Page 18 of Big Mad
“Momma, that’s what you call stalking? A segue to communication?” Maybe my voice raised a little because I was still envisioning how I sounded like a circus act while I’d explained the situation to Maddy in that interrogation room.
But Momma didn’t notice theamplificationof my voice. She snapped, “That’s strategy, not stalking. So literal, Washington!”
Whatever you say. I almost opened my mouth to tell her about Madison’s little prison theory about Momma being a protective cellmate. Woman had us sitting in that interrogation room like some sad rom-com subplot. Yep. I almost snitched.Almost. But then I looked into my momma’s eyes, wise and deep. The kind that had seen too many floods and funerals. You didn’t talk back to a woman who could bless and bury you.
She leaned back, satisfied. “I said open up a conversation, not drop-kick the child. This fake dating business, Washington.” She muttered under her breath, “This is Montana’s fault!”
“Momma, it wasn’t one of my greatest moments,” I admitted. “But we aren’t doing the fake part. They’rethreereal dates.”
Momma clicked her tongue. “Don’t force love. ‘Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires …’ ”
Her words hit me in the chest. Heavy and gentle all at once.
“Preach,” Tennessee muttered into his third drink.
“Bébé, hush.” She chuckled. “I’m trying to save your brother from heartache. You can’t rush a Black woman’s heart, especially when she’s halfway done packing her peace.”
“Oh, no.” Auntie Peaches dropped one foot over the other, her leopard-print heels clicking. I should’ve known that strong perfume was hers before it wrapped around me and choked me deep down in my throat. I glanced up at her, hair piled higher than the tallest building in the business district, nails glittering like a pink French Quarter chandelier. She leaned a hip against my velvet chair.
She was about to dig in on me. I could tell. That’s what Auntie Peaches did.
“Lawd, have mercy!” She slapped her hand hard on the table, rattling our empty drinks. “Did I hear you right? Mybébéover here tryna force love again?”
“Auntie … stop …” It was a quiet plea. Saying it louder wouldn’t stop her. Nothing but God.
“Cher, lemme tell you something.” She took my royale and downed it without blinking.Ah, I see you, Auntie.She never drank those things the way the bartender made them. “Wash, you don’t pick at a Black woman’s heart before it’s ripe. Thatfruit’ll fall, but it’ll hit you upside the head so hard yougoneneed a prescription for common sense. You feel me?”
She paused, throwing her glance toward Tennessee as if she might pull him into the conversation. “This is why I keep a full bottle of Red Stag in my purse.”
“Auntie.” Tennessee swiped his hand over his face.
“Oh hush. You’ve had girl problems since you met Phoenix in the third grade.”
He cleared his throat. “First. We … uh … kissed in the third grade.”
Auntie snorted. “Mm-hmm. You can’t fight fires and make a woman fall for you. That trope only works in the romance books I read. And you?” She turned to me.
Bruh? My turn again?
“Child, law school cost too much but didn’t teach your dry behind how to let love lead.”
After dinner, Tennessee and I met outside another bar closer to his apartment in Bywater. With the music thumping inside, we stood beneath the neon sign for The Tipsy Crawfish.
Montana’s voice boomed over the speaker. “Y’all telling me Texas been disappearing for months at a time?”
“Yep,” Tennessee replied, breath coming out a puff in the cold.
If this wasn’t the serious discussion we needed to have, I’d have left him out here. Go inside and put some heat on my chest with something brown, warm, and aged twelve years. But the music inside that bar was an entire argument. Too loud.
Montana asked, “Y’all think … y’all think he’s using?”
“I don’t know.” Tennessee shook his head.
Taking the phone from him, I put on my best professional hat to discuss our little brother. Texas was Boy Three, and Tennessee was the baby of the family by a few minutes. “Based on looks? No. Habits? Yeah. He may be on drugs, Montana.”
“I was just home for months.Months. And none of y’all had nothing to say!”
I pulled the phone away from my ear for a second. Let him vent. Then I got back on the phone. “Hey, we are all doing our best. We got issues. When did you last try to call him?”
