Sisters and Husbands

by Connie Briscoe

  Chapter 10

  Charmaine’s suggestion was made with the best of intentions—a nice little family outing to a restaurant for dinner on a Friday evening, with Kenny and Tiffany getting to choose the spot. When she suggested it to Tyrone, she pointed out that it would be a great way to get Kenny and Tiffany to cooperate on something. That was the idea at least.

  She should have known better. Kenny stood firmly in the living room in his baggy blue jeans and baseball cap and stated that he wanted barbecue at Famous Dave’s. Tiffany, her hands on her hips and dressed in a denim fluff miniskirt and orange cami, insisted on the Olive Garden, which Charmaine found strange, since Tiffany didn’t eat pasta or tomatoes. But Tiffany claimed to love the stuffed mushrooms and said she had learned to avoid the things she disliked.

  The disagreement between the kids didn’t seem so awful at first, as the whole point was to try and teach them to work together and to compromise when they disagreed on something. So back and forth they went, with Charmaine trying patiently to broker an agreement. After nearly thirty minutes of this, neither of them had budged a millimeter. Which was weird to Charmaine because she knew that Kenny liked pasta and Tiffany liked barbecue. Or maybe it wasn’t so weird, since what they didn’t like was each other.

  So she got tougher and warned that if they couldn’t agree on a restaurant, the adults would pick an alternative. That helped not at all, and Charmaine threw her hands up in despair. It was obvious that this was going nowhere. “We’ll do seafood,” she decided firmly. “We haven’t been to the Crab Shanty since last summer.”

  Her decision was reasonable and fair, she thought. After all, she had warned Kenny and Tiffany repeatedly as they both stood there with stubborn scowls on their faces.

  “Everybody likes seafood, right?” Charmaine said, looking from one to the other.

  Kenny shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and shrugged. Tiffany switched her new Furla bag from one arm to the other as she carefully studied her freshly painted orange fingernails.

  “We should go to the Olive Garden,” Tyrone said suddenly out of nowhere. “We haven’t been there in a while either.”

  “Huh?” Charmaine couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “The Olive Garden this time,” Tyrone repeated. “Kenny can choose next time we eat out.”

  “And might I ask why you made that decision?” Charmaine asked, hand planted firmly on her hip.

  “Tiffany is our guest. We’ll do what she wants today. There will be plenty of other chances for Kenny to pick where we eat.”

  Naturally, Tiffany was delighted with this idea and she clapped with joy. Kenny was pissed and flopped down onto the couch, arms folded defiantly across his chest.

  Charmaine did not think Tyrone’s suggestion was helpful at all. The whole point was to try and get the kids to work together, not to choose sides. Even still, if Tyrone had made the suggestion to go with Tiffany’s choice this time and Kenny’s later before she had chosen seafood as an alternative, she would have gone along with it. But Tyrone waited until she had ruled on the matter to come up with his cockamamie idea. In effect, Tyrone was overruling her. In front of Tiffany and her son. Not good. No way, no how.

  What the heck was the matter with this man? Whatever it was, Charmaine was losing all her patience with him. It was past nine o’clock by the time he and Tiffany had come home from their shopping spree after leaving the airport last Sunday. They’d had to rush through a meal she had spent hours preparing and they missed out altogether on the videos she had rented for them to watch. But Charmaine had kept her lips zipped, since it was Tiffany’s first day there.

  That was then, this was now. Charmaine tugged at the sleeve of Tyrone’s navy shirt and pulled him into the kitchen. “What’s wrong with my suggestion to get seafood?” she whispered, not wanting the kids to hear.

  “Tiffany is visiting. We need to make her feel welcome. We can go to Famous Dave’s next time we eat out.”

  “This isn’t about the kids anymore. This is about you overruling me in front of them,” she said, poking him in the arm. “I don’t think that’s right.”

  “I wasn’t trying to overrule you. I was trying to solve the disagreement.”

  “But you did overrule me.” Charmaine was trying to keep her voice down, but she could feel herself about to fail. “I had decided on seafood after they kept going back and forth and couldn’t agree on anything. Then you sided with Tiffany when you came up with this stuff about going to the Olive Garden.”

  “Look, I wasn’t trying to start anything. I was just trying to get things moving.”

  “Things were moving. I had just made a decision.”

  “How the hell is suggesting seafood helping? Neither of them wanted any damn seafood.”

  “That’s better than siding with Tiffany,” she snapped. She paused when she realized that they were both shouting and making absolutely no progress. Her idea to have the kids cooperate and pick a restaurant together had completely backfired. The kids were not getting along any better, and she and Tyrone were arguing with each other. “This is going nowhere,” she said. “I think we should pick someplace neither of them suggested. I don’t care what—seafood, burgers, whatever. That’s fair to both of them.”

  “I disagree. We go to the Olive Garden today. Then next weekend we can go—”

  Charmaine’s head snapped back. He obviously was not backing down one inch. Well, neither was she. “You can go to the Olive Garden. We won’t be joining you.”

  Tyrone’s eyes flashed red in a way that Charmaine had never seen before. “Suit yourself.” He stomped back into the family room. “C’mon, Tiffany. Let’s go.”

  Tyrone didn’t need to explain to the kids what had happened, since they had no doubt heard most of it anyway. She and Tyrone were being stubborn, but Charmaine was too upset to care. The last thing she wanted was to be challenged in front of Tiffany, a child who had little respect for her authority in the first place. And she didn’t think that Tyrone was being at all fair to Kenny.

  She watched with sadness as Tyrone and Tiffany marched through the kitchen and left through the door to the garage. It felt as though they had drawn battle lines. But Tyrone’s personality was so different when his daughter was around. The wonderful husband and stepfather would vanish and this unreasonable, red-eyed freak would take his place.

  She called Kenny into the kitchen and forced a smile on her face when he walked in looking disappointed and puzzled.

  “What was that all about, Ma?”

  She patted his cheek. “Looks like it’s going to be you and me chowing down on some barbecue, handsome.”

  “Really? Why are we going to separate places to eat? We’re family. That doesn’t seem right.”

  “I know, but sometimes families disagree.” Charmaine hoped that was all it was—just a temporary disagreement among family members. Surely they would all soon get along much better.

  Chapter 11

  Beverly had wanted to try The Melting Pot fondue restaurant for dinner ever since she first spotted it at the Wilde Lake Village Center in Columbia a few months earlier. Fondue was all the rage when she was a girl. She could remember Evelyn borrowing the family car and driving Charmaine and her downtown in Washington, D.C., for fondue. Then it fell out of favor. It was good to see it making a comeback, even if only a modest one, because she loved the sauces and was a real sucker for the fruit dipped in milk chocolate.

  It was especially cool that she was meeting her sisters here for dinner, she thought as she pulled her Lexus into the parking lot. Once every couple of months they would pick a spot to meet for lunch or dinner. Sometimes their mother or one of their girlfriends would join in the fun. It was a tradition the sisters had started years ago that got maintained or not, depending on how busy they each were. They had picked it up again a couple of years back, when Beverly first moved from Washington, D.C., to Columbia, Maryland, after landing a job at the Baltimore Sun.

  Beverly lov
ed living in Columbia, a jewel of a community nestled about halfway between Baltimore and Washington, with a rich assortment of progressive people of all races. Although Columbia was no D.C. or even Baltimore when it came to amenities, it still had decent restaurants and shopping and was relatively free of the crime found in the two bigger cities. Many people assumed that all the middle-class blacks outside of D.C. lived in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, but Columbia and parts of the nearby Ellicott City could rival the both of them when it came to diversity.

  The only problem was the skyrocketing prices of real estate. Not long ago, housing out here was a lot cheaper than it was in Washington and Baltimore, but all that was changing as more people discovered the area and its ideal mix of features and serenity. Beverly was glad she had bought her town house before prices skyrocketed. Charmaine had also moved to Columbia from Prince George’s County when she got married about a year ago.

  Beverly parked her car next to Charmaine’s Honda Accord and smiled as she thought about her date with Julian last night while she walked through the lot and past the bank drive-through. Julian had to work that Saturday afternoon, and she hoped she hadn’t worn him out by insisting they go at it twice last night and again this morning. But she couldn’t help it. The man really stirred her passions.

  She walked through the door of the restaurant, and the waitress escorted her to the table where Charmaine was already seated, looking sexy as usual in a colorful print sundress with a low-cut halter top. Beverly sat down across from her.

  “Sorry to be late,” Beverly said. “I had a scorching hot date last night.”

  Charmaine pointed at her watch with deliberate exaggeration. “Last night? What’s that got to do with anything now? It’s five o’clock.”

  “I said it was a scorcher,” Beverly said slyly. “Those always last until the following morning with Julian. I didn’t get to sleep until around noon.”

  Charmaine rolled her eyes skyward. “What did you two lovebirds do? Besides screw.”

  Beverly laughed. “What else is there? I don’t know what it is exactly, but it seems the older I get, the hornier I get. Does that change after forty? Everyone assumes it does.”

  Charmaine shook her head vehemently. “That’s a myth. My forties have been some of my most passionate years.”

  “Really? Why do you think that is?” Beverly asked.

  “Fewer hang-ups, less inhibited.”

  “Must be, ’cause I can’t seem to get enough of Julian. Don’t get me wrong now. That’s not all we do. We also talk—a lot. Actually the talks are starting to take up more and more of our time together. We’re getting to be so much like an old married couple that it scares me sometimes.”

  Charmaine smiled. “I bet. What’s he up to now? Waiting for you to get back home?”

  Beverly shook her head. “I wish. He had to go in to work.”

  “On a Saturday?”

  Beverly nodded. “For a couple of hours. Then he and two of his co-workers were going to the golf course to hit some balls.”

  “Now that’s dedication,” Charmaine said as she took a sip of her drink.

  “He loves it, but yeah, he’s in a very competitive field. Video games are so hot now. Plus, not many black people work in the field, so he’s trying to fit in and prove himself. In fact there are only two other black professionals where he works.”

  Beverly paused and watched as Charmaine fiddled absentmindedly with the slice of lime in her margarita. Charmaine wasn’t her usual full-of-fun-and-laughter self. She obviously had something else on her mind. “And then we climbed up on the roof, stripped naked, and screwed while standing on top of the chimney.”

  Charmaine blinked. “Huh?”

  Beverly laughed. “So I finally got your attention.”

  Charmaine twisted her lip when she realized what was going on. “Not funny.”

  “Well, what are you thinking about? How are things with you and Tyrone? And Tiffany?”

  Charmaine scrunched up her nose. “We were doing okay until last night. That was awful. This morning wasn’t much to get excited about. You could have sliced the chill in the air with a knife.”

  “Good grief. What happened?”

  “I only want to have to say this once, so let’s wait for Evelyn to get here.” Charmaine looked back toward the entrance. “By the way, where is she? She’s never late anywhere.”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing. She’s usually the first to arrive.”

  “Maybe she’s stuck in traffic, since she’s coming all the way from Silver Spring,” Charmaine said. “Or maybe her brand-new Benz broke down.”

  “Don’t be so hard on her,” Beverly said. “You’re just jealous.”

  “You’re right. I am.”

  As if on cue, Evelyn strode into the dining room and rushed to the table, hastily fastening the jacket buttons to her off-white pantsuit. A strand of her normally picture-perfect hair kept falling across her forehead, and she brushed it back.

  Beverly frowned. It was so unlike Evelyn to be anything but ultra cool.

  “Sorry to be so late,” Evelyn said as she slid into her seat.

  “Traffic?” Charmaine asked.

  “Not really. Just… stuff. I’m sure you all don’t want to be bothered with my issues.”

  “Yes, we do,” Beverly said.

  “You mean you have issues?” Charmaine added. “I’m shocked, but take a ticket, sister. You’re next in line after me.”

  “Oh?” Evelyn said. “What’s going on?”

  “Something to do with Tiffany,” Beverly said. “Something happened last night. Go ahead, Charm, tell us.”

  Charmaine crossed her legs under the table and leaned in. She was bursting to get last night’s fiasco with Tyrone and Tiffany off her chest. Besides, she suspected that Evelyn’s problems were minor compared to her own. Evelyn, with her perfect little suits and her perfect little married life, was probably worried about her vegetable garden getting too much rain lately. Or maybe she had a stain on one of her precious designer bags.

  “I blame Tyrone more than I do Tiffany. She’s just a child. It’s the way her daddy acts when she’s around that drives me nuts. God! The man has a split personality if I ever saw one. One minute he’s a wonderful husband and father figure to Kenny. The next minute he goes flying off on this crazy absentee-father guilt trip.”

  “Whoa.” Beverly said. “Guilt about what? You always said he was an attentive father.”

  “He is attentive. They talk on the phone several times a week when Tiffany’s not here. But he still feels guilty ’cause he doesn’t live with her year-round. He tries to make up for it when she’s here by turning into this overbearing monster, stepping on everybody else’s toes to please her.”

  “What happened last night?” Evelyn asked.

  Charmaine paused and took a generous sip of her margarita as the waitress came by to take drink orders from Beverly and Evelyn. Beverly ordered her favorite, an apple martini. Evelyn didn’t usually drink anything stronger than a glass of wine but decided to go for a margarita this time. Charmaine took note and began to think that maybe something more than soaked gardens was bothering Evelyn.

  Just thinking about the argument with Tyrone the previous evening made Charmaine’s heart pump faster. It was the biggest disagreement that they’d had since they met. They had barely spoken to each other that morning. Then he and Tiffany left around noon to do yet more shopping, and Charmaine dropped Kenny off at a friend’s house before coming to The Melting Pot.

  “There’s always been this competition between Kenny and Tiffany, especially for Tyrone’s attention,” Charmaine continued as soon as the waitress left. “Tiffany misses her dad no doubt, and Kenny is starved for a father figure. A little competition between them is understandable. So yesterday I suggested that the kids decide on a restaurant for dinner, to try and get them to work together on something that would be fun. But they couldn’t come to an agreement, so after a lot of back
-and-forth, I suggested an alternative. That’s when Tyrone stepped in and overruled me right in front of them. He decided that we would go to the restaurant that Tiffany picked.”

  “Uh-oh,” Evelyn murmured.

  “He didn’t,” Beverly said, shaking her head.

  “Yep, sure did. I said no, I don’t think so. I explained that it wasn’t right to overrule me in front of the kids and that this wouldn’t be fair to Kenny, not to mention that it sends the wrong signal to Tiffany. He got mad and they went on without us.”

  “That’s so over-the-top,” Beverly said with disapproval. “It sounds like he doesn’t even care how it affects Kenny.”

  “You talked about this problem a little when Tiffany was here last summer,” Evelyn said. “I had no idea it was this serious. A lot of absentee fathers have some guilt, but it sounds like Tyrone has it bad.”

  “I think it’s worse than it was last summer,” Charmaine said. “Or maybe I’m less patient now. We had only been married about a month then, and I wanted to make Tyrone happy and get to know his daughter. But I’m past the need to please no matter what, thank you.”

  “Have you tried sitting down and talking to him about it, away from the kids?” Evelyn asked. “It’s not good for them to see you two arguing. They will milk that for all they can get out of it.”

  “Of course I have,” Charmaine said, a little exasperated to have Evelyn lecturing her. She was a mother too, and a damn good one at that. She knew what was and wasn’t good for children. “I tried to talk to him after Tiffany left last summer, but it was going in one ear and out the other. So I dropped it.”

  “That’s too bad,” Beverly said.

  “She visited us for only two weeks during summer and another week at Christmas,” Charmaine continued. “And I figured I could live with him indulging her for such a short time, you know? Now that she’s staying all summer, I can’t overlook it. If it was just me, I might, but not with Kenny. Hell no. I worry about what it will do to his psyche.”