“I do.”
“Oh. I pass by it all the time on my way to the parking garage on Frost. I never see your car there anymore.”
“My niece is here, and she’s been helping me out again. I’ve been sending her over there and to a few other houses while I take care of some odds and ends for Ken.”
“Hm…yeah. Lovie, right? She’s the one Daddy said you took in after her mama died.” Arnez turns and looks at me. “I heard she’s getting married.”
She lets her words hang in the air until Faye lets out a disinterested hum that makes my throat dry.
“When’s the wedding?” Arnez asks, reaching down into her purse and digging out a piece of gum.
“I don’t know, Nez,” Faye replies, scribbling on the calendar. “I don’t think they’ve decided on a date yet.”
“Oh. I saw her on some NFL WAGs page on TikTok talking about how stressful it was deciding on the perfect reception dress—a custom Dolce & Gabbana or an Alaïa mini dress.” She keeps staring at me while unwrapping the gum and popping it into her mouth. “I ain’t know people had reception dresses, but I’ve also never been to a wedding outside the courthouse.”
“Yeah…she likes clothes.” Faye shrugs. “She used to turn all the bedsheets into halter tops with matching skirts. She can turn just about anything into an outfit. She gets it from her mamabecause I have never had a fashionable bone in my body. Old Navy works just fine for me.”
I bite into my bottom lip to control the smile that fights its way onto my lips at the thought of a baby Slim designing clothes, even though Faye’s skirting around the strange fact that she had been home for weeks with an empty ring finger and even emptier eyes but none of that is Arnez’s business, anyways.
“You know when the date is, Pup?” Arnez asks.
“Huh?”
She juts her chin out with a goofy expression. “‘Huh?’I asked if you knew when their wedding date was.”
“Why the fuck would I know that?”
“That’s your friend, ain’t it?”
Faye’s fingers relax, and the word she’s writing on the calendar turns into a messy jumble of letters. She turns back around with her eyebrows wrinkled.
“Did you know they were friends, Faye? He brought her here to meet Daddy the other week.”
Faye stares at me.
I wanna look away, but I can’t. Instead, I bite down harder on my lip, and the smile that tried to fight its way out sinks into a pitiful frown.
“You…you brought Lovie here, Junior?” Faye stutters out, pointing at the floor.
I haven’t heard that name come out of her mouth since she explained to me that Briana Russell from the fourth grade wouldn’t be the only girl in my life. It was the first time anybody ever called me that. She said it in a soft tone like somebody teaching a puppy its name for the first time.
A tiny click comes from the back of my throat while we stare at each other with Arnez smacking on her gum and looking between us.
I shake my head until Arnez blurts, “I mean, I just assumed y’all were friends because you ain’t never introduced nobody to me or Daddy, but you randomly introduced Faye’s niece to him. That’s such an odd thing for you to do.”
Faye’s brown face turns pale, but Arnez doesn’t even react.
One time Faye told me she used to pray that her and Arnez would get closer—not like mother and daughter, but close enough that Arnez would see how much she cared about her. She always said Arnez had a lot of hurt bottled inside of her because of how her mama left her. She called it “mother hunger.”
“That’s such an odd thing for him to do, right, Faye?” Arnez purses her lips. “Why would he bringyourniece here to meetourdaddy?”
She slaps her thigh and looks back at me. “Since you and Lovie are so close, Pup, has she told you why Faye keeps making her clean Ms. Farris’ place by herself every week? I see her there sweeping the porch when I pass by on my way to class. I mean, realistically, how many errands do you have to run to plan Kenny’s rinky-dink family fun day, Faye? Lovie and Kenny never notice that you’re never where you’re supposed to be? Or are you still as crafty as you were when you were with Daddy? I remember I heard you lie to Lovie’s mama on the phone one time. You told her you left Daddy and was dating some dude from Clinton Park who worked at the Port because she thought we were low class—whole time you were still laid up with Daddy and she was over in Pearland getting her head knocked between the washer and dryer. I remember hearing Daddy tell Smit what happened to her?—”
“Get out,” I rasp.
Faye lets out a tiny choke, and Arnez crumples the gum wrapper in her hand.
“Why should I have to leave? This is my time with Daddy. I’m the only one around here who ain’t telling lies and keepingsecrets, andI’mgetting punished? I’m the only one being real about what’s going on.”
