I follow his trembling pointer finger to his Harley-Davidson calendar tacked to the wall where there’s a perfect slash through each day that I didn’t notice before.
“What are you counting down to?”
He rests his hand under his chin. “Shit, I don’t know—for my gal to come sit up in here with me and talk my ear off about how she gon’ fix this problem she thinks I got, for Arnez to stop fucking around and crying over that ex-boyfriend of hers, for Pup or Smit to swing by. I’m just here, counting and waiting.”
I bite my lip. “That’s a terrible habit.”
“Yeah, that’s what Pup says.”
It’s Mama.
She’s talking to me through people again. Why else would Rich’s dad admit to having the same bad habit I had in New York, and why else would I have heard her name outside Yesenia’s cubicle the day I left there?
“I guess counting the days makes you feel in control of something,” I mutter, pushing up from the chair and walking toward the calendar. “Until you realize you’re not actually in control at all, and good, bad, or terrible things are going to happen, regardless.”
I stop in front of the calendar and study it while he grunts from behind me. “How you come up with that?”
“Experience.”
The handwriting on the calendar is swirly and neat. I don’t think it’s Rich’s. Whoever it belonged to was careful to keep their updates contained to the single box designated for each day—nothing bled over to the next. It was probably Beatrice’s.
“You just a baby. What kind of experience you got that made you come up with that?” he asks.
“Plenty of it. Aunt Faye says I’ve lived a lot of lives.”
“Hm. Really?”
“Yup.”
“Well, which one was your best?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve lived that one yet.”
I take a pen out of a cup sitting on the console table beneath the calendar and pull the cap off, staring at today’s date: “October fifth—Pup’s 30th birthday .”
“You think Rich would mind if I gave him a hand and counted today?” I ask, reaching up and letting my hand hover over the day.
“You could put a gun to his head and he wouldn’t care none.”
I sputter out a laugh. “What?”
“You make him soft.”
“Don’t all the women in his life—like Rasheeda…and Beatrice?”
He laughs, making my face hot. “Me and you is talking about two different types of soft. You talking about that naive, jealous, girly soft, but the type I’m talking about got him bringing some gal to meet me. It’s the type that’s gon’ have him fucked up… or sittin around crying to Teddy Pendergrass at thirty.”
That nasty feeling sinks further in my stomach. “That’s not my intention…I…I just?—”
“Feel safe with him… andlikehim. Yeah. I know.”
I glance down at the pen in my hand, then back up at that date on the calendar. It’s the only one with a feminine heart drawn next to the note inside it.
“Do you…remember what today is?” I ask.
“Yup. It’s October fifth. LaTanya had my second baby on this day in 1994—a boy. He came six months after Denise had my daughter, Arnez. He had all his fingers, all his toes, and came out the womb with both his hands balled into fists. He was perfect…and most important wasn’t no fuckin girl.”
I stare at the date with that festering, sinking feeling in my stomach. “So did you tell Rich happy birthday today?”
