“Do you have any idea how many years—hell, decades and centuries—are in that house?”
“Fine.”
“No, not fine. That house goes back to my great-great-grandmother. There are things still in there from her generation and before.”
“Well, maybe. Okay, fine,” Malcolm Fraser said, no longer interested in talking about it.
Laura turned away without responding. He was also driving her crazy. Of all the times to do this to them again. She walked over to the roast and grabbed a carving knife and fork and began slicing the perfectly cooked beef. “I have no idea what I’m gonna do with her.”
Malcolm, now sitting at the center island counter, chuckled to himself and just shook his head. “Don’t get so stressed, Laura. She’ll be down,” he answered.
“It’s not just that and you know it.”
He opened his mouth, then quickly shut it. He probably figured that if he didn’t respond they wouldn’t discuss it again. Wrong.
“I have no idea what happened to us. We used to be…” Laura began, then stopped, holding back the flood of memories threatening to overwhelm her. “We used to be so close, we did everything together. I don’t know what happened.”
“She became a teenager,” Malcolm said.
Laura stopped carving. She wasn’t talking about Tamika, she was referring to her and her husband. But as usual he didn’t have a clue, so she just let it pass. “That’s a cop-out. She’s still my daughter.”
“And her life doesn’t revolve around that fact anymore. But that’s okay.”
Laura let that statement pass too. She wasn’t prepared to hear what he had to say. For the first time in her life she was losing control. Everything she had was falling apart and she was scared. Her thoughts swirled in circles constantly. Talking to someone would help. She glanced around, seeing her husband staring at his open laptop, engrossed as usual. Obviously he wasn’t that someone.
“Okay, now seriously, Malcolm, can’t somebody else do this thing?” she said, getting back to a previous conversation they’d started on the phone earlier.
“I told you, Laura, it’s a great opportunity. It means that a promotion is right around the corner and it’s only for a couple of months.”
“A couple of months? You said one month,” she said, turning to him still armed with the knife and fork.
Malcolm raised his arms jokingly in surrender, then walked over to her, smiling. “No, I said one month, maybe two. We won’t know until we’re actually on-site and see what that place looks like.”
“We? We as in who else is going, Malcolm?” she asked with an accusatory tone in her voice.
“All right, let’s not get back into that again.”
“Oh, of course, let’s not,” she snapped sarcastically, then turned away from him.
“Laura, please, we talked about this. You have to learn to trust me again. What happened last year won’t happen again, I promise you, I swear to you,” he said, moving closer to her. “Laura…”
“Is she going?” Laura asked, putting the knife and fork down and turning around to see the expression on his face. She knew he couldn’t hide the truth. Malcolm’s affair with his coworker last year had eaten at her for months, and even though she’d said she put it behind her, every once in a while it crept back up to haunt them.
“Laura, you’re right, I should have been honest with you when I first told you about this business trip. I’m not the only one going. There’ll be four of us, me and—”
“No,” she said, turning around quickly, “I don’t want to know. You want me to trust you. Fine, fine, I’ll trust you. Go, do what you have to do.”
He smiled and reached out to her. “We can beat this thing, I know we can,” he assured her.
She nodded, knowing that she might have forgiven him but she definitely hadn’t forgotten what he’d done.
Malcolm smiled, as usual totally oblivious to her true emotions as he reached in and grabbed a tiny slice of meat, then popped it into his mouth. The perfectly roasted succulent meat dissolved instantly, trailing a seasoned sensation down his throat. “Umm, that’s delicious,” he added with a quick kiss on her cheek.
Laura nodded her head obligingly. She was getting so tired of all this. At thirty-nine years old she expected her life to be so different. She expected to have her own design company, to be married to a man who adored her and not his damn job and to have a daughter who was reasonably sane most of the time.
Instead she had just been laid off from a job she had had since a college internship, her husband had serious fidelity issues and her daughter was downright impossible to live with twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. All this meant that her sanity constantly wavered somewhere between crazy and damn near neurotic.
“Now as for Tamika,” Malcolm said, stealing another piece of meat, “she’s a teenager and we’re gonna get through that too.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said and watched as he popped another piece of meat into his mouth, then answered his buzzing phone. He walked into the adjoining room talking business as usual.
Laura picked up the knife and fork again and turned back to cutting the meat. Her husband’s news was the last thing she needed and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. After getting laid off six months ago she was still in shock. Then applying nonstop for a comparable position had only proved one thing for sure: she’d gotten old. Apparently no one wanted to hire a nearly forty-year-old advertising director or even a senior copywriter.
Then out of the blue last week she’d gotten a second interview with a very prestigious company. She was beyond thrilled. Unfortunately, earlier today she’d gotten a call that she didn’t get the job. She called Malcolm in hopes of getting some empathy, but the call only added to her drama since he took the opportunity to inform her that he was leaving on a monthlong business trip.
So at this moment she was beyond stressed. She walked over to the window overlooking the small patch of yard and the bevy of plants. Her in-ground garden was green and lush, thanks to automatic sprinklers, but her potted flowers, pot-bound and strangling, drooped, stressed by the surroundings. They seemed to reflect her mood and she sympathized.
Laid off for who knows how long, she knew she needed a change. There was only so much grocery shopping, loads of laundry, vacuuming, dusting and mindless celebration planning a person could do without going insane. The opportunity to sell her parents’ house had presented itself, and the idea to drive down was exactly what she needed and even more so now.
It was a change, a break, a much-needed time-out and something that would hopefully prove that she was still alive. For the past month she’d been looking forward to going to her hometown alone. No responsibilities, no rules and no drama. Unfortunately now she’d be taking some of her drama with her.
“You and Tamika could use some mommy-and-me time.”
“Some what?” she asked, looking at Malcolm as he returned to the kitchen area.
“Some mommy-and-me time. You know, together time to reconnect.”
“Mommy and me?” Laura asked. “Honey, I don’t know if you noticed it but our mommy-and-me days are long over.”
“You know what I mean. The two of you could drive down to Georgia together, stop at a few places along the way and make this into a really enjoyable road trip. By the time you get back we’ll be ready to go to Martha’s Vineyard for our usual two-week vacation. The summer will be over and you can decide about your career then.”
Laura shrugged as she picked up and carried the salad bowl into the dining room and placed it on the table. She sighed. God, she hated it when he made sense and came up with good ideas. She slowly mulled over his suggestion as she neatened a place setting. Maybe he was right. Her original plan was to drive down, but since Malcolm had dropped his Tokyo bomb on her, driving hundreds of miles with a sulky teenager seemed like suicide. But maybe he was right. Maybe this was an opportunity to get closer to her daughter.
“I did,” Tamika said.
“I had to call your cell.”
“See, and I answered,” Tamika said. Laura glared at her. “I mean, I was busy but I was coming.”
“So now I need to call your cell or text you in order to get your attention?” she asked rhetorically. Tamika smiled. Laura surmised that another meaningless circular conversation was about to begin. “Never mind, never mind, don’t answer. I don’t think I even want to know.”
Tamika laughed.
Laura shook her head, half smiling at the absurdity. “Okay, fine. So, do you have any plans for this evening? If not, I thought we could go to the mall or something. Your dad probably has work to do so we can grab some ice cream and do some shopping maybe.”
“Actually, I’m supposed to hang out with Lisa and some friends tonight.”
“By some friends I presume you mean Justin,” Laura said with obvious annoyance.
“Not necessarily, but yes, he’ll be there,” she said, knowing that her mother disliked him. “He’s promoting it.”
“Promoting it?” Laura asked.
“Okay, this is you being judgmental, right?”
“No, I’m not being judgmental. I just don’t think you need to be so serious at your age. It’s just too soon to get so attached. I didn’t have a real boyfriend until I was well into college, definitely not in high school.”
“We’re not serious, we’re just hangin’.”
“Hanging as in boyfriend with perks?”
Tamika looked at her, astonished. “No, Mom, there are no perks. We’re just hangin’, that’s all. No sex, okay? We’ve gone over this a million times.”
“And we’ll go over it a million more. Justin is not the kind of boy you need to be hanging around with. First of all, he’s too old.”
“He’s a senior and I’m a junior.”
“He’s already eighteen years old. That’s nineteen when he graduates, if he graduates.”
“He was left back a couple of times.”
“Also he’s rude, obnoxious, ill-mannered and totally undisciplined, not to mention he doesn’t have any kind of a future, let alone going to college.”
“He’s going to be an entrepreneur like Diddy.”
“An entrepreneur,” Laura repeated, almost positive that he couldn’t even spell the word.
“Yeah, he’s an event promoter.”
“An event promoter? Is that considered an occupation nowadays?”
“Yes, and he’s gonna rap too.”
“A rapper? Oh, please.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Do you hear yourself talking?” Laura asked. “I just listed five things wrong with that boy and you haven’t heard a single word I said, and now his only redeeming characteristic is that he wants to be a rapper.”
“Dad likes him.”
“That’s because he plays football.”
“He could get a scholarship.”
“I’ve seen him play. He’s not that good.”
“I don’t know why you always hating on him.”
“You could do better.”
Tamika didn’t respond. She knew her mother was right. She just didn’t want her to know it. And anyway, this conversation was moot ’cause they’d already broken up.
“Fine,” Laura said, giving up on another never-ending circular battle. “Is that what you’re wearing tonight?”
“Yes,” Tamika said sternly.
“And your hair?”
“I like my hair like this, Mom.”
“But it’s—”
“It’s what I like, Mom. No perm, no curls. It’s natural and I want it like this.”
Stalemate, their conversations always ended in a standoff, each firmly and unwaveringly standing on opposite sides. Laura just nodded. “Come on, sit down. Dinner’s ready and your father and I have some news for you.”
“News?” Tamika asked.
“Yes, news,” Laura said, going back into the kitchen.
“What’s the news?” Tamika asked, dreading the answer. She remembered that the last time her mother and father had news for her, it was to tell her that they were separating and that her father was moving out. That was a year ago and luckily it only lasted a few weeks.
“After dinner,” Laura said, returning with a bowl of mashed potatoes and a dish of warmed-up homemade beef gravy.
“Can’t you tell me now?”
“No, after dinner. Did you wash your hands?”
“Mom, I’m sixteen years old, not three.”
Laura looked at her and half smiled. She was right; she wasn’t three years old anymore. And in two years she’d be going off to college and then after that married with her own home and family. A sudden sadness shadowed Laura’s face as she thought about all the missed opportunities. So much time had passed and she wasted most of it working in an advertising office and not with her family.
“So, what’s for dinner?” Tamika asked, following her mother into the kitchen. Seeing her father standing at the counter, opening a bottle of wine, stilled her apprehension for a while. Him already being home was odd enough, but if he was opening wine that meant they were at least speaking to each other. Still, hopefully it wasn’t a divorce.
“Hey, Dad,” Tamika said.
“Hey, baby,” he said, smiling as he always did. “So, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“The news,” he said.
“After dinner,” Laura said sternly, glancing at Malcolm and smiling tightly. He nodded as she walked back out with a pitcher of iced tea.
“So, how was your last day as a tenth-grader?”
Tamika shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
“You guess? That doesn’t sound too definitive.”
“It was a’ight.”
“How’s Justin?” he asked.
She shrugged again. “He’s a’ight, I guess.”
“Just a’ight?” he asked. “I thought you were tight.”
“He trippin’, that’s all, so we’re chillin’ for a while.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh of indifference. “For real, no biggie.”
“All right, come on, you two. Dinner’s on the table,” Laura called out from the dining room.
“Come on,” Malcolm said, wiggling his eyebrows the way he always did to make her laugh, “dinner’s on the table.”
They went in, sat down and ate dinner. Everything was perfect as usual. During the meal they talked about nothing in particular—school, movies, television—and then over dessert Tamika asked about the news. Malcolm and Laura glanced at each other. He nodded for her to go first.
“Okay, I’ll start,” Laura began. “You remember that position I wanted at the advertising agency? The one where I had a second interview last week?”
Tamika nodded.
“Well, I got a call. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job.”
Tamika went quiet. She’d hoped that her mother had the job for both their sakes. She knew that her mother loved working, and being laid off had been hard on her, on both of them. “For real?”
“Yes, I found out today. This morning actually. The agency decided to go in another direction.”
“So what exactly does that mean?”
“Actually, I’m not really sure. I guess they wanted someone younger to groom in the position.”
“No, I mean how does it affect us?”
“It doesn’t. We still have a really nice severance package from before and I get to spend more time with you.”
“So that’s it? You’re not gonna look for another job?”
“Yes, of course I will, but not right away. It’s summer so I thought since I’ll be away, I’d take a break with
the job search for a while.”
“Okay,” Tamika said reluctantly. “So, you are still going to Georgia in two days, right?”
“Yes,” she said, then looked at Malcolm.
Tamika turned to her dad.
“My turn,” he began. “The job is sending me to Tokyo.”
“Tokyo?” Tamika repeated.
“Yes, Tokyo, Japan.”
“I know where it is, Dad. I’m just surprised. Are we supposed to be going too?” Tamika asked hopefully.
“No,” Laura said.
“So, what about our vacation when Mom gets back?”
“We can still go, we’ll just postpone it a bit.”
“Can we do that?” she asked.
“Sure. It’ll take a bit more planning, but I’m sure we can make the change without too much trouble.”
“What if you find that the job is more detailed and you have to stay longer?” Laura asked.
Malcolm looked at her. “We’ll just cross that bridge when and if we get to it.”
Tamika nodded. “So, when are you leaving, Dad?”
“Next week.”
“Next week,” she repeated, then paused. “That soon?”
He nodded with a mouthful of apple pie and ice cream. “So, wait, if you’re going to Tokyo next week and Mom’s still going to Georgia in two days, then that means I get to stay here by myself for a month, right?”
“Wrong,” Laura said, quickly ending the rush of excitement in her daughter’s voice.
“So, what am I supposed to be doing while y’all are both away? I have the photo camp internship starting in two weeks, remember? Don’t tell me Aunt Sylvia’s coming to stay. She’s crazy.”
Laura looked up, instantly annoyed. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again, do you hear me?”
Tamika nodded silently.
“Aunt Sylvia isn’t crazy. She’s a bit eccentric, that’s all. She has her own ways.”
“She’s nuts,” Malcolm muttered, getting Tamika to smile. Laura glared at him, then at Tamika.
“I didn’t say it,” Tamika quickly affirmed. Laura looked back to Malcolm. “So, is Aunt Sylvia coming up here or what?”
“No, she’s not coming. She’s already half moved out of the family house.”
She Said, She Said Page 2
