Keeping Busy

by Tracy Gray

  “How’d you know I was here?” I asked, lifting the cloche from the platter to reveal fried chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus spears, and a gravy boat filled with the smooth, creamy brown liquid.

  “Boy, I’m an old lady. I spend a lot of time looking outta my windows. I saw you last night when you pulled up in that fancy truck of yours.”

  I smiled, as I pulled her into a hug. “You’re not old. You know you’re a spring chicken, still got these men out here sniffing behind you.”

  She threw her head back with laughter as she took a seat at the island. “Get on with yourself, Boy. Only thing men my age can smell is Icy Hot and Ben Gay.”

  I eyed her. “You want me to introduce you to somebody? There’s some guys on my team that would…”

  “Leave me alone, Busy.”

  I chuckled as I walked over to the sink and washed my hands.

  “Look at you. Vera would be so proud of you.”

  “I don’t know about all that.” I mumbled, as I took the platter of food from the tray and placed it in front of myself.

  “Why do you think she wouldn't be proud? Because you made some missteps here lately? Believe me, she still would’ve been proud of you. You’re such a good man, Busy. You’ve taken care of Brandon and Xavier. You look after this house. You run your sports camp. You donate your time and your money to things that are important. You care about people, Busy. That would make her proud.”

  I gave a half-hearted shrug as I bit into a piece of chicken. Nobody could fry chicken like Bonita Watson-Granville, not even my own beloved grandmother, and my grandmother could cook her ass off.

  “Man, this is good, Miss Bo.”

  She chuckled. “My best friend was good at a lot of things, but she never did master the art of frying chicken.” She teased.

  I grinned, and took another bite.

  “So, what’s going on? Talk to me, Maddox.”

  I froze, the chicken stopping in mid-air on its way to my mouth. The only time my grandmother or Miss Bonita ever called me “Maddox” was when I was in trouble.

  “About what?” I hedged, resuming my assault on the food in front of me.

  “About what you plan to do about the scandal that little young heifer caused you. I saw Ayana Truesdale over here earlier, with some little black beauty of a girl. She gonna help you?”

  “That’s Sydnie Whitmore, my sports management rep. She’s helping me get a handle on my public persona.”

  “Good. Good.” She nodded her head. “Vera’s been coming to me every night in my dreams.”

  I kept eating. I knew she would keep talking, so there was no reason for me to interject anything.

  “She’s worried about you.”

  Hell, I was worried about me, too. The stress of the situation, and the fact that my life started going to shit so close to the start of the season stayed on my mind.

  “Why?” I fronted.

  “You know why. What does that pretty little girl suggest you do to get your reputation fixed?”

  I told her about Sydnie’s suggestions ending with her idea that I needed to “settle down” for a while.

  “She knows her stuff. So, which one of your young ladies are you going to bring off the bench?”

  “Don’t say it like that, Miss Bo.” I couldn’t help chuckling. “Like I’ve got women waiting around for the opportunity to spend time with me.”

  “Don’t you, though?” Her tone was flat. “Haven’t you had it like that since you were in high school? Oh, those little fast-tailed girls who wouldn’t leave you alone used to drive Vera crazy.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I agreed. If anybody knew how much they used to drive her crazy, it was me. I had to hear about it all the time. As if I had any control over their behavior. “Anyway, I haven’t really had a chance to think about who I want to ask. It’s kind of a big favor.”

  “To spend time with you, and pretend to enjoy it? Sounds like the easiest job in the world to me, Busy. If I was 50 years younger.”

  We both laughed.

  “Well, don’t think too long, Sweetheart. This heifer is out here dragging your reputation and good name through the mud. Vera worked too hard to keep you on the straight and narrow to let a no-good rapscallion like that one make you out to be somebody you aren’t.” She stood up, holding onto the island for support.

  It bugged me to see Miss Bo getting older. I knew what happened as the years started to slide by - we lost our elders one by one. I had just lost my grandmother. I wasn’t ready to think about losing Miss Bo.

  “How long are you gonna be in town?” She shuffled over to the cabinet, pulled out a glass and made her way over to the refrigerator. She filled the glass, first with ice, then with water, and set it down within reach for me.

  “Another week or so. I have to finish up my youth camp. It’ll be over next Thursday, we’ll do the awards on Friday, and that’ll wrap it up. Then, I’m headed out. I gotta get my life in order before I head to training camp.” I took a long swallow of the ice cold water. “Thank you.”

  She nodded. “I’m going to get back over here before you leave.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Miss Bo. I don’t want you standing up at the stove trying to cook for me.”

  “I like standing up at my stove, cooking. And since you aren’t the boss of me, you can’t tell me who to do it for.”

  I smirked at her. “You trying to air me out?”

  “I just aired you out.” She gave me a hug that communicated both her strength and her love for me. “I’m gonna see your grandmother tonight in my dreams. We’re gonna figure this whole thing out.”

  I wanted to ask her how she was having all of these conversations with my deceased grandmother, but I let it rock. One thing I learned a long time ago was that the elders worked in their own mysterious ways.

  Mecca

  2

  I watched my mother, Janaye Goode, strut into my office. That was my mother, she wasn’t a walker. To get from one place to another, she either strutted, bopped, pranced, strolled, or breezed. Today, she strutted.

  “Hey Ma.” I said, looking up at her.

  “Hey Baby.” Gracefully, she slid into the chair opposite me. “How’s it going?”

  My mom and I owned The Goode Experience Dance Academy. For years, she owned it and I worked there as a dance instructor. Now that she was considering retirement one day, she let me buy in and we were business partners. On top of being an owner of the dance academy, I also choreographed on the side. Professional and collegiate dance teams frequently invited me in as a guest choreographer and asked me to prepare a routine or two for a season.

  “It’s going well.” I had just finished counting the box office receipts from our summer production. “I’ve been organizing the receipts, so I can take them to Trevor.” Trevor Wrightwood was our accountant.

  “Then my timing is perfect. Aunt Bo called me this morning.”

  Auntie Bo was my mother’s aunt, making her my great aunt. She was the matriarch of our family - my grandfather’s eldest sister. Auntie Bo’s husband died early on in their marriage before they’d had the opportunity to have children of their own, but she’d had a hand in raising every child from the Watson family tree, including my siblings, Cairo and British and me.

  My parents were in the entertainment industry when they had us. My father is actually still in the entertainment industry. He’s a world-renowned DJ, who’s been doing music for almost 30 years. Not a DJ, as in “radio disc jockey,” but an actual DJ with scratching and cutting and stuff. He started with turntables, and crates of vinyl records, making mixes and providing the turn-up for parties all over the world. He’s most loved, admired and respected in the Hip Hop and House Music genres.

  My mother started her career as a video dancer when girls still actually danced in videos. She was the “featured” girl in a lot of music videos in the 1990s and was invited to tour the world as a dancer with several different artists. As the industry started to chan
ge, she was able to parlay her accomplishments into a successful career as a choreographer. Later, she opened the dance academy, so she could stay home with us, while my dad continued to travel the world.

  So, even though all of the Watson children had spent their fair share of time with Auntie Bo, when Cairo, British and I outgrew the novelty of constantly touring the world with our parents and were ready to stay in one place, we practically lived with her.

  “She wants you to stop by her house today. Said she needs to talk to you.” My mother told me.

  “Okay. I’ll stop by right after I drop these receipts off at Trevor’s office.

  -

  Auntie Bo wore a smile on her pretty face when she greeted me at her front door later that morning.

  “Get on in here, Pudding.” She said, calling me by her own personal nickname for me and pulling me into a warm embrace.

  I hugged her back with vehemence. She always gave the best hugs, the kind that left you feeling loved and cherished. “Hey Auntie. I heard you needed to talk to me.”

  “I do.” She assured me. “Come on into the kitchen. We can have some of these tea cakes I made.”

  What she would call a “tea cake,” I would call a cookie. So, I asked, “are they shortbread?” She knew I loved shortbread.

  “Aren’t those your favorite?” She replied, and instantaneously I understood that she was trying to butter me up for the ask. Whatever she wanted to talk to me about was going to require sacrifice on my part. She obviously didn’t automatically expect me to accede to doing it.

  “They sure are.” I agreed following her into the kitchen.

  I sat down at her island and waited. My great aunt wasn’t the type of person that you could rush into anything, so I didn’t even bother, even though I was dying to know why she called me to her home. I waited patiently while she placed three shortbread tea cakes on a saucer for me, then filled a mug with what I knew was homemade hot chocolate.

  Finally, she sat down next to me. “Pudding, I need a favor.”

  “Okay.” I said, slowly nodding my head. I hoped I could do whatever she was going to ask of me, because she was Auntie Bo. I loved her to pieces, and appreciated everything she had done for my siblings and me when we were children.

  “Well, actually, Busy needs a favor, but he won’t ask you and even if he did, you would probably say no. So, I’m asking you, because it needs to get done, and you need to be the one to do it.”

  First of all, what? I was lost.

  “When you say ‘Busy’, are you talking about Busy, Busy? Maddox Mayhew, Busy? Busy from across the street?”

  “How many children called Busy do you know?”

  “You ain’t gotta get sassy, Auntie Bo.” I said with a smirk. “You were talking so fast, that I really didn’t even know what you said.”

  “Busy needs you, Pudding.”

  I twisted up my face. “Needs me how? Because from as far back as I can remember, Busy has rarely said more than three words at a time to me.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “He needs you now. And you need to be there for him.”

  “Be there for him how, Auntie? You’re not answering any of my questions. And how can I be there for somebody who has known me since toddlerhood, and hasn’t said more than 50 words total since then?”

  Again, Auntie Bo wasn’t one to be made to do anything. I knew that I could ask her 100 ways to Sunday what she was talking about, and she wasn’t going to spill all of the tea until she was good and ready.

  “Do you watch the news, Pudding?”

  Okay, so now we were going to segue into talking about the news. Whatever. “Sometimes.” I took a bite of my tea cake and hummed happily. It was delicious.

  “Have you seen the stuff that’s been going on with Busy in his...personal life?”

  Oooookkkkaaaaayyy. Now, I could admit that I didn’t really watch the news. I got all of my news from the Yahoo home page, and Busy’s dumb ass had been a thumbnail there for well over a week. I finally understood where she was coming from.

  “Yeah, I have.” I said, drinking hot chocolate and eating tea cakes with voracity, now. Whatever she wanted me to do for Busy, I was almost certain that it wasn’t going to happen. Which was too bad, because I hated to disappoint my aunt.

  “His sports management representative...I think that’s what he called her.”

  “That sounds right.” I said, chomping into my third tea cake.

  “She wants to help him clean up his image, and one of her suggestions is that he make appearances with and be photographed with a nice young lady at important events, like this charity event situation he has coming up.”

  My delicious cookie turned to sawdust in my mouth.

  For real, Auntie Bo? I wanted to ask, but I knew better.

  “He knows tons of women. Tons of tons. I’m sure one of his ho...lady friends would be happy to help him. He doesn’t need me. He wouldn’t want me. As a matter of fact, does he even know you’ve got me over here trying to drag me into his business?”

  “No, he doesn’t.” She admitted. “But that doesn’t matter, because when I tell him that you’re his girl, he won’t give me any back talk...unlike you.”

  I laughed. “Auntie…”

  “Pudding, this is serious. I know you aren’t friends with Busy, and he’s just the kid from across the street to you, but I love that boy. And I loved his grandmama, God rest her soul. He only has a few years left in the league, and I want him to end on a high note. He’s been an upstanding example of black excellence throughout his career. All he did was pick the wrong heifer to run around with and now his reputation and good name are in jeopardy.”

  “Well, he did pick her.” I shrugged my shoulders and swigged the last of my hot chocolate. “He kinda only has himself to blame.”

  “He lost his grandmama, Mecca Noelle Goode. She raised him since he was ten years old.”

  Shit. It was getting real. She used my whole name. Playtime was apparently over.

  “Do you think you would have the capacity to be your best self and make airtight decisions if Janaye Goode dropped dead?”

  If my mama dropped dead, I would be somewhere balled up, so I got her point. “You’re right.” I admitted.

  “Show people the same grace and mercy that you would want them to show you.” She scolded. “Now, as I was saying, he needs your help.”

  “Okay, on the strength of my love for you, I would probably help him. I mean, we kinda grew up together. We’re certainly not friends, but we aren’t enemies. But you don’t understand what you’re asking, Auntie. Maddox Mayhew is in the NFL, he’s famous. His face is on billboards, in magazines, on television. His name is on gym shoes, on the back of jerseys. There are entire websites dedicated to being his fan. He probably has a gang of social media followers. Any girl that gets involved with him, even if it is just for appearances sake is going to be subjected to the skewering...the dragging from internet trolls. People are going to delve into my background, my past, my business and try to find out things about me, about my family. Pictures and videos are going to show up on the internet. It’s not like I can go to dinner with Busy, go home and just live. Look at the chick who lied on him, she’s been the top story in the media for weeks now, and for what? I don’t want that.”

  “You’re the one, Mecca. The only one.” She said softly.

  Who the fuck was I? Neo from The Matrix? Why the hell was I the one? I looked into her face, and I had my answer.

  I sighed heavily. “You been talking to dead people, again, Auntie?”

  My Auntie Bo talked to more dead people than that little boy in the movie. I didn’t understand how she got to have all these conversations with dead people, but I was glad that I didn’t have that ability.

  “I don’t talk to dead people, they show me stuff in my dreams.”

  “And they showed you me?” I asked, before I thought better of it. Then I held up my hand. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want t
o know.”

  We sat there in silence for a few moments. Finally, I sighed again. “Auntie, have Maddox come over here. I’ll talk to him about it. I’m not promising that I’m going to do it, but I’ll at least promise to talk to him about it.”

  Damn! I thought to myself. This wasn’t my best idea.

  Maddox “Busy” Mayhew walked into my Auntie Bo’s house looking like a more muscular, taller, sexier, more handsome, more panty-wetting version of the boy that used to ignore me growing up. I watched from the cut as he stepped into the foyer, and pulled my aunt into a hug.

  “You and my grandma figured all of my problems out last night in your dreams?” He teased.

  I shook my head and chuckled silently. My aunt wasn’t ashamed to let anybody know that dead people felt perfectly comfortable coming to her and “chopping it up” in the middle of the night.

  “Let’s sit in the front room and talk. Come on, Pudding.”

  And that was when Maddox Mayhew noticed me. The easy smile that he had been wearing for my aunt faded from his countenance. His face registered several thoughts and emotions that I couldn’t read, but when it landed on, “oh, hell nah,” I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  “Miss Bo,” he said, completely stopping his forward motion. “Please don’t let this be what I think it is.”

  I wasn’t quite sure whether to be offended or not, because the truth of the matter was that while I acted like Maddox never spoke more than 50 words to me, the same could be said about any of the Watson girls. Well, with the exception of my cousin Clarke Cross. He would talk to her, but Clarke had that “take no prisoners” personality. If she wanted you to talk to her, dammit, you were gonna talk to her. So, he did. But even she gave up after a few years and wrote Maddox off along with the rest of us. So, it wasn’t personal against me, Maddox Mayhew wasn’t checking for any of us.

  “Well, I won’t know what you think it is, until we sit down and talk about it.” Auntie Bo reasoned.

  The three of us sat down in her well-appointed living room, Auntie Bo and Maddox on the sofa, me in the wing chair facing them.