I didn’t say anything as I followed him inside the restaurant. We put our name on the waiting list and were standing off to the side when Walter’s cell phone rang again. I bit my lips, but didn’t say anything. I hoped his phone wouldn’t ring all evening.
“You coming over here?” I heard him ask. He paused. “Yeah, we’re ’bout to be seated, then we were talking about catching a nine o’clock movie. We can meet you there. Cool.”
He snapped his phone shut, then turned to me. “I hope you don’t mind, but I told Sam him and his girl could meet us at the movies.”
I faked like I was pouting. Although I was just playing, I really did want our first date to just be us.
“Aww, c’mon, there’s nothing wrong with having a little company tag along with us.” He playfully pinched my chin. “Besides, we’ll talk about all the private stuff over dinner, long before the movie starts, anyway.”
I smiled. “I was just kidding, I don’t mind. But you still didn’t tell me what’s up with your folks. I mean, what do they have against me?”
“It’s nothing like that at all. I mean, they don’t know you. I’m telling you, my mother is just afraid I’ll get all wrapped up in some girl and my grades will fall, and all that stupid stuff. Nothing for you to worry about, though. I got them under control.” Walter took his arm and threw it over my shoulder, pulling me closer.
By the time they called us to our table, I was afraid Walter could hear my stomach growling. That’s just how hungry I was.
At the table, we ordered, laughed, and talked until our food arrived. I loved the way things with us just seemed so natural. We were just finishing up dinner when we heard a voice say, “So, now you’re in the business of lying to your mother.”
Walter’s eyes got huge as he jumped up. “Mom!”
“Don’t mom me.” His mother folded her arms. She was a very elegant-looking woman, with beautiful blond hair that hung loosely around her face. She looked like she couldn’t have been a day over thirty and was dressed like she was someone important in some navy linen capris and a cream tank. “I was leaving Pier One, and I thought that was your car over here,” she said. “Since you were supposed to be at Sam’s studying, I came in here to see for myself if my son had turned into a liar.”
“Mom, are you following me?” Walter asked.
“Follow you? Son, I don’t have to follow you. Or at least, I didn’t think I needed to follow you.” She must’ve finally decided to acknowledge me, because she turned to me, her nose in the air. “So, are you the reason my son has taken to lying?”
I stood up myself, not wanting her first impression of me to be a negative one. “I’m Camille.” I stuck my hand out. She didn’t shake it.
“Mother, this has nothing to do with Camille. I chose to lie to you on my own because I knew you were gon’ be trippin’,” Walter said.
“Gon’ be trippin’?” his mother mocked. “Do you think they talk like that at Princeton? Do you think you can have a career in politics talking like that? Not only that, you have a very important exam tomorrow, and you’re up here hanging out! You gon’ be at the community college if you keep this up!”
Walter rolled his eyes. His mother turned her attention back to me. I was still standing there, not sure what to say. “Is this what he turns into, hanging around you? A lying, Ebonics-talking—”
“Stop it, Mother!” Walter said. He was trying to keep his voice down, even though the people at the table next to us had already begun to stare.
I gave her a funny look, not quite sure what she meant by her little comment. She ignored me.
“Walter, I am so disappointed in you. Let’s go,” she said.
Walter blew a frustrated breath, then stared at his mother before sitting back down. “I’ll be home when I’m finished.”
His mother’s mouth dropped open. “Wha—”
Walter snapped his head toward his mother. “I said, I’ll be home when I’m finished!”
His mother looked like she was about to go off, but then she looked around at the people who had started to stare, and she must’ve decided against it. “We will finish this conversation at home. I expect you there by ten o’clock!” she said.
With that, she turned and stormed out of the restaurant.
I eased back into my seat. “Why didn’t you tell me you had an exam?”
“It’s just the S.A.T. I’ve already taken it and aced it, but my mother wants me to take it again to score even higher so that I can qualify for this prestigious award she wants me to have.” He lowered his head and began toying with his napkin. “I just want to be an ordinary guy. Not some superstar senator’s son.”
I took his hand and squeezed it. I felt bad for him. Shoot, I felt bad for us, because I couldn’t help but feel like there was no way I’d ever get his mother to like me.
8
Alexis
I don’t believe you spent fifteen thousand dollars!” My father’s voice roared through the house.
I immediately jumped up and turned up the volume on the stereo system me and the girls were listening to. We all had been practicing interviewing each other. Now we were just lounging around my family room, listening to music.
Although I tried to focus on my friends, I couldn’t help but think about my parents fighting—again. That they had to choose this particular time to fight only made me even angrier. They knew I had company.
“Since when did I have to check with you before I spend money? It’s my money, too!” my mother shouted.
Why did it sound like they were in the same room with me? We were in the downstairs family room. My parents were in my father’s office, right next door. Still, you’d think in this big ol’ house you wouldn’t be able to hear through the walls like this.
“Fifteen thousand dollars? I can’t believe you think it’s okay to spend five grand on a few measly outfits. This makes no sense,” I heard my father shout.
I couldn’t turn the music up any higher without my friends knowing exactly what I was trying to do. It would be way too obvious, not to mention even more embarrassing. Besides, I know my friends heard them already. Heck, the whole neighborhood heard them.
“What makes no sense is this conversation. When you wanted a new motorcycle, I didn’t start screaming because you went out and spent money on a bike that you’ve conveniently lost interest in. Now you want to try and itemize the things that I buy. Necessary things,” my mother yelled. My mother was always yelling at my father.
I heard a crashing noise, then my father’s voice. “Necessary? How exactly does pairs of Manolo Blaniks for seventeen hundred dollars each keep our family together?” my father screamed. “Then there’s the day at the spa for twenty-three hundred dollars? What exactly did they do to you there? You spend money like I make it in the backyard or something!”
“These are things that make me feel good about myself,” my mother responded.
I rolled my eyes toward the wall. I wished I was anywhere but home, stuck in the middle of a sleepover gone terribly wrong, listening to the latest of my parents’ many fights. This time it was about money. Last time it was a fight over renovating the family room. The time before that it was about our family vacation. It was always something. I was so sick of the constant arguing and bickering that my parents had been doing. But for them to be arguing when they knew doggone well that I was having friends over, well, that was just too much. They had finally crossed the line this time.
I wanted to go knock on the door and give them a piece of my mind, but I knew all that would do was end the fight for now. Then, once me and my friends were close to falling asleep, they’d start right back up. I just wanted to vanish into thin air, especially when Jasmine looked at me and said, “Are your parents gonna be okay?”
Camille and Angel looked at each other funny, then they looked at me like they felt all sorry for me.
That’s when I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. Without answering Jasmine’s question, I reache
d up and used my fist to bang on the wall. “Would y’all cut it out!” I screamed.
There was immediate silence. I envisioned the look on my parents’ faces. But I was just grateful that the bickering had stopped.
“Yeah, they can get stupid sometimes. Let’s just try and ignore ’em,” I suggested.
Angel grabbed a fistful of popcorn and started stuffing her mouth as Camille and Jasmine jumped up and started dancing to the new Omarion song. We were interrupted a few minutes later by the sound of the doorbell ringing several times.
I jumped up and headed to the door. My mother almost knocked me down as she rushed past me. She flew across the marble-floored foyer and swung the front door wide open.
“I’m so glad you guys are here. He’s right in the office,” my mother sobbed as she pointed toward my father’s office.
I thought I was going to die as I watched one police officer come into our home and the other stand at the door, trying to calm my mother down.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“No, I’m not,” my mother snapped.
“Did he hit you?” the officer asked.
“No, of course he didn’t. I just called you all to make him get out,” my mother cried.
The officer sighed, then motioned for my mother to have a seat on the living room sofa.
“Wow. Your mother called the cops on your dad?” Camille whispered. I didn’t even realize she and the other girls had come up behind me.
I was too outdone. My parents had never embarrassed me as much as they had that very moment.
The cops didn’t arrest my father, but they did ask him to leave. Right after they left, my mother locked herself in her bedroom. I told everyone to move upstairs to my bedroom, where I plopped down on my bed, grabbed a pillow, and pulled it close to my chest. “I’m so sorry, guys. I don’t know why my parents flipped out like that,” I said.
“I just can’t believe the cops made your dad leave,” Jasmine said.
I shook my head and sighed. “He probably left on his own. I’m sure he’s gonna go get a room somewhere until she calms down. I told you guys my mother is nothing but a drama queen. Y’all don’t see how she flips out sometimes, especially on my dad. I feel sorry for him. Actually, I feel sorry for her, too. Every since we put my sister away, my mother has turned into someone I don’t know.”
I felt myself tearing up as I thought about Sharon. She was in a place called Memorial Greens, which specializes in autistic children. Sharon was four years older than me, and it had crushed my mother to have to put her in that place ten years ago, but the family just couldn’t handle her anymore. I think my mom blamed herself for Sharon being the way she was. In fact, when we put Sharon in that hospital is when everything just seemed to go downhill for my family. The sad part was, we didn’t even go visit her that much. My mother said it was too depressing, and my father was always too busy.
Camille got up from the chair and came over to where I was sitting.
“I had no idea,” Camille said. “I guess I just thought your life was perfect, or at least very close to being perfect. I mean, you guys are obviously rich, and your mom seems so cool.”
“I kept trying to tell you guys things aren’t all hunky-dory over here. My family has some serious issues. My parents argue so much, it’s wild. Sometimes I really think they’re gonna get a divorce. I swear I’m never ever getting married.” I didn’t mean to sound like some whiny child, but I was really upset.
“Girl, please,” Jasmine said, socking my arm playfully. “Just because they act like that doesn’t mean you and your husband are gon’ do the same. Besides, you should be glad you even have your dad in your life.”
I know she was thinking about her father, who she had just met a few months ago. Their little reunion didn’t go as planned, and she’d been pretty bummed out about it.
“It’s not my dad I have problems with,” I said, snapping back to my conversation. “It’s my mom and all her mess. I mean, my dad gets on my nerves too, but, uuggghhh, my mom, she’s just too much.”
I knew all of them also had issues with their mothers. But I don’t think their problems could even begin to compare to mine. My family was falling apart, and I was caught right dead in the middle.
9
Alexis
I had so much fun last night. After I got over my parents’ fighting, we’d had a really good time. I hated to see everyone leave this morning, but Camille and Jasmine had to go to church. I had planned to be right behind them, heading somewhere, until the housekeeper came and told me my mother wanted to see me. Of course, I had no desire to see her, since I was still mad about the way my parents acted in front of my friends.
I looked up at the spiral staircase and rolled my eyes at the thought of having to face my mother. I finally pulled myself up the stairs and walked toward my parents’ bedroom.
I knocked on the door softly and prayed my mother had fallen back to sleep.
“C’mon in,” my mother said.
When I opened the door and looked around, I noticed my mother on the bed, surrounded by a mountain of fluffy pillows. She wore a pair of silk pajamas that matched the champagne-colored down comforter, and a sleep mask was pulled up onto her forehead.
“Oh, darling.” My mother used her hand to pat a space next to her on the bed. “Come and let’s talk. I’m so sorry about last night. It’s just your daddy can be so impossible at times.”
I didn’t feel like I had any choice, so I scooted up onto the bed next to her.
“I can’t believe you called the police on him, Mama. How could you do that?” I knew nothing my mother said could justify what she did, but I needed some type of explanation of how she could do something so horrible.
“I called them because your father wouldn’t leave like I told him to.”
“But it’s his house, too, Mama.”
“Well, regardless, the cops didn’t even have to put him out, honey. He volunteered to leave. And you know what, I’m glad he did. I just can’t take this stress right now. I think the time apart may do us some good.” She touched my hand. “But I just want you to know that our arguments have nothing to do with you. And I really don’t want you to worry about them.”
Not worry? How could I not worry? They sounded like they were about to kill each other.
“Sometimes I feel like your father just doesn’t understand me,” my mother continued. “For him everything is about the next big acquisition, the next real estate deal. He doesn’t understand the pressure I’m under.”
I couldn’t believe my mother was sitting here talking about pressure, like she actually had a care in the world. She didn’t work. Her days were filled with hair, nails, and spa appointments. Then there was the shopping. My mother didn’t shop like normal people. No, she visited celebrity designers, and had to have top-of-the-line everything.
“I try to tell your father, pumpkin, that home is just as important as work. I mean, what does he expect his girls to do while he travels the country day after day?” She sighed. In a dramatic fashion that I was used to seeing, she draped her hand over her sleep mask and eased back onto the pillows.
“Do you know he made me go to a charity event unescorted last week?” She gasped. “It’s like my social events aren’t even important to him. But I’m expected to be the good wife when he needs someone at his side.” My mother is such a drama queen.
“Oh, honey, I don’t mean to trouble you with all of this,” she continued. “It’s just sometimes men can be so disagreeable.” She shook her head before forcing a smile. “Did Sonja leave any of that bacon I smelled earlier?”
“No, Mom, we ate it all,” I said.
“We?” she asked with a puzzled look on her face.
“Did you forget that I was having a sleepover last night? The girls just left,” I said. Why did it not surprise me that my mother didn’t remember my sleepover? It seemed nothing I did was a priority in her or my dad’s life.
“Oh, darli
ng, I’m so sorry your little friends had to witness that,” she said.
“It’s no big deal,” I lied.
“No big deal?” She sighed heavily. “No big deal? Sweetie, I’m so sorry. Your father, the way he behaves sometimes is just baffling. You and your father both know how emotional I can get sometimes. So for him to overreact the way he did, well, it’s just a shame is what it is.”
I shook my head. “It really is no big deal.”
Part of me wanted to go off, but the other part was just sick as I listened to my mom go on and on about how she is the real victim here.
“Pumpkin, I was thinking maybe we should have a sweetheart’s day. We could go to the spa, have facials, get our hair and nails done and have lunch at the country club. Then we could go have dinner anywhere you like.” She smiled.
I did not want to hang out with her, much less be seen with her, after that stunt she pulled last night.
“I can’t. Me and Jaquan are going to go catch a movie.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. I wasn’t ready to tell my mother about Jaquan yet. But it was too late. She sat up.
“Jaquan? Who is that?”
“My boyfriend.” I let out a deep breath. Jaquan and I had just started going together last week, after he asked me over the phone to be his girlfriend. I was so excited and wanted to tell Angel and Camille, but I didn’t want to say anything to them until I had a chance to talk to Jasmine first. And I just couldn’t bring myself to do it last night.
Regardless, I was kicking myself now. My mom was so nosy and I didn’t want to give her a whole bunch of details.
“Since when did you get a boyfriend and not tell your mother about it?”
I rolled my eyes.
“So, tell me,” she said excitedly when I didn’t answer, “is he from a good family? What do his parents do for a living? Where is he from? Oh, this is so special. My baby has a boyfriend.”
I sighed. “He’s Jasmine’s brother, ma.”
With the look on my mother’s face, you would have thought I told her I was dating Shrek or something.
With Friends Like These Page 4
