The Interruption of Everything

by Terry McMillan

  “How long has she been gone?”

  Now there’s silence on the other end. I take the two shiny white packages and drop them in my cart and head for the produce section. “Lovey, have you seen Joy today?”

  “I don’t believe I have.”

  “What about yesterday?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Just think about it for a minute, okay? Take your time.” I grab a bunch of bananas, more salad stuff, and for some reason, a fresh pineapple—which I’m allergic to—and drop it in my cart. I head for the express checkout.

  Now she’s humming “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

  She is scaring me. “Lovey?” I shout out, not caring who hears me.

  “Yes, sweetness.”

  “Would you give the phone to LaTiece for me, please?”

  “Yes, I can do that.” I hear the phone drop on what sounds like the parquet floor she got from Home Depot that one of her friends installed wrong so the lines don’t line up and there are places where they don’t even touch the baseboard.

  I’m in my car now and for some reason I’m starting to hear static. Hurry up, little girl.

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Aunt Marilyn. And that is not how to answer the phone. You say hello first, and then ask who it is. Where’s your mother, LaTiece?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “What day is it?”

  “It’s Friday. Didn’t you and your brother go to school today?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause ain’t nobody made us nothing to eat for dinner since Wednesday when we was watching The Simpsons.”

  “Wednesday! Are you telling Aunt Marilyn that your mama’s been gone since Wednesday?”

  “Nope. She went somewhere on Tuesday but Grandma Lovey tried to cook dinner for us on Wednesday but it wasn’t good so me and LL had some microwave popcorn and macaroni and cheese.”

  I have to make myself slow down when I realize I’m doing eighty-five. I feel like I’m going to explode. I don’t believe this shit. My mother is out in the middle of nowhere-ville with two little kids and her mind is slipping and my foster sister is probably in a crack house somewhere. I get off at my exit, pull over and put on my hazard lights. I’m thinking. Trying to figure out what to do, before something terrible happens to any one or all of them. “LaTiece, are you still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And it’s yes—not yeah. I want you to listen to me very carefully. Can you do that?”

  When she says, “Yeah,” I realize this is not a good time to have speech class.

  “I need you to do exactly what Aunt Marilyn tells you to do, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you know your mama’s cell number?”

  “It don’t work no more.”

  Why am I not surprised? “Okay, you know where Grandma Lovey writes down all those telephone numbers in the kitchen?”

  “Yeah. But she scribbled all over it.”

  “Okay, but there’s some pages underneath the top one that she scribbled on.”

  “Want me to go look?”

  “Can you?”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  She drops the phone on the floor just like Lovey did. This has got to be a nightmare because I could not have picked a better day to go through any of this. I start the car and head on up the hill toward my house. When I see that Joy, I might just strangle her. How can you just go off and leave your young kids with their grandmother, knowing her mind is not what it used to be? And Joy had to have known that Lovey’s condition was a lot more serious than she’s let on. I wouldn’t put it past her if the reason she’s been keeping this from me is because she’s probably worried that if something were to happen to Lovey, or if she required medical attention or worse, supervised care, where would that leave her and the kids? Bitch.

  “It’s still there, Aunt Marilyn.”

  “Go GET it, LaTiece, and bring it back to wherever you are right now.”

  “Can’t LL brang it to me? I already just went in there once already?”

  “I asked YOU to go get it! Now DO it and be quick about it!”

  I think I just heard her say “Shit!” because this time it sounds like she tripped over the phone.

  Lord, what I wouldn’t pay to have these kids for about a year. They can’t fucking speak correct English. They have no damn manners because they haven’t been taught any. I feel sorry for them. To be stuck with a mother like my sister.

  She has been out of control since junior high school. Lovey used to call me late at night in my dorm, at first, worried when she discovered Joy was already smoking cigarettes, and then for advice on how to handle her once marijuana, drinking and hanging out with a bad crowd entered the picture. Lovey couldn’t say enough to stop her. And by the time Joy dropped out in her junior year, Lovey couldn’t persuade her to go back.

  Joy doesn’t seem to know how to love her kids. They live on sugar and grease. Watch whatever they want to on television and go to bed when they get tired. When LaTiece was in kindergarten, her teacher asked what her real name was and she said, “Tiecey.” The teacher said, “No, I mean your real name,” and LaTiece said, “Tiecey!” She didn’t know that wasn’t her real name and Joy was cracking up telling me this story.

  Last Christmas, she “forgot” to send Santa his check so the kids didn’t have anything under that stingy little fake tree except what me and Leon had sent them: a black Barbie with a change of clothes for a week, a jewelry-making kit, PlayStation 2 with four games, a Jerry Rice #80 jersey that LL begged and pleaded for and a pair of Air Force One sneakers he said that everybody at his school was wearing. Plus, we put substantial gift certificates to JCPenney and Target inside Christmas cards addressed to them, which I later learned that Joy sold. This is why Lovey started hiding her checks, but my sister figured out how to intercept them.

  At this rate, these kids don’t stand a chance. They don’t understand grace or tenderness or pride. I do not believe they even know what it feels like to be loved. Except what Lovey may have shown them before they started getting on her nerves. Last summer they spent a week with us, but then didn’t want to go home, so we stretched it into two. I was caught completely off guard when LaTiece just blurted out that she wished I were her mama because she didn’t like hers. LL concurred. I was in shock. But the real blow was when they said their mama doesn’t like them either. I asked what would make them think that and LaTiece said because she tells them. “Sometimes she say: ‘I can’t stand yo’ little grown ass,’ or ‘You make me sick,’ or ‘I wish I could give y’all to somebody.’”

  Somebody gave her away. Maybe you can’t forget that fact no matter what happens. But now, her kids are being forced to fend for themselves. “Okay. I got it,” she says.

  “What took you so long?”

  “’Cause I had to pee.”

  I am grateful to her for sharing that. “Can you read, LaTiece?”

  “Not cursive.”

  “Where is Lovey?”

  “Sitting on the couch over there.”

  “What is she doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Where’s LL?”

  “Upstairs playing video games.”

  “Ask Lovey if she would come to the phone, please.”

  “Gran’ma Lovey, Aunt Marilyn said come get on the phone.”

  That is not what I said.

  “Here her come.”

  “It’s here she comes,” I say, because I have to.

  “Hello there, Marilyn. How are you?”

  I cover my mouth with my hand. But that’s not going to help the situation. I’m only five or six minutes from my house but I slow down to a crawl and let other cars pass. It’s almost dark and through the rearview mirror I see San Francisco all lit up. It doesn’t move me tonight. I take a deep breath and say very slowly, “Lovey, can you look on that paper pad and
tell me when you see your friend Miss Saundra’s phone number? And before you ask me whom I’m talking about, it’s not important right now. Just look for the name: S-a-u-n-d-r-a-N-o-r-m-a-n, and tell me when you see it.”

  “I’m looking. I used to do somebody’s hair by that name. I see it.”

  “Would you read it to me, please?”

  “Why you want her number?”

  “Because I would like to talk to her.”

  “About what?”

  “Lovey, just read me off the number, please!”

  “You just wait a minute, sister! Joy just walked in. She can read it to you. Joy, take this phone before I pop you upside the head with it. Did you bring us something from McDonald’s like you said you would?”

  “Shit, I just walked in the house and my head is killing me. Who is it?”

  “I don’t know but she wants a phone number. Here,” she says, and that damn phone hits the floor for what I hope is the last time.

  “Marilyn, hey, Sis, what’s going on? I was in a car accident a couple of days ago and was laid up at a friend’s house trying to get back on my feet and they put me on some kinda medication that knocked me out and that’s why I just got myself together in time to come home to feed the kids and get Lovey her Big Mac but I’m all right except my head is hurting like a motherfucker—what number was it you wanted?”

  “Never mind. Just tell me something, Joy. Are you staying home tonight?”

  “I can’t go nowhere like this. Yeah.”

  “Then I’ll call you back tomorrow. Do you have any money?”

  “I might have ten dollars.”

  “Go look in the kitchen drawer under Lovey’s straightening comb and bumper curlers and get that twenty-dollar bill I left just for this occasion and order those kids a pizza or something.”

  “You love telling people what to do, don’t you?”

  “Can you just do it?”

  “Tiecey,” she yells. “Go look in Lovey’s hair drawer and find me a twenty-dollar bill and when I hang up this phone I want you to call Domino’s like I showed you and order a pizza and tell ’em to deliver it to this address and don’t act like you can’t remember where you live.”

  “I know where I live,” I hear her say to her mama like she’s thirty. “But I don’t remember the address.”

  “It’s done,” Joy says. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. Were you driving Lovey’s car?”

  “I wasn’t, but somebody else was. It wasn’t his fault and that car is all right.”

  “Where is the car now?”

  “I’m trying to thank,” she says, slurring so bad now I can hear the drool.

  “Come on, Joy,” I moan.

  “My bad! It’s getting fixed at the wrecked-car place. Ma’bad. But don’t worry it’s gon’ be all right. Can we finish this conversation tomorrow?” She doesn’t wait for my response and I hear her struggling to put the phone back in the cradle, but of course she misses and it hits the floor.

  Chapter 11

  Every single light in the house is on like it used to be when Spencer and Simeon were little and they were having a sleepover. I wish the people who lived here were having a party and that I was an invited guest. I want to ring the doorbell. I want to make small talk with people I don’t know. I want to eat food prepared by someone else. I want my real feelings to be so well disguised that even I’m fooled into thinking I’m having a great time. I also want to offer to help clean up so that the hosts can say, “Don’t be ridiculous,” and push me out the door with a plate of food to take home.

  But I am home. And there are enough cars in the driveway and parked out front so that it looks like a party could be going on. Not telling them I was pregnant was a smart move: no explanations are now necessary.

  As soon as the garage door goes up, that Harley is the first thing that catches my eye. It looks like a shiny steel bumblebee. I have yet to see Leon ride it. I pull in between his boring beige Volvo and Arthurine’s 1990 white Coupe de Ville. It’s been parked in this exact spot since she got here and her night blindness set in, but then she also doesn’t have a license anymore because she’s afraid to take the test. Our Tahoe lives outside and its black body has dulled some, but what can you do?

  Even with my windows up I can hear that hip-hop music thumping through the door and then when I get out of the car, the infectious laughter of what sounds like an entire basketball team trampling through the kitchen toward the stairs. There’s a house full of happy people inside. I’m praying no one will detect anything remotely close to grief on my face. I don’t want to ruin the mood.

  Later, when I’m marinating the steaks and Leon’s turning on the grill, I don’t want to pretend to be looking for my special renegade sauce or the seasoned rice-wine vinegar even though I know precisely where they are but it’ll be because I need to turn away from all this insulated joy just for a second, to get centered and grounded, enough to make myself feel their presence so they won’t notice my absence. And as the mixer is swirling through the yellow cake batter I’ll let little Sage pour in the peach juice and I’ll add the peach schnapps myself. I’m going to try my hardest to feel the pleasure of the moment.

  When I pull into the garage, Spencer is standing there. “Mom!” he yells, like he’s been waiting all day to say it. He grabs the bags out of my hands and drops them on the concrete floor without even thinking if there’s anything breakable inside and in one continuous motion he kisses me on my cheek and forehead and squeezes me so tight that my body rises and my shoes fall off. “What took you so long, woman? We’ve been waiting for you to make your grand entrance for the past couple of hours!”

  “I had to stop by the store. Plus, it was rush hour.”

  “Why don’t you leave your cell on? Did you not get our messages?”

  “No. I haven’t checked them all day. Is that food I smell? I know Arthurine didn’t cook, did she?”

  “No, we stopped by Le Cheval on the way home from the airport and Dad picked up a ton of Vietnamese food, so don’t even think about cooking. I’ve missed you, Mom.”

  “I miss you, too, Spencer. And your missing-in-action twin brother. But ‘it’s all good,’” I say, mimicking him.

  “Mom, what’s going on with Dad?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That Harley over there for starters. What’s up with that?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s going through something. He might be a little depressed.”

  “About what?”

  “He said work has been stressing him out a lot lately.”

  “He’s been saying that for years. That’s one of the things I thought he got off on.”

  “Maybe, but short of being a schizoid, I don’t know what else it could be.”

  “Well, he’s tripping hard, whatever it is. You’ll see. Anyway, it’s good to be home,” he says, ushering me into the house and down the hallway into what suddenly feels like a stage in an auditorium and the curtains are about to go up any minute. But this is my kitchen. And this is my nineteen-year-old son Spencer standing right here in front of me. He looks like a leaner, taller, younger, and much better-looking version of his father.

  “Hey, Dad, Mom finally made it home!” he says, when we turn that corner and it’s curtains up.

  At first, I don’t believe my eyes when I see Leon coming toward me in baggy jeans and a gigantic blue jersey on top of a white T-shirt. On his feet are light blue suede boots, just like Spencer and Simeon wear. After all this, he still has the nerve to have on his head a light blue Kangol cap turned backward. He is clearly confused about his identity today. Even his face looks extra clean and shiny, like there’s more of it or something. And that’s when I realize it’s because this idiot has gone and shaved off his moustache and goatee! I’m staring at him, trying to remember what it was about him that ever appealed to me, but I’m drawing a blank. Just what is he trying to prove?

  “Hello, Marilyn,” he says. “You finally made
it. Did everything go okay?”

  “Everything went just fine. What happened to you?”

  “You like it?” he says, twirling around in slow motion.

  “This is what I’m talking out, Mom. I didn’t even recognize Dad at the airport. I told him that we might have to start calling him P. Diddy Senior if this is the track he’s on. But it’s all good.”

  Leon is grinning his butt off. Like his son has finally accepted him into his club. He can’t be this stupid all of a sudden, can he? In fact, he’s actually blushing. He doesn’t seem to realize that he hasn’t impressed anybody but himself, that if he had only spent a few more minutes in the mirror he might have seen the truth staring back at him: a middle-aged conservative businessman dressed up for Halloween as a chubby old hip-hopper twenty years later.

  Leon’s demeanor is much looser than I’ve ever seen, almost as if he’s under the influence of something besides a couple of chardonnays. But he never has more than two glasses because the thought of being out of control scares him. Which is why I’ve never seen him drunk. Maybe he’s just gotten what he apparently needed: an audience. No doubt people will notice him in this getup. I just hate that Spencer’s girlfriend had to see his dad like this—and I certainly hope she doesn’t think Leon is representing us. I wouldn’t dream of leaving this house with him looking like a complete fool. And where is the girl, by the way?

  “Oh, before I forget,” Leon says. “You’ll never guess in a million years who I ran into at the airport.”

  “I’m not in the mood for guessing, Leon, it could be anybody.”

  “No, not just anybody. Who’d you marry by mistake and then come to your senses about when you met me?”

  I feel a lump forming in my throat. I swallow hard because my lips want to say, “Gordon wasn’t a mistake. It was just bad timing,” but instead I say, “That’s nice. How’s he doing?”

  “Fine. He looks great! I can tell he works out. He said he saw you and your girlfriends at that Gill Scott concert but you didn’t mention it.”

  “I wasn’t sure if that was him or not, it’s been so long. And it’s Jill Scott, Leon.”

  “Anyway, he was picking up what looked like his new girlfriend the way he greeted her, and man oh man, I must give the man credit for having good taste because she was absolutely breathtaking. I kid you not. I think she might be from Africa. She just looked exotic and unbelievably graceful. Anyway, I told Gordon that they should stop by sometime, and he said he’d love to.”