With the advent of a nonstop communication signal anywhere in town—courtesy of the future Walmart—I invested in a mobile wireless connection. Now I could get on the Internet anywhere, even outdoors, which made my life considerably easier. My only excuse for going to the library now was to get books for DeAndre. Since he’d been forced to spend more time with me, I begged the librarian to work with DeAndre and find books he would enjoy. After a few hit-or-miss authors, he fell in love with a faith-based series about the adventures of a young boy with ADHD. I even had to stop him from reading one Sunday in church.
After that particular service, Senior Pastor Carter invited us to their home for dinner. Now that Aunt Dottie had improved visibly, she might be able to accept such invitations. “You sure you up to this, Aunt Dottie?” I asked as we followed behind the Carters in my vehicle. Sarah, Aunt Dottie’s speech therapist, had cautioned me against putting Aunt Dottie in situations where several different dialogues occurred simultaneously. Aunt Dottie might get overwhelmed by the words whizzing past.
Aunt Dottie patted my arm, assuring me she could handle this.
I almost didn’t want to take DeAndre to dinner with us, though, because he was so impatient when it came to boring, grown-up talk. And his table manners needed some serious upgrading. Unfortunately, Joenetta sharply declined when I told her why I needed her to babysit DeAndre.
“Why you tryin’ to get all goody-goody with the pastor?” she contested.
“We’re just breaking bread together.” Not that I owed her an explanation anyway.
She insisted, “I know what you’re up to. Trying to seduce the pastor’s son to swim in your hot tub of sin.”
“What are you talking about?”
“People been talking about you two runnin’ off to some place in Henrytown, supposed to be some kind of coffee place. Don’t no black people I know hang out at no coffee house long as you two been there.” She added, “Ain’t that many coffee beans in the world.”
I didn’t even answer her. I made up my mind right then and there—Joenetta was officially on my I-choose-not-to-deal-with-you-anymore list, right up there with my mother, my biological father, and Mr. James.
Back when I was in college and on-campus counseling was free, I’d talked to a psychotherapy intern about the gulf between my mother and I. He’d asked me if I wanted to fill it. That was the first time I’d ever been given the option to let my mother go if she didn’t want to be tethered to me. Let Margie be Margie. We talked a little about personality disorders—when people, for a plethora of reasons, have a hard time sustaining lifelong relationships outside of what’s required of them. For as much as she’d fussed and complained about me, she made sure I had food, clothing, shelter, and even insurance. She didn’t abuse me physically, and she generally did what she thought was best for me.
“That’s more than I can say for half the parents of people who come through this door. I mean, I think it’s sad that your mother has chosen to cut ties with you, but you can live a full and complete life without her,” he’d cheerfully informed me. “She believes she fulfilled her motherly duties to you. She has a right to move to Africa and live life within her definition of peace. You have to make up in your mind. She doesn’t owe you anything.”
Well, it was past time to stop trying to make sense of Joenetta. She was what she was, and I wasn’t going to let her bother me anymore. She didn’t owe me anything. She didn’t have to act right, do right, be right. All she had to do was pay taxes and die. No, make that die, because she didn’t have a job or property.
Jacob Junior, his sister, Priscilla, and Priscilla’s family—husband and three teenage children—joined us as well. We crossed the unhealthy threshold only three minutes into dinner, when First Lady Carter produced a basket of hot, buttery rolls drizzled with honey. No doubt, I’d be forgetting carbs today.
“Certainly enjoyed your sermon this morning, Pastor Carter,” I complimented him. Though father and son had two different preaching styles, they both packed potent messages.
“Thank you, Sister Tori. Ain’t nobody but the Lord.” He smiled at me with the same warm eyes his son possessed. Even at probably twice our age, Senior Pastor Carter’s handsome features hadn’t faded. I wondered if Jacob Junior would age as gracefully. Looking at both his parents, his gene pool was definitely well maintained.
We passed oversized platters around the table, each person spooning or forking generous helpings of turkey, dressing, yams, and green beans. DeAndre smacked heartily, rudely, at the table. I whispered to him, “Slow down. The food’s not going anywhere.” You’d have thought we didn’t feed the boy.
When he stuffed another humongous spoonful of yams into his mouth, I gave him the evil eye. Jacob did even better. He asked sternly, “Didn’t you hear Miss Tori ask you not to eat so fast?”
Casting an anxious glance at his coach, DeAndre placed the spoon beside the plate and deliberately prolonged the swallowing process, one portion at a time until he’d downed the entire mouth full of disobedience. “I’m sorry.”
Having watched Jacob and DeAndre’s interactions on the field, I was always amazed at how quickly DeAndre responded to Jacob’s discipline. Aunt Dottie helped me understand, in writing, that their interaction was a man thing. Whatever it was, I was thankful for Jacob’s influence. Using Jacob’s name was right up there with invoking Santa Claus. If DeAndre got testy about practicing his spelling words, I’d threaten, “Uh, don’t make me call your coach.” Problem solved.
“Is it Thanksgiving?” DeAndre wanted to know.
Pastor laughed. “Well, it’s not the Thanksgiving holiday, but every day is a day of thanksgiving.”
“Aaaama.”
Time froze. Every eye zoomed in on Aunt Dottie. She slurred again, “Aaaama.”
Joy flooded through every inch of my frame. “Aunt Dottie, you can speak!”
“She said ‘amen,’” DeAndre translated.
“Praise God!” I exclaimed, hugging my aunt. Tears spilled from my eyes as I cried into her shoulder. “Thank You, Lord.” My Aunt Dottie was back. I’d heard grunts and sounds from her since the stroke, but this was the first intelligible word I’d heard from her lips since arriving in Bayford.
The table rejoiced with me, and laughter soon accompanied our elation. “We won’t be able to keep her quiet now,” Pastor teased.
Aunt Dottie pointed her index finger at him. “Waa ou.”
Again, DeAndre interpreted. “She said ‘watch out.’”
I’m sure the meal First Lady Carter prepared was scrumptious, but I couldn’t savor it. My taste buds took a backseat to concealed emotions coursing through me. When Aunt Dottie spoke, my whole world changed. There was light at the end of my tunnel. Sooner than later, she’d be able to comfort me with words, advise me, convey her needs.
Tell me she loved me.
On the way back from Pastor’s house, DeAndre asked if he could spend the rest of the day outside with several friends. They had big plans to build a fort in Chase’s backyard. “I finished all my homework already,” he added to clinch the deal. Given Chase’s foot incident and DeAndre’s treadmill episode, I really wasn’t sure this whole fort thing was such a great idea. This proclivity toward accidents wore my nerves thin.
“I don’t know, DeAndre.”
“Why not?” he protested. “Chase’s mom will be home.”
“Yeah, but she probably won’t be outside to make sure you guys don’t burn down the neighborhood.”
Aunt Dottie tapped my shoulder. “Bah.”
I couldn’t make out her words. “Say that again.”
DeAndre piped up, “She said ‘boy.’ ”
She nodded. Boy. I drew a deep breath, filling in the gaps with my own reasoning. I would have to accept the fact that this was the way of boys. Trying things, getting hurt, learning lessons. But why did their lessons have to involve stitches and gauze?
“DeAndre, how do you know what she’s saying anyway?”
“She talks to me all the time,” he revealed. “I seen what Miss Sarah did to help Aunt Dottie talk, and I practice with Aunt Dottie every day even after Miss Sarah leaves. At first I couldn’t understand Aunt Dottie, but now I do.”
Giggling from Aunt Dottie.
Cassandra got in the habit of texting encouraging words to her phone contacts throughout the day. Like clockwork, my phone chimed each morning at ten and every evening at six. Sometimes her message was no more than a scripture, but somehow it was always the right scripture for the moment.
“How many numbers do you have in your phone now?” I asked her at the end of another hard day’s work.
“One hundred sixty-seven,” she proudly announced.
I surmised, “That’s like every single person in Bayford with a cell phone.”
“You tight-right on that one, sugarplum,” she forced the rhyme. “And more people keep signing up every day. This contact list will come in very handy when we start the throwbacks.” She winked at me as though I’d already endorsed her plan. “I’m going to keep a pen and paper at the register so people can sign up for the throwback texts.”
“Cassandra, I haven’t really talked to Aunt Dottie about this—”
She blurted, “I know, I know. I also know that Aunt Dottie will support anything that keeps the store open. So, what do you say? We’ll start with sugar next week. Five-pound bag for a quarter, while supplies last.” She jerked her eyebrows up and down.
What did we have to lose? “Okay.”
“Yowza!” She held up both hands for a high-five. “Hit me, my sister.”
I obeyed.
“Don’t worry, Tori. God’s going to see this through. I can feel it in my spirit already.”
Then she and Elgin holy danced around the store singing, “I’ve got a feeling everything’s gonna be all right.”
Chapter 23
“Are you absolutely, positively sure?” Lexa’s line of questioning vexed me to no end.
“Yes. I’m sure about this data. I’ve considered every demographic—ethnicity, age group, geographic location, income, etcetera.” I lowered my speed on the treadmill so I could hear her better. Maybe I shouldn’t have informed Lexa I had a phone signal.
She sighed heavily. “If you say so, I guess I’ll have to just . . . trust you on this one, Tori.”
I was sick of her asking for my expertise and then second-guessing my proficiency. “Do what you want to do, Lexa. Adios.”
I really didn’t have time to fool with her anyway. We were only a day away from launching Dottie’s Throwbacks as a proactive attack against the Walmart scheduled to open the following week. In preparation, I’d made copies of flyers and worked in the back office, constructing an obnoxious floor display for the bargain of the day. The town’s newspaper had been kind enough to run a story about the upcoming daily special sales, so people were chomping at the bit for the announcement of the first deal.
I wanted to be excited, for Cassandra’s sake, but in actuality, I held onto hope that when Aunt Dottie fully recovered and realized she needed to slow down, she would liquidate. Maybe even move back to Houston with me.
I hadn’t talked to Kevin directly in weeks. We texted regarding logistics only. He asked me twice when I would be home again. Not sure, I replied.
Need 2 know. Lost without you. How could he be lost without me when he was hardly ever home? I have to admit, however, part of me wished that he would come running to Bayford, knock on Aunt Dottie’s door, beg me to forgive him for taking our relationship for granted, then bend down on one knee and pop the question. Not that I would say yes, just that it would be nice to be treasured. Or at least be somebody’s one-that-got-away. Selfish, I know. Fact was, I assumed, at some level, we had already broken up minus the formal announcement. It’s kind of hard to break up something that obviously never really meant anything to one party in the relationship. Still, it hurt to say good-bye in my heart.
Two years down the drain.
Jacob stopped by the store during his early lunch break. Since this would, hopefully, be one of our last slow mornings, I figured it best to take him up on his offer for brunch. “I’ve missed seeing you on church grounds now that the tower is in place.”
One of our regular customers, Miss McDermott, passed an all-knowing glance over Jacob and me. She sang under her breath, “Looks like love is in the air.”
Jacob and I transported our conversation to the next aisle. “Can you get away for an hour or so?” he pressed.
Cassandra and Elgin said they could handle things at the store. Cassandra mocked, “Don’t ever let it be said I blocked Cupid’s route.”
Were it not for the very technological innovation that relieved me from the church parking lot, I wouldn’t have had the luxury of a few free hours in the middle of the day. But as the Walmart windfall would have it, NetMarketing had become a virtual breeze. I still had a full load. However, learning to prioritize under fire had paid off greatly. What used to take me an entire eight or nine hours a day only took me five now. I amazed myself, quite honestly.
As Jacob and I rode several miles outside city limits to this mystery location, I wondered how far this rumor about the two of us had traveled. Joenetta knew. Cassandra knew, though I could easily trace her information’s path. She was, after all, Jacob’s first cousin. Aw, who was I kidding? Everybody in Bayford was kin. This might have given me reason to investigate Jacob’s lineage further if I had been related to the Lesters by blood.
Jacob’s undisclosed location turned out to be a TGIF establishment. He laughed as we walked through the door. “I know it’s not an exclusive steak house, but have you tried their sizzling chicken and cheese?”
I shook my head, knowing I couldn’t stomach a heavy meal this early in the morning. “Sounds good, but I’m gonna have to pass.”
We were seated in a booth almost immediately.
“All right,” Jacob joked, “have your bunny rabbit salad, but don’t ask me for half my food later.”
I rolled my eyes. “I won’t.”
We talked some about DeAndre’s wretched baseball team and their 1–5 record.
“I tell them over and over,” Jacob dramatically lamented, “when you hit the ball, don’t sit there and watch—run to first base, man!”
Jacob’s frustration gave us both cause for laughter. “Seems like some of these kids haven’t seen one baseball game in action their entire lives. Not even on television. I don’t know how to teach them things they’ve never observed.”
I took the opportunity to encourage Jacob. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Coach. You’re doing a great job with the boys.”
“I could say the same about you with DeAndre. Which brings me to one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. I heard back from his other grandmother.”
“She called you?”
“Yes, and I tried to give her your number, but she wouldn’t accept it.”
Okaaay? “What did she say?”
“She said wherever DeAndre is now, he needs to stay put. Said her daughter needed a child like she needed a hole in her head.”
“Wow. That’s pretty harsh, coming from her own mother.”
“I told you, Z’s family is different. This woman talked about her own daughter like the girl was a dog. I can only imagine the kind of verbal abuse Z must have suffered.”
“Did you get to ask her about visitation?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t make it that far. She must have thought I was calling to ask for financial help with DeAndre. She spent five minutes talking about how broke she was and what a hard time she had raising her other daughter’s children. Matter of fact, she asked me for money by the end of our talk. When I told her I couldn’t help her, she promptly called me a hypocrite and hung up the phone.”
“Are you serious?”
Blank gaze. “As a heart attack.”
“That is so wild, Jacob.”
“You tellin’ me?”
Our waiter, an
older Asian woman with a high-pitched voice, laid our plates before us. “Here you go, folks.”
Jacob blessed the food and prayed a special prayer for the Simpsons.
After amen, I resumed. “So, I guess that’s a no for visiting DeAndre’s mom?”
“As far as I know.”
There had to be another way. “I wonder if we can writeZ a letter and ask her to add us to her visitors’ list.”
He shrugged. “I guess that’s an option, if her mother will give you the prison address and her inmate ID number.”
“Prison records are public information. Has to be somewhere on the state’s Department of Corrections Web site.”
Jacob shook his head. “I’ll bet you look up everything on the Internet, don’t you?”
“Mmmm . . . not necessarily.”
“Have you Googled me?” he flirted.
“No. Should I?”
“Maybe. I Googled you.”
Both my eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
“I wanted to know more about you. You’re everywhere. LinkedIn, Myspace, Facebook—although you really do need to update your status notifications. You haven’t been on in months.”
“Haven’t had time. Plus my employer has advised us to stay off those social media sites for personal use. I’ve already blocked information that might be remotely personal. Back up, though.” I gave him the stop-sign hand. “What’s up with all the private investigation?”
“Wanted to make sure you didn’t have a criminal record.” He couldn’t hold a straight face for long. “I don’t know. I was just playing around on the Internet one day and thought it would be fun to see what old Tori Henderson’s been up to. Nice profile pictures, by the way.”
Someone to Watch Over Me Page 20
