Page 167 of Score
My sister’s screech startles her daughter so badly, she almost topples from my back and to the floor. Lucky for her, I’m in the gym on the regular and do yoga with Verity just about every morning, so my catlike reflexes save the day.
I catch my niece Kelsey before she falls, but her little body is trembling, and in her fright, she lets out one extended wail.
“Hey, hey.” I hold her close to my chest and scoot until my back rests against the sofa. “It’s okay. Nothing to be scared of. I got you, lil’ bit.”
Her bottom lip quivers. Tears tremble on her long lashes. She’s pretty much breaking my heart.
“Now see, this your fault.” I glare at Shrieva and pat Kelsey’s back, bouncing her a bit. “She was fine before you terrified her using your Big Mama voice.”
“Shut up!” my sister shouts, even as she laughs.
“Mama!” I yell. “Shrieva told me to shut up.”
Mama comes around the corner from the kitchen, a dishcloth tossed over her shoulder. “Then why don’t you? You always did love running that mouth.”
“Ooooooh!” Shrieva pokes her tongue out. “She told you.”
“Wow,” I reply dryly. “So mature. And to think you’re a mother of… how many? Five? Six? I’ve lost count. The saying goes ittakesa village, notyou gotta birth one. Y’all still using the pull-out method, and we see how effective that is.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Shrieva rolls her eyes. “Verity, come get your man. He’s bullying me again.”
Verity charges in, with dukes up, bouncing from foot to foot, lips poked out like she’s about to do something.
“Where he at?” She can barely keep a straight face, though, as she collapses beside me on the floor and takes Kelsey, whose tears have begun to subside, from my arms. “Did he make you cry, sweetie? He’s a mean ol’ uncle. I know.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I laugh.
Verity cuddles Kelsey, who has forgotten about her near-death experience and is swiping her fist wildly at Verity’s glasses.
“You know I’m a girl’s girl.” She winks at the double entendre, but shoots my mother a cautious look. She isn’t always sure how my family feels about her “lifestyle choices,” as my parents call them. Verity’s sexuality probably would never have come up, but she’s open in interviews about the intersectionality of being a bisexual, bipolar Black woman. She never tries to erase any part of her identity, and I don’t need her to, even though I know it raises questions for my very conventional parents about how this “works” if Verity “likes girls, too.”
Is she a lesbian? Bi? Queer or whatever they call it? The LMNOP army?
God, my parents.
Whatever Verity is, I want it. Whatever she is, she’s mine and I identify ashers.
To their credit, my parents never make us feel unwelcome, unloved, or awkward. When I brought Verity home last Christmas as my girlfriend, they greeted her with open arms and have never shown her anything but respect and affection.
We don’t come to Virginia much, a few times a year, but we flew in for my mother’s birthday party. We wanted to make it special, since it’s been a rough season for her. My stepfather, Ray, suffered a massive heart attack and died late last year. It was sudden, completely without warning. Verity only met him the one time at Christmas, but she attended the funeral withme. And when Shrieva and Charlie suggested making Mama’s birthday special, we were both eager to come.
“I’ll remind you whose side you took,” I tell Verity, “when I’m the one you have to look at for the next twelve days.”
“Ahhh.” Verity nestles Kelsey into the crook of her neck and sighs. “Say it again.”
“Twelve days, baby.”
We share a look that’s as intimate as anything we do behind closed doors, but no one would ever know. There is a place we’ve made in this world that is only ours. It’s not geographical. It’s not even our home together in LA. It’s the spot we’ve carved out for each other in our hearts, in our lives.
“Where y’all going again?” Mama asks, an indulgent smile on her face.
“It’s called Sommarøy.” I reach over to smooth Kelsey’s little Afro puffs with their rainbow ribbons. “It’s in Norway.”
“Norway!” my brother, Charlie, says, coming in from outside just in time to be obnoxious. “Ain’t no Black folks in Norway.”
“We’ll be there,” Verity replies sweetly. “There’s no traditional twenty-four-hour clock. Lots of people hang their watches on the bridge that leads to the island because Sommarøy doesn’t acknowledge time. The summer is like sixty-nine days of midnight sun. No real nighttime.”
“No nighttime? And you call that a vacation?” Shrieva asks.
