“What I feel is trapped,” Giselle declared. “Like I’m suffocating and walking through somebody else’s traumatizing ass life.”
“You should be grateful that you still have a life,” Remi declared from behind her. “Yours could have just as easily been taken. Now, you can sit around here and cry and have all that self-loathing or you can practice humbling yourself and realizing you could be a lot worse off than you are.”
“I don’t need you coming down on me every five fucking minutes either,” Giselle snarled when she faced her auntie.
Maisie held her breath. Her mother was a loving, God-fearing woman, but there was only so much she could take. She’d been more than patient with Giselle and her attitude since she arrived. Today, she’d also had a few drinks, so she had a lot more liquid courage than the prior days.
“O-K.” Lou slid in, trying to lighten the mood since she could see her mother’s fist practically balling on its own at her side. “G, let’s go take a walk. Come on.” Lou wrapped an arm around her waist and nudged her away from her mother while Maisie stepped in to make her and Crew’s plate.
“I’m hungry.” Giselle pouted, stomping down the street with Lou.
“I know. We’re going to smoke first, though. You need to relax. Going at it with Mama everyday ain’t gon’ get you nowhere, and you know this.”
“Then tell her to quit forcing thiswe are familyshit on me,” Giselle grumbled.
“But we are, and that’s not going to change,” Lou told her. “I know we haven’t exactly been tight over the years. I mean, you stopped visiting for the summer a long time ago, but you’re still my cousin, and I love you. She loves you, too. Ma is just with that tough love, always has been. You can’t change any of this, though, G. Not Uncle Greg or Auntie Grace, Gem, or having to be here. It just is what it is.”
“I can change what comes next for me,” Giselle argued as she looked around.
In the distance, she spotted Heavy at a picnic table, eating with that brown-skinned girl and her son beside him. There was also a pretty girl the same complexion as him with them, her eyes even matched his as she threw her head back and laughedat something the kid was saying. To her, it seemed like they were all this little family, and she was on the outside looking in.
“And I don’t think whatever it is, is here.”
Lou sighed and waved to one of her friends.
“You go hang out. I’ll be fine. I need a minute,” Giselle insisted.
“You sure about that?” Lou checked with her.
“Yeah.” Giselle nodded.
She strutted right past Heavy’s table, avoiding looking in their direction. It didn’t stop Prischa from noticing her, or Heavy for that matter, although he tried to play it cool. Stroking his beard like he did when he was deep in thought, he glimpsed Giselle’s backside as she found a spot under a shaded tree to post up. It was away from everyone as she kicked her heels off and settled in the grass with her back against the trunk. The laughter and music reminded her of when she was little and used to come through during the summer.
She was the suburb raised cousin, but she loved coming to the hood. It wasn’t all luxurious like her own life, which she was grateful for. There was just something so simplistic about Southwick. It had its charm. Every year when she was a kid, she looked forward to being dropped off for a few months while her parents did them. Somehow, that had gotten away from her as she got older. She made friends with Esti and Travis, and her summers were filled with yacht parties and European travels. A lot of that time went by in a blur. She didn’t savor those memories as much as she did the ones here. Sitting there with her eyes on the bright blue sky, she wondered if she could make it work here.
“Hey,” Gem greeted her softly, shifting Giselle’s attention to the little beauty standing beside her.
In a floral peach and white summer dress with a jean jacket over the look, she held a plate full of barbecue in front of Giselle.
“Remi wanted me to bring you a plate.”
“Did you spit in it?” Giselle asked, reaching for it gratefully because she was in fact starving.
“I thought about it.” Gem tucked her arms across her chest and twisted her lips. “You probably deserve it, too,” she quipped.
Amused, Giselle said a quick prayer before picking up the plastic fork and diving right in to the baked beans. Between their mirroring outer appearance and that quick lip attitude, she was positive they were sisters.
“I also wanted to show you something.” She went into the pocket of her jacket. “Remi gave it to me the other day. I don’t know why I’ve just been walking around with it.” She gripped the Polaroid photo in her hand and studied it for a minute before holding it out to Giselle.
Placing the plate in her lap, Giselle grabbed the picture, and it took her breath away. Her father’s young face wore a bright smile with what looked like Giselle in his lap, but it was obviously Gem because of the time stamp and their attire. She’d never seen the photo before, but there was something familiar in it.
“Him and that damn Kangol hat.” She shook her head. “Swore it was always going to be in style and was determined to have one in every color.”
Gem tittered and lowered herself into the grass beside Giselle.
“You sound like Lou. She said the same thing.”
“It was ridiculous. When he would fall asleep, he would drape it over his face. He’d say he wasn’t sleeping; he was just?—”
