To gain some perspective on the whole situation, I turned over and reached beneath my bed, touching the edge of the heavy, wooden box that contained a series of unsent letters my grandmother had written to the infamous “Benny”, her one who got away. I visited her writings every now and again when I needed something real to hold on to. Her love for this man seemed to transcend all reason. According to the dates written at the tops, she stopped writing around 52’ – the year she met and married my grandfather. I never believed that she stopped loving Benny, but did what a multitude of women in her time had done; she put her family first, her feelings second, and tried to pretend like what she had was enough. The emotion that permeated from the letters bled right through me every time.
My fingers trailed over my grandmother’s careful penmanship as I revisited one of many letters she’d written to Benny. It was mentioned in one of them that the morning they met, she awoke to find a red rose petal in the middle of her bedroom floor. At the time she lived alone in a small apartment downtown, so she never did figure out where the petal came from, but she believed it was an omen. In a matter of hours, her path had crossed Benny’s and the rest was history. Soon they fell in love and she described it as making no sense and perfect sense all at the same time.
I wanted that.
I wanted to find ‘the one’.
They never had the chance to live out their love story in its entirety. Grandma’s experience, her unfinished business, had impacted more than just her own love life. There were side effects that seeped down through two generations of women—from her, to my mother, then to my sisters and I. It’d been the underlying cause of break-ups, make-ups, and second chances that weren’t always deserved. It was sometimes our reason for hanging on and at other times, our excuse for letting go.
The fact that this love had been suffocated to death was nothing short of tragic. A waste. The thought of it made me teary. I’d never let that happen to me. I’d never love a man, have him love me back, only to later be convinced that what we felt was wrong. My grandmother spoke of this relationship often for a reason. She wanted her granddaughters to learn from it. I believe she needed something positive to come of her heartache. For that reason, we were instructed to listen with our hearts and to let them lead even if it didn’t always make sense.
My grandmother was a lot like me. She too believed a higher power guided her steps by way of leaving proverbial cookie crumbs to follow—like my fortune, for instance. Most would assume it was a meaningless piece of paper with a generic message printed at random, but for all I knew it was a sign—the sign that led me right to this very moment.
Led me right to him.
Chapter Four
Luke
One sharp left later and we were pulling up in front of Lissette’s building. I sat behind the wheel while Matt grabbed his bag from the backseat.
“You coming, or what?” he shouted just before slamming the door behind him.
I glanced up at myself in the rearview mirror, taking note of the sweat beads that had formed on my forehead. What are you doing? It still hadn’t set in that I was really getting ready to go through with this. If this film did turn out to be Matty’s big break, all parties involved would get a piece of the pie. All things considered, I had to keep things in perspective.
I stepped out of the car before Matt gave himself an aneurism and waited at the door to be buzzed into the building. We trudged slowly toward the elevator and finally down the third floor hallway. From the other side of the door¸ I could hear Lissette’s footsteps approaching. Whatever she had going in the kitchen smelled amazing even from out in the hall. She greeted Matt and I with a broad smile, one that seemed to lack doubt. Her disposition was mildly comforting.
“Hey. How’s it going?” Matt asked, walking in ahead of me.
Lissette shrugged. “As good as it can, considering the fact that my family will be here in a few and I have no idea how this is about to go. But how are you?”
Matt smiled and answered, “Awesome,” completely missing that Lissette was somewhere between nervous and having a mental breakdown.
She shook her head at him when she turned toward me. “What about you? You good?”
“Yeah, I’m cool,” I lied. The look on her face led me to believe that she saw right through me when she smiled.
“Well, you two can do whatever it is you need to do. I have to finish dinner.” She turned to Matt again. “And be warned, before you open a door, a drawer, lift a piece of paper, or press a button, ask me first. This is still my apartment and I’ll dismember you if you invade my privacy.” She smiled big. “K?”
Matt put his hands up in surrender and nodded, trying not to laugh. Lissette sized him up again before leaving the room.
Now that it was just the two of us, Matt chuckled as he pulled equipment from his bag. “Remind me to never cross that one,” he said, shaking his head.
Earlier that day, Lissette made him promise to film inconspicuously while her family was around. She didn’t want them feeling like she was making a spectacle of them—or herself either for that matter. Matt reminded her that he didn’t want our families to know why we were doing this anyway, so they were both cool with him hiding out in her room with his laptop, monitoring. Lissette’s hope was that they’d just think we were being impulsive—like we’d just decided on our own accord to tie the knot.
I watched Matt strategically place cameras throughout Lissette’s living room and dining room. He rigged tiny microphones all over, too, deciding to let things play out naturally for a while, taking on the task of collecting consent forms from Lissette’s family later when he was ready to put everything together. One good thing about doing things this way, not telling our families about the film upfront, we could later tell them that the idea to participate in the documentary was an afterthought as opposed to our sole reason for marrying me.
She came back into the room carrying a handful of pale, blue dishes. I noticed that her fingernail polish matched it almost perfectly, probably on purpose. She looked pretty. Her floor-length white and blue striped dress was pulled in at the waist with a brown, leather belt—showing off her figure, the flare of her round hips noticeable even beneath the flowing material. Next, I looked down at her feet. For some reason it surprised me that she was barefoot. Most people whose houses I’d been to for dinner parties wore shoes, probably as a formality, but not her; she wasn’t putting on airs. She pushed her tightly wound curls behind her ear and caught me staring. There was a smile on her lips for a fraction of a second before she realized it was there and promptly retreated to the kitchen.
“Pass me that cord, man,” Matt sighed, frustrated by something equipment-related.
I handed him what he needed and walked to the kitchen since I was already up from the couch. Leaning against the doorframe, I waited for Lissette to get off the step stool before speaking.
“Need some help?” I smiled. “I mean setting up, not cooking. I’m no good in the kitchen.”
One corner of her mouth lifted, but she hesitated to accept my offer, dragging her eyes away from me. “Uh… yeah, sure. As you can see I have to use the stool to get my good plates down. Maybe you could get the rest for me?”
I nodded and looked her up and down again when her back was to me. She moved the stool out of my way and stayed nearby to grab the dishes from my hand, placing them on the counter beside her.
“Thanks,” she said as I passed her the last. “It’s times like this that it pays to be tall.”
“How tall are you anyway?” I asked.
She giggled, the light bubbly sound going all through me when she did. “Five-two and a quarter. You?”
“Six-one and three-fourths,” I teased.
She looked at me like I’d just looked at her a moment ago—with curiosity and intrigue heavy in her gaze. She raised an eyebrow when she smiled, breathing a thoughtful, “Hm.”
“Need me to take these to the table?” I asked.
&n
bsp; Lissette nodded and went back to the stove. “Yeah, thanks.”
I left the plates in a stack at one corner of the server in case Lissette had a particular way she wanted them arranged. When I finished, I went to join Matt in the living room where I found him with a stupid grin on his face.
“What?”
His smile grew. “I saw you two in there. Tell me you don’t feel something for this girl,” he demanded in a whisper.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Whatever, man. I haven’t even known her a full forty-eight hours. Trust me; you didn’t see what you think you saw.”
“Yeah, right. Dude… no one knows you better than me. I know how you look at a girl when you’re feeling her. And she gave you that same look,” he said, emphasizing his point by jabbing his finger into the center of my chest on the last two syllables.
“Yeah, okay, just finish getting your stuff ready before someone shows up and catches you.”
Matt walked away dismissively and situated the last of his cameras on top of Lissette’s China cabinet, which I noticed had not a single dish inside. Not one. Instead, she used the case to house a collection of books and candles, which seemed like a bad combination to me.
“Luke? Could you help me with one last thing?” Lissette asked from the doorway.
I nodded and followed behind her while Matt watched us. His brow lifted, suggesting that my interaction with Lissette was only proving his point from a moment ago.
“I need that vase down from up there in the top right cabinet. I bought some flowers earlier from the store and I wanna set them out.” She smiled a little. “After all, they put me over budget so the least I can do is let everyone see ‘em, right?”
I laughed and grabbed the crystal vase down like she’d asked. She took it from my hands and thanked me before disappearing down the hall, in her bedroom, I assumed.
While she was gone, and with Matt occupied, I looked around. Her place was neat, but not obsessively clean. It looked lived in—random mail sitting on the ledge by the door, a basket of clean clothes in the hall, a plate and glass in the sink from her breakfast or lunch, and her trash bag needed to go out. She was normal. Sweet and normal, a realization that had an unexpected effect on me. The more I walked around and got a feel for who she was, a strange, warm sensation spread from the center of my chest and filled me entirely.
I looked at some of the titles on her book shelf, several of which had bookmarks sticking out at about the halfway point, meaning she’d only read that far before getting bored and moving on to another. She had a basket of yarn sitting beside the mismatched recliner in her living room. I pictured her sitting there knitting while watching reruns or listening to music, probably wearing some old pajamas she’d be ashamed to let anyone see her in.
I moved over to the pictures hanging near the window. They were of her family. She and all her sisters bared a striking resemblance to one another. They shared variations of the same facial features, all different and yet the same in many ways. They were beautiful. Each one. I could tell just by looking at these few photos that they were close.
I moved down the line to Lissette’s parents. It didn’t surprise me to find that her father wasn’t black. While her African-American features were most prominent, her lighter-toned, brown skin and hair texture tipped me off. From the looks of it, he wasn’t white, but maybe Native American.
“Now you know my life story,” Lissette said, smiling when she stepped up beside me. “That’s all of my sisters, my niece and nephews, even the half-brother,” she said, pointing at the thirty-something guy who shared her father’s light skin color in the photo on the end.
I laughed a little. “Why do you call him that? You said it last night, too. ‘The’ half-brother instead of saying ‘my’ half-brother.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems to come out that way. Feels more natural,” she reasoned, apparently never really thinking about it before now. “But you’ll be meeting all the others in a few minutes,” she added. “You ready for that?”
I sighed and continued to look at her framed memories. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her smile. On cue, her buzzer sounded. My heart skipped a beat as I imagined hers did, too. Without delay, she moved toward the door and granted access to whoever the caller was. It was maybe a matter of a minute before there was a knock at the door. Slowly, I walked over and made myself visible. Finding out who I was would be enough of a shock. At least I’d let them get their assumptions out of the way early.
Three of her sisters had arrived together. One with bone-straight hair, one with curls like Lissette, and the other sporting a cut short enough that I couldn’t distinguish the texture.
“Come in,” Lissette said smiling. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
Her sisters had already spotted me and stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes glued to mine. Two were half-smiling and curious, the one with the curls was the most hesitant. Lissette closed the door behind them and then stood beside me. When her hand warmed my arm, I froze. The most we’d ever touched before this was when I put the mic on her the night before at dinner.
“Ladies, Luke. Luke… the ladies.”
I didn’t say anything and neither did they. I figured I should make the first move. Extending my hand toward the one who bared the most resemblance to Lissette, I made sure my expression was nothing but polite.
“Nice to meet you,” I said confidently.
She gave a weak grin and raised an eyebrow suspiciously before taking my hand. “Brooklyn,” she said, introducing herself. And the second she did, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Ignoring it, I nodded and took the hand of the sister with the long, straight hair. “Delia,” she smiled.
The one with the short-do eyed me for a few seconds before shaking my hand. “Bernadine.”
“But we call her ‘Bean’ for short,” Lissette interjected. I nodded and smiled when Bernadine gave me a brief side-eye.
With their attention off of me for a moment, I checked the text which I discovered came from Matt. The message read, “The one in the white shirt… the hot one… bring her to me… NOW!” referring to Brooklyn, I deduced, seeing as how she was the only one wearing a white shirt. Apparently, she’d managed to make it onto my brother’s radar. Poor girl didn’t know what she was in for. I nearly laughed out loud, but didn’t when I remembered I was being observed pretty closely at the moment.
“The only one missing is Aura,” Lissette explained. “But she’s always late. She blames it on having to get her son ready, but that girl’s never been on time a single day in her life,” she added nervously, clearly anxious, wondering what her sisters must be thinking. “Y’all can sit. I have work to do in the kitchen.” I was surprised and grateful when she took my hand and towed me behind her.
“Thanks,” I said quietly once it was just us again.
She nodded and braced her hands against the edge of the counter while she breathed deep. “It’s like they can smell something’s up,” she blurted. “They’re all tense and… and… and weird-acting.”
I smiled and placed my hand at the small of her back before I realized what I’d done and pulled away. “You’ll be fine. We’re in this together, remember?”
When I said the words, her eyes met mine. There was a brief moment of understanding that passed between us as the truth in my words settled on both our hearts.
We were in this together.
Lissette’s lips parted to respond, but she paused when the door buzzed again.
“I got it,” someone called out.
At the sound of one of her sister’s voices, Lissette tore her eyes away from mine and cleared her throat, composing herself. She turned abruptly when whoever had buzzed now entered the apartment. Another quick glance my way and then she headed back to rejoin her family in the living room without ever finishing her thought. Reluctantly, I followed close behind.
In walked Lissette’s pregna
nt sister, Aura—the one she’d talked so much about. They were the closest from what I gathered so far, just based on Lissette’s conversation. After all, she was the only one Lissette had told about us. Her husband came in after her, carrying a cake dish and cookies in a clear, plastic case.
“We come bearing gifts,” Aura announced as she hugged and kissed Lissette. It didn’t even seem like she noticed me standing there yet.
Like before, Lissette inched toward me and touched my arm. This time I was expecting it, not shying away from the heat of her hand. “Aura,” she said jovially. “I’d like you to meet Luke.”
Aura’s eyes locked on me and she cocked her head to the side, sizing me up. Her lips pursed together as she took a few steps in my direction. Her grip was firm when she shook my hand, like she was trying to intimidate me—like a guy would. I’d never been threatened by a pregnant lady before. It was too hard not to smile, so I just didn’t fight it, letting the corners of my mouth turn up while she glared.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
She didn’t say anything, just nodded.
“Whassup, man?” Her husband interjected, shaking his head at his wife for showing out. “Excuse her. These hormones got her actin’ crazy. Name’s Darren.”
I shook his hand when he presented it and introduced myself. “Luke.” Next, I found myself wondering if he knew about the arrangement, too. Probably. Either way, he seemed cool.
“When’s dinner gonna be ready?” He asked Lissette loudly.
She smiled. “When I say it’s ready.”
Aura continued to watch me when I stayed behind so Lissette could put the finishing touches on the meal. At the feel the sisters’ cold vibe, I suddenly wished Matt didn’t have to hide out in Lissette’s room monitoring the video feed. It would’ve been nice for him to be out here as a buffer. Everybody loves him and I hadn’t seen a situation yet that the kid couldn’t defuse.
Again for the First Time Page 6