by A. C. Arthur
Number two—short. His father had been barely six feet, and Terrell had been the smallest child in his class. Now that he’d grown up, topping his dad’s height, it made him smile to think what a short woman would look like beside him.
Number three—job. His mother had always been home with him before his father died. He’d thought his wife shouldn’t work. That way she’d have more time to raise the kids and run the household. Besides, he was going to be successful, so he’d make enough money to take care of his family. That goal had been realized. A six-figure salary was nothing to complain about. It was more than enough to support a wife and kids.
Number four—cook. She had to cook. Terrell loved to eat. He could cook a little himself, but he still wanted a woman who could throw down.
And number five—love. The woman he married had to love him unconditionally. He hadn’t been the best looking boy on the block, and he had been skinny. Figuring he probably wouldn’t change much in the years to come, he had added this final requirement. While his looks had improved, the need for unconditional love was still crucial.
Although he was grown now and not as idealistic as that child had been, he still wanted a good woman by his side, and held out hope that he’d find her one day. But for now, that would have to go on the back burner. His mother needed him.
It had always been just the two of them. Now, with her nuptial announcement, that was changing. He put his little piece of paper back into his wallet, determined not to think about his own love life for the time being. Tired of thinking about his life, period, he leaned over and pressed the message light on his answering machine.
“Hi, Terrell, this is Mama. I wanted to remind you about the party on Saturday. I’m looking forward to seeing you. Love you. Bye.”
His mother’s voice echoed through his apartment. He missed her. The last few weeks at work had been pretty hectic, but he knew that was no excuse. He needed to see her. She’d tell him what went wrong with Tanya and how to start the search again. His mother was like that, always giving him the best advice, always looking out for his best interests.
With a start, he figured it was probably time he started doing the same for her. She’d announced she was getting married, but Terrell had no idea to whom. Sure, she’d told him the man’s name—and come to think of it, she’d only told him his first name—and that was all he knew about him. When had she started dating? Throughout the years since his father’s death they’d remained pretty close, confiding in each other as much as humanly possible, yet he didn’t know she’d found a man worthy of settling down with.
So, he pushed aside his own troubled love life and focused on his mother and her matrimonial plans. Right now the condo held too many memories for him to stomach, and deciding to spend the weekend at his mother’s house, he packed some clothes in a duffle bag, grabbed his suit off the door—Mama would make him go to church on Sunday, of that he was sure—locked up the condo and climbed into his Mercedes.
In the car he turned on the radio. When he heard the first notes of Toni Braxton’s “Another Sad Love Song,” he quickly switched the station.
* * *
Rosie clucked around the kitchen moving from the stove to the refrigerator to the table and back to the stove again. She had macaroni boiling for the seafood salad; potatoes sitting in a strainer in the sink waiting to be mixed with the secret ingredients of her potato salad; chicken wings marinating in hot peppers and Tabasco; and iced tea chilling in the refrigerator. She loved to cook, so when Donald offered to have the party catered, she’d squawked about wasting money and set out to prepare it all herself.
They were having twenty of their closest friends and relatives at her house tonight. Last night she’d cleaned the living room and dining room furiously. The upstairs she could do later this morning. That way it would be fresh when the guests arrived.
Her spirits were high as she sailed through the little kitchen humming and singing. Terrell had come in last night. He’d come home. She couldn’t believe he’d decided to stay overnight. He lived only about twenty minutes from her, yet he’d brought his clothes and gone to his old room as if he’d never left. He had grown a little beard since the last time she’d seen him, and picked up a little weight. Both looked good on him. He’d become a really handsome man who reminded her a lot of his father. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her only child until he’d grabbed her for a big bear hug.
She was waiting for him to get up now so they could have some time alone to talk. Donald was going to come over a few hours before the party so that he and Terrell could meet before the other guests arrived. However, she sensed something was bothering Terrell, and wanted the chance to talk to him alone first.
“Mornin’, Mama.” Still rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Terrell stepped into the kitchen, interrupting Rosie’s thoughts.
“Mornin’, baby. Sit down and I’ll get you something to eat.” Moving the chicken from the table to the counter, Rosie made room for her son to sit down.
“Nah, I’ll just have some coffee.” Taking a seat, Terrell noticed all the things his mother had going. “You sure you’re cooking enough?”
“You know I like to have more than enough,” Rosie chuckled. She filled a mug with hot coffee from the carafe and placed it in front of him.
“Boy, it’s good to be home.” Terrell stretched his legs and reared back in the chair, which he knew had to be about twenty years old. The design was so seventies, he noted, high metal backs and teal and white leatherette seats. The Formica tabletop matched the chairs, with a swirling teal design on a backdrop of white, accented with specks of glitter.
“Yeah, I miss seeing you sittin’ there watching me cook. You used to do your homework right there in that very chair every night while I fixed your dinner.” Rosie remembered it as if it were yesterday.
“And every time I tried to sneak a cookie when your back was turned you’d scold me something terrible,” he grinned. “Never did figure out how you could see me with your back turned.” Taking a quick sip of the hot coffee, he closed his eyes to the memory.
“Mama’s got eyes in the back of her head, I told you.” Rosie moved the large strainer filled with potatoes over to the table, then went to the refrigerator to retrieve the mayonnaise, relish and eggs she’d boiled earlier. Coming back to the table, she sat across from her son.
“So tell me what’s been going on with you.” Opening the jars, she scooped one ingredient after another into the bottom of an empty pan.
“Not as much as what’s been going on with you,” he quipped.
“Probably not, but I asked you first,” she responded with definitive authority.
Agreeing with a shrug, Terrell figured he’d go first, but he had questions for his mother, and he expected answers. “I just broke up with my girlfriend.”
“Really? What happened?” She remembered the female who’d answered his phone and the tension she’d sensed that day.
Expelling a deep breath, Terrell propped his elbows up on the table and slid his glasses further up on his nose. He didn’t want to talk about his problems; well, he did, but not just yet. He wanted to hear about her first, about the man in her life. But she was still the mother, so he decided to obey her request. “I don’t know. I guess I was good enough to spend my money on her, let her live in my house for free and pay most of her bills, but I wasn’t good enough to be loyal to or honest with. She was cheating, said I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. I wasn’t giving her what she really needed.” Folding his hands beneath his chin, he figured that summed up his relationship with Tanya pretty accurately.
“Well, were you?” Rosie poured the potatoes into the pan and began to stir. “Giving her what she needed, I mean?”
“I gave her everything. I paid all her bills, I gave her money to buy clothes, she didn’t even really have to work. I took good care of her.” He shrugged. “What else could she have possibly wanted?”
Rosie shook her head, stared at
him in disbelief. “Son, please tell me you aren’t shallow enough to think that material things are enough to keep a woman satisfied. Not a good woman, anyway.”
“What?” Terrell looked at his mother in question. “I was showing her that I could take care of her, that she would never have to worry about things like that because I would handle it all. That’s what a man’s supposed to do, right?”
Rosie sucked her teeth while her fingers mixed the potato salad. “Yes, a man’s supposed to take care of his woman, but that doesn’t only mean seeing to her every material need. Women have emotional needs, Terrell, and if you were so busy working and paying all the bills, then you probably were too busy to see hers.”
“So she decided to cheat on me, and I should accept that as my fault?” He looked incredulous at that notion.
Rosie rolled her eyes. “Now, I’m definitely not saying that. She should have tried talking to you first. Cheating was wrong, and it sounds like both of you needed to do a little growing up.” Rosie paused, thought a moment. “But you know, this might be a good sign. Maybe she wasn’t the right woman for you. Maybe the right woman is just waiting around the corner for you to sweep her off her feet.”
Terrell smirked. “Yeah, right. I’m beginning to doubt that.”
“What are you talking about? You’re a good looking man, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and just as soon as you learn that life isn’t all about accomplishments, you’ll be a good catch for any woman. Any real woman, mind you.”
He grinned into his coffee cup before taking a sip. “You’re biased.”
“I’m still a woman, and I got good eyes. You look fine, and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. I see them girls down at the shop running after every flashy car and good dresser they see. And then when I leave the shop I see those same flashy cars and good dressers running after every woman they see. So sometimes you gotta re-evaluate what it is you want in a mate.” Rosie stood so she could get a better handle on the spoon to properly mix the salad.
“Is that what you did? Re-evaluate what you wanted in a mate?”
Rosie stopped stirring the mixture to look at her son. So much like his daddy, looking at her with those pensive dark eyes, barely holding on to his anger. “I haven’t had a mate in a long time, Terrell,” she told him.
“I know. That’s what amazes me most about this sudden jump to matrimony. You never seemed to care that you didn’t have a man before. What changed?”
“When your daddy died, I was so devastated I thought I would die right along with him. But I had you to take care of. So I dedicated myself to doing just that, taking care of you. I didn’t have time to sit still long enough to figure out what I needed. But when you went away to school I was here, in this house, alone. I went to work and I came home and that’s it. I didn’t have a lot of friends to go out with ’cause they were all married and had their own lives to live.” Sprinkling salt and pepper into the pan, she spared her son a glance before she continued. “I figured I’d better make a life of my own before I got too old to enjoy it. So I took those classes at the beauty school and I went to work at the shop. All those young people and energy got me going again. Those girls down there became my friends, well, more like my daughters, but it felt good all the same. Then when Donald asked me out I didn’t see anything wrong with it, he was nice enough. But slowly things began to change, and I found myself really wanting to be with him.”
“And now you find yourself really wanting to marry him?” Terrell watched his mother’s big arms working the mixture together, knowing exactly how the finished product would taste. He had to admit his mother looked pretty damn happy. Which made his position in this matter even more disconcerting.
“Now I find myself in love with a good man and tired of being alone,” she said simply.
“What about Daddy?” Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he sat back in the chair and waited for her reply.
“Terrell, your daddy’s been dead and gone a long time now.” Her heart ached for the little boy that used to sit in his room and cry because all the other boys on the block had their fathers and he didn’t. But he was a grown man now, and she couldn’t hold him in her arms and tell him that things would be all right. She could, but she doubted that would make him feel any better.
“So you just forgot about him?” Hurt welled up inside of him, along with another foreign emotion.
“I will never forget your daddy. Paul was my first love and the father of my only child. He will always have a place in my heart, but it’s been a long time now that he’s been gone. And I have to move on.” Wiping her hands on her dishcloth, she moved to stand behind her son and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close to her bosom. “I loved your daddy, too, Terrell. But he would want me to be happy, don’t you think?”
Terrell let his head rest against his mother. Her arms around him felt so good, so safe. For a moment, only a moment, things were the way they used to be, when it was just the two of them.
“I’ll wait until I meet him before I decide if he’s good enough for you,” he said finally.
“He’s good enough, I promise you.” Rosie kissed his forehead. “I will always love you most, Terrell.”
“I love you most, too, Mama.” And at that moment he identified the emotion that had simmered within him over the last five days. Fear. He was afraid that this marriage—his mother’s union with this man—would take her away from him. And then he’d have no one. His father was gone, and now his mother would be gone too.
Her touch and her words of love had dispelled that notion. His mother had always been there for him, and probably always would be. She looked really happy, so despite his own personal selfishness, if this man was the reason for that, he’d gladly give the union his blessing.
* * *
Terrell had just finished moving the furniture in the living room around to afford as much open space as possible. Considering his mother still possessed the biggest, heaviest furniture around, that wasn’t an easy feat.
He heard the front door open, then voices in the hall. Wiping his hands on his jeans, he turned towards the entryway, knowing he was about to meet his mother’s fiancé.
The man that walked into the room beside his mother was stocky, a Gerald Levert look-alike in expensive clothes. His mother seemed to adore him.
Terrell moved closer, his arm extended. “Terrell Pierce.”
The older man clasped his hand and they exchanged the male street handshake and half hug. “Donald Douglas. It’s good to finally meet you.”
Douglas. The name rang a bell. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too, Mr. Douglas.” Even saying the name sparked a familiar cord in Terrell’s mind.
“Call me Donald. After all, we’re about to be family.”
Donald kept a protective arm around Rosie and Terrell watched his mother inch closer to him. “Yeah, I guess we are,” he mumbled, unsure of how comfortable he was with another man touching his mother.
Donald noted the way the younger man watched him, and figured they needed to talk alone so that he could reassure this young fellow that he meant his mother no harm.
“Baby, why don’t you go ahead and finish cooking that good food while Terrell and I get to know each other.”
Rosie looked from one man to the other. “Okay, that’s probably a good idea.”
When they were alone, Donald looked around. “You need some help in here?” He took off his leather jacket and tossed it on the chair.
Terrell took a step back. “I think I’ve made as much space as I can, but I don’t want to hear Mama’s mouth later.”
Donald laughed. “Yeah, if it’s not just right she’s liable to go off on both of us.”
Terrell joined him in laughing as they lifted the ottoman and moved it into the hallway. “I’ll take good care of her if that’s what you’re worried about,” Donald said when it appeared Terrell wasn’t going to broach the subject.
Terrell wiped the beads of swe
at from his forehead with the back of his hand. “And by take good care of her you mean…?” Rosie said he owned the shop, but was that enough for them to live comfortably? Could his mother finally retire on this man’s income alone?
Donald took deep, steady breaths, feeling every year of his age with each step he took carrying that heavy furniture. “We are both alone. We both need somebody. Rosie’s good for me, and I’ve got to believe that I’m good for her. I won’t hurt her.”
Terrell frowned. Was he the only one who thought financial stability was the key to a good life? “And while you’re being good for her, who’s paying the bills?”
Donald chuckled. “Son, the last thing you’ve got to worry about is my finances. I’m secure for the rest of my life, and once I marry your mother, she will be too.”
Terrell narrowed his eyes. “She’s been working all her life. It’s time she took a break.”
“I hear you loud and clear on that one, and plan to sit her pretty little self down as soon as we tie the knot. It’s all going to work out just fine. You’ll see.” Donald’s thick lips spread into a warm grin.
Reluctantly, Terrell smiled too, willing himself to relax. Donald seemed sincere enough but there was something else nagging him about the man. He’d ask him a few more questions, talk to him until this disconcerting feeling went away—after all, they were about to be family.
* * *
Black slacks and a black blazer were both business and casual, Leah thought. A red blouse provided the splash of color she needed to perfectly balance the outfit. Sliding her feet into her black boots, she wondered what type of wedding Ms. Rosie would want.
Her job was to give couples the ultimate fantasy. Whatever they envisioned for that special day, it was her job to create it. Most men didn’t really have any special ideas or requests for the ceremony. But the brides, the brides always had requests and demands and silly little whims that Leah sometimes found irritating and inconsequential.