Old Friends (Janet and Toni Fanfic)

Chapter 36

"Okay. Well, we're together. There."

"She for real a freak like that?" Tamar asked. She didn't know that half. But I wasn't about to give her that kind of power over me, so I ignored her.

"You know you're gonna send Mommy into a cardiac arrest when she hears about this." Towanda warned me.

"Why?"

"She's a God-fearing woman, and you ain't gave her no grandkids yet. She is not gonna like this."

"She's met her before, she likes Janet," I defended.

"Yeah, when she got a man, and you got a man. I know it's the 21st century and all but don't act brand new."

They all shook their heads. Why did I feel like I was under some kind of investigation? An intervention?

"Mommy's real old school, Toni. You know that." Towanda told me as if that was just supposed to make me change my mind.

"I'm a grown woman, I don't care if this was still 1969. I can date who I want."

They were all silent. "Are all of y'all disapproving of this now? Everybody's just defending Mommy all of a sudden, like nobody wants me to see her."

"I think it's cute," Trina finally chimed in. But we already knew she was a freak and a half. "Toni Braxton, Janet Jackson... I like it."

"Thank you, Trina." I blew her a kiss. "You too Tamar? You're supposed to be on my side."

She just kept sipping her drink all loud and looking around.

"Listen. I don't have a problem. You are grown. She is grown. It just threw everybody off guard. You gotta give that to us. You ain't never been seeing no women in all these years, then all of a sudden..." Traci added.

"That is true. Since when do you play for the other team?" Tamar cut in obnoxiously.

I didn't know what to say. They made valid points, but I wasn't about to let them know that. I felt so attacked.

"Why does it matter?" I snapped.

"It doesn't, I guess... but it's all happening real fast, like, what's going on?" Towanda asked.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know this was an intervention."

"It's not!" They all said in some form or another. I shook my head.

"So shut up about it then, god damn!"

Everybody got quiet and the rest of our food was brought to us. We ate in near silence for about 20 minutes.

"Who's going to see Mommy after this?"

"Me, Tamar," Trina said, never looking up from her food.

"Why aren't you guys going?" I asked Traci and Towanda.

"We checked in this morning, I've gotta get home and get the kids ready for school," Towanda said. Traci nodded.

"And how was she doing?"

"A lot more responsive, she's still not moving anything really but her hands and feet, but she wants to engage in conversations a lot more."

"Good, good."

Now they were making me nervous about what Mommy was going to think when she found out about Janet and I, especially since I brought her in that hospital room a couple weeks ago and acted like everything was normal when it wasn't. If she wasn't upset that she was a woman, she'd definitely be upset that I didn't say anything earlier and she had to hear about it in the papers. But I had a good excuse. She was sick, I didn't want to put any extra stress on her... it would work.