Shayla frowned. “Talk to her? About the catering, you mean?”
Landyn nodded, looking puzzled again.
Audrey cleared her throat. “Shayla and Portia are Link’s guests tonight.”
“Ohhh . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—” Landyn stammered, then quickly recovered. “Have you met everyone yet? Let me take you around and introduce you.”
Audrey seemed grateful to hand Shayla off to her daughter.
And Shayla was officially going to strangle Link. Not only had he not told his family he was bringing her and Portia, he had apparently also failed to mention they were dating.
“Let’s go meet the kids.” Landyn held out her hand. “Come with me, Portia.”
But Portia clung tighter to Shayla, suddenly shy.
“Come on. It’s okay.” Shayla gave her a little push. “I’ll come with you.”
Landyn bent at the waist and got eye-level with Portia. “How old are you?”
Portia held up five fingers, still clinging to Shayla with her other hand.
“Oh, Corinne’s Sadie is five. I think.” She smiled up at Shayla. “I can’t keep track of all the nieces and nephews. Chase and I have twins. Oh, there they are.” She pointed to the corner of the room near where Link’s grandmother sat. Five little girls chattered and danced and giggled together.
Landyn cleared a path through the Legos and took Portia’s other hand. “Girls? Hey, girls?”
They all turned and stared.
“Girls, this is Portia. Can you say hi? Portia and her mommy came with Uncle Link tonight.”
“Portia, this is Sari and Sadie and Simone.” She tapped each girl’s head as she named them. “And these two are my girls, Grace and Emma.”
“You look the same,” Portia said, pointing between the twins.
Landyn laughed. “Even the family has trouble telling my twins apart sometimes. Tonight, Emma’s wearing blue and Grace is in green.”
“Grace and green,” Portia repeated. “That makes the same grrr sound.”
“That’s right!” Landyn crowed, as if Portia was some kind of prodigy. “That’s how you can remember them.”
Sari, the oldest, held out a sparkly wand to Portia. “Do you wanna be the princess? It can be your turn.”
“Okay.” Portia took the wand, then quickly looked up at Shayla for permission.
She nodded. “Sure. Have fun, Princess Portia.”
The Whitman kids giggled, repeated Portia’s name, and launched into an explanation of how their little kingdom worked. Shayla let out a silent sigh of relief.
“Who’s the little dark girl?” CeeCee’s voice carried across the room, and Shayla looked over to see Link’s grandmother leaning across to a young woman with a baby on her lap.
The woman caught Shayla’s eye and gave her a smile that held an apology, before leaning in to speak softly to CeeCee. Shayla couldn’t hear what she said.
Apparently CeeCee couldn’t either. “What’s that? You say they’re with Link? The two dark ones?”
Landyn intervened. “Come and meet CeeCee.” She leaned in and whispered to Shayla. “Our grandmother is a little confused sometimes, so just”—she shrugged—“forgive her if she’s not exactly . . .” She couldn’t seem to find a way to finish the sentence.
“Link warned—told me,” Shayla quickly corrected herself.
Landyn didn’t seem offended, and in fact, looked relieved. She led the way to the “throne.” “CeeCee, this is Link’s friend Shayla.”
Shayla held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
CeeCee took Shayla’s hand between her two frail, vein-lined hands. “Any friend of Link’s is a friend of mine.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Enough of this ma’am business. You can call me CeeCee just like the rest of the children do.”
“Thank you.”
CeeCee pointed to where the little girls were playing. “That little dark girl must be yours?”
“Well, she’s my niece.”
“Ah, yes, I thought I saw a resemblance.”
Shayla looked over at Portia’s fuzzy brown head amidst a sea of towheads and wanted to laugh, but Link’s grandmother seemed completely serious. Shayla said, “Your little great-granddaughters made Portia the princess first thing when we got here. She’ll never want to go home now.”
“Well, they are good little children. They’ve been taught to accept everybody and treat everybody the same whether red or yellow, black or white.” She smiled.
Shayla cleared her throat. If it had been anyone but Link’s family, she might have been tempted to make a sarcastic, equally condescending remark, but she sensed that CeeCee meant well and didn’t realize how her comment came off.
Landyn came to the rescue again. “Oh! I think Mom is trying to get everyone to the kitchen. She made lasagna tonight.”
CeeCee clucked her tongue and hooked her finger for Shayla to come closer. “I swan, we’ve had enough lasagna in this house to feed all of Italy twice!”
Shayla laughed. “It’s actually our favorite. But I hardly ever make it. My dad especially loves it.” She’d have to get Audrey’s recipe and make a pan for her dad. Maybe that would soften him up.
“Well, now why didn’t you bring the rest of your family tonight? The more the merrier at this house.”
“Oh, well, maybe another time.” Shayla looked around for Link.
“CeeCee, you stay put,” Landyn said. “I’ll bring you a plate. We’re not all going to fit at the table tonight, so you may as well stay where you’re comfortable.” She pulled a little tray over closer to CeeCee’s chair.
“Well, now, I can be comfortable wherever you put me. Just tell me where to go. That’s what everybody’s been doing for the last year anyway. I don’t see why you’d be any different.”
Landyn laughed, but it sounded to Shayla like there was some pent-up resentment coming out.
“There you are.” Link came up behind her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Hungry?”
“Uh-huh.” She stiffened under his touch and refused to meet his gaze.
Either he didn’t notice, or he pretended not to. “It’s buffet style. Come on, let’s get in line. It’s every man for himself around here.”
“Let me get Portia.”
“Oh, Corinne already helped her fill a plate. She’s at the kids’ table with the other girls.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He handed her a plate and she took it without comment.
He studied her, frowning. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She turned away, inspecting her plate as if she’d never seen one before.
“Uh-oh. That didn’t sound so fine.”
“Where have you been?” she said through clenched teeth, feeling inexplicably angrier than she’d been before he’d asked if she was all right.
“What do you mean where have I been? Right here.” He was either winning an Oscar playing dumb, or he truly didn’t know why she was upset.
They gravitated to the buffet set up at the kitchen bar counter. Link’s parents were still setting the food out. She smiled, then looked away.
“What’s wrong?” Link whispered plenty loud enough for them to hear.
She turned away from Grant and Audrey. “Not now,” she hissed. “Please.”
“Okay. So . . . you’ll explain on the way home?”
Link’s sisters and their spouses moved to the kitchen, jostling for places in line behind Link and her. Audrey tried unsuccessfully to direct traffic, and Landyn cut in line in front of them, announcing that she was filling CeeCee’s plate. Shayla noticed it contained very little lasagna.
She and Link ended up at a smaller table in the kitchen with Bree and her fiancé, Drew Brooks, who Shayla learned was a brother to Danae’s husband, Dallas. She’d never learn everybody’s names, but it was probably a moot point. This family had a history together. They fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and it was very obvious the puzzle was finished and s
he and Portia did not fit into it. And never would.
11
So, did you have fun?” Link waited until they were out of the driveway to ask the question. It had seemed like Shayla enjoyed the evening and fit right in, but that comment when they were dishing up their plates had him worried.
Shayla hesitated a few seconds too long.
“What? Did something happen? Did somebody say something?”
“No, Link. They were all very nice, very polite, very . . . politically correct.”
He looked over at her, trying to read her expression in the dark—without success. “Somebody said something, didn’t they?”
She glanced over her shoulder into the backseat where Portia was watching a video on Shayla’s iPad with earbuds. “Everybody said something, Link. That’s just it. I could tell I made them all uncomfortable. Everybody was tiptoeing around, doing their best not to say the wrong thing. Heaven forbid if somebody mentioned they didn’t like black jellybeans, the rest of the room froze and watched me to see if I was offended.” She gave a choked laugh. “One of your nieces told her mom it was too dark in the dining room and you’d have thought she used the N-word!”
Link couldn’t help it. He laughed out loud.
“You think that’s funny?”
He stopped. “You’ve got to admit, it is kind of funny, Shay.”
A smile teased the corner of her mouth, but she didn’t let it into full bloom. “Has your family never been around anybody of any color besides white before?”
“Hey, now, I’m offended by that remark.” He was teasing, but by the way her posture stiffened, he didn’t think she took it that way.
“And you didn’t tell them you were bringing me, did you?”
“Why do you say that?” He was buying time because she was right. He hadn’t told them. And he couldn’t exactly tell her why. At least not all of it. He reached to touch her arm. “Shayla, my family loved you. I could tell. And it seemed like you liked them. If you didn’t, you were sure putting on a good act.”
She rolled her eyes. “Where did you go?”
“Where did I go?”
“You ushered me into your house and dumped me. I felt like an idiot.”
“What? Why would you feel like an idiot?” He truly didn’t understand what her deal was.
“I didn’t know anybody there, and you just vanished and left me to fend for myself!”
“Shayla, I saw that Landyn was introducing you to everybody. I didn’t know you needed somebody to hold your hand.”
“Well, it would have been nice.”
“Are you serious?”
She gave a little growl. “You can be so clueless sometimes, you know that?”
He rolled his eyes. “So I’ve been told. Listen, I’m sorry if you feel like I abandoned you. I was just down saying hi to the guys—okay, and maybe checking the score of the game. But seriously, with every girl I’ve ever brought home, things were tense at first. That’s just the way it is getting to know someone new, coming into a situation where you’re the new person. And yeah, maybe the color of your skin made them afraid they might say something that would offend you. No different than if you’d worn a Chicago Cubs T-shirt to dinner with my Cardinals family. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t fit in. I promise you they’ll get over any differences—even something as horrible as if you were a Cubs fan—” He stopped short and stared at her, waiting until she met his gaze. “You’re not a Cubs fan are you?”
She laughed. “No, bud. You can rest easy. Cardinals all the way.”
“Whew! You scared me for a minute there. But seriously, Shay, nobody will even think about the color of your skin a month from now except maybe my sisters who will be jealous of your tan. Unless, of course, you make an issue of it.”
When she angled toward him in the seat, he quickly realized he should have stopped while he was ahead.
“I am not making an issue of it,” she said. “Did you see me cringing in fear when I asked for a slice of white bread? That jelly bean thing really happened, Link. I wasn’t just imagining it.”
“I’m not doubting you. I’m just saying . . .” He grappled for an example. “Let’s say you had a friend who was handicapped. How would you handle that? You’re probably not going to change some people’s discomfort with being around handicapped people any more than you can change people’s discomfort about being around anyone they perceive as different from them. So what do you do?”
“Am I hearing you right? Are you comparing black people to handicapped people?”
He looked askance at her. “Are you saying being handicapped is an insult?” He chalked up a point for him on an imaginary blackboard. “Ha! See my point? So my question again is, how do you handle people’s discomfort with your imaginary handicapped friend?”
She shrugged. “Ignore them?”
“I have a better idea. How about educate them? Just by example. Being a good friend yourself. I remember Corinne had a friend in high school who was in a wheelchair. Belinda couldn’t walk, but she was funny, talented, super brainy. And smokin’ hot. I had a little crush on her if you want to know the truth.”
“Man, did you have a crush on every woman you ever met?”
“No. And I was twelve so that wasn’t happening. But my point is, some people treated Belinda like she couldn’t see or hear or think. Yes, they were idiots for thinking that way. But Corinne just redirected stupid questions and went on.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, like if they were in a restaurant together and the server said to Corinne, ‘What would your friend like?’ Corinne would just say, ‘Why don’t you ask her?’ Not in a sarcastic way, but—”
“But it still got the point across.” Shayla laughed.
“Right. I admit I would have been tempted to say, ‘my friend? I’ve never seen this weirdo before in my life.’ ”
“Link!” She slugged his arm. “That is so not politically correct.”
“But do you see my point? Shay, you apparently felt as awkward with my family as they felt with you. Neither of you are right or wrong. In fact, everybody was just trying not to hurt anyone else’s feelings.”
She nodded as if she agreed.
Which he took as permission to continue. “There’s been so much pain and misunderstanding and division in our history. Clear back to slavery, yes. But way too recently too. Things like Trayvon and Charleston don’t help. And Ferguson was way too close to home. But those are just the things that make the news. That’s not us. Our families are the kind that want to be solutions to the problem. And it can start with us. You and me.”
“You really think your family would welcome me with open arms if they knew we were . . . more than friends?”
His eyes went wide and he couldn’t hide the hope her question gave him. “Are we? You know how I feel. Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Would you quit wiggling your eyebrows—and changing the subject! I’m asking you an important question.”
“Of course they would, Shay. You don’t know this, but my parents—my mom especially—were really leery about Bree getting married again. Not because they had anything against Drew, or any of the other guys she dated, but because they were afraid of losing her. But when it came down to it, they just wanted Bree to be happy. And now they love Drew like their own.”
“I don’t get it. Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m just saying that my family wants me to be happy. The only thing that would bother them is if you were an atheist or something. They are probably prejudiced when it comes to faith.”
“Or the Cardinals.”
He laughed. “Yes, and not necessarily in that order. Oh, and”—he made his eyes bug out—“you don’t have any tattoos, do you? My dad is not a fan. My brother-in-law—Landyn’s husband—has a big ol’ Celtic cross on his left pec and I’m not so sure Dad doesn’t still hold that against him.”
“No tattoos.” One corner of her shapely mouth
tipped up. “Yet.”
“Don’t do it! That’s a deal breaker.” He let his smile fade, knowing they were skirting the real issues. “Seriously though, Shay, I guarantee you my parents will ask me if you love Jesus long before they ask about anything racial.”
Shay looked at her hands in her lap. “Well, I wish I could say the same about Daddy. Not the faith part. That’s first for him too. Jesus. But Daddy’s just . . . He’s changed. Everything changed after Mama died. And then after Jerry went off the deep end . . . My dad expects the worst from people. And too often that’s exactly what he gets.”
“I’m sorry, Shay. I really am.” He risked taking her hand, feeling a little like he was taking advantage of her emotions. But he liked the feel of her small hand in his too much to let go. She didn’t pull away either.
He held her hand across the console until they crossed over the Langhorne city limits. He drove slowly, but the bakery was only a few minutes away. He pulled into a parking space in front of the store and put the truck in Park, but didn’t turn off the ignition.
“Can I finish my movie, Shay?” Portia hollered over the seat, talking louder than necessary with her earbuds still in place.
Shayla motioned for her to take them out and waited until she did. “Maybe in the morning if you get your chores done before school.”
“No! Tonight! It’s a good movie.”
“I guess if you’re going to argue about it we’ll just send it back to the library and—”
“Okay, okay. I’ll watch it in the morning.”
“If you get your chores done in time,” Shay reminded.
There were lights on upstairs, and although Link wanted more than anything for Shay to invite him in, carry Portia up to bed, and then come back to sit in the dining room with coffee and him for another hour, he knew better. Those lights probably meant her father was still up waiting for her, and he would surely find a reason Link needed to leave and Shayla needed to get to bed.
And to be fair, she did need to get to bed. Running the bakery meant she was sometimes up with her father before four a.m. He needed to get home too. He was back to working two shifts tomorrow. But he wouldn’t drive away until he had a sure date on the calendar.
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