“But that’s no reason to destroy their marriage.”
“What marriage? If I were a married woman I’d want to know, even ten years later, that my husband had screwed around on me. And you can’t convince me he still isn’t out there screwing around.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe my behind. You can’t convince me he’s not.”
Taye would never admit to Sharon that she knew for a fact that he was. Over the years she had run into him a number of times with different women, none of whom was his wife. She ran her fingers through her short hair. “Look, Sharon, I need to check on Mrs. Walker. This conversation is over and you’re wrong. I feel nothing for Monica’s father. At one time I wanted to hate him, but now I actually thank him for her. I just wish the circumstances surrounding her conception were different.”
“If you still don’t want to tell me who he is, then that’s fine. But I think it’s time that you sit down and talk to Monica about her father, Taye.”
Taye nodded. “I will.”
Without saying anything else, she turned and walked out of the room.
Two hours later Taye was hanging up her cape for the day when Sharon entered the back room with a deep frown on her face.
“You may as well put that cape back on, girlfriend. The Wicked Witch of the South just blew in on her broomstick.”
Silently Taye cursed. “Please tell me you’re lying.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t. She’s here with her nice-nasty self.”
“But she doesn’t have an appointment.”
“Does she ever? All she needs is some news to rub in your face about her precious Brandy, and she feels she can prance her butt in here at any time to deliver it.”
Taye sighed, knowing Sharon was right. The woman they were discussing was none other than Valerie Constantine. Thirty years ago at the age of sixteen, Valerie had gotten pregnant from Taye’s uncle Victor. Victor had refused to do the honorable thing and marry Valerie, and she had placed the blame for his decision on the Bennett family. She accused them of poisoning Victor’s mind against her by making him doubt the child was actually his. Even if that had been true, any such notion had gotten dispelled once Brandy had been born looking just like Uncle Victor. But Valerie had never forgiven Victor’s family and she enjoyed rubbing any available Bennett’s nose in the fact that Brandy, who was the same age as Taye and was a professor with a Ph.D. at Howard University, was doing extremely well. Valerie figured that if she made it a point to tell Taye, then she would pass the word on to all the other Bennetts and make them pea-green with envy. Little did Valerie know that due to her busy schedule, Taye rarely saw her family, who mostly lived in Macon, which was an hour’s drive from Atlanta.
Ignoring Sharon’s “tell the witch off for once” expression, Taye walked out of the room into the front of the salon.
Sharon’s beauty salon, Total Elegance, was just that. Cashing in all of her savings she’d earned while working five years in the corporate world, Sharon had gone from employee to entrepreneur, coming up with an idea for what would be every woman’s dream—a one-stop beauty salon. The decor was one of total sophistication and style. There was a special room for manicures and pedicures, one for facials and body massages, and another for stylists specializing in all types of hair care services and makeup applications. The shop also contained a library with books on spiritual and personal growth. Future expansion plans included a spa as well as a lingerie shop. Total Elegance was specifically designed for the sistah on the go who believed in making every minute count and wanted to face the world feeling her best as well as looking it. Absolutely no one was seen without an appointment, so it rattled Taye to know each time Valerie Constantine visited she was breaking the rules by being a walk-in. It was time she was reminded of that fact.
Words failed Taye when she walked into the room and saw Valerie standing in front of a makeup display. Evidently she had a lot to boast about today, Taye thought, studying the woman’s anxious air without letting her presence be known. Valerie was wearing a long black fur coat that was superbly tailored to fit her tall form. The coat screamed money, and no doubt Valerie was here to flaunt that fact. Taye shook her head. Of all the women she’d known her uncle Victor to either mess around with or marry, Valerie was one she could give credit to for keeping herself looking good. At the age of forty-six she was still a nice-looking woman.
Taye took a deep breath before she spoke. “Valerie, I’m surprised to see you here today. I checked the books and you don’t have an appointment.”
Valerie’s beautifully carved mouth twisted in an expression of haughtiness that was heightened by the flare of ire in the inky darkness of her eyes. Taye knew Valerie hadn’t liked being reminded of the fact that at Total Elegance she was no better than anyone else. That was a point she seemed to overlook at times.
“Really, Octavia, I’m sure you can squeeze me in today,” Valerie returned silkily. “All I want is a wash and set…and if you can, I’d like you to give special attention to the gray hair at my temples. I want you to do something with it.”
Taye lifted a brow, wondering just what Valerie thought she could do with her gray hair other than color it? She wasn’t a miracle worker.
“Besides,” Valerie was saying, “I have some absolutely wonderful news to share with you about Brandy.”
Like there’s any other reason for your visit, Taye thought. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to accommodate you today, Valerie. I promised the girls I’d take them for pizza and a movie this evening. I was just about to leave.”
“Really? I thought you’d jump at the chance to earn an additional dollar or two. I heard you’ve finally moved out of those apartments and purchased a home. I’d imagine it’s not easy being a single mother.”
“You of all people would know.” Taye smiled. It was time she took the bull by the horns and put Valerie in her place as Sharon had suggested many times.
Valerie’s dark eyes turned on her. “Actually, Octavia, that was years ago and I really don’t remember. As you know, Brandy has been doing extremely well for herself. In fact…how do you like my coat?” Valerie asked, giving an arrogant sweep of her hand down the full length of the fur coat.
Before Taye could respond, Valerie said, “It was a gift from Brandy’s fiancé.”
Taye nodded. So that was Valerie’s news. She decided to play along for good measure, hoping it would get Valerie out of the salon a lot quicker. “Brandy’s getting married? Why, that’s wonderful. When you speak to her again, tell her I said congratulations.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that on to her,” Valerie responded in an amused tone. “Of course her wedding will be a very elaborate affair. She may decide to include you, Rae’jean, and Alexia as bridesmaids. After all, the four of you were born the same year and are first cousins.”
Taye rolled her eyes. She doubted very seriously that Brandy would include her, Rae’jean, or Alexia in on anything. Brandy, the spoiled, bad-mannered brat, had grown up to become the witch’s daughter, a title she wore well.
“And you can tell your Uncle Victor not to worry,” Valerie was saying. “I won’t be hitting him up for any money to pay for his daughter’s wedding. Brandy’s fiancé is loaded, and I mean loaded, and he has offered to pay for everything. He even wants to have the wedding in Jamaica. Isn’t that just wonderful?”
“Yes, off the chain,” Taye said in a dry tone.
Valerie’s face brightened. “Cheer up, Octavia; maybe your day will come eventually. I’m sure there’s some man out there willing to take on a wife with a ready-made family.”
“Really?” Taye said with a wry twist to her mouth. “In that case, I guess I’d remain a single woman. It seems to have worked for you all these years.” She couldn’t help but smile. She’d made another hit. The darkening of Valerie’s eyes indicated that she had.
Valerie tightened her coat around her. “Well, I must be going. You will tell your family the good news whenever yo
u see them again, won’t you?”
“If I happen to remember,” Taye said on a note of satisfaction. She had put up with Valerie’s rudeness enough over the years and refused to tolerate it anymore. “I tend to forget trivial things, since my mind is cluttered with far more serious matters.”
It was of great comfort when she watched an angry Valerie, with all her snooty airs, turn to walk out of the shop. Her comfort was short-lived when Valerie turned back around and said, “It must be a huge burden of guilt for you to carry around the fact that you’re such a big disappointment to your family. I’m sure you know they used to put you on a pedestal, always bragging about how smart you were with your gift for numbers and how far you would go. Idella and Ethan would even brag about your growing up and becoming the first black woman Secretary of the Treasury. Imagine that. Now just look at you and what you’re doing. What a shame.”
With a haughty smile on her face, Valerie walked out of the shop.
Taye’s nerves were still on edge when she left Total Elegance and headed for home. Her confrontation with Valerie had not helped matters, because Valerie had hit a sore spot with her, a very sore spot. She had let her family down, but who’d given them the right to put her on a pedestal anyway? After all, she was human and was allowed to make mistakes.
Even what they considered as two of them.
When she came to a traffic light, Taye momentarily took her eyes off the road and glared at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She hadn’t particularly liked herself lately, and thanks to Valerie she’d been reminded why. Everything the woman said was true. Taye was carrying a burden of guilt around and had done so for thirteen years. Her family had bragged from the day she’d entered preschool that one day she would be somebody. Why couldn’t they see that she had become somebody? Maybe she wasn’t who they had wanted her to be, but still, being a single mother raising two girls did make her somebody.
No one, other than Sharon and the people Taye had grown close to at church, ever complimented her on how well mannered her daughters were or how, compared to other kids their age, they were extremely considerate, mindful, and obedient. She was proud that Sebrina and Monica were her daughters and no one else’s. And no matter what mistakes she had made in bringing them into the world, she was trying to not make any mistakes in raising them.
Taye shifted her thoughts from Sebrina and Monica to her cousins Rae’jean and Alexia. She couldn’t help but wonder if they had any burdens they were bearing that the family had shouldered on them. Probably not, she thought. Rae’jean had always been considered the “pretty one,” and she was still absolutely beautiful. The last time Taye had seen her was at Rae’jean’s mama’s funeral. Because of the number of people who had attended, it had been nearly impossible for the two of them to spend a lot of time together. At the time Rae’jean had been in her third year of medical school, fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a heart specialist. Now she worked as a cardiologist at a huge hospital in Boston.
Then there was Alexia. Taye doubted Alexia was carrying around any burdens, since some family members hadn’t ever showered her with any glowing expectations. She’d had a beautiful voice and everyone in the family had known that, but none of them ever suspected her voice would carry her as far as it had. At least no one had known other than their grandparents, Mama Idella and Poppa Ethan, and Taye and Rae’jean. Now Alexia had made it big as part of that singing group Body and Soul and was living on easy street. She never failed to remember the girls’ birthdays and always sent them advance copies of Body and Soul’s new releases.
Taye thought about all those weekends as teenagers they had spent with Mama Idella and Poppa Ethan. Those had been special times for her, Rae’jean, and Alexia. At least they were special times until Valerie forced Brandy’s company on them. Brandy had always been a pain in the butt…just like her mother.
Taye then thought about another cousin named Michael, who often had spent those weekends with them. Three years older than they were, he was the grandson of Poppa Ethan’s first cousin, Henry. She smiled remembering the crush she’d had on Michael from the time she’d turned thirteen, a secret she’d only shared with Sharon, Rae’jean, and Alexia. News that you thought yourself in love with your cousin wasn’t something you wanted to get out. But still, as a teenager, she’d gone to sleep several times with thoughts of him on her mind. Her feelings for Michael had lasted until he left for the air force just a mere two months before her sixteenth birthday. She shook her head, thinking it was hard to believe that as close as she, Rae’jean, Alexia, and Michael had been, now they rarely communicated with one another because of everyone’s busy schedule and lifestyles.
Alexia was busy out in LA making hit records, and Michael, the last Taye had heard, was living somewhere in Minnesota working as a pilot for a major airline. His wife had gotten killed in a car accident around six years ago, and he was a single father raising his daughter.
As Taye pulled off the main road onto the lane leading into her subdivision, her brows drew together when for no reason she began to feel uneasy. It was only after she had turned the corner to her street that she understood the reason behind her uneasiness.
Her parents’ car was parked in her driveway.
Deliberately Taye straightened, lifted her chin, and inserted her key in the door. She didn’t want to remember the scene that had ensued the last time her parents had visited. Her father, as usual, had tried being the peacemaker, which wasn’t an easy task when you were married to Otha Mae Robbins Bennett. She had had the nerve to question how Taye could afford such a home in a nice area of Atlanta. She’d all but accused her of being a kept woman.
What her parents didn’t know and what she had refused to tell them was that Sharon had loaned her the money for the down payment and she was in the process of paying Sharon back. If things stayed on track, the loan would be paid off by the end of the year.
Her mother, Taye accepted, would forever blame her for the embarrassment she’d caused the family by having not one but two babies out of wedlock. Although she knew her parents loved her and their granddaughters dearly, the fact still remained that she had messed up her mother’s well-laid-out plans for her future.
And to this day Taye’s mother never let her forget it. That was the main reason Taye rarely traveled to Macon, where the majority of the Bennetts still lived. She would love to take the girls and just spend a peaceful and relaxing day with Poppa Ethan. But if word got out that she’d visited Poppa Ethan without visiting her own parents, it would create an even bigger division between them.
Taye nervously opened the door, wondering why her parents were here. Had something happened to Poppa Ethan or one of her brothers? Bryan, her oldest brother, was almost forty, and Darryl was thirty-six. Both were married and had two kids and lived in Dallas.
Taye entered her living room and looked around. There was no sign of Sebrina or Monica, or her parents for that matter. In fact, the house was unusually quiet.
“Sebrina. Monica. I’m home!” she called out.
When she didn’t get a response she walked through the house, only to turn up nothing and no one. When she got to the kitchen she noted the back door was slightly ajar. Walking over to it, she then noticed her father and her daughters in the backyard on their knees. They appeared to be burying something.
Taye went to the window for a closer look. They weren’t burying anything but were on their knees planting something. Tears formed in her eyes when she realized what her father and the girls were planting. It was a peach tree.
Her father, who enjoyed the outdoors, had helped her plant her very first peach tree when she was Monica’s age. Together they had planted it and together they had watched it grow. From her father’s love of nature she had grown up appreciating the environment, and she had taught her daughters to do the same.
As she blinked back her tears, she saw that Monica had looked up, noticed her standing at the window, and waved. Whatever her younger daughter sa
id to her grandfather made him and Sebrina turn their heads and look up, too. Taye was then reminded of the information Sharon had shared with her about Monica’s curiosity regarding her father’s identity. Taye knew it would be a good idea for her to have a discussion with Monica this weekend about her father, since Sebrina would be spending the weekend over at a friend’s house. Just what she would say to Monica she wasn’t quite sure, but one thing was for certain: she wouldn’t divulge his identity just yet.
As Taye brought her focus back on the three people outside the window, she noticed they were now heading back toward the house. She walked over to the door to meet them.
Automatically, unashamedly, her daughters embraced her and told her how glad they were to see her. She had always encouraged their open display of affection. She told them daily that she loved them, and they did likewise with her. They didn’t know how much she needed to hear that. Everyone needed to know they were loved.
“Grampa helped us plant a peach tree in the backyard,” Monica said excitedly. “Isn’t that great?”
“Yes, sweetheart, that’s wonderful.” Sebrina, Taye noticed, was hanging back with an all-knowing and an ever-observant eye. Three years older than Monica and three years wiser, her older daughter had long ago picked up on the strained relationship between Taye and her parents.
Taye let her gaze leave Sebrina to come to rest on her father, the mighty Joe Bennett. For some reason today he appeared taller and his shoulders wider. Since his retirement from the railroad four years ago, he still dressed in the work clothes he’d worn for years, denim overalls over a blue shirt and a billed cap that covered his graying head. She thought he looked in pretty good shape for a man who would be fifty-seven later this year.
“Dad, it’s good seeing you. What brings you here for a visit?”
“I had you and the girls on my mind and thought I’d drop by and see you. On the way in I stopped by Victor’s nursery and got that peach tree for the girls.”
A Family Reunion Page 2