Until

by Timmothy B. Mccann

  Chapter 10

  Saturday, one month later

  As the March winds blew, Betty and Evander traveled the interstate south. It was a weekend Betty had decided not to work because Evander had asked her to meet his mother. In spite of the increased caseload at the firm, being with him was something she looked forward to. Evander’s family lived in Freemont, which at one time had been a prosperous black suburb of Orlando. It now stood as just another red-light district. A part of the city where no one jogged the streets, but people constantly ran them.

  Her life had changed drastically since Evander had walked into it. There were times when, if she was not in the midst of a case, she would walk in her door after work, pull off her shoes, and chat with people on the Internet for hours—even at times eating her dinner while gazing into the screen. Many guys would proposition her, but none piqued her interest except for the one with the DLastRomeo moniker. But finding anything more than a friendship on the Net was the last thing she was looking for, because already Evander had made so many of her dreams come true.

  The invitation from Evander came as a surprise and flattered Betty because it was a major step in their young relationship. She wanted to see another side of this man she had become so enamored of. They had made love almost every night for the past several weeks and each time it seemed he attempted to stretch the envelope. If she wanted to take this relationship to the next level, meeting the tree from which her mighty oak had fallen was essential.

  The trip to the magic city could not come at a better time for Betty. Each day the tension and office politics intensified at the firm. It had been a little over a month since Mr. Murphy’s heart attack, and although his condition had improved, the word was he would relinquish his interest in Murphy, Renfro and Collins. Since Renfro was running the concern single-handedly, everyone depended on rumors to determine in what direction the firm would travel. By most accounts, the feeling was that the following week a partnership would be extended.

  After losing several contracts based on their exclusive white middle-aged brotherhood at the top, Bert Collins had spearheaded a nationwide task force to recruit a top minority candidate into the fold as a partner. But after reviewing the list of candidates who would consider the position, Agnes Murphy had informed Betty over coffee that she had both superior credentials and growth potential. She’d also added, “This is one time when your being a double minority will make you a shoo-in. Dear, I’m not at liberty to tell you where that came from, and you didn’t hear it from me.”

  Two days after she’d spoken with Mrs. Murphy, five associates had been invited to interview over a three-day period, and according to Lisa, who’d sat in on the panel, Betty was by far the top partnership candidate. On the eve of what could potentially be the most important week of her career, Betty rode down the interstate with the wind in her face, holding Evander’s hand and listening to Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” ooze from the speakers.

  As they arrived in the old neighborhood, Evander made a point of identifying for Betty each significant landmark, or at least the ones important to him. “See that boulder over there?” Before Betty could answer Evander said, “That’s where I use to catch the school bus when I was in middle school. One time when we were standing there in the rain,” he reminisced with a faint smile, “a couple of white boys drove by in a red Mustang with their asses out the window. And over there at that intersection, I was driving my first car, a 1978 Camaro Berlinetta mind you, and this lady ran a stop sign and broadsided me. She was driving an Olds Ninety-eight and I doubt she scratched the bumper.”

  Each street had its own story, its own special memory for Evander, and Betty was taken by the sound of his voice. These places, which would mean nothing to the average observer, meant so much to him. She was honored he wanted to reminisce with her.

  “Hey, Beep, I forgot to tell you. Mom invited a few of the family members over for lunch. I hope you don’t mind. I just found out about it last night.”

  “No,” Betty replied with a heartfelt smile. “I don’t mind at all.”

  As they drove up to his mother’s house, they were beset by a couple of children who shouted, “Vander! Vander’s here!” He jumped out of the SUV and swept both of them off their feet as if he were their father who had returned from a long day at the office. Betty checked her face in the rearview and applied a touch of lipstick before she exited the truck. There were a few people already in the house, and from behind it music blasted from a car trunk so loud it vibrated the metal with its thump.

  “Who tat is?” the little boy asked Evander, staring at Betty.

  “This is my friend. Betty.”

  Friend? Friend, huh? Betty thought, and tried not to read too much into the words.

  “Tell Betty what your name is,” he continued, while he attempted to get the little boy to stand in front of him. With a smile void of a tooth, the little boy shook his head no and ducked behind Evander with his face in between Evander’s legs.

  The little girl said, “My name is Anna Janay.”

  The little boy, now not wanting his sister to one-up him, lost his fear and said, “My name is Jake and I’m four years old.”

  Evander took the kids by the hand, and he and Betty walked toward the house. As Betty got closer, she noticed a tall, imposing woman at the door. She looked to be in her late sixties, stood at least six two, and had a distinctive streak of gray in the center of her hair. She had a small trace of a mustache, the kind people never notice, and large forearms a little out of proportion even for her.

  “Well, look at my baby,” she said, and walked out to Evander, who was at the base of the steps. Betty was in awe at the sight of the two large individuals embracing. “Why didn’t you call, boy,” she said with a raspy voice, “to let me know you were on the road? Had me worried sick. I tried to call you three or four times this morning and didn’t know where you were.” Evander gave his mother a boyish smile, not unnoticed by Betty. It was obvious he loved her, and she could see the love was returned. One of Jacqui’s rules was “The way a man treats his momma is the way he will treat you,” so the sight brought comfort.

  Mrs. Jones looked at Betty, who smiled up at her. “So how are you? Evander’s told me so much about you.” And she spread her arms wide enough to give Betty a hug. Betty, who was several inches shorter, stepped up to accept the embrace. In spite of her size and slightly masculine features, Mrs. Jones had a warm, feminine, motherlike feel, with just a hint of Skin-So-Soft to her scent.

  As she embraced Mrs. Jones, Betty thought, I could feel comfortable calling her Mom. Oh my God, I know I did not think that. I did not consider how it would feel to call this lady . . . Mom? But after they parted, she smiled, because it felt right. It would feel right to find out from her what Evander liked to eat and how he’d learned to ride a bike and why he was such a decent man in a sea of dogs.

  “Y’all come on in here,” she said, and headed up the steps as she retied her apron. “Let me introduce you to everybody. We got some more coming soon.”

  Evander looked at Betty and smiled as he reached for her hand. “Are you ready for this?” Betty nodded her head yes as they entered the home.

  The semifull house at the end of the cul-de-sac was like most houses in the neighborhood. Constructed three decades earlier, it had a skirt around its frame structure and was painted a mustard color with black trim around the doorway and on the shutters. The ceiling was stucco with bright accents that looked like glitter, and roach bates were evident in the comers. On the living room walls there were stiff, browned, Olan Millsesque shots of family and friends of family, from at least four generations of Joneses. In the corner Betty saw a dusty picture of MLK, JFK, and RFK with the words “Freedom Fighters” inscribed beneath it, and a large fish tank with one lonely fish. The house was cooled with an underpowered AC unit in the eastern window. The ice blue shag carpet matched nothing in the house, yet it all fit together perfectly. In modern interior decorating magazines the
look would best be described as eclectic. The Joneses just called it home.

  “Let me introduce you to everybody, sugar,” Mrs. Jones said to Betty. “This is Uncle Elmo. This is Alexandria and her little sister Araxá. Now, this is the newest member of the family over here. Her name is Bre—Bre—BreNushia, I think is how you say it. I don’t know why that child momma named her that crazy mess in the first place.” And then she looked at Betty and said, “Why is it people naming babies such foolish names? If I see another baby named Jordan or Kenya or Shenequasetta, I don’t know what I’ll do. What happened to names like Robert or Percy or Dorothy? You know what I mean?”

  Although Betty could see a look on her face requesting a response such as No ma’am, I would never name our child a name like that, she opted to just nod in agreement.

  “Now, that’s my nephew Eric over there. His wife, Ling or Ding or something, couldn’t make it.” And then she whispered, “She’s Vietnamese, you know.”

  “She ain’t Vietnamese, Auntie!” Eric said in a huffy tone.

  “Then what is she?”

  After a pause and a glance at the family members who stared at him, he said in a muffled tone, “She Chinese.”

  “This is my sister Gladys and her husband, Ben,” Mrs. Jones said as she ignored the comment. “Gladys!” she said, and kicked Gladys, who was half asleep, in the foot. “Evander got himself a li’l cute girl, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, Evander’s got a cute one, all right,” Gladys said, and rocked back and forth while she fanned herself with the back of the phone-book cover she had ripped off to stay awake.

  With a look around the room, Mrs. Jones said with her hands on her narrow hips, “I guess that’s just about everybody. There’s a few fools in the backyard, but you don’t need to know them yet,” she laughed.

  In the La-Z-Boy in the den was one last family member who stared at the TV without acknowledging the houseguest. As he watched TV, he fiddled with the beaded twists of hair on top of his head while talking on the phone.

  “What’s going on, Shawn?” Evander said, and gave him a playful smack on the back of the head as he pushed in the cordless phone’s antenna.

  Shawn ducked late and said as cool as a fan, “Yo! My name Red Dog now. You better recognize!”

  “Red Dog? Oh . . . I’m sorry . . . Red Dog. Boy, please,” Evander said, and palmed his head with his large hands. “How old you now—Shhhaaawwnnnn!”

  “Yo,” he said, “you can chill with that Shawn stuff,” and then he noticed Betty and said, “Unk, I feel you trying to front for your honey and all. But if you don’t know, you besta ask somebody. I’m seventeen.”

  “Seventeen what?” Evander asked in fake astonishment. “Seventeen what, Shawn? Not years old.”

  “Yep, my birthday is June twenty-eighth, 1980!”

  “Boy, you lying. That would make you nineteen!”

  “I mean eighty-one. I mean eighty-two! You didn’t let me finish, I was gonna say eighty-two!”

  Evander and Betty laughed as Mrs. Jones shouted from the kitchen, from which floated the aromas of grilled onions and pure calories, “Y’all come on in here!” As they walked in, she said “Bobby Jo will be over here soon, Evander, with them bad-ass chums of hers.”

  “How’s Jo doing nowadays?” he asked, and hopped up on the kitchen counter. As he grabbed a bag of Crunch ’N Munch out of the cupboard, Betty sat at the dinette table. Bobby Jo was his youngest sister, and more than thirty years later, the umbilical cord was still attached.

  “She’s fine. Just crazy as a bag of dirt and worried about that good-for-nutin’ husband of hers who will-not-work-to-save-his-life, and is still beating her in front of dem chum. I’m getting sick and tired of her running over here all time of night,” she said, and stirred a pot of mustard greens full of fat ham hocks, okra, and dumplings. The aroma itself made Betty’s mouth water.

  “That’s messed up, her getting you involved,” Evander said.

  “Oh, I’m not worried about that fool husband of hers coming over here starting anything,” Mrs. Jones said, and looked Evander in the eye. “I still keep my little friend in the dresser.” Although the words did not come from her lips, the assumption was clear. Mom had firepower in the bedroom. “Besides, Bobby Jo ought to clean up that nasty house of hers.” And then Mrs. Jones lowered her voice so the others in the house would not hear. “She’s the only person I know that had that Sears once-a-year pest-control treatment, and they gave her money back.”

  “What?”

  “Child, dem folks were spraying that nasty-ass house every three, fo’ weeks. They finally just said the hell with it, gave her a full refund, and said don’t call us no more.”

  They continued to chat while Mrs. Jones put the finishing touches on the enormous lunch. It was easy to see that the Joneses’ house was the house in the neighborhood, the house where everybody dropped by. A house where one could come just to use the phone or catch up on all the latest gossip in the neighborhood. People would walk in without knocking, speak, and walk out as if the house were publicly held property.

  Evander’s mother caught him up on the local news, such as his best friend from high school who was now in the marines but had come out of the closet, as well as the twins up the street who both got pregnant by the same kid down the block. She talked about the pastor who preached more on tithing after he bought a Navigator. “If God gave him that damn thing he’s driving,” she whispered with her hand cupping her mouth, “let him give God the payment book.”

  Then in the distance they could hear the rumbling sound of a lady hollering at her children. The sound was so loud, it could be heard over the conversation inside the house.

  “Put that down, ya bastid! Okay, I done told you about that, Chandra, you li’l hooker. I’m gon slap the shit out chu. Jamale! Jamale! Stay outta my purse, you li’l-ass thief! You ain’t gon be shit just like your daddy!” Betty and the rest of the guests looked out the window as the commotion drew closer to the house and then Bobby Jo came in with all her children. She had one on her hip and another still in a diaper, which begged to be changed. The other children scattered, looking for toys, paper to write on, or anything else they could get into.

  Shawn sought refuge in his bedroom as he shouted at one of the little boys, “Yo! Don’t come in here!” and locked the door.

  Bobby Jo walked into the kitchen, fussed about how her husband was or was not doing something for the kids, spoke to a few relatives, then gave Evander a peck on the cheek. “You must be Betty,” she said. Since she knew Evander was not close to his sister, Betty was surprised she knew her name at all. The gang, disguised as children, were on a rampage and hit the house like looters after a verdict. Evander’s mom looked at Betty and Evander with her lips as straight as an arrow and an expression that said, See what I have to put up with?

  “Damn, Momma,” Bobby Jo laughed, “it’s so hot in the living room, I saw the devil himself sitting by Aunt Gladys wearing hot pants. The air ain’t working again? You know Freddy Lee got kicked out of school again, don’tcha?” She then sat at the dinette next to Betty with her legs spread like a construction worker on lunch break and checked the baby’s diaper to verify what everyone in the room knew.

  “No,” her mother said with little expression.

  “Yeah, that boy steal so much it’s a shame. He kept stealing my money, so I told him that food stamps was the new kinda money. At least if he stole them, I could get some more at the end of the month. I know I shouldn’t have lied to him like that, but, child,” she said, and looked at Betty, “y’all just don’t know! So he out to the school throwing dice for food stamps! Damn fool.”

  Betty widened her eyes and wanted to laugh, but noticed no one else was, so she muted the sound. Mrs. Jones’s lips were as straight as the Statue of Liberty as she looked at her son, speechless.

  After the kids were sent outside, the adults sat around the living room on the plastic-covered furniture to chat before the meal. Bobby Jo c
ontinued to talk about her favorite subject, and thirty minutes later Betty felt she still had not even begun to uncover just how sorry she felt this man was. This went on until Mrs. Jones served the meal and raised her palm to Bobby Jo as if to say, Enough.

  Once Mrs. Jones summoned the children inside, everyone ran for their place at the table. Evander protected the seat at the head of the table for himself and the one to its right for Betty.

  “Evander, say the prayer, son,” his mother said as she showed her proud smile. As Evander began to pray, Betty felt a smile inside that forced its way to the surface. She smiled because in her mind she had been transported to another place. A place where it was late November and there was a slight chill outside. Where she had prepared her first full holiday dinner and where Evander’s mom and Shawn were now guests in their home. Her foster parents were there, as well as a couple of children who favored her and Evander. At a special place at the opposite end of the table were her natural mother and stepfather, who had not aged or changed clothes since she last saw them as a child. In this place, Evander was grayer as he said grace, and she was just as proud to be with him then as she was at that very moment. Stop thinking like that, she scolded herself. But she could not resist and continued to smile. As Evander finished the prayer, she watched him, and as his eyes opened, he looked at her as if he had entertained similar thoughts to hers. Betty Anne Robinson-Jones, she thought. Naw, that still sounds too cumbersome. Betty Jones. I just can’t get use to that. Betty . . . Anne . . . Jones? That is so plain. But I guess . . . umm, not too bad. Not too bad at all. Attorney Betty Anne Jones, Esquire. I could work with that.

  Then the hands started to flail as each person maneuvered for dish position. Evander interceded for Betty since he was a veteran of such wars. They enjoyed smothered pork chops, greens, sweet potato pie, southern fried chicken, and Mrs. Jones’s own made-from-scratch biscuits. There was no doubt they were made from scratch, because they tasted delicious and she repeated to anyone who would listen, “These were made from scratch, you know. These were made from scratch.”