My mother stoodin the foyer of her house, staring at me with a grin on her face as I took off my coat and hung it in the front closet. “Ooh, your belly popped a little while you were out of town.” She put her flat palm on my belly.
“Tell me about it. I was obviously so pregnant that Kaynaan’s grandmother and great aunt Gertie or Myrtie or somebody knew without us tellinganybody.”
She threw her arm around my shoulder. “Well, come in and tell me all about it. You hungry? Do I need to feed my grandbaby?”
“No, I ate when I got home. I just want to lay down.”
“Go lay on the couch. I’mma grab my drink. You want a bottle of water?”
“Yes.” I went into her living room and stretched out of her sofa.
A few moments later, she came into the room and set a bottle of water on the cocktail table for me. She took a seat in the swivel chair.
“Well, my holiday started off so promising, then took a nosedive. How was your holiday?” I asked.
“Girl, my holiday, like yours, started off good. Next thing I knew, it went off the rails and turned into a shit show. I should’ve taken my future son-in-law up on his offer of spending Thanksgiving with him.”
I sucked my teeth. “I’m not sure if Kaynaan is your future son-in-law, lady. Especially if his snooty behind grandmother has anything to say about it.”
“You wanna tell your story first?”
“No. I want to hear your story. I can’t believe I missed the family drama. Who was cutting up?” I asked.
“So, I told you that Channing was coming.”
“Did he come?”
“He did. And you know Channing. He’s good looking and seems to have his stuff together, if you don’t know his issues.”
“Yeah.”
“And you know your cousin Faychon. She has those Cousin Faith fromSoul Foodtendencies.”
I giggled. “She does.” She did. Faychon was the female cousin that everybody who knew better kept their men away from. Faychon was non-discriminant when it came to men. She liked men, and she didn’t care if they were otherwise attached or not. A hoop hated to see her coming, because there was never a time that she wasn’t going to take her shot. “She flirted with Channing?”
“He was one of the very few men who was here who wasn’t related to her by blood, so the pickings were slim.But yes, she flirted with him. With no remorse and definitely with no couth, as his girlfriend was right by his side. Faychon was so disrespectful, I had second-hand embarrassment. Hell, everybody did. And Channing’s little girlfriend? She was so little and petite. So pretty—soft-spoken and polite as she wanted to be. You could just tell that she wanted everybody to like her. But I don’t care how good of an impression you’re trying to make. With a person like Faychon hovering around your man, at some point, anybody would lose their cool.”
“She lost her cool?” I sat up.
“She lost her entire cool. This itty-bitty thing, couldn’t have been no taller than five feet tall, stepped right up to Faychon.” She eyed me. “Which you already know Faychon is part amazon on her mammy’s side, because we don’t have amazon on our side.”
“Okay,” I said through my laughter. My mother knew good and well that her brother, my uncle Frankie, was bigger than your average bear. Faychon got all that height and girth from him.
“Anyway, the girlfriend, Anyae or Ahnway or something, was nice enough to ask Faychon if she could speak to her outside. You know my niece likes to throw her weight around and try to intimidate people. Faychon laughed in the girl’s face, then told her yeah.” She sighed. “This is a sidebar—I was so thankful that little girl took her outside and didn’t do what she did to her inside my house.”
“What did she do to her?”
“You know how they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, the way that Anyae put the mitts to Faychon, her big ass practically left a hole in the driveway. We were like,timber! That little girl beat the brakes off Faychon’s big, bully ass. I don’tknow how she did it. Maybe she started at the ankles and worked her way up. Maybe she was doing karate and cah-ray-zee. I don’t know. All I know is that when the dust settled, Anyae was the last one standing.”
I cracked up. I was holding my stomach. “Mama!” I cried in laughter. “Mama, please. Stop talking.”
“I know family is supposed to stick together, and technically, that little girl should’ve been outnumbered. She shouldn’t have been allowed to beat Faychon’s ass the way she did in front of us.” She took a long sip from her drink. “But that’s how you can truly know how your family really feels about you. Start a fight at a family gathering and see if they jump in or let you get mollywopped.”
“Well, none of the aunts like her because she’s been with most of their men,” I reminded her.
