“You could do something sentimental,” Mama added. “Men like to pretend they don’t care about things like that, but they do.”
“Lingerie,” Aunt Cynthia contributed calmly.
Hyacinth looked mock-horrified. “Mama!”
“What?” Aunt Cynt demanded. “I’m grown. She grown. Hell, that Russian man definitely grown.”
Aunt Elise almost choked laughing.
“Cynthia!” Mama hissed.
“Mama, you know that man built like a Greek god. I’m trying to help the child keep her marriage exciting. You ain’t tryna share what’s kept you and daddy going fifty years strong.”
“You want me to turn around and show you?” Granny popped off.
“Granny say she draggin’ that wagon!” Hy sing-songed.
Aunt Cynt curled her lip at that. “But lingerie offends you?”
The room erupted in laughter. I giggled so hard tears gathered in my eyes.
“Y’all are terrible.”
“Matching tattoos,” Hyacinth suggested.
“Where he gon’ put another one?” Saraya asked.
Hy nodded. “True. But you gotta respect a man that supports the arts.”
I laughed again when I thought about what he’d said the night of Rielle’s show. The room settled again after our amusement faded. Ideas bounced around lazily while the nightstretched around us. At one point, it dawned on me; a year ago, we couldn’t have imagined this. I’d been so miserable, so hopeless, living in constant fear and shame. But now… somehow, after everything, we were sitting here talking about my marriage and my future and my happiness like the possibility of all those things still belonged to me. For the first time in a long time, it felt like they really did.
Then Everly, who’d been unusually quiet for the last few minutes, slowly sat forward.
“I have an idea,” she said.
Every head in the room turned toward her.
By Thursday afternoon,I was starting to think my wife was avoiding me. It wasn’t dramatic, not like she was slamming doors, cussing me out, or giving me the cold shoulder. Nah, this was quieter than that, almost sneaky. Every morning, she kissed me and urged me to go do some kind of work with Real, Juvie, and Mikhail. “Y’all could go help Ajani and Braeden do something of questionable legality,” she actually told me earlier. Every night, she came to bed and curled into me like our new normal. But during the day? She kept disappearing with the women in her family.
And my favorable opinion of those ladies was in danger of shifting. Every time I tried to pin Theory down for a few hours alone… or any other kinda shit a husband might try to pin hiswife down for, somebody needed her. She’d tell me to give her “just one minute” because Everly wanted her to go downtown or Emory needed her to watch the baby or Hyacinth swore they had bachelorette party matters to attend to. All of that would immediately be followed by Theory giving me a cute little wave and traipsing off.
Something was up. I expressed as much to the niggas around me. Exactly when I had become an in-my-chest type nigga, I didn’t know, but here I was, spilling my heart like I was in a nineties R&B group.
“She cheating,” Juvie fucked with me from the front seat.
I met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Say another dumbass thing, Julien.”
“Why I gotta be ‘Julien’ cuz yo’ Theory in motion? But I'm telling you, she got that lil’ secretive glow, OG. That’s how women act when they cheating or planning parties,” he insisted.
“That don’t even go together,” Real muttered from beside me.
“It do in spirit. In the club or in her pants, a celebration going on.”
Mikhail looked out the window morosely. “I miss Russia.”
Juvie scowled at him. “Fuck you, comrade. Ay, that shit was funny, though. You got impeccable timing. That’s why you invited to the cookout.”
“Can I bring the potato salad?” Mikhail asked.
