Too Much of a Good Thing

by J. J. Murray

  I don’t, but I nod anyway.

  “But we welcome her—and Phil, as long as he doesn’t talk politics.”

  Inclusion. That’s what the Evans family is all about. No matter how loud or quiet, skinny or huge, drunk or sober, everybody is included.

  Only when we try to include them on some side trips we take around Atlanta, they don’t want to join us. “Been there, done that,” they say.

  I don’t argue with them. And after fighting traffic and construction and getting lost on several streets named Peach-tree, I don’t blame them a bit.

  As a family—I like using that phrase—we put at least another two hundred miles on the van. We take a trip to Lake Lanier to swim in the bathwater there. It’s not as warm as Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke, but it’s pretty close. We ride the MARTA downtown to go to an afternoon Braves game, shopping at the Underground afterward.

  A major ka-CHING.

  But the girls are happy, and by girls I mean Shawna, too. All four of them buy some kente cloth outfits in an Afrocentric store. My boys—all three of them—buy ebony wood walking sticks. Shawna holds up a kente cloth bow tie and positions it under my neck.

  “For the wedding?” I ask.

  “Nah,” she says. “I just wanted to see.” She puts back the tie.

  “How’d I look?” I ask.

  “Not your colors.”

  I try to quiz her on exactly what my colors are, and in a few seconds I’m reduced to brown, gray, black, and dark blue.

  “And please, Joe, don’t ever wear red.”

  Even Rose agrees.

  What’s so bad about a white man wearing red?

  I’ll never fully understand women.

  Sleeping arrangements are, to say the least, interesting. I stay with Uncle Raymond in the “catchall room” of his house. “The bed should be somewhere in there,” he tells me. It is, only it turns out to be a single bed with a mattress that hasn’t been turned in years, a crease in the middle. The girls—again, Shawna included—camp out in the basement of her parents’ house while the boys literally camp out in a freestanding screen-room with some of the cousins—and the dogs, which are truly sweet animals, especially if you feed them.

  And count your fingers afterward.

  So much happens at those cookouts that I don’t get much of a chance to talk to her mother and father until midway through the week. The conversation I have with her parents is brief.

  “So, you’re marrying my daughter,” Shawna’s dad says.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “She’s a good girl,” her dad says.

  “Hmm,” her mom says.

  “You take good care of her and them chirren now,” her dad says.

  “I will.”

  That ends our conversation, because Cousin Boo and Aunt Tawny show up. Shawna’s parents immediately break out the cards ...

  I try to learn how to play bid whist, I really do, but it is so hard to concentrate when they are, as Shawna puts it, “talking stuff.” All during the one game that I feel confident enough to play, Cousin Boo keeps saying, “Watcha bid, now, watcha bid. Too high, you’ll be leavin’ the table. Too low, you’ll be leavin’ the table. Don’t think for a second you gonna warm up that seat none, cuz you are gonna be leavin’ the table ...”

  Three hands later, Cousin Boo yells, “Next!”

  There will be no “next” for me.

  Shawna refuses to play as my partner anymore. “I have never lost so fast in my entire life! What kind of bids were those?”

  “Bad ones?” I offer.

  She is not amused.

  54

  Shawna

  So Joe can’t play cards well. I’m not worried. We’ll practice nightly until he learns how to bid properly.

  Aside from Aunt Sandy moving in on my man and Crystal sticking to “her kind” instead of Joe’s kids, the visit goes pretty smoothly.

  Until my parents corner me the night before we’re to leave.

  “That man needs to lighten up,” Daddy says from his La-Z-Boy, where he’s been commanding family conversations for as long as I’ve been alive.

  Mama laughs. “Lighten up? He already as light as any body can be.”

  “He has freckles, Mama,” I say. “He isn’t all white.”

  “Nah,” Daddy says. “Shawna’s right. He a little yella, too.”

  I look at Daddy. “How is Joe yellow?”

  Daddy leans forward. “He was afraid to marry you, wasn’t he?”

  I never should have told Boo that Joe had cold feet. Out of my mouth into Boo’s ears and straight out of Boo’s mouth like wildfire, and now everyone knows. “Our separation was only a couple weeks,” I say, “and it wasn’t a real separation. We still talked to each other every day and saw each other often. I wish y’all would just let that go.”

  Mama looks at Daddy, and Daddy shrugs. This means they’ll think about dropping it.

  “He’s also far too religious, Shawna,” Mama says.

  “The man’s too stiff,” Daddy adds.

  “And quiet,” Mama says.

  “And them kids of his is uppity,” Daddy says.

  I sigh. “Daddy, just because they wouldn’t eat greens doesn’t make them uppity.”

  Daddy looks at Mama, and Mama shrugs. This means they think I’m wrong.

  “Baby,” Mama says. “Why don’t you move down here? Your chirren are havin’ a ball with their cousins.”

  “You been away from your family too long,” Daddy adds.

  “So, what are y’all saying without saying it?” I ask. “That you don’t like him?”

  Daddy flashes a look at Mama before looking at me. “Didn’t say I didn’t like him. Just don’t think he’s the man for you.”

  Daddy treated Rodney like a son. They used to spend hours working on Uncle Raymond’s truck. They never got it running, but I don’t think that was the point. They bonded over a couple tons of metal. Hmm. Maybe we’ll get us an old hoopdy and put it in the yard for our kids to bond over.

  “And if you haven’t noticed,” Mama says, “he ain’t black. You want a white man raisin’ your chirren?”

  I count to five before responding. “I’ll be there, too, Mama.”

  “All the time?” she asks.

  “Mama, it isn’t as if I’m going to raise Joe’s kids to be black.”

  Daddy pulls the recliner’s lever with a pop and stands. “You shoulda been lookin’ for a man like Rodney.” He looks at Mama. “And that’s all I have to say about it.” He walks out of the room and down the hall.

  I join Mama on the sofa. “Everybody misses Rodney. I miss him. But I have to go on living.”

  “Hmm,” Mama says. I have never been able to tell if her “hmm” is a yes or a no.

  “Joe is ... Joe is godly, loving, and caring, as much if not more than Rodney was. I value that. So what if he’s quiet? He speaks to me, even when he’s not saying anything.”

  Mama shakes her head. “He can’t play cards at all, Shawna.”

  I roll my eyes. “That doesn’t disqualify him from me loving him, Mama.”

  She pats my arm. “You really love him, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “As much as you loved Rodney?”

  Tough question, one I’ve been wrestling with myself. “I never thought I’d ever love anyone that much, and after Rodney died, I decided that I’d never even try to love someone that much.”

  “Hmm,” Mama says.

  “But, Mama, I’m going to try with Joe.”

  “Hmm,” Mama says. “Your mind sounds like it’s made up.”

  “It is.”

  She folds her arms under her chest and is quiet for a spell. “Well, as long as y’all visit more often ... so I can get to know Joe.”

  “And,” I add, “your new grandkids.”

  “They ain’t never gonna be my grandkids, Shawna.”

  Ouch. I didn’t mean to pluck that nerve. “Step-grandkids, then.”

  “Not even that,”
she says. “That youngest one, though.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “Hmm,” Mama says. “He’s kinda like your daddy used to be when he was a boy. Always into mischief, but he was always gettin’ out of it cuz of that grin of his.”

  “Mama?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Will you work on Daddy for me?”

  She blows out a breath, her lower lip turned down. “Got to work on myself first. Hearin’ about it on the phone isn’t like seein’ it in the flesh. And you know how stubborn your daddy can be. That man’s set in his ways like concrete. I can’t teach that ol’ dog any new tricks.”

  “Could you try?”

  Mama closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “You comin’ down for Thanksgivin’ or Christmas?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Could you try?” she asks.

  More “saying without saying.” That’s what this family is all about. I’ve had to read between the lines and Mama saying “hmm” for so long. What Mama isn’t saying is that if we visit more often, she’ll soften up Daddy.

  “Mama, I will definitely try.”

  55

  Joe

  I see so much good coming out of this trip, mainly from my own “chirren.” At the Gospel show, it had been like an old junior high dance, with one side eyeing the other, lots of space between them, no one willing to make the first move. But here, they mixed it up from the second they stepped out of the van. Oh, except for Crystal. She pretty much stuck to the cousins she hadn’t seen in so long. I can’t blame her. Rose even put on shorts one day, reminding me of how beautiful she is under all that Gothic costuming. The boys must have played a hundred games of basketball and fifty rounds of horseshoes, and drank fifty gallons of sweet tea—real sweet tea, “so sweet any bug that’ll bite you will overdose on sugar,” according to Aunt Sandy.

  Movement, laughter, fussing, cussing, smiles, food—Shawna’s family. I know I’ve gained at least ten pounds in four days. No matter how outrageous Aunt Sandy was (“You get tired of that skinny, short thang, you give me a call”), no matter how long the argument (“You reneged, yo ... I played spades three books ago, and you didn’t have one then” ... “It is so touching the post! Boo, come here and see what this fool obviously can’t see”), and no matter the hour (“Dag, is that the sunrise? Shoot, I got to work in the morning”), they did it as a family.

  And my chirren was right up there in the mix, yo.

  Shawna hates it when I talk that way, but I can’t help it.

  I’ve been infected by the Evans family.

  56

  Shawna

  I am pooped.

  I look behind me at Jimmy. Lord, I hope he pooped before he got into this van. I don’t want a film of his funk on me for four hundred miles.

  Everyone but Joe and I are asleep. No one slept on the way down, yet all of them will most likely sleep on the way back to Roanoke.

  My family wore their little behinds out!

  I reach over and massage Joe’s right shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can drive some if you like.” Not that I really want to drive. I’m a little sleepy myself.

  “Tell me that again in four hours.”

  In four hours, I will be out like a light. “So, what do you think of the Evans family now?”

  “I felt right at home.”

  He’s lying. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  I don’t believe this for a second. “Your home in Canada is like that?”

  “Not really, but everyone down here made me feel welcome.”

  “Aunt Sandy especially.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought the heifer was going to corrupt you, offering you a cigarette or a toot or a sip. I am so glad she’s not a blood relative.”

  “She’s ... something,” Joe says. “Thank you for rescuing me so often.”

  “You’re welcome. But next time we visit, you’re on your own. I didn’t play nearly enough cards.”

  Joe doesn’t say a thing. He is wise. I have let him know how important card playing is to the fabric of the Evanses’ family life, he has been found wanting in the bidding department, and no doubt they’ll all be talking about Joe’s bids at the cookout later tonight.

  “Did you and Daddy talk?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ask for my hand in marriage?” I know he didn’t.

  “I didn’t have the chance.” He winces. “Sorry.” He adjusts the rearview mirror for the fiftieth time. He’s always checking on the kids. I like that. “So, what did you and your parents talk about?”

  I don’t want to hurt Joe’s feelings, so I decide to spare him their reservations. “As long as we visit more often, they’ll like ‘us’ more.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “And as long as you learn how to play some cards.”

  “Was I that bad?”

  I don’t answer.

  “I was that bad,” he says.

  “I will teach you. Nightly. Before we go to bed. And if you don’t learn to bid correctly, I’m turning out the light without giving you so much as a good-night kiss.”

  “Really?”

  “Hmm,” I say like Mama. “Oh, for a minute or so. I don’t think I can be that mean to you. At least you tried to play cards and horseshoes.” I wince. One time he pitched the shoe so badly one of the dogs snatched it up and ran off with it. Joe must have poor depth perception. Maybe he needs glasses.

  “I like the way your family laughs,” Joe says.

  I massage my own neck. “It’s kind of a two-edged sword, though. It is so hard to have any kind of a serious conversation sometimes. I think we use ESP or radar or something.”

  “Your family is close, Shawna. I like that.”

  “Your family isn’t close?”

  “Well, we live so many different places. My brother, James, is a missionary in Irian Jaya.”

  “Where’s that?” It doesn’t even sound like a real country.

  “It’s Indonesia’s biggest province, right next to Papua New Guinea.”

  That didn’t help much. “And where is all that?”

  He smiles. “In the South Pacific, northeast of Australia. So James lives about ten thousand miles away, my parents live in Canada, and I live in Virginia. It’s hard for all of us to get together. James is supposed to be up at the lake while we’re there, but sometimes his plans change at the last minute.” He smiles. “James has always bragged about his family, and now we’re finally going to be even.”

  “How so?”

  “He has six kids, all of them boys, named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, and Timothy.”

  How biblical. It makes them easy to remember, I guess. I try to envision twelve children, nine boys and three girls, in one house. I can’t. I won’t. “How old are they?”

  “They range in age from Timmy, who’s nine, to Matthew, who’s ... twenty, I think. And even with James’s kids, my family is ... quieter than yours.”

  “You don’t have cookouts?”

  “Some. Mom likes to cook in her kitchen.”

  “Will your mama let me help with the cooking?”

  “Let’s just say that she owns the kitchen. But we’ll do the dishes. It might be the only quiet time we have up there.” He adjusts the AC down a few clicks. “Unless we take a moonlight swim.”

  I adjust the AC up a few clicks. I am freezing! “I haven’t put on a bathing suit in ages. It might not fit. Is the water warmer at night?”

  “Relatively speaking,” he says.

  In other words, no.

  “The air is colder,” he says, “so the water feels warmer.”

  “As long as you keep me warm, I’ll be fine.”

  He hums a little love song that almost sounds like ... No. It doesn’t sound like anything at all. I think my Joe is tone deaf, too.

  He stops humming. “You might want to sleep now while it’s quiet, Shawna.”

  How c
an I sleep now? I’m in the water with Joe, my bathing suit is slipping off, his hands are keeping me warm. But I need to go to sleep now. I need to have one of those watery, sensual, erotic dreams that doesn’t make me feel as guilty as when I’m having watery, sensual, erotic daydreams. Why is it that the lust I feel in my dreams is okay, while the lust I’m feeling right now isn’t? Lord, why did You choose to make us this way?

  I pout for a bit, try not to think of skinny-dipping with Joe, and in a few minutes, I am drifting off to sleep ...

  Ahh, this is nice. I’m in the water. A bathtub. Bubbles. Candles. Hands are caressing me, holding me, massaging my feet. Nice ... Yes, right there ... Oh, yes ...

  Oh, no! Why am I suddenly stepping off a curb? And why is there a curb in the bathroom? I hate this dream. I know that as soon as I put my foot down—

  I flinch and wake up.

  “You were out a while,” Joe says.

  “Where are we?”

  I see the first of three exits for Salem, the town west of Roanoke. Wow. We’re almost home. That was an extremely long bath. I wonder if my dream fingers are prunes.

  I look behind me. Only Toni blinks at me, but her eyes are rolling, her neck barely keeping her head still.

  “Has everybody been asleep the entire time?” I ask.

  “Yep.” He stretches an arm out to me. “And that means they’ll be awake for most of the trip up to the lake.”

  That’s not good.

  When Joe opens his door in front of his—I mean, our—house, the lights in the van come on, and the groans begin.

  “Everybody out,” Joe says. “I have to unload and reload.”

  Rose slips out of her seat belt and comes to the front, draping her arms around Joe’s neck. “Daddy, can’t we sleep in our own beds for one night before we go to the lake?”

  That’s not a bad idea. I could use at least three or four more hours in the bathtub, I mean, in the bed.

  He pats Rose’s hand. “Sure. We can crash for a few hours and leave a little later.”

  After the kids troop into the house, Joe and I unload and reload the van. We step back and look at the back end of the van.

  “It looks like a drooping lip,” I say.

  “And without us inside.” He drops to his knees and measures the distance between the road and the bottom of the van. “It will scrape on the way in to Murphy’s Unlimited.”