The renovated duplex my grandparents had bought fifty years ago was still the same blue it had always been, though now the deep cobalt had faded to a blue as clear as the sky. The green of the trees had begun to absorb into the shadows of nightfall and a pleasant evening breeze danced through the air. I pulled my car behind Aunt Jackie's and cut the engine. The sounds of revelry breached the car easily—someone laughing (probably already drunk), voices yelling (probably also drunk), and off-key singing (definitely drunk).
I sighed deeply, the burden of a long day weighing on my shoulders as much as my mind, but family was family and I would be there for them even when I didn't feel like socializing. I would give my hugs, tell my little jokes, and be a generally agreeable conversationalist for the rest of the evening.
But for no more than two hours and then, you better believe I was a ghost until the Fourth of July.
As I pushed through grandma's chain-link gate with one hand, and balanced Jackson's gift in the other, I managed to ease the tension in my shoulders. Halfway up the green painted concrete path Jackson opened the screen door. "Evie, you made it!" He jogged over to me and pulled the large box from my arms. "I got it."
"Of course I made it. How could I miss a chance to see my favorite cousin?"
He laughed as we continued toward the door. "That's a damn lie. You know Bree is your favorite."
"Well, no one can say I didn't at least try to be polite."
I held the screen door open for him so he could finagle the box through then swept in behind. A cheer of excited 'Evie!'s rose over the music. I squeezed through a cluttering of relatives seated in the walkway on folding chairs and headed toward the head of the round dining table where grandma was sipping from a red cup full of vodka and seltzer water and bobbing her head to Marvin Gaye. "Hey!" She said as I reached her and leaned down for a hug. "There's grandma's sugar!" She hugged me tight and gave me a big sloppy kiss on the cheek. "You hungry?"
"Not yet." I shouted over the music.
"When you get hungry let me know. I got some chicken, collards, mac n cheese, and green beans."
"Yes, ma'am."
After I finished greeting grandma, the next stop was mom. She was sitting on the opposite end, next to Uncle Bobby, her curly hair pulled tight into the same low bun it was always in.
"Hey," she said, and half stood to return my hug. "You made it."
"I wouldn't miss it."
As I worked my way back through the labyrinth of bodies packed into grandma's tiny dining room, half the crew got up one by one to hug me and ask how life was treating me since I'd last seen them all at Easter. On the aging stereo Evelyn Champagne King crooned about her love coming down and I remembered that for a while as a child I swore I was named after her. Eventually mom broke the news that I was named for my grandmother. The other one.
After I'd hugged half the family and a quarter of the neighborhood, I settled into the living room chair with a can of off-brand red soda that was either strawberry or fruit punch flavor—I didn't care. The next hour was a revolving door of faces I'd known all my life. Cousins coming 'round to pat Jackson on the back and drink all the beer. Uncle's dispensing sage advices that seemed a little fool-hearty if you asked me, but no one asked me. Aunts jumping up to dance to the same music they'd been dancing to for twenty years. And grandma's old lady friends from around the hood still hot and ready to party well into their seventies. They'd started up a game of poker at the card table that I had been previously banned from because I played with cents and not dollars. It wouldn't be long before the accusations of cheating began.
Once the sun had gone all the way down the festivities went into full swing. Johnnie Mae got sufficiently drunk and started her patented drunk singing over all conversation to the dismay of Ms. Irene. Ray and Jay almost came to blows on the front porch where some of the men had always taken to drinking. Dre almost set Jackson's 'Congrats Grad' cake on fire 'cause he plays too damn much and missed the candle. One child got yelled at for opening grandma's door one too many times. And another got hurt running through the house even though grandma warned them about ten damn times. She had wailed her heavy child-tears as Uncle Moe got the peroxide. The child (whose name, parent, and general relation to me I can't remember) had barreled right into Aunt Edna Mae while she was kicking up a one-person electric slide and got boogie, woogie, woogie-ed right in the face. I admit I laughed but so did Ms. Maybe so I was in good company in hell.
About the only people not at least a little tipsy by nine was me, Jackson, the children, Ms. Maybe, and my cousin Aubrey who was too busy tearing into a plate of collards and ham hocks to care.
In the lapse of conversation, I watched Aunt Gladys sway to some old Al Green song while texting Manny about tomorrow's plans. Game was at eleven. Pasha was filling in. Jackson's party was fine. His game night with his friend was great.
No declarations of love necessary. Not over text anyway, but still...
Somebody loved me. I mean, someone not in the room and not related to me. It's been a long time. And last time...it had ended so sadly.
Would it end like that with Manny? Probably not as he's not a recent college graduate who scored his dream job halfway across the world in Spain while I still had a year to go and besides, I had no plans to go to Spain with a man I wasn't married to and we were way too young for marriage anyway.
I wonder how Dante's doing.
As I was considering whether or not they should go ahead and institutionalize me, my cousin Tanya turned to me as she was walking out of the smoke room. "Evie, girl. Where's this boyfriend I keep hearing about?"
I turned a sullen scowl into a complacent smile before she could see. "You'll meet him soon. I promise."
Her hair, relaxed and died a honey brown, bobbed as she laughed. "I hear he's cute."
"...How? From who?"
"From you! You have good ass taste in men! I'm sure he's fine as hell!"
"I mean—"
"When you gon' hook me up with one of his friends?"
I laughed at that. "You haven't even met him yet."
"I trust you."
"You so damn crazy. Don't you have a man?"
She made a show of rolling her large pretty eyes. "I have a situation that's gettin' more irritating by the day."
"You are a trip and a half."
She was about to argue, or perhaps agree, when Renee shouted over the noise, "Turn the music down! It's grandad!"
For a second I thought she meant walking up the path and I girded my loins for the inevitable fight, but Renee held her phone up above the crowd and grandad's gravelly bass boomed through the speakers. "Hey family!"
A chorus of voices responded with greetings of 'hey grandad, 'hey unc', or 'hey Joe'. Grandma Sophie sat tightlipped and steely eyed in her chair at the head of the table. She took a drink of vodka but said nothing.
"Jackson, I heard you don' got your G.E.D."
Jackson had squeezed closer to Renee's phone, so he didn't have to shout. "Yes, sir."
"I'm proud of you, boy. You keep it up."
"I will."
"I got you something nice coming in the mail." Grandad laughed his silky, bottomless laugh. "Keep doing right and the blessings will keep coming."
"Yes, sir. I will."
"Where you at, grandad?" Asked Ray.
"Guyana. Thinking of coming in soon for a visit. I miss my blood."
"How long it's been now, Joe?"
"Couple years." A 'couple years' in grandad-time was a little over five.
"You got to come meet Rhonda! You got some new great-grands too."
"I'd like that." From the background someone called to him. "Well, let me let y'all get back to the celebrations. Oh, and Sophie? Can't wait to see you."
"Go to hell, Joe."
"Go to hell to you too." He laughed again before the line disconnected and the music resumed.
By then Tanya had moved on and I was growing bored but the elaborate clock on the wall just above the Lord's Prayer told me I'd only been here for an hour and a half, so I decided to mosey on into the kitchen for some food. The rich people food from the repass was finally gone and my stomach had just started roiling with hunger. On my way to the kitchen I asked grandma if I could eat, mostly out of politeness as I was one of the few people she allowed to go in her pots in the first place.
After assuring her I'd wash my hands first for the millionth time in my life I went ahead and filled one of the hard-plastic plates she put out for guests with chicken, greens, mac n' cheese, and cornbread. Then I took a seat at the kitchen table as all the chairs around the round table were taken by company, and dug in.
As I ate Uncles Bobby and John-John got into an argument about the Pips two feet from me for no reason other than they're both divas who thrived with an audience.
"You know, the Pips came through one year at the Jazz Festival." Uncle John-John was saying between sips of his Heineken.
Uncle Bobby rubbed at the scruff of his beard. "Without Gladys? Man, that's bullshit."
"No really!"
"You saw them?"
"No, I had to work. I read the pamphlet."
"Man, get the fuck outta here!"
"It's true!"
"What songs did they sing?"
"I don't know..."
"Ain't no songs without Gladys."
"I know what I read!"
"You can read? Could've fooled me."
"Now looky here, you son of a bitch..."
When these two start going at it about the Pips it's time to go. As I was finishing up dinner and thinking up my exit speech Jackson came to join me in the kitchen. "Hey, cuz. Getting ready to go?"
I chuckled. "What makes you say that?"
"You got that look on your face like you getting ready to think up an excuse to get out of here."
"Suppose I can't do it just yet. It'd be rude to eat and run."
"It is a bad look," he grabbed an orange soda from the fridge then sat at the chair across from me. "Just tell her you got work tomorrow. It's the truth."
"Pasha's filling in for me."
He smiled. "They don't know that."
"True." I was full and happy so I could feel my bed calling to me from across town. "Open your gift before I go."
The box was wrapped in old Christmas paper I had at home, but he didn't mention it as he tore at it. Beneath the green and red packaging, the name of the kitchen utensil peaked through. He gasped and started ripping faster.
"It's a stand mixer with meat grinder and pasta maker attachments." I said when he'd removed most of the paper.
His smile was so wide I thought it might stretch across the kitchen, hell maybe the whole neighborhood. "Oh shit! My mixer been dying on me."
"I know. I heard." Had to hear him talk about that shit 'bout every damn day at work.
"I can make my own sausages with this!" He exclaimed while reading the features printed on the side of the box. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." He jumped out of his seat and gave me a hug. I am so hugged out today. "So, what next? Cooking school?"
He looked away suddenly, unable to meet my gaze as he flopped back in his chair. "I don't know."
"What's wrong?"
"I been looking into it. Chefs don't make that much. Not starting out."
"A lot of careers are like that."
He frowned and started tapping his fingers on the table. "Yeah, but I'm not eighteen anymore, I'm thirty-four. If I was young, I would have time to play around with a career. But I'm not. I don't want to go in debt thinking I'll be the next Anthony Bourdain and ending up being a line cook at Applebee's for the next fifteen years."
"But you love cooking."
"I know. But what I need right now is something...something..."
"Reliable."
"Uncle Bobby says he can get me a job with his trucking company." He looked away again, like he was ashamed. "Just four weeks to get a CDL and then I'm starting out at like twenty an hour."
"I mean...if that's what you want to do."
He looked back at me—stared really. Like, this was a test of valor instead of a simple question. "But what do you think? Really?"
No matter what he chose to do, I would be out a baker. If he went to culinary school, that would buy me a few years before he went in search of a better job. But if he became a trucker, I'd be looking for a new hire in a few months. And I hated hiring. "I think we all have to pay bills and if this is the path you want to take, I support it."
"Thanks, Evie." His smile returned. "I mean that."
"I told you. You did all the work yourself."
"I meant for everything." He ran an anxious hand over hair I was just realizing was freshly cut. "The day I got released was the happiest and scariest day of my life. I was free, but nobody was trying to hire me. And then you gave me a chance. I had stable employment. I got off parole. I got my G.E.D. That was you."
At the time I'd only hired him because mom and grandma had pressured me. He'd started as a glorified busboy. When my original baker Paul had moved on to better pastures, Jackson was only there to fill-in, but I found he did an excellent job even without the right certifications and offered him the job with the pay increase.
So, really it was his own hard work that prevailed. Even before I believed in him.
"Being a chef at Applebee's isn't that bad, though."
"Nah, Evie."
"Hear me out. If you worked at Applebee's, then you could get me a family discount on my spinach artichoke dip and appletinis!"
Laughter burst from his throat so loudly he drowned out Otis singing on the stereo. "You cheap as fuck!"
"It's not cheap! It's smart!"
"Hell, no."
"Think of the family!"
He made a big show of inspecting the mixer. "I bet you got this mixer on a discount!"
"You know it! Who I look like paying four hundred for a mixer? Got that shit for one sixty. You're welcome."
"Thank you." He said. "For real."
"No prob, Bob."
After I washed my silverware, I was ready to go. I grabbed my purse and searched for grandma. Somehow, she'd snuck out and retreated to her bedroom for the moment. I found her standing near the dresser filling the now empty expensive vodka bottle with a cheaper alternative as was her way.
"Close that door behind you." She said when she saw me. "Don't want to let the cold out."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You getting' ready to go?"
"Yes."
She closed the bottles then started filling her personal bottle with the expensive stuff. "Alright. Give me my hug."
I walked over and we embraced. She and I were nearly the same height, a rarity we shared in a family where everyone, including mom, was closer to six feet tall. "Alright I'm—Grandma, why are there so many bills here? You're paying these, right?"
On the back of the dresser was an opened and ignored stack of bills.
"I ran out of stamps."
"And?"
"And?" She narrowed her eyes at the stack and sniffed at the indignity. "And none of those return envelops are postage paid. What I look like paying the bill and the postage? Some people don't want their money bad enough."
"Why didn't you just buy more stamps?"
"Shit, I'm old. I forgot." More like, she's cheap like me.
"I'll get you some stamps next time I'm in the store."
"Would you? Thank you, baby." She smiled. She loved free shit as much as I did. "You drive safe out there."
"I will." So close to the finish line...
"And Evie?"
I turned back. 'Yes ma'am?"
"You invite that boyfriend next time."
Why is everyone trying to peer pressure me about Manny? "I thought you didn't like him."
"I don't like a lot of people." The bottles clinked together as she grabbed them and put them back in the cupboard. "I don't like Gladys, Edna Mae, that goddamn Joseph Harper, that triflin'-ass Maybe Mabel, Bobby—"
"Uncle Bobby's your son."
"I said what I said." She looked in the mirror to make sure her wig was still straight. "Liking somebody ain't got shit to do with shit."
"I'm not hiding him. He just had plans today."
She nodded. "You'll bring him by soon."
"Of course."
I didn't really know if I was bringing him, but lip service was an important part of my family dynamic. Or at least it was if I wanted to get out of here some time tonight. She gave me a goodbye hug (my God!) and I started the treacherous path back to my car. When I grabbed my purse, everyone knew I was on my way out and the goodbye song and dance started.
I must have said 'bye' five hundred damn time, and gave out still more hugs but somehow, I made it to my car even with the gaggle of them standing on the porch waving and cracking one last joke.
When I was safe in my car I sighed with relief and cranked up before Ray could remember he forgot to ask me for twenty dollars or Tanya could try and get me to play matchmaker with one of Manny's friends or mom could try to trick me into helping her clean something for her.
The day over and done, I pulled off and toward the solitude of my apartment.