by R. R. Banks
My eyes widened. Adam gathered up his purchases and stood without looking at us.
“Single-file everyone.”
Mouth hanging open, I watched Adam swish subtly after the hostess, holding the lamp to his chest as if to protect it from any lamp-snatchers that may have stopped for a quick bite to eat.
“I thought his last name was Gilliamilles-thingy,” Nia whispered from beside me.
Without looking at her I pressed three fingers to Nia’s lips and shook my head.
“Follow him quickly before he asks her where the showers are.”
My salad closely resembled grass clippings and my iced tea was so saturated in sugar I was relatively confidant I could float my spoon in it Dead Sea-style, but I was laughing so hard I barely noticed.
“How many times was she pregnant before she quit?” Adam asked.
He sliced into his salmon with a delicateness that belied his life’s goal to be rolled up in the world’s largest pancake (cooked in the world’s largest skillet located in Dollywood, also known as Adam’s Mecca) armed only with a bottle of syrup and with the mission of eating his way to safety.
“At least three.”
“How did she support so many children just as a hostess?” Nia asked, shocked.
“She didn’t have any children,” I told her.
“That’s terrible! Miscarriages?”
Her voice dropped when she said ‘miscarriages’ in that way that people whisper words that they don’t want to put out into the universe.
“Delusions. Girly was the compulsive liar to end all compulsive liars.”
“Oh.” Nia sat back, comforted that the other hostess wasn’t some blighted, dysfunctional mother and was just crazy. A moment later her face contorted as though she had just processed something that we had said. “Why was she a princess?”
“Well, apparently she came from royalty on top of being direct from Zimbabwe. I’m guessing there was some end-of-the-spectrum Black Irish thing going on. Her family was on a horribly misdirected cargo ship and became a small, highly specialized clan that produced a sickly pale, Southern twanging white girl.”
“And she was a doctor.”
The confusion was settling in now, reflecting how all of us at the restaurant had felt about this girl before we had caught on to her craziness and just found her exhausting.
“Apparently. When she quit she announced she was leaving to be a doctor for the Red Cross in Africa. She was very excited because they had provided her a waterfront house…in Johannesburg.”
I choked on the gulp of iced tea I was taking. Laughter overflowed as I remembered the map of Africa Adam had printed out and posted on the wall of the wait station, a bright red star indicating the land-locked Johannesburg. Dr. Princess left quickly thereafter. Only following a drama-soaked breakup with her boyfriend/imaginary baby daddy. We never heard from her again.
Because I still felt underlying anger towards the groups that would linger endlessly in the restaurant, especially at the specific tables I needed for that huge reservation that walked through the door twenty minutes early with three extra people, a baby that needed a highchair but wasn’t counted as a person, a wheelchair, two cellos, balloons, a cake, and a seeing-eye dog, I ushered Adam and Nia out of the bistro within ten minutes of finishing our million-calorie dessert.
I might have a little touch of restaurant worker PTSD.
As we walked down the gradually clearing sidewalk Adam took a very shiny high-tech communication gizmo from his pocket.
“Let me get your phone number. We should do this again.”
He pressed a few buttons and the little machine made a noise and glowed happily.
“That’s cute,” I said.
“Isn’t it? It’s new. This thing does everything. It holds your phone book, keeps your schedule, sings to you, wakes you up…calls your mama a whore.”
I recited my number while Adam fought to program it into the device.
“I’m pretty sure that’s how I do that. Damn, I’m old. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Andy is making dinner and I think I have at least four things in these bags that he’s going to need.”
Adam leaned in to hug me but one of the frolicking punks broke in between us and rolled into the distance. Holding his packages and lamp in the air Adam gave a flailing kick toward the boy’s back then a decidedly shimmying advance.
“That would have been a lot more effective had you not wiggled like that,” I told him.
“Float like a butterfly, bitch, float like a butterfly.”
Adam turned with a flip of his head and walked away.
“Love you,” I called after him.
“Love you,” he responded over his shoulder before disappearing behind the huge, booming clock.
Nia lifted her cell phone to check her lipstick in the reflective cover and started when she noticed the time.
“We need to get our asses in gear. I have to leave in an hour.”
“Why?” I asked. “The party isn’t until tomorrow.”
“I have to go to a family reunion tonight.”
“You didn’t mention that to me.”
“That’s because I’m not terribly excited about it. It’s nice to see the family and all, but it always ends up with at least three arguments and usually a curse or two.”
“That sounds delightful. Why would your family keep getting together if that’s how it turns out?”
“Because way down deep we’re still pretty tight. And everything always works out by the time that the reunion is over. I am a little bit excited for this year, though, because my cousin is coming.”
“Don’t your cousins always come? Isn’t that the point of a family reunion?”
I, for one, didn’t have enough family to actually warrant a reunion, but I had been witness to some in my day and they tended to seem like whole family trees had exploded onto the lawn in front of the host house for the event.
“Most of us do, but my cousin Roman hasn’t been in a while. He’s quite a bit older than me, but we were always close when I was growing up. Then he and the family had a falling out.”
“Over what?”
“He decided that he didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of all of our parents and their parents before them and their parents before them and be a part of the family business.”
“What did he do instead?”
“I’m not entirely sure of everything, but I know he’s a pretty powerful business mogul. He owns three chains of hotels and a couple of specialty resorts. A few years back he made some mutterings about starting a custom yacht tour business, but I don’t know if that ever actually came to fruition or if he moved on to something else.”
“It sounds like he does pretty well for himself.”
Nia scoffed.
“I should say so. He was a billionaire before he hit 35.”
“ Billionaire ?”
“Yeah. With a ‘B’. Like that thing you wanted to be for Halloween and got banned from.”
“If your cousin is a billionaire, why do you have roommates and work in a hotel?”
“Because he’s my cousin, not my daddy or my husband. Besides, who says he hasn’t helped me out some?”
“The hotel,” I said, catching on.
Nia nodded.
“Besides, I like having roommates. I’m not a live all by myself type of person.”
“But if he’s so successful, why is the family still mad at him?”
“It doesn’t really matter how much money he’s made. He rejected the family tradition. But it’s not really the whole family that wanted him gone. His father pushed him away years ago, but we’ve kept up over the years. Now he’s coming to the reunion and I’m really looking forward to seeing him. But with the reunion tonight and all of the preparations that I have to do for the party tomorrow, we have exactly 45 minutes to finish up here and get back to the car.”
“Should that inspire some panic in me?” I asked.
Nia stopped and t
ook me by the shoulders.
“We came here on a mission to find Halloween costumes, and we found absolutely nothing.”
I glanced in vain at my hands where I had hoped the cute clothes fairy had deposited something sassy and, dare I hope, sparkly.
“We didn’t do that, did we?”
“We ran away before we could pick anything.”
“Alright, well, then we have to dive back in and not be frightened by the native mall people.”
Throughout the rest of our scouring of the mall I had performed a clandestine mission looking for yellow tights, determined that she wasn’t going to keep me from being the bee that my soul told me to be, but I had been unsuccessful. Now the plan has shifted and I was looking ahead to pouring myself into at least a yard too little of black mini-dress I was fairly sure was woven partially out of ultra-sparkly aluminum foil and black leggings I prayed would conceal a multitude of things I didn’t feel needed to say hello to the world. A pair of murderous shoes waited conspiratorially in a box at my feet. I hoped that if they sat near my feet for a little while before I strapped them on they would come to an understanding and the shoes wouldn’t want to hurt their new friends.
Chapter Three
Roman
Why in the hell am I doing this to myself again?
I stared out of the window of my plane as the ground started to come closer, the tiny pinpricks of illumination growing until they became distinct safety lights along the runway. I sighed and leaned my head back against the seat, swirling the drink in my hand as I went over every scenario of how this reunion was going to unfold in my head again. They had been tormenting virtually my every waking moment since I had agreed to go to the reunion and now I was experiencing the gnawing feeling in the upper part of my belly that I usually got when I thought about seeing my family. That was one of the delightful things that I had discovered when my age tipped over forty. Rather than just getting angry butterflies when I was nervous or dreading something, I got a raging case of indigestion. It felt like a reminder from the universe, as if because I didn’t feel like I was getting older I needed to have my ass smacked down a few pegs every now and then to remind me of the years that I had lived.
It had been several of those years since I had taken this trip back home to see my family. I wasn’t in a private plane then, and there were considerably fewer hotels and businesses with my name on them dotting the world, but even with all of that backing me up, I still felt nervous about walking into the reunion and seeing my family again. The truth was I probably wouldn’t have even considered attending the annual event if it hadn’t been for Nia. Still my “little cousin” in my mind even though I was aware that she was now a fully-grown woman, Nia had been one of the few members of the family who hadn’t totally turned their back on me, and the only one who I connected with on a regular basis. Though I had secured her a job in the biggest of my hotels in her area and occasionally encouraged a bonus or two on her paychecks to make sure that she was doing alright, I hadn’t seen her since the last time that I attended a family reunion. It was her, though, that told me that this reunion was also acting as an anniversary party for our great-grandparents. Considering they were both 101, I figured that now was probably the time to go visit and try to make amends.
As the plane slid down toward the ground, I started to question whether this was actually a good idea. I could have planned a visit to my great-grandparents without having to involve the rest of the expansive family. I felt like I was building myself up for disaster. I took a breath as I stood and slipped my jacket back on, buttoning it and smoothing it into place before the door to the cabin opened so I could walk down the steps onto the tarmac. On the other hand, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. It had been years. Maybe that had given all of them the opportunity to cool down and gain some perspective about my choices. It was possible that I could walk into the party and they would welcome me with open arms. Or at least look at me in vague anonymity. Even that would be better than the last few minutes of the reunion the last time that I saw them.
I accepted my bag from the attendant when I reached the tarmac and started toward the limo that was waiting for me. It would bring me to the hotel where I was staying and from there I would take my own car, one of a fleet that I kept stashed throughout the country to ensure that I was never without personal transportation when I was traveling. Hopefully not having a driver bring me should make me seem a little more approachable to the family who thought that money had somehow put me on another plane of existence than them – or at least that I thought that it did.
I arrived at the hotel and inquired at the front desk about Nia, wondering if she was working that day or if she had already taken off to go to the reunion. They told me that she wasn’t there and I started upstairs feeling a touch of disappointment.
Damn. My escape hatch plan thwarted.
Once in the penthouse of the hotel I changed into a pair of grey slacks and a sweater, gathered up the gift that I had ordered for my great-grandparents’ anniversary, and headed down to the parking garage. My car was waiting for me in its reserved spot just as it always was and I let out a breath as I climbed behind the wheel. It still had the fresh new car smell, something that was to be expected of a car that was so rarely used. In fact, I had myself only driven it twice. Those two times were the only two times that I had been back to the area, once when the hotel opened and once when I planned on surprising my mother with a visit, but found the home empty when I arrived. I later found out that I had skillfully planned my visit for the one time that the family took a vacation together, heading to the islands for a brief trip.
The car rumbled smoothly beneath me despite its age and I knew that it was being driven once a month like I requested.
I kept the radio off as I drove, my own thoughts distracting me enough as I made my way along the familiar route. I had followed it countless times during my childhood. So many that I probably could have done it with my eyes closed. The silence meant that I was able to hear the reunion in full swing before I even saw the house. Music blared and the voices of dozens of relatives spilled out into the street.
I’m sure the neighbors are just loving this. Considering virtually all of them are relatives and in attendance, though, that was actually probably accurate.
I parked behind an uneven row of vehicles from the relatives that didn’t live on the street and actually had to drive to the reunion, including Nia’s, which I recognized by the employee decal from the hotel on the back window and a bumper sticker I had sent her a couple of years back during one of my trips. I felt a smile come to my lips, remembering the two of us when we were younger. Though I had already been a young teenager when she was born, we were instantly bonded and it seemed that whenever the family got together, she was attached to my leg, going where I went, trying to do what I was doing. I didn’t mind. I enjoyed playing with her and as she got older, her sass and spark was enough to make even the tensest moments with my father bearable. The thought of my father made the burn in my chest worse and I had to grit my teeth to keep walking down the road. With any luck he wouldn’t even be here and I wouldn’t have to deal with him.
“Roman!”
I heard my name and looked toward the voice, seeing someone running toward me. It took a few seconds for me to realize that it was Nia. It had been so long since I had seen her and she had grown up in those years, going from the awkward, gangly teenager to a tall, confident-looking woman. I smiled and she opened her arms, jumping toward me to gather me in a tight hug.
“Nia!” I said. “It’s so good to see you.”
“I can’t believe you actually came.”
“I told you I was going to.”
“You’ve said that before,” she said, sliding down out of my arms and taking a step back to look at me. “I didn’t know if you were actually going to do it this time.”
“Well, people only celebrate their eighty-third wedding anniversary once,” I said.
Nia l
aughed.
“Or not at all.”
I nodded in agreement.
“It’s definitely not something that you see every day.”
“I can’t believe that they’ve been married for longer than a lot of people live.”
“I can’t believe that they’ve tolerated each other for that long.”
Nia tilted her head at me and gave me a disapproving glare.
“Well, that’s a depressing perspective.”
I knew most people would think that she was right, but I couldn’t help it. I had just never been able to wrap my head around the thought of sharing my life with one person. A night, sure. A weekend even. More than a month? It just wasn’t happening. I had no need to share my life with anyone. I had everything that I wanted, and the resources to get anything else that I might want. As much as I heard about the fulfillment that came with finding that one person and sharing your life with them, I honestly couldn’t think of any way that having someone I had to think about before I made any decisions, justify my every action to, and limit my activities because of, would be worth it. My life was mine. I had sacrificed enough for it, and I wasn’t going to give up any of it just for a woman.
“It happens, little cousin,” I said. “I’m just not the mate for life kind.”
“I think you could be,” she said. “You just haven’t found the right woman.”
“They haven’t made the right woman.”
I heard my grandmother calling everyone into the house for the lavish dinner that she prepared, the highlight of every family reunion. Nia grabbed my wrist as I started to walk away.
“I don’t want for this to be the last time that I see you for another decade or so,” she said. “I’m having a Halloween party tomorrow night at my house. I’ve invited some of the men from the hotel, so you won’t be the only upper crust crumb there. You’ll be the king of the crumbs, admittedly, but I’m sure you can blend in if you really try. Say you’ll come.”
The thought of a Halloween party with a bunch of people that I didn’t know was more appealing than this reunion, but I still wasn’t sure that it was something that I really wanted to do. I reached out and wrapped my arm around my cousin.