Either that or Cute Woman is upset you said “damn.” Or she’s the hoochie I know she is. I’m beginning to like him, but the women? They’re ridiculous.
“Are you saying that your family’s dysfunctional?” Jeanetta asks.
“Dysfunctional?” I say. “That’s a word for white folks and talk shows.”
True. Though sometimes I think my mama…No, I’m not going to say she’s dysfunctional. Blood is thicker than water. Mama’s just…eccentric.
The other woman smiles. Nice. We’re connecting. Cool.
“My family is crazy,” I say. “My family is damaged. My family is…completely out its damn mind. Trust me. Your IQ will shoot up thirty points just being in the same state as them.”
Jeanetta clears her throat and takes her purse from the bar. “No one’s that crazy,” Jeanetta says, turning to the woman beside her. “Come on, Chloe. Let’s go.”
Chloe? Geez, Cute Hoochie Woman is a perfume. Rob is getting played.
What the hell?
Jeanetta turns to me with a bland, no-this-hasn’t-been-fun look on her face. “It was nice meeting you, Robert.”
“It’s Rob, and who—”
“Uh-huh.” Jeanetta slides off the stool, but Chloe stays put. “Come on, girl. Happy hour’s almost over. You don’t have to chaperone me anymore.” Jeanetta turns to me, dipping those triple Ds into my face. “No offense, Robert. I have to be careful. You understand.”
“Uh, yeah.” I smile at Chloe. “It was nice meeting you, too, Chloe.” I think.
Chloe slides off her stool, letting just the tip of her tongue flick over her lower lip. “It was nice meeting you, too, Rob.”
And she got my name right.
“And I’d like to meet your family someday,” Chloe says directly to me.
Cute and daring? “What?”
Chloe hops up on Jeanetta’s seat. “I’d like to meet your family.”
Daa-em. “Um, I’m going to see my grandpa Joe-Joe and my daddy this evening. You…want to come?”
Grandpa “Joe-Joe”? Where do authors get these funky names? One author came to the library to do a reading last fall, and he said he used a phone book for all of his names. “I prefer the randomness of it all,” he said. I doubt there’s a listing for “Grandpa Joe-Joe” in the phone book.
“Sure.”
Riiiiight. Just like that. Chance meeting, a “date” to see Grandpa Joe-Joe, then lots of sex where Rob will analyze Chloe’s tattoo. Only in books. Or in Las Vegas.
Or so I’ve heard.
Yes! “Cool.”
Jeanetta sighs and shakes her head. “How are you going to get home, Chloe?”
Chloe smiles. “Rob can take me.”
Rob. That’s my name. I like this girl.
“Whatever,” Jeanetta says, and she walks out of Bensons.
I don’t watch Jeanetta leave, though every “man” cell in my body wants me to, and I focus on Chloe’s hands. Short nails, no nail polish. I’ll bet her hands are soft. “Are you sure you want to meet my family?”
Chloe nods.
I leave a ten on the bar. “Well, okay.” I look down at her feet and see sandals. This could be a problem. “Just watch your step when we get to Grandpa Joe-Joe’s house. You never know what might be hiding in Grandpa Joe-Joe’s jungle….”
Not bad. Not great. Adequate. It reminds me of some book I read a few years ago, what was it? Some book about a dysfunctional white family that made most of the top ten best book lists. Maybe this is the darker version of that. Yet another rip-off.
I toy with turning the page. I haven’t quite been grabbed yet, though I have a feeling these two—Chloe and Rob—will be bumping uglies by page thirty. So predictable.
I need a challenge!
6
Jack
This isn’t easy at all.
But it has to be done.
I know.
I’m sorting Stevie’s toys into two big boxes: toys from kids’ meals, which still smell like French fries, and toys fit to be taken to the Salvation Army. He took good care of his toys, not that we showered him with that many. The xylophone still rolls and plays a tune. Now where is the…hammer? What do you call it?
Call it the “banger.”
Here it is. He used to bang all day on this thing, and some days he’d fixate on a single note and play that one note wherever he went.
Good ol’Stevie “One Note.”
I hit a note several times.
Put it in the box, Jack.
I know, I know.
After half an hour, I realize something: fast-food restaurants give away a lot of toys. We ate out a lot, even though Noël could cook like a master chef, and we have all the Magic Chef accessories to prove it. But we liked going to places with indoor playgrounds so Stevie could work off his chicken nuggets and fries while we nursed sweet teas and…talked.
I miss that. I miss watching him sliding and climbing. I miss hearing him say, “Daddy, look!” I miss talking about nothing with Noël. So much of our “romance,” if you could call it that, was a long series of nothing moments held together by a frolicking little boy.
You’re almost done. Don’t stop now.
The boxes almost filled, I hold Stevie’s teddy bear, Mr. Bear, the one I bought at the hospital gift shop the day Stevie was born. While Stevie called him Mr. Bear, I used to call him “Chuck,” because Stevie regularly threw him around his room.
Mr. Bear has seen better days.
The seams under each arm are ripped, one glass eyeball almost dangles, and his fur is fuzzed out in all the wrong places.
I’m keeping Mr. Bear.
No one’s stopping you.
I set Mr. Bear on top of Stevie’s dresser and take the French fry-smelling toys to the big garbage can outside. While every other garbage can on this street will be full of wrapping paper, bows, and boxes, mine will be full of fast-food toys. There’s something…sad about that.
You need to start over.
Yeah, but it’s still sad.
I look at the space in the driveway where Noël’s Ford Mustang, her “baby,” used to sit. It was too yellow for my taste, but it fit her and her sunny personality. She was always sunny, even on cold and overcast days like this. I hadn’t touched the car except to put a blaze orange “FOR SALE” sign in the rear window. I hadn’t expected anyone to notice, but a nice man, a World War II veteran who was wounded at Anzio, like my Grandpa Jeff, had bought it and my memories of Noël in that car…three days ago?
Close. Four days ago.
Really?
And you haven’t been to the bank to deposit his check yet. When are you going to do that?
If she had taken the Mustang instead of that tin can of a van, maybe she’d still be alive.