by DL White
"Using it for its God-given purpose."
My childhood home had looked like the pages of Southern Living for as long as I could remember. The color scheme changed yearly, but purple was Mom's favorite color. This year, the decor was lavender and coral with a mint accent. I once called it purple, green, and pink and got a smack upside the head.
I followed Mom through the house, letting her lead me like I didn't know where I was going. We ended up in the kitchen, the epicenter of family activity. Mom could burn, as the kids say, and she liked to burn at least two if not three times a day. Years ago, Pops surprised her with the Viking range of her dreams. She only watched cooking shows on TV and famous chefs, to her, were rock stars. She would live in the kitchen if she had her way.
"I thought we'd eat out on the patio. Saul is already out there."
She nodded toward the pair of glass doors off of the kitchen and beyond them to the paver patio. A glass table was already set with four places and a sunny sunflower centerpiece. Pops was in his usual chair, content with a book in his hand and a glass of ice water at his elbow. The four outdoor lamps that flanked the table were already lit, casting a glow over him.
"Mom." I turned. "Four place settings."
"Yes. Missy is coming."
An eyebrow shot up. "I can't give him bad news because he can't handle stress, but Missy is coming to dinner."
She handed me a dish of mini ears of corn on the cob. "He wanted to see his daughter. I invited her. She said she would come. I set a place." She lifted her hands in a surrender gesture. "Come on, we're waiting on the corn."
Pops' head rose as I stepped through the patio doors and he slipped a bookmark into the pages. He had been looking well lately. Bright and alert eyes, healthy, deep color, no longer gray and sallow. He was a big man at 6' 6", 300lbs, but the trauma of the heart attack had taken some of his bulk. Over the past few months, he had put weight back on. His silver hair had been cut and lined, and he wore a white Pettigrew polo and jeans.
Pops was all about not looking like an invalid. As soon as he could dress, he refused to wear the pajamas and fleece pants I had bought him. Jeans were as casual as he would go these days.
"Hey, old man. You good?"
"Evening, son." He made a move to stand. I rushed to him, urging him to sit with a clap to his shoulder. He relaxed again, picking up his water glass for a sip. He smiled as he set the glass back down. "I'm feeling fine. Glad you could come. I've been alone with your mother all day. Torturous."
Mom clicked her tongue while she busied herself around the table. "Do not listen to him. The world's worst patient has been in a mood all day."
"And you're late. She was about to call you a name."
"Those drugs he's on are making him delusional. Come on, Trey. Sit. Eat. Talk with your dad so he can stop talking to me."
I pulled a chair out and sat. Mom dished up a roast chicken breast, red potatoes, and green beans and set it in front of him.
"Tell me about Miller," he said, picking up his fork and a knife. "Weren't you meeting with him last night? And what happened to your hand, son?"
I had taken off the bandages to let the wounds breathe. My mother gaped at my raw knuckles and jumped up from her chair. Then she was hovering, poking, and frowning. "What in the world? Did you hit someone? Are they still alive?"
"It looks worse than it feels. Yeah, he's still alive and hopefully in jail."
I relayed the story to my parents from the brief conversation with the woman at Bistro to her attack and later, finding her wallet and deciding to take it to her.
"Well, I'm sure she was shaken up." My mother was back in her seat and listening to my story with rapt attention. "To have some strange man show up at her house late at night? You're lucky she didn't greet you with a pistol."
I laughed at that. The only pistol Esme Whitaker seemed to have on her was her mouth.
"Anyway, Pops, by the time I finished with the police, Miller had left."
Pops grunted, slamming his fork onto the table. "Trey, if that bid comes out and we don't own Miller–"
"We won't have a chance of winning it. I know."
The constant need to remind me of what was on the line was wearing me thin. Pettigrew was well-positioned to win the construction business for a new county hospital if they could show experience in healthcare construction. We built commercial structures–schools, grocery stores, parking complexes, shopping plazas, the occasional office building. The healthcare field required additional steps to meet codes and guidelines.
Miller's line of work was clinics and hospitals, not only small buildings but state-of-the-art facilities. With his staff's expertise and software, coupled with the Pettigrew name, we were positioned to bust into a new business vertical. I wasn't about to screw that up if I could help it.
"I have good news. I spoke with Miller late this afternoon, and we've rescheduled our meeting. I thought he might have been going soft, but he wants to talk about contracts on Monday morning. We're on track."
At this news, Pops seemed to relax. He picked up his fork and poked two green beans on his plate. "Maybe I should put Vincent on this one. There are other things you could take care of."
Bristling at the suggestion, I bunched up my napkin and tossed it onto the table. "With all due respect, Pops…"
"Vincent's just more of a shark. A closer, if you will."
"You gave this job to me. You told me you wanted me to do it. You wanted my hands in it."
He lifted his glass and sipped from it, then licked his lips as he lowered it back to the table. "I tell you to set up a meeting and get a deal brokered with Miller. You whittle away that meeting time sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong."
"I should have just sat there? That man could have killed her."
"I hope the young lady is appreciative, because if you've cost us thirty million dollars-"
"Trey is right, Saul," Mom interrupted. "We didn't raise him to be a do-nothing type of man. If Pettigrew doesn't get this bid, another one will come along."
The vase of flowers and all the dishes jumped when Pops slammed his fist down on the table. "Dammit! When I start something, I finish it! I want this deal done. If you can't do it, I'll bring in someone who can. Do you understand?"
"Yo. I got it, Pops." I reached for him, clasping his shoulder. "Breathe. You can't get worked up like this."
"Saul, please," pleaded Mom.
Pops inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. The lines across his forehead regressed. "I'm fine," he muttered. "I want this shit done, and I don't want to hear excuses."
He paused for a breath and then said, "I thought you made cobbler."
"I'll get you a little. And some frozen yogurt."
Mom rose from her chair, shooting me a dirty glare for half a second before heading back into the house. I watched her pull a pan of golden brown, bubbling cobbler out of the oven, then reach into the cabinet for three bowls. As she opened the freezer door, a willowy figure appeared.
My heart seized in my chest as if I was the one recovering from a heart attack.
Melissa, or Missy, as she liked to be called, had been a charming child, full of personality and boundless energy. She didn't sit still for any length of time. She was disruptive in her classes, aggressive with her friends and classmates, prone to fits of fantasy and then long, sullen, and quiet phases. She rarely slept and often refused to eat, rapidly cycling through moods.
She saw family doctors, then psychiatrists, was prescribed one medication and then another. They treated symptoms and tried to curb behaviors, but Missy was admitted to the children's ward at Brownwood Residential Center in Birmingham, Alabama. I saw Missy every few months until she turned eighteen when she left Brownwood since they couldn't legally keep her.
Missy found life to be difficult given an extensive treatment plan. She couldn't maintain employment long enough to support herself, so Mom and Dad had been taking care of her. Keeping Missy well was as much a stressor as run
ning Pettigrew had been.
Missy smiled, wrapping her arms around Mom and chatting away. Her hair was wrapped in a brightly colored scarf. She wore a black tank top, a long black skirt, and sandals. She looked much better than she'd looked the last time I had seen her, but that had been at the hospital. Missy didn't deal well, emotionally, with Pops' condition.
She bounced through the door and around the table to throw her arms around Pops as he rose to greet her. He grinned as if he'd opened a million-dollar check and dropped a long, loud smooch on her cheek.
"How's my baby girl?"
"I'm fine, Pops." She grinned, pulling at her hair. "Sorry, it's been so long. I've been busy."
"Busy? You?" I couldn't resist lobbing the question across the table.
She smirked, taking the seat across from me. "Hello, Trey."
“Missy. How are you?"
She dished up a plate of now cold chicken, potatoes, beans, and corn. Mom came out of the kitchen to take the plate and warm it up. "I'm alright. I'm on a new cocktail of meds. My psychiatrist seems to think—"
"You know you have to take them, on schedule, for them to work, right?"
Her lip curled as she shot an ugly look across the table. "Don't start with me, Trey. I'm doing the best I can."
"A familiar refrain. You don't do much but spend our parent's money. The least you could do is check on your father and not have to be summoned to dinner."
Missy stood, leaning across the table, pressing her palms into the glass. "Fuck you, perfect son, who's never had to deal with anything tougher than a hangnail in his life. You have no idea what it's like to live with this illness–"
"Trey. Melissa." Mom eyed us both with a nod toward Pops, who was already digging into a bowl of warm peach cobbler and a dollop of frozen yogurt. Friday night was the only night Mom would allow him dessert, and he wasn't squandering his portion.
I backed down, opting to keep the peace for Pops' sake.
A few hours later, I took my leave, giving Pops a hearty handshake and dropping a kiss on Mom's cheek. I climbed into the driver's seat of my SUV and started it up. My eye caught a flash of a card stuck in the cupholder. I picked it up and turned on the interior lights.
Esme's Costco Membership Card. It was the only card, besides her driver's license, that had a photo on it. I had used it to verify that the wallet belonged to the woman involved in the altercation in the parking lot at Bistro. I should have put it back into her wallet, but I forgot. Besides, it was expired, so I didn't figure she'd miss it.
My mind traveled back to the encounter the evening before. Her eyes were full of fire, and her mouth full of sass. Full lips, cocoa skin, expressive eyes, and a body that reminded me I hadn't had a date or anything close to romance since before I took over Pettigrew had my rapt attention.
I fingered the card, rubbing my thumb over the image encased in plastic. I wasn't vain, but I saw my face every day. Rugged, a little more handsome than the next guy, warm eyes, friendly smile, thanks to two years of Invisalign, and a growing wardrobe of fashionable pieces that GQ said a metropolitan man in power should have in his closet.
I looked the way I'd aimed to look when I put effort into evolving myself. I had spent a considerable amount of time and money molding my body from an unremarkable, average shape to a physique that I was proud of.
I worked too hard to go unnoticed. I laughed a little, remembering the way her eyes flared and her lips pursed when she spat scathing sarcasm at me. She'd noticed. She didn't want to notice, but she had.
I turned off the interior lights, put the truck in reverse, and backed away from my childhood home.
"Suit yourself, Ms. Whitaker."
Chapter Four
Esme
* * *
I lounged on O'Neal's bed, watching him pack for another trip. His ability to squeeze so much clothing into a miniature suitcase was a real-life game of Tetris. Aside from the uniform that he wore on the aircraft, he picked out a few extras for a mid-week excursion, a fringe benefit of a career with an airline.
"How many days this time?"
"Seven. Tuesday, I work LAX to Milan." He stopped packing long enough to gloat. "Then three days off. I'm trying to meet up with a baddie at MXP. She doesn't speak much English, and I don't speak any Italian, but I know yes, more and harder in every language."
"You have a girlfriend in Milan?"
'Hell no, I ain't got no girlfriend." He gave me the usual side-eye before heading back into his closet. He pulled out a pair of North Carolina blue track pants that looked amazing against his deep skin tone. “The ladies love O'Neal Whitaker. France, London, Greece? I love Greek women, and they love Black men.”
"You know you're a fuckboy, right?"
He ignored me as I leaned back against his pillows, being careful not to drip water from the ice pack onto his bedding. I'd called in sick after all and hoped to get the swelling to go down by Monday. I did not want to be the center of attention and the subject of office gossip.
"Where else do you have "baddies" waiting for you to hit a couple of days of layover time?"
O'Neal removed the leisurewear from the hanger and folded it into a tidy square before squeezing it into his bag. "If Delta flies there, I got a Boo there. I text to let them know when I'm coming through." He shrugged, so nonchalant about worldwide hookups. "If we can get together, we get together."
"And by get together, you mean–"
"Just what I said. Get. Together."
He turned back to the closet, this time surveying his collection of footwear. O'Neal loved shoes — designer slides, Italian leather brogues, the latest Jordans, and more pairs of casual footwear from his favorite designer, Bruno Magli, than I could count spilled over from his closet storage system onto shelves that lined the walls.
"I keep telling you, Es. It's a good gig. I can still get you on."
I shook my head without even thinking about it. "You know I need one foot on the ground at all times."
O'Neal frowned at me. "You could do it. You don't want to."
"No, I can't. There's a difference."
"You'll forget you're even in the air. If something was gonna happen–"
"Aht! Stop!" My free hand shot out in front of me as if that could guard me against the words he was about to say. "I don't know how you can even get on a plane. My parents are in an RV, and I'm nervous about that, let alone in a plane."
"Your parents are fine. How are you the only one in your family that has never been on an airplane?"
"I was on an airplane once," I mumbled.
I reached for a decorative pillow that coordinated with the brown and cream palette of O'Neal's room. I leaned onto it, seeking relief for my arm, which was tired from holding an ice pack to my face for hours.
"You mean that time our families tried to go to Disney World together? And you screamed bloody murder as soon as the pilot pushed away from the gate. Your mom had to get off the plane with you.”
"Shut up. I was scared!" I protested but laughed along with O'Neal. It was funny now. When I was six years old, not so much.
"Aunt Carol had to put you on Amtrak. You didn't show up for two days!"
"Whatever.” I lobbed a pillow at O'Neal, giving him plenty of time to duck, then retrieve it from the floor and toss it back. "It was a pleasant ride."
"You are too old to have never flown, Esme. You are too old to have never done a few things."
His eyebrows rose and his mouth curved downward into a disapproving line.
"Don't start. It'll happen when it's meant to happen."
"At what point can it happen if you run eligible men out of the house?"
I groaned. "Don't start with that, either."
"Look, I'm impressed that you even went out on a date because you do nothing but work, watch TV, and read books. How are you going to meet someone with your nose in a book?"
"I go to the bookstore. I might meet a book lover."
O'Neal dropped a pair of Magli and Adidas
into his suitcase before heading to the bathroom to retrieve his shaving kit. "Listen, the other night was a lot, I know. But that man not only took out your attacker, but he also drove all the way out here to bring your wallet to you."
"He could have dropped it in the mail. Left it on the doorstep. Gave it to the police. You don't even know that it was out of his way." I shifted, as my arm was falling asleep again. "I bet he thought he was getting something for his trouble."
O'Neal rifled through his shaving kit for a few seconds before zipping it and tucking it into the full compartment. “Would that have been so bad? He was funny. He's got some style. And he was flirting with you, Esme. Hard."
"You wouldn't be begging me to give him a chance if you were with me at Bistro."
"From what you told me, Es, you were rude, too. Don't act like you don't have Resting Bitch Face."
"I do not have–"
I stopped protesting when O'Neal snapped his fingers at me. "You do. He was probably very polite when he asked if he could take the chair. How was he supposed to know that you got stood up?"
"I thanked him. What else was I supposed to say?"
"He was flirting too hard for you to run him out of here the way you did. Couldn't you offer him a little something? As a reward for saving your life?"
At that, I rolled my eyes. "I should fuck him because he brought my wallet over here? He did not save my life, O'Neal."
"You can fuck him for no reason if that's what you want to do. But it doesn't matter; you could have been warmer to him. You ice men out, Es."
He zipped the carryon case closed and flopped down to lounge next to me, stuffing the pillow I had thrown behind his back. "Remember when your parents sold you this house, and I moved in to brighten your life? We said that you'd take this time to get out there, to let your younger, handsome cousin show you how to get social…"
"My younger, handsome cousin got me out there. I got social. I joined a dating website and got mugged. Why should I keep listening to you?"
"It was one date." He sat up, resting on one elbow. "You're scared of men now?"