She looks back at me, and her bloodshot eyes soften as if she knows it was me doing all the chasing and begging for her son.
She reaches out, plucking his necklace by its sparkling Cuban link chain. “I guess you don’t need this anymore then, huh?”
“You gave him that?” I rasp.
“Uh-huh. Then did six months in the county for writing bad checks, but it was worth the thirty thousand in restitution and two years of probation.” She chuckles, her words slurring. “The jeweler said it was a good gift to give to a lil’ boy who doesn’t get to see his mama much.”
There’s an unspoken agreement floating between her and Rich that feels like it’s been festering since she draped the necklace over his head, and I want to climb on my high horse and point fingers and make judgements, but I can’t because of the sparkle that glimmers in Rich’s eyes as he looks at her.
“Yeah,” I say. “It…it is. It’s perfect—just like he is. You did good.”
“I told him as long as he had it around his neck, he’d never be lonely. Wearing it meant I was with him and keeping him company even when I wasn’t around, but it ain’t never stopped him from coming out here and looking for me. His daddy said if I was a halfway decent mama, he’d shonuff be a mama’s boy and them mama’s boys be the hardest ones to break.” She puts a hand on her jutting hip bone, rolling her eyes. “What you want tonight, Pup?”
He glances over at me with a smirk. “Just forty-five minutes of your time. Lovie wanna get you a patty melt and put some money in your pocket. Is that alright with you?”
PART FOUR
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
RICH
According to Slim,there are rules in friendships.
“I know you’re new at this, but the first rule in friendships is to keep in touch.” Her soft voice crackles through my truck’s speakers while I listen to the voice message she sent me for the third time. “I’m not trying to share locations or anything like that. I’m just…I…I’d like to hear from you. It’s been a couple of days. I’m not sure if you’re not a texter or…or anything like that, but you can send voice messages if they’re more convenient.”
Her message came through as soon as I pulled in front of Beatrice’s house and put my truck in park. She saved her name in my phone in a way that only we understand: Slim
I smile to myself.
It’s only been two days since I last saw her, but she was really telling the truth that night in my kitchen. She really ain’t like Beatrice, Rasheeda, or Red—she’s clingy. My Slim issoclingy…and jealous…and too sweet for her own good, and there’s no other men or kids occupying her time so all she can focus on is me.
I glance down at my phone and tap the blue “keep” that hangs underneath her message right as another one pops up. My thumb hovers over the play button while that familiarthump-thumprattles inside my chest.
I hold my breath and press play.
“Faye has me out getting last-minute stuff for Family Fun Day while she goes to the annex building to get the permit for the park. So I’m Ubering all over the city and Iloveit. Do you know how bad I missed Whataburger? I didn’t realize how much I did until we took your mama there the other night. I’m gonna have it for breakfast and lunch because I can finally eat without feeling like I’m gonna die. Oh! I saw your mama off Bayou Bend this morning. I hope you don’t mind, but I bought her a nice mint green tunic dress from Wal-Mart. Her top was stained.” She sighs. “Anyway…you just hit the plus sign on the left side of the text box and press ‘audio,’ and you can send me one of these too. You can tell me how your day is going…or what’s on your mind. Only if you want to. No pressure.”
The only women that ever asked me about my day were Faye and the ones I came across in random restaurants and stores. If Rasheeda asked, it was only because it was a reflex—something she blurted out because she’d been asking folks that question all day at work. She never stopped talking long enough to notice that I never had an answer, though.
I was always the last thing on a woman’s to-do list. I came after their husbands, kids, grocery shopping, and work. I was their break from all that. I listened while they ranted about their long-ass days at jobs they hated and lives they made with men they settled down with because they felt like they had to. So there was never any space to ask about me…or my day. But Slim wanted to know it all. Shit, she might as well have asked me to rip out my heart and stick it in her lil’ hand.
I gulp in the stale air inside my truck as another voice message pops up in our message thread.
I press play.
“Actually, screw that. That was too nice. This is a reciprocal conversation, remember? So…I…I want you to tell me how your day is going. Please? Okay. Bye.”
I laugh.
I laugh so hard that tears prickle the corner of my eyes and my stomach does this weird fluttering it never did before. The flutter chases after my galloping heart like it’s trying to wrangle it in, because Slim had my insides all fucked up.
“Fuck…” I grunt, following her instructions and pressing that plus sign I never bothered with before.
As soon as I hit “audio” like she said, the phone starts recording and my mouth grows dry. The timestamp climbs higher and higher while I stare at the red dots racing across the text box like a dumbass until the only thing that comes out is a throaty, “baby?”
I stab the stop button and squeeze my eyes shut.
