Chapter 12, "another one"
It truly doesn't matter how old you get, sitting across from your parents after a mistake is always a rough experience.
I got a bad grade in an Economics exam in high school, and I remember first looking at Ma, and how her smile faded a bit and how the sides of her face didn't crinkle when she really smiled.
It was always disappointing looking at their disappointment.
So, now sitting across from them, with Kenzie seated on the lam stand, with Harambe seated at this feet looking like a gray ball of fluffy, teased out cotton, I was nervous.
"We are so disappointed," Ma said, spoke, her voice shaking a bit, rattling like an aftershock, rather than the earthquake itself. She was obviously saving that for Dad.
"It ain't really his fault tho," Kenzie tried, from behind.
"Don't interrupt your mother, Kenneth," Dad spoke and the floor quaked as he did. "Your brother is engaged –to a man – and hasn't told us anything."
Moms head went to her lap. I silently thanked God for the vase of tulips that was blocking Dad from seeing my full face, and vice versa.
"I'm sorry," I said, and as much as I wanted those words to taste like regret and guilt, they instead, came out tasting of apathy and not-giving-a-fuck about My Dads opinion. "Mom," I added. She looked up. "I repeated. "I'm sorry, Ma."
"You think not saying sorry to me hurts me, Ashley?" Dad asked. He grinned a bit, and something told me he wasn't tasting humor. "I've been in prison for years. Disrespect from my last child doesn't quite have the effect on me that you think it might have."
"Jesus," I groaned, falling backward against the chair, and sliding myself down a bit. Titling my head so the flowers blocked Dad, instead of Mom. "Not everything revolves around you, Dad," I bit. "I'm not gay because you weren't around a lot, you aren't the reason I married some white guy, you aren't the reason for anything that has happened in my life, because quite frankly, you haven't been in it a significant amount of time to have."
I stood.
"I look up to Beyoncé more than I do you, Dad," I said. Something lurched in my stomach. I hadn't eaten as yet, that must have been it. "You have no effect on me whatsoever."
And then we stared. Everything else dissolved into nothing. He looked up at me, and I down at him, for the first time in our lives. I was up and he was down. I had the power, not him.
Then, he slowly stood up, and regained the height advantage. He towered over me – being a 6 '4 basketball prodigy in high school. He smiled and I waited for my teeth to get knocked out of my mouth.
But it never came. The blows never came.
"Furlough ends in two days," he said. "The police will come for me. And I will spend the next 15 years in prison. If you want to talk, I will be here."
He stared down at me, and I up at him.
I never had to imagine the colors of my Dads eyes. They were always black.
You've reached Erika Bridgewater; I am unable to come to my phone right now. Leave a message at the sound of the beep.
"No one is picking up," I sighed.
"Well, you did sorta just run off with some guy instead of helping your friends," Kenzie muttered, rubbing a purring Harambe on his belly, on the floor of our living room. "They might not want to talk to you right now."
I sighed, resting my phone on the coffee table, next to the tulips. I folded my arms and stared down at Kenzie. "How's..." Lord this was gonna be a crazy next few days. "How's Devon?" I asked.
Kenzie stopped rubbing on Harambe and looked up. "He Dennis and not Dee now?"
I rolled my eyes at him, and went over, sitting down near his head, petting Harambe on his head. "How is Dee, Kenzie?"
He shrugged his shoulders, leaning down on one of his elbows. How would you feel if the guy you was in love with you ran off with another, taller, more Hollywood good looking white man to a secret location?"
"Like the literal human personification of garbage?" Kenzie opened his mouth to respond but I stopped him. "That was rhetorical, Kenzie.
"That was heavy," Kenzie said, playing with his locks. "I wudda done been in tears, fam, if I had a girlfriend."
"You do have a girlfriend, you ass," I said, nudging him, so he'd fall onto his back.
He shook a bit, but stayed steady. "When you making it right with him?" he asked. "At the dinner tomorrow night?"
"Dinner?" I asked. "What dinner?"
Kenzie unshackled his hands from his locks and grabbed my hand to play in them next. They were a rough, tangled mess, literally like dragging your hand through grass.
"Moms and Pops having a dinner with Grans here tomorrow," he told me. "She said invite whoever."
"So, Erika and the gang then," I said.
"They might not go for that right now," Kenzie said. "They a bit upset."
"They won't be," I muttered. "I'll invite Reece."
"Bitch whet?" Kenzie said, raising his voice. "How in the name of Ja Rule is that gonna make em happier?"
"Because it gives Erika a chance to directly confront Mrs. Red about the death of her father," I said. "Gives her a semblance of closure."
"What happen with her Dad anyway?" Kenzie asked. "Never explained it to me."
"I don't have time to get into it," I said. "You'll hear it later tomorrow when she asks Mrs. Red for an interview."
"You never got time to get into it, but you sure got the time to let these boy get into you," he mocked. "I don't know how you do it."
"Says the drug Lord," I mumbled. "Plus, I'm more mentally stable than you are Kenzie. I am built to withstand stuff like this."
He snorted. "You the one having a mental breakdown over boys, and you the mentally stable one, Ash?"
"I prefer the term, 'existential crises," I said.
"Use them white words then," he hit me back with. "Us black folk don't really get the intricacies of political correctness here, in case you ain't notice. They still spell it crazy here in the blacker part of town." He sat up. "You might have forgotten that while you go out to play wife to a rich, white guy every day."
"Screw you."He chuckled. "Come with me to work today," he said. "Get your mind off of things."
Reece
"You asked to see me?" Mother came into the kitchen, took off her gloves, threw them to the side and asked one of the kitchen workers to pick them up and hand them to her.
"Yes," I said, standing by a wooden stool at our rectangular, white marbled kitchen counter. Liza was seated on the other stool, pouring us milk. "I wanted to borrow the house tomorrow evening for an intimate date with Ashley."
Mother looked at me at first, through deafening silence. Then, she looked at Liza, who threw up both her hands. "Don't ask me anything."
"Approved," she said, eyes returning to me. "I'm going on a midnight excursion to the Berry islands in The Bahamas, so I won't have to be here." Her eyes bounced back between the both of us, hands slowing down as she put on her gloves. "No bastard sex parties."
"I wouldn't think of it," I said, sipping on some milk with a smirk.
"You said the same thing when you were sixteen and I left you here for Mardi Gras," Mother retorted, wrestling the gloves onto her hand. She pointed. "I will not tolerate semen on my couches. Again."
I saluted her. "Aye, aye, captain," I said.
"I'll keep him in line," Liza said.
Mother looked at her and smiled – or her version of a smile – that usually resembled a Shark after finding a wounded, bleeding scuba diver in water. Thank you, Only Child I Will Ever Acknowledge Having."
I choked on the milk. "She's literally Asian."
And you're literally an untalented moron, what is your point?" she shot back. "I will see you next week. Don't bring financial ruin to my company, please."
"I'll try," I muttered as she left back through the door she came in.
"Do you ever get the feeling Mother doesn't like me?" I asked Liza.
Liza, taking my milk and sipping it, shrugged her shoulders. "No," she sang. "Perish the thought, baby brother."
"Sir," Baker said, entering the kitchen. "You have a few friends in the foyer waiting for you."
I nodded. "Friends?"
"Yes, he said. "A Mister Pmurt and a few friends from your college days."
I raised a brow. "I love those guys," I said. "Thanks Baker."
Liza snorted next to me. "You went to Yale, mainly because Dad made a sizable donation beforehand."
"What's your point, Adopted Child?" I spat at her, only half-jokingly.
"You lasted for three weeks – the same amount of time it takes for a woman to realize that money isn't everything while dating you and to leave – what possible friends could you have made," she returned.
I smirked. "The best kind. Frat friends."
Declan had one of his feet up on the table at the center of the oval shaped foyer in our house. I couldn't hear what he was saying, not until he saw me, smirked and placed a hand in his yellow polo shorts.
In fact, Declan, Preston, Kingsley and Edward all were wearing different pastel versions of the same polo shorts and the same white polo shirt.
"And here's the man with the crazy inheritance that he got early," Declan said and the other boys laughed, richly.
"Nice to see you, bro," Kingsley, the chubbiest one of my old gang said. "Haven't seen you since the last bastard sex party."
"Yeah, well, running a company these days," I said, putting my hands into my pockets.
"He's more of the dancing monkey, while all of us do the work," Liza said, folding her hands next to me.
"Hello Miss Liza," Preston – the blonde, rich one with the crazy outlined jaw – said. "How we doing this time of year?"
"Was sort of hoping you'd be dead by now from a possible yeast infection, so not so good, Preston Hickenbottom," she returned.
"Always so feisty," Preston said, smirking. "Must be all that roasted duck you eat."
"I don't eat Chinese Food, you Human Colonoscopy," Liza threw. "You can however eat my assho-"
"Okay," I said, laughing and pinning Liza's mouth shut. "To what do I owe the pleasure of my old Alpha Gama Alpha brothers?"
Edward swaggered forward, hand in pocket still. "We want to throw the single greatest party in the history of Alpha Gama Alpha, and we want the Red Manor to be our venue."
"As A way to say goodbye to our line brother, now that he's engaged to a black guy," Dec added. "He won't be able to play golf with us. He'll be too busy dodging bullets in their neighborhoods, trying to speak Ebonics and figuring our why they are all so shook."
"hashtag blacklivesmatter," Preston added and they all laughed, including Dec. "Hastag not enough."
I chuckled a bit, and even that made my stomach pang with something. Something heated. Like I had just drunk too much coffee or something and it was burning me up on the inside.
"Ashley is actually pretty educated," I said. "He's an accomplished writer."
"If it weren't at an Ivy League then, it's not really that educated," Preston said. "It's up to you, line brother, to teach him how to cook, clean, maybe read a book and stop spending all his days trying to learn rap lyrics."
"But, we mourn you becoming a husband and no longer a party boy, so this party is for you and your boyfriend," Edward said.
"I don't know guys," I said, rubbing the top of my forehead. Just thinking of Ash's response to this kinda upsets me a bit.
Preston frowned. "This is for you, my man," he said. "Don't tell me you already have forgotten about us, dude?"
"I..." I started, turning my attention to Declan, who was nodding his head in the back. I sighed inwardly. "It's fine to have it here."
"Awesome," Preston said. "Get your assistant to set this up. I'll send out the invites."
As they left, Liza suddenly came alive. "You're going to let those racist, sexist, goons party in this house?"
"I'm inviting, Ashley," I said. "They aren't' going to be that way in front of him. Plus, when they hear him speak, they'll know he's the real deal."
"They called him 'it'," she said. "They called your fiancé an 'it' in your face." She held her hands at her hips. "They basically called him sub-human."
"They're from Ivy Leagues, Liza," Declan said. "They look at everyone who isn't from an Ivy that way."
"You know what is funny, Reece?" Liza asked. I figured it was rhetorical. "You didn't last three weeks in an Ivy League school. And yet, they don't treat you like an outsider." Her breaths hit me hard and harsh. "They don't look at you like you're uneducated or a moron for failing at it."
"That's different, Liza," I mumbled, turning my head to bay out the window. "The situations, the standards and key variables are different."
I could still see her angry face in my head. Milk skin turning red, like she was standing under a pot. Her voice escalating slowly, like a tea kettle. "Your skin color has everything to do with it."
I breathed. I really didn't wanna fight with my sister right now. "Liza, get Lola to set up the party. Make it for 9." I still wasn't looking at her.
I heard her deflate. "Fine. They do not go upstairs where I am. I'd rather not have racist trash anywhere near me."
I snapped my neck back at her. "It's prejudice to equate those who hang out with racists, as racists," I barked. "Jesus hung out with thieves. That doesn't make him a thief, now does it?"
Liza looked at me like I grew eight heads, all a different races. "I do not have a coherent response to that," she said. "And I'm an atheist, dick. So that analogy made no sense to me, whatsoever." She stalked away.
Declan made that bomb dropping whistling noise. "She'll get over it," he said. "Just like when you crashed her new Porsche because you were too busy giving her boyfriend a blowjob in 12th grade."
I pinched my nose. "Dude, I might need some back-up at this party, if I decide to invite Ashley," I said. I looked over at Dec, who was straight lipped. "I need your help here."
Declan smirked. "What are friends for, my man?"
Ashley
Kenzie and I pulled up to an office building downtown that was bustling with people. Like a law firm's offices, with phones ringing, black kids running around with papers in their hands. And a lot of chatter.
"Mr. King," A girl seated at a front desk outside of an office with glass walls. "A Mr. Dom is on line 4 for you when you get into your office."
"Thank you, " Keva, Kenzie said, before walking into the office, with me behind him. "Tell Richards that I want that sales projection for the next quarter on my desk in 30 and get Snoop Dogg on the line to let him know his shipment is coming to him tomorrow."
I closed the door, and stood against the frame, as he headed over to the desk, in this spacious, well decorated office space, with the skin of a bear for a rug. Various awards adorned the green walls.
Including one that read 'DRUG DEALER OF THE QUARTER' with Kenzie accepting an award from what looked like a conference for drug dealers. What on earth.
"What is this, Kenzie?' I asked, turning around to briefly look at the people at their various desks, at other offices in the back of them. . "It's like The Good Wife in here." I span back around, back still to the wall.
Kenzie kicked off his shoes and put his feet n his desk. "It would seem that the weed business is better than most thought it would be," he said. He picked up the phone. "This is Mr. King, CEO of King's It's Lit Weed Co, how may I help you?"
I went to yell, but there was a knock at the door.
And on the outside stood Dennis with a few papers in his hand.
He looked almost scared to see me. His lips were crackling, instead of the smooth baby pink that I'm used to see.
I stepped back so he could open the door. He did so, rather slowly, stepping in and closing it behind him.
He moved to the desk where Kenzie was on the phone and placed the papers on the edge of it, not caring that one had slipped off and took to the sky.
I took the chance to back myself into the corner near the door.
He came back over and stood an arm's length. "What are you doing here?" he asked, sounding resigned, not at all angry.
"I could ask you the same thing," I said. "This isn't your scenery."
He shrugged and dug his hands into his pockets. "Kenzie thought I could use a change of scenery."
"I'm sorry for what happened," I said quickly, not feeling like doing the small talking today. "It wasn't supposed to go down that way."
"By all means," Kenzie mumbled from his desk. He was covering the mouth of the receiver. "It's not like I'm conducting business that could literally end in several deaths here." He put the phone back to his ear. "Look, I ain't gonna hesitate to drop your pregnant girlfriend into a vat of acid and call it a day, you heard me?"
"Look," Dee said, turning my attention back to him, "we good." He tried to smile. He did smile. But I saw no dimples.
I stared at him for a minute. "Why are you lying to me?" I asked him.
"I'm not lying," he responded, as his smile fell.
"When you smile, Dennis, your dimple comes out." I paused. "It didn't."
"What do you want me to tell you, Ashley? He whisper-grumbled, dropping his head a bit so he was my height, eyeing me down. Intense, squinting, blazing with whatever the sun was made out of. "You made me look like an idiot in front of everyone. And you-"
"-broke your heart?" I finished.
His eyes weakened, and the suns in them set.
"I know the feeling," I said.
He took my hands into his. They were as warm as summer. "Look I said I was-"
My phone buzzed before he could finish. Then again and again. Until he allowed me to slip my hands out of his.
"I have to take this," I said, without taking it out of my pocket and without looking at the number.
"No you don't," Dennis said, clenching his jaw. "But you're going to anyway."
"I'm taking the car, Kenneth," I said, looking back at my brother.
"Look, don't make me fire your mom," Kenzie said over the phone waving me off, still talking into the receiver. "And by fire I mean set her literally on fire."
"Ashley King," I said, answering the phone.
"What if I said I like you," Reece asked me.
"I'd say you're nuts," I replied, smiling just a tiniest bit. So tiny, you'd need a magnifying glass to see it. I stopped walking, settling by the front entrance. "It's infatuation at best."
"Is infatuation really that bad of a thing?" he asked.
"It's what usually gets celebrities killed by fans, so yeah," I said. "I'd say so."
"How would you like to attend a party tonight?" he asked.
I started walking again, unlocking the car's door. "Interesting. I was going to ask you the same thing."
"Really?" He asked, laughing.
"Yeah," I said, getting in. I just realized how much it smelled like weed. And how Kenzie afforded it. "I was going to invite you to dinner with my parents and a few family and friends, for tomorrow. Night."
I couldn't see him, put by the hard breath, and the various noises he made that sounded like he was in the middle of a mild-to-severe stroke, I somehow created visuals of what he might look like right now.
"Dinner with your folks?" he asked, sounding like a tractor's tire was stuck in his throat.
I nodded, then stopped when I noticed he couldn't see it. "Yes. Dinner with my folks. You're allowed a few guests."
"This isn't a trap is it?" he asked. "I'm half joking."
Not the one you're thinking of. "No, not all," I answered. "You're my fiancé in their eyes. They want to get to know you."
"Or rip me to shreds?" he asked.
"Don't all boys get ripped to shreds when meeting their partner's parents?"
There was a brief wave of silent. "You know we don't have to refer to each other as partners when it's just the two of us right?"
I nodded to myself again. "I know," I said. "I know."
"Good," he laughed. "Well. The party is at 9. My friends are handling it. Lola should be there, and you are allowed guests of your own."
"Great," I said. "I'll see you there?"
"I should be there ten minutes before you," he said. "Gotta go into the office for a few hours."
"Okay." Another drop of silence. "Bye, Reece."
"......Hello, Ashley," he said instead and I could feel the smirk on the other line. "It's going to be nice to meet you for the very first time."
"I don't know why I agree to tag along to these things," Kenzie said, grumbling as he stepped out of the car. The Red Manor was loaded with vehicles and I'm pretty sure Ma could hear the music from our house.
"Because outside of selling weed and being a public nuisance, you don't really have anything to do," I replied.
"Can you two just chill for once?" Niko said, coming up from behind.
"Yeah, you two fight more than Nick and Smidt," Pete said, closing his door.
"We don't get that reference," Kenzie said. "Be blacker."
"That's offensive to black guys that watch that show," Pete said.
"Eight guys?" Niko snorted. "Look. Let's just eat pizza, sip some beer and find a white girl to flirt with."
"Ashley!"
I turned my head left. Reece was stepping out of his car, with his sister coming out of the passenger.
He actually ran over.
And kissed my cheek.
"Cooties," Kenzie muttered behind me and I elbowed him in the gut. "Bitch," he wheezed. "That was my good lung."
"How you doing tonight?" Reece asked.
"Peachy Keen," I responded. "But maybe let's not put kisses on cheek, until I'm okay with it?"
Reece smirked. "Sure."
"Are we ready to go to this probably racist party?" Liza asked.
"Ready if you are, you sexy ass Lucy looking Lui," Kenzie cooed, slithering over to Liza and placing an arm over her shoulder. "I didn't get to properly introduce myself to you. Hi, I'm Kenzie, but ladies just call me Kenz-ooooooh right there baby."
Reece's sister, for what she's worth, at least didn't vomit uncontrollably.
She did move his hand from around her neck. "My name is Lizaaaaaaaoooow-someone-call-the-hospital, because I kick boys in the left nutsac so hard that touch, me, it merges with the right to form one ball."
Kenzie moved his hand. "Playing hard to get I see."
"I don't play hard to get," Liza said. "If I want that pole, I'd ride that pole."
"Okay, so let's stop this conversation while my ears aren't bleeding all over the place," Pete said, "and let's maybe go inside?"
"Agreed," I mumbled, and walked next to Reece as we approached the double doors of the Red Manor.
"How did you get your friends to come?" he asked. "I thought they'd be mad at you for at least a week."
"I promised them something big," I said.
"Like?" Reece asked, leaning in.
"Prey."
Reece's eyebrow shot up. And so did a coy smile play on his lips. "Pre-"
"You might not want to go inside."
I looked to the voice. It was Lola. And she looked pissed. Her arms were tight, her fists were clenched and I could see several veins shooting across her forehead. Her eyes were narrowed, voice frozen like a glacier. "Not without the entirety of the Bronx, and maybe a news crew."
"Why?" Reece asked, stepping up to her. We were just a few steps away from the front door.
Lola's anger look like it didn't want to melt when she looked at Reece. "Look for yourself," she said. "Look inside."
Reece looked at me, but didn't say anything. He just walked up the steps leading to the front door, where Lola stood and opened the front doors.
And he stood there. With his hands on either door and did not say anything.
Nothing until I finally said something. "Reece?"
Reece
"Reece?" Ashley called and it knocked me out of my trance.
I span around to face him. And my sister. And his friends. "We might have a problem," I said.
I turned back around. To see a bunch of people partying.
In blackface.