Femme Like Her Page 4

  A low chuckle. “Well, you didn’t forget anything this time—not that I know of, anyway. We do need ice cream, though. Pick some up for dinner on Sunday?”

  “Sure. What flavor?”

  “Your mother wants grape nut, but we haven’t had rum raisin in a while.”

  That means he wants me to get both. “Sure, Poppa.”

  A few seconds of silence fly by and I know he’s listening for whatever he can hear in the background. Of my parents, he’s the nosy one, always wants to know what I’m up to and tries to fix my problems even before I know I have them. The windows are up, and the music turns off automatically when the phone is activated, so there’s nothing he can hear.

  “You’re out racing that car, aren’t you?”

  Damn. Being an open large-print book to your parents is just as bad as it sounds.

  My chest expands with my deep breath. “I am out for a drive, yes, Poppa.”

  “Please be careful and be aware of your surroundings. A distracted driver isn’t a safe driver.”

  “Then I guess you’d better get off the phone, then.”

  He makes a tsking sound. “No respect for your wise elders. What kind of children did I raise?” Without seeing him, I know he’s looking up toward the sky like he’s searching for Jesus among the clouds to deliver him from his rude children.

  “You raised kids that are just like you,” I say with a laugh.

  “Just get off the phone and get home safe.”

  “Bye, Poppa.”

  As soon as he ends the call, I give all of my attention back to the road. Though I want to keep going until I stop thinking altogether, I slow down even more and turn Earl toward home. I’ve already got my therapy for the night. Poppa’s ice cream order is a good excuse to visit the late-night Jamaican market near me. Three pints of ice cream, coming up. Two for my parents and one for me. Maybe I’ll invite Pauline over to share it.

  Or not.

  3

  “Who wants ice cream?”

  With my best family-ready face on, I walk into my parents’ house and close the front door behind me. A cloth grocery bag weighed down with two fifty-two-ounce cartons of ice cream hangs from my hand. After Wednesday, things at work were bananas. We had one threat of suicide during lunch. An attack of uncontrollable tears in the men’s bathroom. Then somebody stole the Keurig machine. That nearly sent the few people left in the office over the edge.

  Just to save my sanity, I had to eat the entire carton of rum raisin ice cream—plus half the grape nut—that I was saving for family dinner. Thank God the Jamaican shop is open on Sunday.

  “Me, Auntie Nai Nai! I want ice cream!” Amaya, my niece, runs out to meet me, the hem of her flouncy dress flying. “Yay! Can I have some before dinner?”

  “Absolutely not.” My older brother, Glen, the killer of all joy, walks up behind her.

  He’s wearing his Sunday best of (hopefully) clean black jeans and a polo shirt with a patch on the chest advertising the tech company he started with his best friend. As usual, his hair is cut low, faded, and ruthlessly brushed into neat waves. He looks perfect, and perfectly uptight.

  Amaya pouts as she flings her arms around my legs, looking up at me with shameless pleading in her eyes. I laugh and lean down to give her cheek a quick kiss. “Hey, Button.”

  She looks over her shoulder, already learning the power of her big brown eyes. “But what if Auntie Nai says I can, Daddy?”

  “Still no.”

  Glen and I exchange a brief hug, more pat on the back than any actual full-body contact. Although he loves me, he’s not really a hugging kind of guy, and I respect that.

  “At this point, I’m not sure if you’re teaching her about nutritional priorities or that boys really don’t know how to have fun,” I tell Glen. Amaya’s short plaits swing from side to side as she watches me and her father.

  “It’s clear you’ve already made that decision for yourself, lesbian sister.”

  “You’re such a good teacher, straight brother.” When Amaya, obviously bored with watching me and Glen be ourselves, waves her arms above her head, her sign for wanting to be picked up, I adjust the heavy bag of ice cream and hitch her up on my hip. “Whatever your daddy says is what we’re doing, Button.”

  Still with a strong pout on, she twists in my arms to look at Glen. “Daddy!”

  “Ice cream is for after dinner, Amaya.” His hand lands gently on her back. “But you can have a big scoop instead of a baby one when the time is right.”

  “Yay!” She squeezes me in her excitement, flashing her adorable gap-toothed smile.

  “See, I do know what fun is. Delayed gratification can be a good thing.”

  “I don’t trust campaign promises,” I say to Glen, and pass him his child, who squeezes him too, free with hugs and giggles of happiness in her moment of ice cream celebration. “Where are Poppa and Mommy?”

  “Waiting for you to get here.” He makes a whole production of looking at his watch.

  “I am not late.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  I roll my eyes and brush past him, taking my ice cream to the kitchen. The clack of dishes warns me there’s someone else in there before I turn the corner. Bare feet, long legs in jeans, and the bottom of a yellow T-shirt give me a clue who it is.

  “Hey, Trish.”

  My brother’s girlfriend closes the cupboard and flashes me a smile. It’s obvious where Amaya got her gap-toothed smile, high cheekbones, and regal continental beauty. My brother is strange as hell, but he has good taste in women.

  A stack of dishes rattles gently in Trish’s hands. “Don’t let Glen get to you. You’re not late. The food is ready but the table isn’t set yet.”

  She’s a sweetheart. I should’ve been here to at least help, though. Cold air from the freezer washes over my face when I open it. Of course, it’s packed. A few curses and a nearly sprained wrist later, I manage to shove the two cartons of ice cream into the freezer then slam the door shut before anything can fall out.

  “Thanks. I know he’s an ass since way back.” From birth, probably.

  “Yep. And we know he hasn’t changed, will never change.” She grins.

  “That’s why you love him.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Weird as it was to me when Glen first lured Trish home, these two are crazy about each other. His coldness and dry humor make her laugh. And I assume her everything, including the ability and willingness to put up with his shit, makes him grateful to have her.

  “Need help?” I ask her.

  “Sure.”

  After washing my hands, I grab utensils and glasses and bring up the rear. When I finish helping her set the table, I go find my parents in the living room.

  Poppa, with his low-cut gray hair, maroon cardigan, and slacks, looks even more Mr. Rogers than usual. Mommy, though, is glamorous in an off-the-shoulder blouse and capri pants. Her thick silver hair brushes her shoulders each time she moves. My parents’ version of retired chic.

  The massive wall-mounted TV plays a YouTube video, a guy giving instructions on how to tie the perfect sailor knot. Notepad and pen in hand, Mommy scribbles between glances at the screen while Poppa nods along to whatever the guy is talking about.

  “What are you two up to?”

  “Daughter!” Dawta. Poppa is all smiles. “We’re practicing for our visit with Houghton and his wife on their boat in Key West. They’re going to teach us how to sail.”

  “Hi, sweetie!” Mommy abandons the TV to squeeze me in a tight hug. “We are very excited about the trip.” Her pen digs into my back before she pulls away, peering at me with suspicion and concern. “You smell very corporate right now. No chance to go home and shower first?” Although she’s teasing, I know she means I smell like stale coffee and the desperation of everybody in my office.

  Busted. In a fit of guilt, I spent about three hours in the office today, fixing a few things that my mentally absent coworker messed up on Friday. Of
course, since I was already there, I also got a head start on some work waiting on my desk for Monday morning. That guilt feels like nothing compared to the disappointment on Mommy’s face. Before she retired from the huge PR firm where she worked for years, she was a workaholic and warned me often of becoming the same. Especially for a company that didn’t value me.

  I give her an apologetic squeeze. “I want you to get a good whiff of this for when I’m kicked out, jobless and living on the streets. The perfume from dumpster diving will make my office stink seem like a rose garden.”

  “Glad to hear you’re planning for the future, darling.” Poppa drops a laughing kiss to my cheek and clicks off the TV with a press of the remote over his shoulder. “Come on, family. Dinnertime!”

  Even though there are only four of us, we sound like a herd of buffalos stampeding over the hardwood floor toward the dining room, where Trish is laughing at something Glen said and pretending to knock him over the head with a huge serving spoon. After five years, they’re still crazy about each other. Or just crazy.

  On the table, the food is already laid out on the well-used platters my parents brought here from Jamaica. Rice and peas. Escovitch fish with a smaller, boneless and pepper-less portion set aside for Amaya. And a pitcher of tropical punch.

  Trish and Glen finish putting out the serving spoons and take their seats at the dining table with the rest of us.

  “Let’s bow our heads and say grace,” Poppa says. Automatically, we all join hands. “Thank you, dear Lord, for allowing our family to share another gathering filled with love. Bless this food we are about to take into our bodies, bless each of us, and bless the cook so he may continue to do your good work. Amen.”

  Amens echo around the table. Then we drop each other’s hands and pounce on the food.

  “Whose turn was it to cook?” I serve myself from the platter of rice and peas in the middle of the table and pass it to Trish when I’m done. The rice is steaming hot and smells good, like coconut milk and thyme.

  “Your father.” Mommy’s laughing look says she may or may not disapprove of his prayer directly asking for his own blessings. “It’s his mother’s recipe. You know I don’t put thyme in mine.”

  “They’re both good,” Glen says with surprising diplomacy.

  “Your plantains are the best, Gramma,” Amaya chimes in from her high chair, legs swinging back and forth with happiness as she eats.

  My mother smiles back at her. “Thank you, Amaya love.” She serves herself from the pitcher of tropical punch rattling with ice. “How are you feeling?” Her sharp eyes catch my gaze. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how tense you were before.”

  “I’m fine, Mommy. It’s just the usual stuff at work. Too much of it, like you said.”

  “This is the same work that’s about to fire you and everybody in your department just because they can, you know.”

  “They’re consolidating. They don’t need two teams of analysts.” Can they all tell how much I’m bullshitting? Anger about the change has been simmering in my belly for weeks.

  The larger company that bought ours is based in upstate New York and wants to move the whole operation up north. The head of our department offered to let us transition to another job in the company as long as we move with them.

  It’s a pretty shit offer. So far, nobody in my department or the ones that work on our floor has agreed to uproot or abandon their family for the wilds of New York to probably get dumped by the company in a year or two when another merger or buyout comes through.

  “You should fire-bomb the building and go find another job.”

  All eyes swing to my brother.

  “Or I could skip the first part altogether and just find another job.” Sometimes I worry about what he gets into when the rest of the family isn’t around.

  “Ignore him,” Trish says with a wave of her hand. “He’s just joking.”

  “Is he, though?”

  “Pass me the punch,” Glen says.

  “You didn’t say ‘please,’ Daddy!” Amaya pipes up.

  As I laugh at him, my brother transforms into a nicer version of himself. “You’re right, my angel, I didn’t.” The smile he turns on Amaya is a little terrifying, mostly because he doesn’t show it very often. As much as I’d like to say it’s because of his crooked teeth and rabbit overbite, Glen has the best teeth out of all of us. Big, even, and naturally white. It wouldn’t surprise me if he drank liquid fluoride between meals. “You should always say please and thank you, just like your mommy taught you,” he says to his daughter.

  Amaya nods seriously. “Gramma, did you teach Daddy to say please and thank you, too?”

  “I did, my sweet. But some people are very hardheaded,” Mommy replies.

  “I know. Sometimes Mommy says I’m hardheaded too.” Amaya’s head swings to her father. “I’m just like you, Daddy. But I listen to my mommy, though.” A little grimace turns down her mouth for a moment before her sunny nature comes back in full force. “This fishy fish is tasty!”

  A giggle comes from Trish’s side of the table. She smiles at Glen. “Speaking of hardheaded, everybody, we have an announcement.”

  “Yay! It’s time!” More words bubble out of Amaya as she drops her fork on the side of her plate and starts clapping. Even her mother’s hand lightly squeezing hers doesn’t stop the flurry of preemptive applause for whatever is about to happen.

  My parents look at each other. It’s obvious they don’t know what’s going on. Glen watches Trish then his daughter with a look of possession and love he usually doesn’t allow himself to show. Almost too casually, he drapes a hand over the back of Amaya’s chair. A tic at the corner of his right eye betrays some type of emotion.

  Wait a minute. Is he…? Is he really going to finally do it?

  “So.” Trish looks at each of us at the table. “As everyone knows, I love this man.” Her freakishly long arms reach around Amaya to touch Glen’s hand resting on the back of their daughter’s chair. “Being here with him and with you guys every Sunday and at every family thing for the rest of our lives is where I belong.” She’s nervous, but the twitching corners of her mouth say it’s a good kind of nervousness. Hopefully. “If I wait any longer for him to make a move, Amaya would be in college, so I told him we have to get married.”

  “Yay!” Amaya’s cheer is louder than before, and her chair rocks back and forth with the excited swing of her legs. “We’re having a wedding and I’m going to be the flower girl!”

  “That’s fantastic!” Mommy jumps up from her chair and throws her arms around Trish the same time Poppa says, “Finally!”

  “Congratulations, Glen.” From under the table, I poke him with my foot. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  He shrugs. “What are you talking about? We’re happy. We’re together. I didn’t think it was necessary. We don’t need the permission of some government or church official to be happy and share our lives together.”

  “I’m glad Trish straightened you out. You don’t need some government to tell you that, but you know that’s what she wants.”

  “Yes.” His glance at his girlfriend—no, fiancée now—is fond. No more smiles for him, though, just that intense and possessive look. One that says he’d kill anyone who tried to take her away from him.

  “Where’s the ring?” Mommy asks, lifting up Trish’s naked finger.

  Trish waves a dismissive hand. “I don’t have one, but—”

  “It’s right here.”

  It’s like a little miracle here in our family dining room. Light from the chandelier over the dining table sparkles on the engagement ring in Glen’s hand.

  “Whaaat?” My brother, Glendon Jeffrey Grant, is doing this?

  The unexpected appearance of the ring pulls me to my feet to stare at it up close. Damn. Glen did real good.

  The ring is simple, an emerald-cut solitaire, but its diamond is at least three carats and set in what I bet is platinum. Trish doesn’t wear any type
of yellow gold, and I give my brother big props for noticing. On the best day, he’s oblivious to most things. Naturally, that’s it for all the women in the room. Like a faucet turning on, tears gush down Trish’s face. “Glen? What?” Nothing else comes out of her trembling mouth.

  On his feet now, my brother grabs the hand she has over her mouth and slips on the ring. It fits perfectly. “I only want to make you happy,” he says.

  Poppa clasps Glen’s shoulder and brings him in for a rough hug even though Glen is holding on tight to Trish. “My son. I’m proud of you.”

  “Oh!” The tears run down Trish’s face nonstop. “I can’t believe this.”

  Rough emotion squeezes my throat tight. Happiness for my brother and Trish. Pride that he pushed himself to do this for her. We all squeeze together in a group hug until Glen has had enough and twists to get free.

  Her little legs still kicking with excitement, Amaya giggles and claps again. “This is the best fishy fish dinner ever!”

  I couldn’t agree with her more.

  4

  Virtue and Vice, the lingerie shop attached to Pauline’s Groupon, is in a pretty pink and green Victorian house tucked away on a small street in Buckhead. The three-story building looks like a dollhouse with its gables and tiny balconies attached to the two rooms on the second level. It feels like I’m about to step into another world when I walk up the high stone steps and under high planters exploding with pink roses. The empty bench swing at the far end of the porch sways gently in the fall breeze.

  It’s Saturday afternoon and almost a week after my family grilled me about my nonexistent love life. After that whole experience and Pauline constantly harping at me about seeing Scottie again, I almost tossed the Groupon in the trash just to be stubborn. All of them act like I don’t have a real life just because I’m not fucking somebody on a regular basis.

  My adult existence is not validated by the orgasms I share with another person.

  But after a restless morning cleaning the house and complaining to my cat Osiris, who only looked at me like I was losing it, I abandoned my condo for a change of scenery. But even Earl’s purring engine on the fast lane of the highway couldn’t silence the loop of my parents’ concern about me dying jobless and sexless under a bridge somewhere.