by R. R. Banks
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 laughed.
“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.
“Let’s see if I survive tonight first,” I said.
Seemingly assuaged by my even noncommittal answer, she wrapped her arm around my waist and we started for the house together. I felt myself relaxing, smiling at the relatives that I recognized and surprised at the number of young children who had sprung into the family tree in the time that I had been away. I was almost feeling happy about being there when I stepped into the house.
“Roman!”
My mother’s voice was the first thing that greeted me when I entered, quickly followed by the smell of my grandmother’s cooking, washing over me and carrying with it memories of my childhood. It was the food that I had been raised on, the flavors of generations passed, and things I hadn’t experienced since the last time that I stood in this place and promised myself that I wasn’t ever coming back. I turned toward my mother, smiling as she rushed across the entryway of the house toward me. Her eyes were wide and I could already see tears on her cheeks. I felt my breath catch slightly. She looked so much older than she had the last time I saw her and I felt a harsh breath of regret in my chest. I had never meant to leave her behind. She hadn’t been the one to push me away, but it had been her that had been hurt the most by my leaving.
I held my mother close to me, breathing in the smell of her that brought me back to being a child as much as the smell of the dinner now spread through three rooms in the back of the house. I was starting to say something to her, to apologize, to try to explain to her why I had stayed away, when I heard my name again. This time the word didn’t bring me the happiness that it had when I had heard it in the voice of my cousin and my mother. I felt my mother tense and take a step away from me. Steeling myself, I turned around to face my father.
“Hello,” I said.
He swaggered toward me, the wild look already starting to build in the corners of his eyes.
“John, please,” my mother said, her voice soft and frightened.
I took a step toward my father, putting myself between them.
“I hear you actually drove here,” my father said. “I’m sorry we didn’t clear enough space for you to land your helicopter.”
My muscles tightened and I felt my jaw twitch.
“John,” my mother said from behind me, “he just got here. We haven’t seen him in so long. Do you have to be this way to him already?”
His
eyes shot toward her and I stepped to the side to further conceal her from him.
“He doesn’t know any other way to be to me,” I said.
All of the bitterness that had built up in me over the years burned in my throat and filled my mouth. Seeing him brought everything crashing back harder and more intensely than it had before, and part of me wished that I had never come. The other part of me, though, was tired of backing down, tired of letting him make me feel like a child even though I was now well beyond the point where I was a grown man. I saw in his face the cause of all the pain, fear, and disappointment as I grew up, all of the questions about myself that I had ever asked, and the cause of my break from my family.
“Is there any other way that I should treat you?” He laughed like he had made some sort of hilarious joke that all of us had missed. “Oh. I guess that you think that we should be throwing ourselves at your feet and worshipping you like everyone else does.”
“I don’t expect anyone to worship me.”
His face went dark.
“Of course, you do. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have turned your back on the family.”
“Turned my back on you?” I asked incredulously. “I’m not the one who said that I was no longer your son just because I wanted to pursue something else. Something that has brought me tremendous success, I might point out.”
“Success? Having money doesn’t make you successful. Just because you can throw around all the cash that you want to doesn’t mean that you’re successful. It means you sold yourself, and your family, out. Success comes from honor and hard work, two things that you know nothing about.”
I straightened, letting an angry breath stream out of my nostrils in an effort to keep myself from lashing out. My father might deserve to suffer my wrath, but my mother didn’t deserve to witness it. I forced myself to stay under control.
“I don’t know who you think you are talking to me about honor,” I said, keeping my voice low. “You were never there. You only cared about yourself. That,” I said, turning and pointing at my mother, “is my father. And my mother. She was everything to me. You never cared what we were going through when you were out chasing the next gig or running the next show. It didn’t matter to you how hard she was working or how much I wished that you were here for me the way that other people’s fathers were. The only times that you ever cared was when I did something that you didn’t like. The only attention I got from you was when you were punishing me.”
“Roman.”
I felt my mother take my arm, trying to pull me back away from my father, but I gently shook her off.
“No, Mama. He needs to hear this.” I took another step toward my father. “You don’t care that I’m not a part of the family. You only cared that I didn’t go into the business because you wanted to be able to take credit for anything that I did in it. You wanted to bask in my fame and take my money. It was never about honor. It was about you. And because of that, I lost everyone who ever meant anything to me. But you lost any chance of ever being able to take advantage of me again. I might not have the kind of success that you think that I should – but at least you don’t, either.”
I walked around my father, moving deeper into the house where my grandparents and great-grandparents waited. I knelt down in front of my great-grandparents and took their hands in mine. I kissed them and held them to my chest, apologizing for all the time that I had spent away from them. I could hear my father shouting in the front of the house and the slam of the front door, but I filtered it out. As long as my mother wasn’t with him, I didn’t care how he reacted.
By the end of the reunion, I felt like I had been gutted and filled with sand. Though I was relieved to have finally had this confrontation with my father, the stares and questions from my family and the years of pressure I had finally released pulled on me until I was exhausted. I kissed my mother goodbye and started out of the house, ready to go back to the hotel and sleep until I couldn’t keep my eyes closed any longer.
“Roman.”
I turned around and saw Nia coming toward me. She didn’t look as gleeful as she had when she first saw me and she came close to my side.
“Are you alright?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Just because I just turned what is very likely the last anniversary celebration that my great-grandparents will have into a family smackdown? No. I’m great.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come to the party tomorrow?” she asked. “I promise it will be fun and we’ll be the only relatives there.”
I laughed softly.
“You know what? Sure. I’ll come. A little bit of time away from all the stress and focusing on having some fun will do me some good. You tell me when and where, and I’ll be there with bells on.”
“You better be there with costume on.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter Four
Beatrice
“Why do you look like you’re going to your ninety-year-old husband’s funeral?”
Nia was looking at me with distasteful expression like I had deeply offended her with my choice of clothing. I glanced down at the floor-length black dress I was wearing and back at her.
“It’s chic,” I said.
“It’s creepy,” she replied.
“It’s Halloween,” I pointed out. “Isn’t being creepy a plus on Halloween?”
“Not at a party like this. You’re supposed to be cute and sexy. What happened to being a koala?”
“I told you I wasn’t wearing a fur-covered thong in public.”
“Public? I thought you were coming to the party tonight, Elvira.”
I looked over my shoulder to see the third roommate from the house, Alice, coming into the room. She was wearing essentially the same bra-and-panties ensemble that Nia had tried to convince me to wear, only hers was covered in faux fur in black and white stripes.
“I’m not Elvira. I’m just…dark and mysterious,” I said. “What are you supposed to be?”
Alice struck a few poses and twirled around to show off her costume, which barely contained all that was Alice.
“A snow leopard,” she said. “Isn’t it adorable?”
I was starting to respond when the door opened and our neighbor walked in carrying a huge plastic cauldron of candy.
“Why are you wearing old lady lingerie?”
I rolled my eyes and threw up my hands in exasperation.
“I put on a black dress and did my makeup for what I thought was supposed to be a creepy party.”
All three women stared at me and I knew that I had somehow totally missed the purpose of that night’s festivities.
“The party is about being sexy and trying to find somebody to enjoy a few sweet treats with,” Alice said.
“And here I thought it was supposed to be about Halloween.”
“Like I said.”
I let out another exasperated sound and stared at Nia.
“So, what am I supposed to do? I couldn’t find any yellow tights, so I can’t be a bee.”
“Your name is Bea so you can’t be a bee. We’ve been over this.”
“My name isn’t Bea. We’ve been over that, too. But that’s beyond the point. I can’t be a bee. I’m certainly not going to be a koala. And apparently I can’t just be something dark and sophisticated – “
“And non-descript,” Cheryl added.
“—so, what am I supposed to do?”
Nia glanced at the time and started toward me.
“Alright. The guests are supposed to be here in less than an hour. But that means that they probably won’t be here for an hour and a half. We have some time. Not a lot, but some. We’ll figure it out.”
“Oh,” Alice said as we started out of the room toward my bedroom. “I invited somebody to the party tonight. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Who is it?” Nia asked.
“This amazing guy I met the other night. He’s gorgeous.”
Her voice had gotte
n a distinctly dreamy tone to it and I resisted the urge to gag a little.
“You’ve known the man two days and you’re already inviting him to our home for my party?” Nia asked.
“I’ve known him three days, and did I mention that he’s gorgeous?”
Nia rolled her eyes and we continued on into my room to try to get me properly ready for the party.
There were already guests filtering into the house when Nia announced me ready to attend the party. She flung open the door, ready for my dramatic entrance, but I hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked.
“I thought we talked about this already,” Nia said. “I thought that you were excited to go to the party and get this Gregory guy out of your hair once and for all.”
“I am,” I said, then looked down at the costume that she had pieced together for me. “But are you really sure about this?”
I gestured at the tiny black dress and heels that I had bought during our excursion at the mall. Nia had refused to allow me to put the leggings on, replacing them with fishnets.
“You’re the one who picked them out,” she said.
“No. I’m the one who bought them. You’re the one who picked them out.”
“You could have refused.”
“Really?” I asked. “I could have just refused?”
Nia looked at me for a few seconds, then shook her head.
“Probably not.”
“Exactly.”
I let out a sigh.
“I’ve just never been seen in public like this before.”
“Like Cheryl pointed out, you aren’t going to be in public. You’re going to be in your living room. It just so happens that there will be other people here with you.” I sighed again and she walked up to me, turning me to look in the large mirror above my dresser. “You look amazing.” Suddenly her eyes lit up. “Wait right here.”