It wasn’t fine. My nerves were shot. But Aziza was laughing again, even as she threw little side glances back at us like she’d filed something away to think about later.
“Mama? Can we get these donuts?” she called a few minutes later, waving a box above her head.
I took a deep breath, forcing my voice steady. “We’ll talk about it,” I called back.
“You always say that,” she complained.
“Because I’m always thinking,” I replied.
Beside me, Jabali chuckled quietly. “You good?” he asked.
“I’m here. So that’s something.”
He glanced at me, something like pride in his eyes. “That’s everything,” he said.
I rolled my eyes to hide how that made me feel. “Don’t get carried away. We’re still not buying that pickle,” I warned.
“We absolutely buying the pickle. That thing going right in front,” he said.
“Over my dead, classy body,” I shot back.
He grinned, bit down on his lower lip. “Body definitely classy. Elegant. Them curves timeless. What y’all be saying? Tea.”
“Jabali!” I hissed, mortified as I looked at Mrs. Katelyn.
She waved her hand. “Girl, Aziza is proof he likes your body,” she said.
I wanted to sink through the floor. But I realized, for the first time in a long time, with kids arguing about donuts, Ola Kate terrorizing an employee, and Jabali’s eyes sliding appreciatively over my “timeless curves,” in the middle of a Christmas store I once would’ve avoided like the plague, I didn’t feel completely alone.
I didn’t thinkI’d be decorating a Christmas tree in the Grindley mansion like some six-foot-three elf, but here we were. The tree looked even bigger standing in the foyer than it had at the lot. Aziza and Zoriah circled it like it was a dragon Jabali the Tree Slayer had brought down.
“Uncle Jay, it’s huge,” Zoriah said.
I shrugged. “That’s what happens when your cousin says she wants a big one.”
Mr. Benton stood off to the side with a broom and the patience of Job. We all stared at the tree for a minute.
“It’s leaning,” Kyleigh pointed out.
“Girl, it’s got character,” I argued.
She rolled her eyes. “If it falls and crushes my child, I’m suing you.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I don’t own anything in my name you can take,” I lied. “Talk to my lawyer.”
“Your lawyer is your sister.”
“Exactly.”
That earned me a real laugh, soft and surprised. I held on to that.
“May I begin sweeping the needles, ma’am?” Mr. Benton asked
“Yes, please, before I pass out from the mess,” Kyleigh said.
Aziza and Zoriah dropped to sit on the floor where we’d laid out boxes from Bellarose’s. Ornaments, hooks, lights, ribbon. Glitter was already trying to take over the marble.
“Okay, listen up. Game plan. We doing lights first, top to bottom. Then garland and ribbon. Then ornaments. No one touches the star until I say,” I instructed.
