5:51 P.M.
JOSIE
Not a chance, she’s double-dipping. You were my bargaining chip to get her to come to this par-tay in the first place. That said, she may ask you to check her pulse and her pupils in the car. She’s been a little skittish lately. She thinks all these fancy veggies and grains you’ve been telling her to eat are what’s going to kill her. Maybe bring your tongue depressor, too. Thanks for the ride offer. See you around 6:50.
5:52 P.M.
By 3:00 p.m. the day of Viva la Viv I have taken Aunt Viv to the beauty salon to have her hair—her real hair—lined up and cake-cut. A handful of times a year Aunt Viv decides to go au naturel ’cause she can pull it off; apparently tonight is one of those nights. Then we go to the nail salon for a specific cherries jubilee red that, according to Aunt Viv, only exists at one salon on all of Clemente Street. I start to tell Aunt Viv that any of the twenty nail salons within a twelve-block radius of our house can paint her nails cherry red if she buys the polish herself, but she’s having such a good time bossing me around from the passenger seat of the car I decide not to ruin her one-daydictatorship. While her nails are drying, and gossip is flowing with the other ladies in the salon, I have to run to the tailor’s to pick up her dress. Then I’m off to the shoe repair shop to pick up her beloved beaded purse that is being resurrected from near extinction to match Aunt Viv’s emerald-green dress. Our final stop is Walgreens to buy a pack of tissues small enough to fit in her newly fixed purse and some Epsom salts to soak in, so she will feel loose in the joints all night. I asked Aunt Viv why all this fuss for a party she didn’t want to attend in the first place. She acknowledges my sincere curiosity by ignoring it and begins humming Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” her current go-to method to shut me up before our flight tomorrow. How Aunt Viv even knows that song is out of my realm of guessing; Billy Joel is not exactly Zydeco. I run into Starbucks across from Walgreens for a triple espresso and a necessary four minutes of freedom to get me through the rest of this day.
Arriving home, I’m met with, “Mama, you packed? We can’t be late to the airport tomorrow. Promise me we won’t be late.” When Etta goes to school next year, I won’t miss her badgering me about time. That kid has never heard of, nor practiced, the art of being fashionably late.
“I’m packed Etta, promise, but we don’t leave until mid-afternoon, so we have plenty of time to finish getting ready in the morning,” I call from the bathroom. Is it too much to ask to have thirty minutes to clean myself up for tonight?
“Do you plan on parading around New York naked, Mama? If so, then please don’t show up for my interview with the Juilliard director of admissions,” Etta says, standing in the doorway to the bathroom holding my empty suitcase. It’s trying having a seventeen-year-old for a mother.
“I promise that bag will be stuffed to the top with appropriate clothing by the time we leave for the airport tomorrow. Now, how’bout you go snooping in your aunt Viv’s suitcase and leave me alone so I can get dressed? You know, before I had you, I had a whole team dedicated to making me look good, now I gotta do it all by myself and it’s a task that takes focus.”
“Don’t need to check Aunt Viv’s bag; it’s already packed and by the front door. She doesn’t want to miss our flight, either. You know we’ll leave you behind if we have to. Aunt Viv and I can have a good time without you.” Etta is practically levitating she’s so excited to go to New York.
“Oh, I have no doubt.” What is it with these type A ladies I’m livin’ with? I’m like the chill in the middle of an uptight sandwich.
“While it may only be for a few more months, I’m still runnin’ this show and you, baby girl, need to go get dressed. I didn’t buy you that jumpsuit you begged for to watch it hang in your closet. And remember, we can’t look too amazing, don’t want to upstage Aunt Viv on her big night.” I give Etta a wink and a swat on her tight booty to usher her along. God bless that child, I hope that backside lifted high to the heavens doesn’t get her in all kinds of trouble in college. My fear is real. I see how Lola’s boys look at Etta. Even though the oldest is only eleven, those boys know an angel when they see one.
Etta hip checks me and runs out of the bathroom before I swat that backside for real.
•••
TY
In Lyft, be there in two. And if I do say so myself I’m looking fine.
6:42 P.M.
JOSIE
Lookin’ fine is kind of like rockin’ it. No one says it anymore. Come up with something from this decade.
6:43 P.M.
TY
Sharp, hot, dope, handsome, fab, sizzlin’, fly?
6:44 P.M.
JOSIE
Okay, Eminem, stick to looking fine.
6:45 P.M.
TY
And it’s looking like I’m right outside your door.
6:46 P.M.
JOSIE
