The Johnson Sisters

by Tresser Henderson

  “Like I said: a man,” Shauna repeated.

  “Shut up and go put some ice on that black eye,” I joked, but I knew she wouldn’t laugh. And she didn’t.

  “Phoenix, don’t make me—” Shauna started before Vivian interrupted.

  “Please don’t do this today. Let’s have a nice dinner without the arguing, okay?”

  “On that note, I have something to tell y’all,” Dawn said. “I was waiting for Phoenix to get here before I said anything.”

  “Let me eat some of this gumbo so I’ll be able to stomach whatever you have to tell us,” I said, picking up my spoon and putting the mixture into my mouth. I savored the food and thought, Damn, this is good.

  “You ready now?” Dawn asked sarcastically.

  “Hold up. Let me take another bite,” I said, picking up the spoon two more times, putting some of the gumbo into my mouth. I held up my thumb, giving her the go-ahead, but I wished I would have waited to swallow before she belted the words:

  “I’m getting married.”

  Chapter 14

  Dawn

  The room fell silent as Phoenix’s spoon halted midair. She coughed and started choking on her food. Shauna reached over and hit Phoenix on the back until her coughing fit got under control. No one was saying anything. They were looking at me like I had something bizarre written across my forehead. Serena got up from the table looking like she was mad. She went over to the sink and rinsed her empty bowl out before putting it into the dishwasher.

  “Let me be the first to break the ice. Who are you marrying ?” Phoenix asked with a perplexed look on her face.

  “I’m getting married to Corey, that’s who. Stop acting like you don’t know who I’ve been in a relationship with.”

  Phoenix shook her head. I heard Shauna sigh like she disapproved. My sisters were known for saying whatever came to their minds, and now none of them had anything to say. This caused me to get heated.

  “No congratulations. Y’all not saying anything,” I said.

  “Congratulations,” Vivian said.

  I couldn’t tell if she meant it. Their silence put me in a place of being uncomfortable. I was beginning to take their reaction the wrong way. I studied Vivian to see if she was sincere, but she was stone-faced. She didn’t look happy, but she didn’t look upset either.

  “Thank you,” I said apprehensively.

  Another silence fell upon the table, and I blurted, “What’s the problem, y’all? What the hell is with the silent treatment all of a sudden? Are y’all not happy for me?” I asked.

  “We are,” Vivian said.

  “Stop lying, Vivian,” Serena said, drying her hands off on the kitchen towel as she stood over the sink.

  “I’m not lying,” Vivian defended herself.

  “Yes, you are,” Serena argued.

  “Y’all tell me the truth. You never hold back, so don’t do it now,” I said, looking around at each of them.

  Vivian was eyeballing Serena. Phoenix was still eating on her gumbo, and Shauna was shielding her eyes with those sun shades so I couldn’t see her eyes at all. From her index fingers massaging her temples, I felt like she didn’t like the idea of me getting married either.

  “Is anyone going to say anything?” I asked, glancing around at each of them.

  “Okay, here it is. Who the hell are you fooling?” Serena asked, walking over to the table, but she didn’t bother to take a seat.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, looking up at her.

  “I mean, why are you getting married to a man who can’t keep his damn dick in his pants? How many times has he cheated on you? Seven?” Serena asked.

  “More like seventy,” Shauna chimed in.

  “But he’s changed,” I reminded them.

  “Since when?” Shauna asked, still rubbing her temples. “Did he get some type of counseling or sex therapy teaching him how to remain faithful? Hell, he just cheated on you two months ago, and now y’all getting married.”

  “Sounds like a guilty proposal to me,” Phoenix said, dipping her bread into the bowl.

  “A guilty proposal?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He’s trying to take the negative tension off of himself for being a damn dog and bringing something like marriage to the forefront to throw you off. As you can see, it worked,” Phoenix said.

  “Did it work? She acting like she can’t recall the type of man she’s marrying,” Shauna cosigned. “He pulled a Kobe.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “A Kobe Bryant. You know, cheat on your girl only to buy her the ring to keep her from acting a damn fool until things die down,” Phoenix explained.

  “Please. He had this ring for a while,” I explained.

  “That’s the lie he told you,” Serena said, picking up Shauna’s empty bowl off the table and walking it over to the sink to rinse out.

  “Hell, you just got into a scuffle with Paige over them sleeping together the other day, so if it didn’t bother you, then that incident shouldn’t have happened,” Shauna surmised.

  “I’m not going into this marriage blind, you guys,” I enlightened them.

  “Then let’s get your ass a seeing eye dog, because your ass is blind as hell if you can’t see how wrong marrying Corey is,” Shauna said.

  This caused Phoenix to spit her gumbo across the table laughing.

  “Eeeww,” Shauna and Vivian blurted.

  “I’m so sorry, y’all. That was a good one, Shauna. I almost choked on that one,” Phoenix said, holding one of her hands over her mouth while using the other hand to wipe the spewed residue with a napkin.

  “Make sure you wipe all that juice off my table. As a matter of fact, Serena, can you reach under the sink and pass me the Lysol disinfectant wipes?” Vivian asked.

  Serena walked over to the table, handing her the container. Vivian opened it, pulling out a couple of sheets for Phoenix to clean up her germs.

  “Why can’t y’all be happy for me?” I asked.

  “We are, but we also don’t want to see you walk into something we know is not going to work,” Serena said, taking her position back over at the sink.

  “You sure you’re not jealous because you been with Tyree longer than I’ve been with Corey and I’m the one getting married?”

  “Oh, no she didn’t,” I heard Shauna mumbled under her breath.

  I kept on talking. “Are you mad because Tyree isn’t trying to make an honest woman out of you? I thought marriage was supposed to come before the baby carriage,” I said defensively.

  “Oh, no she didn’t,” Shauna said again, this time louder than before.

  “Yes, the hell I did,” I responded angrily. “Y’all are being so damn honest with me. I think I should tell some truth too,” I said with major attitude.

  Serena took in a deep breath before saying, “First of all, ain’t nobody jealous over you and your dog of a man Corey. If I had a man like him . . . Let me rephrase that,” she said, walking toward me with her finger in the air, pointing at me. “I’m not going to have a man like him, because I love myself enough to not want to put up with a man disrespecting me by sticking his dick in every woman willing to spread her legs for him. Second, what Tyree and I have going on will still be better than what you have, even without the papers, so get the shit right, Dawn. Ain’t nobody jealous of you.”

  “Please, Serena. You acting like your relationship is first rate. How’s his baby mama doing?” I asked with my head tilted to the side like I was pondering this but I couldn’t care less.

  Serena was really pissed now. She was so mad she couldn’t think of anything to say as she practically stood over me with her chest heaving in and out.

  Vivian stood to stop her from getting any closer, but I wasn’t budging. I looked at her like, “Please try something.” I’d got to fighting once in the past few days; I would do it again if I had to.

  “You dead wrong for saying that, Dawn,” Shauna retorted.

  “Why? Y’all can bea
t up my happy occasion, but you don’t expect me to say anything,” I responded furiously.

  “Everybody is wrong by how they are coming off, but, Dawn, we are also right about how Corey has been treating you,” Vivian chimed in.

  “Y’all don’t have to live with him,” I said.

  “And we don’t want to. Lying piece of crap,” Serena uttered.

  “Y’all are always against me. You think I’m stupid.”

  “No one has called you stupid, Dawn,” Shauna said.

  “Well, I think you stupid,” Phoenix agreed.

  “Ever since . . . Ever since . . .” I kept pausing.

  “Leave it alone, Dawn. It’s not that. Plus, this is not the time to bring up the past,” Vivian said, figuring out what I was going to say.

  “I think it is. I think none of you have ever forgiven me for what happened. That’s why I’m treated the worst out of all of us.”

  “Hold up,” Vivian said, standing to her feet with her hands up. “I never once treated you bad, so quit with the damn sob story. You are starting to piss me off now. Quit your damn temper tantrum. Either take what we are telling you as sisters caring about your well-being and happiness, or leave it alone. If anybody here should be mad at you, it’s me,” Vivian said angrily.

  I knew Vivian was right, and I should have left well enough alone. I didn’t know why I continued to live in the past, but it was hard not to. I couldn’t help the way I felt. I wondered if the feelings inside me would ever get to a place where I would be settled with myself.

  “I bet you I know what’s going on. Dawn wants to be the first to break this family curse of the Johnson women,” Phoenix said, finishing up the last of her gumbo.

  “What curse?” Shauna asked.

  “You know, the one where there hasn’t been a woman in our family to get married for at least four generations. She wants to beat us to the altar,” Phoenix said. “Not that I want to get married. I want to be single forever.”

  “I’m getting married because I love Corey, not because I’m trying to break some damn curse. Why can’t y’all see that?”

  “You can’t sit here and tell me you don’t love the fact that you are having a wedding. You’ve talked about this since you were a teen. Now your dream is coming true,” Serena said. “And Corey knew this. He’s playing with your emotions, which is the reason why he asked you to marry him in the first place. He was counting on your love for a wedding to shield his need for cheating.”

  “All I can say is I think you should wait,” Shauna warned.

  “This coming from you,” I said.

  “Damn right. I told y’all I’m never getting married either. I agree with Phoenix. I don’t need a damn piece of paper confirming my love or commitment to a man. I do love the idea of a wedding, but all I want to do is walk down the aisle in my wedding dress to say I did it and walk the hell up out of there.”

  “Without saying vows?” Phoenix asked, giggling.

  “Exactly. That’s what most women want anyway: the actual wedding,” Shauna explained.

  “Would you have the reception, too?” Serena asked.

  “Hell yeah. That’s the best part. I would dance in my dress and kiss my man and be happy we are not legally bonded,” Shauna said. “Dawn, maybe you should do the same thing. Corey is not the man you supposed to spend the rest of your life with. You know it. I know it. All of us know it. So stop fooling yourself, because you damn sure ain’t fooling us.”

  “Amen,” Serena agreed, her lips tight with aggravation.

  “Y’all need to leave Dawn alone. Let her have her wedding with the man she loves,” Phoenix said. “She’s already following in the footsteps of her mother.”

  “Watch it,” Vivian said.

  “What? You don’t remember when Daddy couldn’t keep his dick in his pants?”

  “Phoenix!” Vivian yelled.

  “Well, it’s true. What fantasy world are y’all living in to not remember that? Mama would’ve been a damn fool to marry our daddy too. As much as we love him, he is a male whore,” Phoenix let slip.

  “Our grandmother and great-grandmother had cheating men too, and you see they didn’t bother to get married either,” Serena cosigned.

  “Here you are starting your marriage off with the same kind of man who has already slept with multiple women, and you want to make him legal,” Phoenix said, chuckling.

  “Cheaters learn how to get better at cheating. I mean, come on. Like he’s going to come and say, ‘Baby, I slept with another woman last night. Please forgive me,’” Shauna said, trying to mimic Corey’s voice.

  “The one thing y’all are forgetting is our daddy wasn’t the only one who cheated,” I said.

  The room fell silent then.

  “Mama cheated on him also.”

  “Can you blame her, Dawn? She got tired of him doing it, so she did it too,” Phoenix responded. “I would have too.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” I countered.

  “True, but in the end, both of them forgave one another and that’s all that matters,” Shauna said.

  “Is it? Has Cal asked you to forgive him for whooping your ass?” I asked sternly.

  Vivian and Serena shook their heads. I knew then what I said was a low blow, but hell, I was mad. I was tired of them beating up on me and the decision I was making to marry Corey. Yes, in my anger I may not have said things the right way, but I was mad.

  “Aw, you have done it now,” Phoenix said, picking up her bowl and going over to the stove to scoop her some more gumbo out of the pot, since the bowl on the table was empty.

  Vivian and Serena snickered nervously, but Shauna wasn’t laughing at all. All of our tempers were bad, but Shauna’s was the worst. I watched as her jaws tightened and she gritted her teeth. I knew she was getting ready to let me have it, but I wasn’t prepared for how far this disagreement would go.

  Chapter 15

  Shauna

  Was this Beat Up On Shauna Week? I had had enough of people thinking they could come at me any type of way. First it was Cal thinking it was okay to put his hands on me. Then it was Phoenix and Serena wanting to handle things for me and Phoenix telling me I better not go back to him. Then it was Viv mad because I didn’t say anything to her at all. Now I had Dawn casting out low blows because she was insecure in her relationship. She was upset because she, in actuality, wanted our blessing and we didn’t give it to her.

  Now because she felt bad about what we were saying, she wanted everybody to feel bad like she did. I had enough misery of my own without Dawn kicking me when I was down, and she should have known I was the wrong one to come for.

  Taking my shades off, I looked around the kitchen and saw my sisters eyeballing me. My temples throbbed. My heart sped up its rhythm as my wrath began to ascend in my throat to the point of choking me. I began to tremble. I bounced my knee anxiously, knowing I was on the brink of snapping.

  “I think we need to end this conversation before more feelings get hurt,” Vivian suggested, trying to pacify the situation as she sat at the head of her kitchen table.

  “I agree. We need to let this go and talk about something else,” Serena agreed, looking at me. She shook her head at me, knowing what was coming, but I didn’t think I could hold my temper back. Serena mouthed the words, “Leave it alone,” shaking her head again.

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head into my hands, trying to listen to what she was telling me, but I couldn’t. The more I thought about what Dawn said, my throat closed up even more with the pressure of me trying to maintain what yearned to be released.

  “All I wanted was a peaceful evening with my sisters, but I guess that was too much to ask,” I said with my head down.

  “You forgot who your sisters were,” Phoenix joked.

  “Evidently, but I thought today would be better. I mean, I knew you all would get on me about my eye,” I said, pointing at my discolored bruise, “and what happened with Cal, but for it to be used in the way
you used it . . .” I lifted my head to stare at Dawn. “This is why can’t nobody say anything to you. You sitting here playing Ms. Self-righteous by dissing what happened to me, not wanting to look at this fake-ass relationship you have.”

  “Oooh. Shauna said fake,” Phoenix said, giggling more as she spooned more gumbo into her mouth.

  “You sitting here bragging about my fight when you just got your ass whooped by Paige, who screwed your soon-to-be husband. By the way, did you enjoy the banana show?”

  Phoenix was steady cracking herself up over at the counter, leaning over her bowl and listening. Dawn shot her an evil glance, but Phoenix rolled her eyes and kept on eating.

  “I didn’t ask to get beat by Cal like you didn’t ask to get crabs from Corey.”

  Phoenix spit her gumbo across the room again when I said that. This time she was coughing, choking, and laughing at the same time as she went over to the sink and coughed up the rest of gumbo that had lodged in her throat.

  “What is it with you spitting your food across my kitchen?” Vivian asked. “In my sink, Phoenix? Why don’t you stop eating?”

  “Would you rather it had been on your floor?” Phoenix retorted once she gathered herself.

  “The only difference with me, Dawn, is I’m not going to take Cal back. A man putting his hands on me is a lesson learned. You, on the other hand, didn’t you have to go to the doctor to get treated several different times for STDs Corey brought back to you?” I asked cruelly.

  Dawn scowled at me without saying anything as Phoenix stood holding her chest, still trying to recover from her choking a second time that night.

  “I think I’m done. Damn, Shauna. I wish you would have warned me with that one. That was a good one. Who gets crabs these days? I thought the critters were extinct. Corey had to be digging into the dirtiest and oldest poon-poon to catch that,” Phoenix said, still laughing.

  This caused Vivian and Serena to giggle too.

  “You might as well be talking to the wall, Phoenix, because Dawn ain’t hearing you. She’s not going to be satisfied until she catches a disease she can’t get rid of. But I wish you the best of luck with that, sis,” I said coldly, putting my hand on my forehead and saluting her. “Now, go on with your fake-ass wedding, but don’t expect me to support you in ruining your life.”