She shrugged. “Wish they’d hurry up, though. This waiting is about to kill me.”
“Tell me about it. I wonder how many entries they got total.”
“Couple of hundred probably, but who knows.”
“You going to this pizza party Leah’s uncle is giving?”
“Yeah. She said he’s going to show us how to make pizza from scratch so since I’m into the cooking shows, I’m interested. You coming?”
“I don’t know. Sounds kind of lame.”
She rolled her eyes. “Everything is lame to you.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is. You had the easy life growing up—two parents, nice house, too, I’ll bet. Grandparents. The whole American dream thing.”
“So I’m supposed to deny that?”
“Nope, but you’re content to not put too much effort into things because you’ve always had them—like delivered pizza. You’re happy just opening a delivery box and not wondering how that pizza got made.”
“You’re not making sense. You know that, right?”
“I am making sense. It’s just easier for you to say I’m not so you don’t have to dig beneath that comfort zone of yours.”
“No comfort in losing my mom.”
“True, but kids like Amari, Preston, and myself had to deal with the loss of ours from day one. You don’t know how blessed you are, dude.”
“I do.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Changing the subject. I went over to check on Wyatt the day he walked away from the table and he closed the door in my face.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I think there’s a lot more going on with him than he’s letting us see.”
“Probably. Lost his mom. Grew up on the South Side. Probably one of the few White kids. I’d have a lot going on underneath, too. You going to try and be big brother?”
Eli hadn’t given that any thought. It sounded like a good idea though, and would probably win him points with her. “Yeah. If he’ll let me.”
They were now in front of her house. She gathered her stuff from the floor of the car. “Sounds good. Let the rest of us know if we can help, and if you learn anything new about him we might need to know.”
“I will.”
“God, I hope the letter from the contest is in the mailbox,” she said, looking at her house.
“Me, too.”
“Now, remember you’re supposed to be happy for me when I win.”
He laughed. “Get out of my car, girl. I’ll text you later.”
Giving him a smile, she did just that.
Backing out of her driveway, he drove across the street to his own house.
Once inside, Eli made himself a sandwich. His dad wouldn’t be home for at least another hour, so he needed something to tide him over until dinner. If he knew how to cook he could get their meal started but his dad had always done the cooking and he’d done the eating, so he didn’t know how. He thought back on the conversation he’d had with Crystal in the car. Was this what she’d meant about him not looking past his comfort zone? Eli didn’t expect to have the world handed to him, or did he? He certainly expected his dad to cook dinner, but he helped out, too. He cleaned his own bathroom, did his own laundry—well, sometimes. He also put the dishes in the dishwasher after dinner. Since his mom’s death his dad had taken over the chores she used to handle and Eli never really thought about how his dad felt about carrying the load. He just expected his dad to do it. It never occurred to him until that moment that maybe his dad would like to come in after school and chill sometimes instead of heading straight to the kitchen to cook for his almost nineteen-year-old son every day. He winced at that truth. He supposed he was being selfish. Damn you, Crystal. Now he was going to have to learn to cook.
After school, TC and his nieces piled into his truck and drove the short distance to the grocery store. Once there, Tiffany grabbed a cart.
“You have our list, Leah?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. What’s first?”
She looked at her phone. “Tomato paste.”
When they reached the right aisle he stood back and watched Leah pick up a can, before asking her, “Is that paste or sauce?”
She read the label. “Oh, this is sauce.” She put it back, studied the other red-labeled products nearby and grabbed another can. “This is paste.”
Tiff asked, “What’s the difference?”
“Paste is thick. Sauce is loose, almost like juice,” he explained while Leah put a number of the correct cans into the cart.
“Never knew there was a difference,” Leah admitted.
“That’s why we’re doing this,” he said with a smile. “What’s next?”
She consulted the list on her phone again. “Yeast.”
In the baking aisle Tiff stopped the cart at the yeast.
TC said, “We need rapid-rise.”
Both girls studied the offerings. Tiff found it first.
“You sure it’s rapid-rise?” he asked her.
“Yep. Says so right here,” and she pointed at the wording before tossing the packets into the cart.
“Cheese next,” Leah told them. “Parmesan and mozzarella.”
When they reached the dairy aisle he once again made the girls double-check the package labeling to ensure they’d picked up the correct product. They then moved on to the meat. After adding ham and pepperoni, sliced turkey, bacon, and a few other choices to their cart, Leah said they needed dried oregano, so they grabbed a bottle and because TC liked mushrooms on his pizza, a small package was added to the cart as well.
“Is that everything, Leah?” Tiff asked.
“I think so.”
They were on their way to the checkout when Gary walked up.
“Hey, Daddy,” Tiff said.
“Hey there. You guys find everything you needed for your pizza party?”
Leah nodded. “We did. This was fun.”
That was music to TC’s ears.
“Good. Just checking. I’ll see you at the house. Thanks, TC.”
“No problem. Like Leah said, we had fun.”
Gary left them to go back to his duties. Their cashier was Wyatt’s grandmother, Gemma, and after she checked them out, groceries were put in the truck and the happy trio drove home.
They were putting everything away when TC’s phone sounded. Seeing his daughter Bethany’s profile picture put a smile on his face. “Hey, baby girl.”
“Hey, Daddy. How are you?”
Excusing himself from Tiffany and Leah, he walked into the living room and took a seat on the couch. “I’m doing good.”
“How’s Mayberry?”
That made him smile. “Stop hating on your cousin’s town. It’s a nice place. Slow but nice.”
“Everywhere’s slow compared to Oakland. So, are you still coming to see me this summer?”
Bethany managed a large resort on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. “That’s the plan.”
“Good. I may have found a class for you to take while you’re here.”
TC stilled.
As the silence lengthened, she asked, “Daddy? You still there?”
“I am.”
“I know you don’t want me up in your business—”
“You’re right.”
Her voice was contrite. “I’m sorry. Not trying to make you feel bad or anything but you can do this. The teacher promises it’ll be a really small class, and I’ll help.”
“I have to go, Beth baby. I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Daddy—”
“Bye.” Fighting off the troubling emotions triggered by the conversation, he went back into the kitchen to check on the girls.
Later that evening while alone in the spare bedroom that had been turned into his own, TC pointed the remote at the big flat screen and clicked it off. Lying there in bed, he thought back on Bethany’s call. The father in him owed her an apology. She’d only been try
ing to help and he appreciated her concern even though it wasn’t needed, or at least that’s what he’d been telling himself all these years. He reached over and turned off the light. Sometimes a person could admit things in the dark that they couldn’t at any other time and for him it was that he couldn’t read. He was what the folks on a program he’d watched on PBS called functionally illiterate. He knew numbers and basic words but lacked the ability to read a book from cover to cover or pore over the sports section in a newspaper. His father, Elwood, hadn’t been able to read, either. He’d grown up in Mississippi, the son of sharecroppers, and had chopped cotton instead of going to school because his help had been necessary to put food on the table. When he became a man and moved west, the dock supervisors hired him for his brawn, not his brain. He made a decent living for a man of color in the ’40s so schooling hadn’t been important, and with times being what they were he hadn’t seen its importance for his son, either. Whether TC’s mother was literate or not, TC would never know. She left him and his father when he was about six and he never saw her again. With his father working long hours and being dead on his feet when he finally did make it home, TC basically raised himself. No one cared if he went to school or not, nor was there anyone around to make sure he did his homework. When he grew old enough, he too went to work on the docks and a few years later, saw a pretty little brown beauty named Carla George at a dance one night and fell head over heels in love. He courted her for six months before admitting the truth and to his surprise she didn’t walk away and eventually agreed to be his bride. Over the years, she kept his secret, covering for him when she could, but always gently encouraged him to bite the bullet and take a class. He never did and that was why he’d taken the girls to the store. He couldn’t read the labels on the cans. He knew some things by sight like meat and eggs, and even though tomato paste and tomato sauce often came in different sized cans, he wasn’t familiar with the brands Gary carried and he needed the girls to read the labels for him. He also needed them to get the yeast because rapid-rise was different than the regular kind. Yes, it had been a shopping exercise for them but it was also one of the tricks of the trade employed by a man with his deficiency. He thought back on Genevieve and her literacy classes. He sensed she might be the one to help him out, but like many people in his position there was an element of embarrassment and shame tied to his condition. They’d had such a nice time together at lunch. Would she think less of him if he confessed the truth and asked for her help? There was no way to know and he didn’t want to mess things up with her. So he lay in the dark haunted by his future and his past. Right before Carla died he promised her that he’d learn in her memory but hadn’t kept his word. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered. And he was.
He turned over hoping for sleep, but it was a long time coming.
Friday morning, Gen rode over to the rec with Tamar to help set up for movie night. There were hot dogs to take out of the freezer, packages of buns to count, cartons of soda syrup to mix and put into the fridge, and countless other duties that went into making the weekly gathering a success. Bobby Douglas had been tapped by Tamar to be their muscle for the morning. Under Gen’s supervision he was moving the big popcorn machines into place when Clay walked in.
“Can I talk to you for a minute, Genevieve?”
Even at the age of sixty plus Clay Dobbs with his golden skin was still gorgeous as a sunrise, but when she unconsciously began to compare him to the tall dark handsome TC, she shook her thoughts back to the matter at hand. “Sure. Bobby, see what else Tamar needs help with. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Let’s go to the gym,” Clay said.
Upon entering, she asked, “What do you want to talk to me about?”
“I hear you had lunch with Gary’s uncle.”
“And?”
“Are you trying to make me jealous?”
“It was lunch. It had nothing to do with you.”
Obviously upset, he looked off for a moment. She hoped he didn’t think he had the right to tell her what she could or couldn’t do but he gave the impression that he did.
“I don’t want you having lunch with him again.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not your child.”
“Genevieve, I know we’re having some issues, and you probably think—”
“Stop right there. You don’t know what I’m thinking because if you did we wouldn’t be having these so-called issues. You’ve stated your position. I stated mine. I’m not the woman you want. I can live with that.”
“You’re too old to be trying to turn yourself into somebody different,” he gritted out.
That hurt. “Thank you, Clay. I really wanted to hear that. Excuse me, I have to get back to work.” And she left so he wouldn’t see her tears.
On her way down the hall, Sheila stepped out of one of the storage rooms. “Gen? Are you okay?”
“No, but I will be.”
“What’s wrong?”
An angry Clay passed them by without a word. As he barreled through the door leading to the parking lot, Gen said, “That’s what’s wrong.” She told her about the hard time Clay had been giving her, and what he’d said.
Sheila shook her head disapprovingly. “You know I had the same sort of problem with Barrett.”
“I do.” Sheila left her husband for a brief time in response to his extramarital affair and returned revamped and stronger.
“He didn’t like who I turned myself into but the more I liked myself the more I didn’t care what he thought. Stick to your guns, girl. There’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing. At all.”
Gen wiped her eyes. It was good hearing Sheila affirm what she already knew. And she was not too old. “Thanks, Sheila.”
Sheila draped an arm over her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Forget about Old Man Sourpuss Clay Dobbs. A man worth your heart will love who you are.”
Gen raised her chin and smiled. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now let’s get back to the kitchen before She Who Must Be Obeyed sends the bloodhounds to track us down.”
Walking beside Sheila, Gen felt much better, but Clay calling her too old continued to resonate like a sore tooth for the rest of the day.
To TC, walking into the auditorium for the Friday night movies felt like walking into the town meeting or the Dog. The atmosphere screamed community and all the word encompassed. His plan had been to stay in Henry Adams through the summer and get back on the road before the snow fell, but the more he got to know the place and its residents the more it pulled at him to extend his stay. Granted, the slow pace was taking a bit of getting used to—after all, he was a city boy—but he was enjoying the small-town vibe.
Following his nieces and Gary down the aisle he marveled at how packed the place was and that the auditorium with its plum-colored seats and huge stage was grander than he’d imagined. To the left was the concession area with large hot-air popcorn machines, a hot dog station and others with people lined up buying nachos and ice cream. The facility would be a perfect venue for a big-time concert. Thinking about that made him discreetly scan the room for Genevieve Gibbs. She said she always attended the movies and he hadn’t seen her since they’d had lunch together the other day. He spotted her serving up hot dogs. She wore a white apron over her blue sweatshirt and jeans, but even in the casual attire she looked elegant somehow.
“You ladies want food?” Gary asked his daughters.
Leah responded, “We’ll get some after we get our seats.”
Gary said to TC, “Which means: See you later, old guys.”
Leah grinned, and she and Tiff headed for a group of young people farther down the aisle near the stage.
“Do we old guys have a designated area, too?” TC asked.
“Not really. We just can’t sit with them.”
TC felt eyes on his back and turned to see a light-skinned man about his age glaring his way. “Who’s the guy in the red-check shirt?”
Gary tu
rned. “Clay Dobbs. Gen’s boyfriend. Like everybody else in town, he probably heard you two had lunch.”
TC remembered him now from the town meeting. “She said they aren’t together anymore. Irreconcilable differences was how she put it.”
“Interesting,” Gary said, eyeing him closely.
TC held up his hands. “I think she’s fine, but I had nothing to do with whatever their issues are.”
“I’m not one for spreading rumors but this is a small town and word is he’s having a hard time with her new personality,” Gary said.
Seeing TC’s confusion, he explained. “I guess she used to be pretty timid but she isn’t anymore.”
TC found that surprising. She seemed so confident he couldn’t imagine her timid or why her man would want her to remain that way.
They found seats and TC asked, “You think I can go over and get a hot dog without Clay shooting me in the back?”
Gary chuckled. “I guess we’ll find out. I saw Reggie when we came in. I think he can handle a buckshot victim.”
“He’s the doctor, right?”
Gary nodded.
“Okay. You want anything?”
“Bring me a dog and a cola. I’ll hold down our seats.”
“Okay.”
On his way to the hot dogs, Dobbs shot TC another glare. TC ignored him. He’d never been a fighting man but if push came to shove he could handle his business. He was a good four or five inches taller than Dobbs and outweighed him as well, so unless the man knew some kind of karate or had a gun, TC figured he’d come out on top. However, he also knew not to underestimate any man—especially one who thought you might be hitting on his woman.
The woman in question gave him a smile when it was his turn to order. “Hey, Mr. Barbour.”
“How are you, Ms. Gibbs?”
“I’m doing good. You?”
“No complaints.”
“What can I get you?”
He told her and she filled his order. After giving him his change, she handed him two cups. “The soda machine is over there to your right. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” He moved aside and the next person in line took his place. Loaded down with the drinks and dogs, TC made his way back to his seat. If Dobbs was still glaring, he didn’t know or care.
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