girl, by the way?
“Oh, before I forget,” Leon says. “You’ll never guess in a million years who I ran into at the airport.”
“I’m not in the mood for guessing, Leon, it could be anybody.”
“No, not just anybody. Who’d you marry by mistake and then come to your senses about when you met me?”
I feel a lump forming in my throat. I swallow hard because my lips want to say, “Gordon wasn’t a mistake. It was just bad timing,” but instead I say, “That’s nice. How’s he doing?”
“Fine. He looks great! I can tell
he
works out. He said he saw you and your girlfriends at that Gill Scott concert but you didn’t mention it.”
“I wasn’t sure if that was him or not, it’s been so long. And it’s
Jill
Scott, Leon.”
“Anyway, he was picking up what looked like his new girlfriend the way he greeted her, and man oh man, I must give the man credit for having good taste because she was absolutely breathtaking. I kid you not. I think she might be from Africa. She just looked exotic and unbelievably graceful. Anyway, I told Gordon that they should stop by sometime, and he said he’d love to.”
“That’s nice,” I say. What breathtaking girlfriend? Why wasn’t she at the concert with him? What part of Africa? And what was she doing to appear to be so graceful? And why do I even care? This is ridiculous to be this curious. I’m privately embarrassed by it. “It’d be good to see him,” I say, and leave it at that.
“I gave him my card and put our home number on the back. He said he’d give us a call real soon. Hey, Spence,” he says, turning away from me, “don’t you want to introduce your mom to Brianna?” Before Spencer has a chance to answer, Leon’s already heading toward the doorway. “Tell you what, I’ll go check on her. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to her, now would we? She’s something,” he says with a look in his eye that’s downright scary. “Would you mind pouring your dad another glass of chardonnay? I’ll be right back. Catch up with Mom,” he says, and not only sashays down the hall but if I’m not mistaken, I do believe he runs up the stairs.
I look at Spencer, and he hunches his shoulders up like he doesn’t get it either. “Where are those young men whose cars are blocking half the driveway? Go upstairs and tell Omar, Milton, Tavis, and Conrad that they better get their butts down here to say hello and give me my hug or no edibles like steak or cake.”
“I’ll go get them right now. They’re watching the Lakers. And my sister who has just advised me that she’s with child crashed about ten minutes ago. I believe Sage is in your room with her. Nevil’s somewhere in a corner with a book.”
“Where’s Arthurine hiding?” I ask, walking over to the kitchen island that’s completely covered with open Styrofoam containers. I can smell the dry-fried crab and the curry, but I walk around peeking inside every container until I see the grilled quail, which of course no one has touched. This is one of my favorites.
“I’m right over here!” she says, trying to speak over the music. I don’t see her until Spencer, who’s at the bar, goes over and turns it down to adult level. She and Prezelle are sitting side by side inside the curve of the leather sofa that’s hidden by the bar. The television is on mute, but it looks like that hasn’t stopped them from watching it.
“Hello, Arthurine. And how are you, Prezelle?” I ask. They both look as if they’ve come to the wrong party by mistake but decided that since they were here, what the hell, they might as well stay.
“Was Leon nice enough to give Prezelle a lift, Arthurine?”
“No, he did not.”
“Then how’d you get over here, Prezelle?”
“Arthurine picked me up.”
I know I didn’t hear him correctly, so I say, “Repeat that for me again, please.”
“I went and got him myself,” she says.
“In what?”
“In my car.”
“Arthurine,” I sigh. “First of all, this isn’t exactly the right time for us to have this conversation, and I apologize in advance if I embarrass you, however, I have to ask: what on earth would possess you to drive that car when neither of you have driven in over a year and you know your driver’s license is expired, not to mention your night blindness?”
“Slow down, Marilyn. My Lord. First of all, nobody was here to go get Prezelle and since Spencer had all his friends coming to the homecoming, I wanted my friend here, too. And yes, I know my license is expired but I only went up the hill a few miles. I was willing to suffer the consequences if I got caught but the Lord was in the front seat with me, guiding me the whole way so I wasn’t really worried about darkness. And for your information I’m going down to take the test again next week ’cause I’m tired of depending on everybody to take me places, especially since I’m starting to get a whole new social life.”
“I’m happy you’re becoming a social butterfly. But what do you mean by ‘again’?”
“I took that test last month but they’ve made it much harder than it used to be and I had a few problems with some of those questions which made no sense whatsoever the way they worded them so they told me to study a little harder, then come back and try again. But that’s neither here nor there. And just so you’ll know, when I first moved in here, Leon told me to start my car up at least once a week and let it run for twenty minutes or so, which I’ve done. I have also driven it back and forth in the driveway to rotate the tires,” she sighs, and then takes a deep breath. “Now what do you have in those bags?” She pushes the palm of her hand into the back of the sofa to get to a standing position, and Prezelle gives her a little help. Of course she’s headed over here to see for herself.
“I’ve been truly enjoying myself,” Prezelle says. Now he’s trying to get up, but the sofa is too low and he loses his balance, drops back into a sitting position, and decides to stay. He’s wearing tweed trousers that probably once belonged to a suit, and they’re being held up by red-and-gray striped suspenders that are wrinkling his used-to-be-white-and-he-ironed-it-himself shirt. Prezelle sinks deeply into the soft cushions of the sofa and crosses his legs like Superfly. He seems to know he’s sharp.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time, Prezelle. You look quite dapper today.”
“Why, thank you, Mrs. Grimes.”
“Call me Marilyn.”
“Why, thank you, Marilyn.” Now he’s blushing.
I better watch it, before his girlfriend gets jealous. “What have you guys been doing?”
“Just sitting here. Watching. And listening.”
“Watching and listening to who?”
“Who’s supposed to eat all this meat? Waste not, want not,” Arthurine says after opening both packages of steaks. But I don’t bother answering her.
“Don’t worry, Grandma, my boys and I will devour those things tomorrow if nobody else does,” Spencer says.
“So, how’s Brianna?”
“Sweet, Mom. You’ll like her. I sure do.”
“And how long did you say you’ve been seeing her?”
“I don’t know—almost two months, give or take a week. Long enough to know.”
“Long enough to know what?”
“That I’ve got it bad.”
Oh Lord, here we go again. What is it with this boy? I’m beginning to wonder if he falls in love with every pretty girl that makes him come. But I don’t want to go there, so I ask something generic: “Where’s she from?”
“Actually, she grew up on what sounds like it might have been a farm, but she doesn’t call it a ‘farm.’ I mean they had cows and pigs and chickens and everything. It’s a little town. They still have dirt roads! I can tell you this much, driving between there and Atlanta, you wouldn’t want to have car trouble at night. Mom, is that peach schnapps I see?”
“It is.”
He runs over and gives me another hug. “Were you planning to make this today?”
“I was, but you said not to bother cooking.”