“Whoa there, little mama!” He grabbed his niece by the shoulders and steadied her.
She gripped his forearms. “Uncle Roy! I didn’t know you were here.”
“Party planning, corn shucking, and fussing. A typical Sunday afternoon at your mama’s house,” he laughed, snuggling her close as they walked into the kitchen.
“Fussing because you think you know everything,” Vivienne growled by the cooktop.
“And because you don’t.”
“Just tell me if you found those cartons in the storeroom.” Vivienne propped a fist on her hip and glared at her baby brother.
“Nope. Like I told you the first and second time, they’re not in there. Did you check over the stove?” He left Maxine by the window and approached his sister. He reached for the cabinet door.
Vivienne swatted Roy as she brushed by him. “You think I don’t know my own kitchen?” Vivienne kissed her daughter’s cheek as she huffed from the room.
“Business as usual, I see,” Maxine murmured, grateful. She’d wondered about her mother’s demeanor after her earlier conversation with First John, so she’d deliberately taken her time doing laundry and straightening her small apartment before coming over. Maxine surveyed the kitchen as she walked to the refrigerator. One overflowing bushel of corn still in its husks, one bushel partially shucked, and a basket of yellow corn on the cob sat by the table amid a sea of corn silk. A ceramic bowl of kernels and a knife were in the middle of the table.
“What’s going on? That’s normally an outside project.” Maxine plucked some red grapes from a stalk on a refrigerator shelf.
“Funny you should say that. Viv sent Celeste and the boys upstairs to put on some shoes so they can take this mess out to the porch. They thought they’d ‘help’ by getting started before she got home. You can imagine how that went over when your mama walked in.” Roy arched an eyebrow.
Maxine mouthed, “Ouch.”
“See! I told you.” Vivienne marched into the kitchen, bearing an armload of heavy-duty, quart-size storage containers. She set them down on the island and faced her brother. “You know what I’m going to do, don’t you?”
He sighed deeply, held out his hands, and then grabbed his backside.
“Still there?” Vivienne laughed and squeezed his shoulder as she moved to stir the kernels frying away in the large cast-iron pan on the stove. “Nearly made me burn my corn, messin’ with you.”
Maxine chuckled at the long-running joke between the siblings. Her mother had always said, “Roy never could find his behind with both hands.”
“Where’ve you been?” Vivienne adjusted the stove dial and flipped and stirred the corn, revealing a golden-brown crust.
Maxine’s stomach gurgled. “Washing clothes.”
“I meant before that. Where were you?”
“At Evelyn’s. I stayed the night.” Maxine went for more grapes.
“Or did we stay the night?”
Uncle Roy froze before the pile of silk he’d amassed, his hands wrapped around the broom handle. “Vivienne.”
“Roy.”
“Mama!”
Maxine, Vivienne, and Roy all looked toward the ceiling, in the direction of Celeste’s call.
Thirty seconds later, footsteps creaked down the back stairs and the teen stepped through the door. “Oh, hey, y’all! Didn’t mean to interrupt. I couldn’t find my other sneaker at first. Mama, we’re going to set up in the driveway, if that’s okay. When did you get back, Max? Will you be here for dinner?”
“A few hours ago.” Maxine glanced at Vivienne. “I’ll stay if I’m welcome.”
“Child, hush. You can help Roy and me plan this party while we finish up dinner.” Vivienne set a Dutch oven on a trivet. She lifted the lid, revealing a pot roast, and poked at it with a fork. Murmuring, “Not tender enough,” she replaced the lid and returned it to the oven as what sounded like elephants tumbled down the stairs.
“So, Max, if you’re going to be around, can we talk later? After dinner?” Celeste braced a hand on the molding when Zan, Robert, and Second John bumped her as they rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“If y’all don’t slow up and be quiet . . .” Vivienne glared at her sons. “Your dad is lyin’ down.”
“Sorry, Mom.” Zan reached for a basket.
“Sorry didn’t do it, and it didn’t do it to me. Make sure you grab the full one, and, Robert, finish sweeping up. Your uncle didn’t make the mess, so he shouldn’t clean it.”
“I’m sorry, Celeste,” Zan amended, singing the words. He hoisted a different basket and headed for the door, followed by Second John with the half-full bushel.
Maxine laughed and stepped back as Robert swept over her sandaled feet. “You’re going to take away all my luck, and I need all I can get these days.” She flicked him on the head when he swiped her toes again before collecting all the trash in a dustpan. “Sure, Celeste. I’ll be here for dinner. Something in particular on your mind?”
But Celeste spun and trailed her brothers out the door.
“Have any idea what that’s about, Mother?” Maxine retrieved a sharp knife and a bowl. She looked from Vivienne to her uncle, who by now was seated at the table slicing off the cob.
“Your guess is as good as mine. The girl has been in her own world lately. Son, that’s the best it’s gonna get. You’ll have to vacuum after dinner. Take something to collect the corn, and go on outside.” Vivienne pulled out a chair across from her brother and sat.
Once the back door had rattled shut, Maxine found a place across from Roy. “Okay, what party?”
“That’s what I want to know from you, Maxine,” Vivienne grumbled.
“Viv—”
She jabbed a finger on the planner in front of her brother. “Roy, stop trying to shush me. I’m talkin’ to Maxine. You just keep brainstorming about Lis’s birthday party. Look back in the book from last year, and work from there. You know Evelyn canceled her mama’s last summer with all the goings-on with Granny B, so we need to make up for that somehow. Think big. Lis likes to show off, and she’s been workin’ my nerves, wantin’ to see what we’ve come up with.”
Then Vivienne seared Maxine with her eyes. “Now tell me what happened at Evelyn’s and with whom.” After she spared a glance at Roy, she added, “Please.”
Maxine surprised herself by smiling. She set to work with the corncob. “I got what I wanted.”
“Well, that makes one of us.”
The group turned toward the voice coming from the archway between the kitchen and family room and found a tousle-headed First John shaking his iPhone. “I just talked to Theodore. He tapped three seniors to—how did he say it?—‘take back our graduation.’ They’ll each give five- to seven-minute speeches.”
Maxine’s eyes widened. “Does this mean—?”
“That JD won’t serve as the commencement speaker?” First John nodded. “Exactly. Theodore wanted to make sure all the board members knew, starting with me.”
“You mean, starting with Maxine.” Vivienne’s voice was as dry as the discarded corncobs in the cardboard box by her feet. “Mmm-hmmm. I guess we know how that party went last night.”
________
Maxine squeezed a quarter-size circle of hair product into her palm and massaged it from her scalp down to the tips of her wet curls. She scrunched together strands as she stared at her reflection. Her eyes strayed to the clock on the shelf beside the mirror: 8:47. She dried her hands on the towel around her neck and braced them on the countertop. In thirteen minutes, Teddy would be knocking on her door. “Make that twelve,” she amended as the second hand circled the hour.
The rest of the evening had crawled the minute she received Teddy’s text during dinner—Okay to come over at 9 tonight? No way could she have held it together over a game of Scrabble, while fielding questions from a wily Vivienne or chatting with Celeste. Another glance at the shelf informed her she had ten minutes to spare, less than that based on Teddy’s love affair
with punctuality.
Thump, thump, thump.
“Okay, a lot less,” she groaned. Maxine gathered together the hot-pink folds of her robe and padded from her bedroom on slippered feet. She unlocked the front door and opened it to her fiancé.
Teddy ran his hands over his head, apparently attempting to smooth the brown spikes, usually kempt and wavy. His red-rimmed eyes met hers only briefly as he brushed past her.
Maxine swallowed the urge to offer him some hair cream and resisted rubbing his back as he moved deeper into the apartment. She shut the door and dead-bolted it, preventing unexpected drop-ins from using their key. She studied the back of Teddy’s plaid short-sleeved shirt for a moment. He seemed captivated by the stars twinkling in the darkening skies over the treetops beyond the large window. Then she cleared her throat. “Can I get you something while you wait for me to change?”
He crossed his arms across his chest and hunched his shoulders, but he didn’t turn. “I remember not so long ago, you wouldn’t let me in when you weren’t fully dressed. Why now?”
“Because you see me as I am.” But Maxine clutched her robe more tightly, feeling exposed, laid bare in the quiet. “There’s coffee,” she murmured, then shooshed-shooshed to the back, determining to take her whole ten minutes.
And not a minute earlier, Maxine emerged in a pair of wrinkled purple gym shorts and a pink T-shirt with a bedazzled PRINCESS emblazoned across her chest, a Christmas gift from Celeste. She’d brushed her hair into a tight ponytail that dangled down her back to prevent her fiddling. When she stepped into the main room of the apartment, she found Teddy right where she’d left him, staring through the window overlooking the backyard. Night had completely swallowed the sky. She padded to a spot beside him, seeking solace in the creek she had to imagine was there.
“I keep wondering . . . would you have ever told me, if this whole graduation debacle hadn’t happened?”
Maxine flinched.
Teddy’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what I thought.”
“That’s not fair, Teddy. Yes, I was going to tell you. It was just a matter of when and how.”
“When? How? I’d think you’d have more to say to help me understand this. Especially since you’ve heard about my plan to cancel JD’s commencement address. You don’t have anything to say to convince me otherwise?”
“Convince you? So you expect me to plead my case or his? Frankly, I can’t think of anything else to say. I don’t rightly care what you do about graduation. Not at this moment. That’s the last thing on my mind.” She rubbed her brow. “Maybe we should stick a pin in this until our meeting with Reverend Atwater next week.”
“Excuse me, but did you say ‘stick a pin in this’? You’ve been lying to me for months. For months. Sitting beside me in my pastor’s office, planning our wedding like you’re some blushing bride. Meanwhile . . .”
“What, Teddy? I suppose you think I’m a bride who lost her right to blush.”
“You said it. I didn’t.” He rattled loose change in his pockets and studied his shifting feet.
“I guess it was ‘if’ not ‘when,’” she muttered, retreating again to the woods beyond the window. She leaned her forehead against the pane.
“What?”
“Nothing. It only means something to me. But do you know what also means something? That all you can talk about is what you’re going through. How you’ve been hurt and lied to and misled for months. That your pastor has been the victim of my . . . subterfuge, to put it lightly. Well, my daughter, Celeste—you know, the one you struggled to name earlier today?—she has a lot more to deal with than you. I’m ashamed to say I’ve been lying to her since she was barely walking, and what I have to tell her may break her heart. Not just her pride.”
Teddy didn’t flinch, which irked her enough to embolden her.
“And I’ll let you in on another secret. Your pastor knows everything. I told the Atwaters last month. So that should save you some embarrassment. You only need to save face with your parents. You can include them in the big reveal First John’s got planned, a family meeting.”
“Maxine, I have a feeling I’ll be odd man out at a family meeting, so I won’t be there. I was hoping coming here would change things. And it’s not my reputation I’m trying to protect. It’s my heart. Too little too late though.” He seemed to drag himself to the door.
“Teddy, is it? Is it too late? Am I not worth the effort?”
He braced a hand on the frame and stretched for the knob. “What effort? I don’t have to make an effort to love you, Maxine. It’s as easy as breathing. Loving you is something I want to do. I need to do.” He spun and wedged his back on the door, his legs locked to keep him from sliding to the floor.
Maxine thought it would be hard to look into his eyes, but her eyes met and held them. She stepped closer, and when he reached out, she reached back.
“What’s hard right now is trusting you.” He clasped her hand between both of his and brought them under his chin, forcing her even closer. “Trusting you want nothing more than to marry me. You’re looking for something, Maxine. You need or want something more or something else. I’m not asking to be all you want in life, only that you want me. Me. Us.”
Maxine reached up with her free hand and completed the sphere their fingers made. “Did I ever say I didn’t want you?”
“Did you ever say you did?” Teddy extricated his fingers and straightened to his full five feet eleven inches.
Maxine twirled a strand of damp hair that had worked out of her hair tie and edged backward until her heels bumped against her sofa. “Sounds like you’re calling me a liar, Theodore F. Charles.” Usually her tone was teasing when she used his full given name. Some day she hoped to laugh at the irony, but tonight, her lightly spoken words carried the weight of accusation.
Teddy never broke his gaze as he met her in the middle of the room. He smoothed her hair and kissed her gently on the cheek. “If the glass slipper fits.”
July
“The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul . . .”
PSALM 23:1-3
Chapter Thirty-Two
MAXINE SPREAD THE LAST of their blankets in between the roots of a large oak tree and plopped down. She craned her head around the tall woman with the perfect posture who’d dared to set up shop in front of her. Don’t folks know by now this is our spot? She either forgot herself, or she’s new to town.
The seats designated for the musicians were empty, save for their instruments. Celeste’s double bass rested on a stand near the edge of the dais. Crossing her legs at the ankle, Maxine counted the five empty chairs around the tall stranger in front of her. She stopped herself from praying the stranger would get a sudden cramp in her back. “But, dear Lord, please get her to remove that wide-brimmed hat,” she muttered.
“Hi, honey. Watch your mama’s purse, and don’t let the wind take these flags. Be right back.” First John dropped his things on one of the blankets. He strode through the grass, dodging women in flowing summer dresses and sandals, men in T-shirts and polo shirts, and children in shorts and sundresses yanking on the hands of their chatting parents.
Maxine searched for Vivienne. She had helped Celeste set up her bass but had since disappeared in the crowd milling about the field. There!
“Over here!” Maxine called and threw a hand up, but her fingers stopped midflight as she recognized the light-brown curls of the man beside her mother.
The wind must have carried her voice to Vivienne, for she turned toward her daughter. Teddy followed suit.
Maxine knew she was easy to spot in her sparkly red-, white-, and blue-striped T-shirt and red shorts, so she didn’t duck for cover. Committed, she waved and smiled.
Teddy nodded at her. He leaned into Vivienne and murmured a couple words, then quick-stepped in the opposite d
irection, nearly tripping over a woman pulling a Chihuahua in a Radio Flyer wagon.
Vivienne turned back to Maxine and shrugged, palms up, as Teddy’s navy-blue shirt bobbed and wove through the crowd until it disappeared behind the grandstand decked out with bunting.
Maxine shrugged herself and tried to focus on the holiday fun. Her whole family attended the July Fourth picnic and concert at Bedlow Park every year, but this was the first time Celeste would play. She wondered if the night’s fireworks would hold a candle to her explosion with Teddy.
“Still haven’t talked to Theodore?”
Maxine’s eyes angled upward toward her stepfather’s deep voice. When he bent his long frame and gently planted a kiss on her forehead, she closed her eyes and leaned into it. She opened them and noted the way the fading sunlight glinted off the silver weaving through First John’s short blond hair. “Nope. Not a word since the two we exchanged last week during our meeting with Reverend Atwater. But it’s okay. We said enough to last us awhile that Sunday he came by the apartment. I’ve had about thirteen years to process this. He can take a few weeks.” She flicked away a stray thread from the American flag emblazoned on her stepfather’s otherwise-pristine white T-shirt. “Or however long it takes.”
“So you’ve fully processed this, have you?” First John lowered himself to the ground and clasped his hands around his bent knees.
Picking up on his skepticism, Maxine nodded once, firmly, as the breeze lifted her curls. She crossed her bare legs at the ankles. “Yes. I’m all ready for our family meeting. I just need to pick out an outfit.” She offered a smile.
He didn’t return it. “Does that mean you’ve contacted JD?”
“Not yet, but I will. That’s not a problem. Really, my biggest question is skirt versus no skirt,” Maxine chuckled.
First John clasped her shoulder. “In that case, I don’t need to warn you that he’s behind you.”
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