Chapter 4 #2
“What do you think about that?”
“About a man I’ve never met being engaged to someone else I’ve never met?”
She laughed. “About getting remarried.”
“Good for him.” I stopped on my way to the sink and gave her a look. “That’s … nice?”
She waited until I was done washing my hands to continue whatever point she was trying to make. “That is nice.”
I made a face. “Well, I’ve been there, done that.”
“Yes, you have,” she relented. “But don’t let one man ruin it for all men.”
“You are the one who told me to not make men my focus!”
“I told you not to make that man your focus! I didn’t tell you to give up men altogether.”
I laughed. “Fair.”
“And I told you that when you left that bastard, and you were separated. You were beginning your healing journey. I told you to focus on you.” She waited for me to remove the pillow from behind her back before she continued. “And you did. You picked up the pieces. I’m very proud of you.”
“Thank you.”
“But what are you doing now?”
Working, I thought as I sat in the chair next to her bed.
“And don’t say working,” she added.
“They added eight kids to my class size and—”
She lifted her right hand to point at me. “That’s an excuse, not an answer.”
Her signature call-out caused me to purse my lips. She wasn’t wrong, but it was a busy school year.
“What do you do for you?” she asked.
“I’m here. I’m spending time with my favorite person in the world.”
“For a week!” Her brows furrowed. “What are you doing with the rest of your summer?”
Seeing my sweet talk didn’t work, I sighed. “I don’t know yet. The only thing I had on my calendar was to spend this week with you.”
“A few weeks ago, I told you to come up with a plan to make this summer better than last summer. Did you?”
I frowned dramatically. “Not yet.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I saw a lot of emotion behind her eyes. The longer she held my gaze, the more it triggered my own emotions. Inexplicably, my chin quivered.
“Jazmyn, I want you to listen to me,” my aunt said in a soft yet stern tone. “You have everything you need within you to thrive. You’ve existed for long enough. Now it’s time for you to live. You need to ignite that fire within you.”
It wasn’t just what she said. It was the way she said it and the emotion behind her words. All I could do was nod. If I opened my mouth right then, I would’ve started crying.
“Get a piece of paper and a pen, please,” she instructed.
I got up and walked to the counter where her flowers and photos lined the space. When I’d set up her stuff that morning, I noticed a pen and pad in the corner. I returned with it, and I plopped down in the chair.
I cleared my throat. “You want me to write something?” I guessed.
“Yes, I want you to make a list for me. This is ten things I want to do this summer to shake things up.”
I wrote the title on the top of the page and then looked up at her. “What do you want to do?”
She started listing things without hesitation.
“I want to get my locs dyed a fun color, like blue or purple. I want a tattoo. I want to go to a festival—there’s a jazz festival coming up, and I missed it the last two times they’ve had it.
I need a photoshoot and a spa day. I want to start a book club and have a picnic.
I want to throw a party. I want to go to a Monarchs game, but I’ll settle for an outdoor movie.
Oh! And do you remember what I told you back in April? ”
Looking up from the paper, I frowned. “About how you wanted us to get yoni steams?”
“Yes!” Her eyes widened. “Rose and I found a spa that does them, and the three of us were supposed to do that this week!”
With a skeptical look, I cocked my head to the side. “We were?”
“Yes. I was going to surprise you.”
“I don’t think extra-hot steam on my vagina is the kind of surprise I want, Aunt Addy.”
She snickered. “You need to shake things up. That’s what I want as my tenth thing on the list: yoni steam.”
I wrote it down and then looked back up at her. “This is your summer list.”
“And now it’s time for you to make yours. Turn the page, and let’s make your list.”
I would’ve tried to deflect, but she’d told me to put a list together in May, and I honestly forgot.
Even at the time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
I’d spent the last couple of summers on my healing journey.
It was hard for me to even think about planning a summer of fun. But I turned the page anyway.
“I’ll…” I lifted my shoulders and my eyes bounced around the room. “I don’t know.”
“Remember the first year I lived in California and you came to visit for a few weeks?” she asked.
How could I forget?
It was the summer before seventh grade, and it ended up being one of the best summers ever. “Of course I remember.”
“Do you remember putting together that list of things you wanted to do before we came back to Chance?”
“Oh yeah.” I smiled.
The last thing on my list was to record a music video to my favorite singer at the time, Vanessa Coffee.
“You wore one of those gem stickers on your belly like a belly ring, and you’d wear a pink wig,” my aunt reminded me. “You said when you got older, you were going to dye your hair and get your belly pierced like Vanessa Coffee.”
Vanessa Coffee had released a hit album that summer, and then she disappeared from the spotlight. She hadn’t crossed my mind in years, but her flashy outfits, bright pink hair, and body jewelry were essential parts of her lore.
My brows furrowed. “But what does that have to do with anything now?”
“Those should be on your list,” my aunt insisted. “Dye your hair. Get your belly pierced.”
“What?” I balked.
“It’s something you wanted to do—”
“When I was twelve!” I interrupted with a laugh.
“You also said you wanted to be a teacher when you were twelve, and look at you now.”
My lips snapped together because I didn’t have a retort. She got me there.
“Do you even know why you stopped wanting that?”
I hesitated, suddenly remembering.
“Exactly,” she interjected. “So we’re adding it to the list!”
“Fine.” I shook my head and added it.
She stared at me. “What else?”
We sat in silence for at least a minute. “Um … stay up all night and watch the sunrise?”
“We can do better than that,” she encouraged. “This needs to be a list of things that will shake things up in your life. Like I told you last month, these lists are to remind us of who we were and who we’ve become.”
I was checking the time on my phone when a text popped across the screen.
Lamar Anderson: Since you’re not feeling Chance, I’m taking you to Spring Hill tomorrow. Let me know if eleven is good for you.
I stared at the message for a moment.
We’d briefly texted last night. I told him I’d made it home, and he confirmed that he had as well. We said good night and that we’d speak on the next day, ahead of our Sunday plans. I’d gone to bed with a smile on my face. But staring at his message, I didn’t know what to say.
What was I thinking? I can’t leave my aunt and go off with some man I just met. I should tell him no.
“Stop, Jazmyn.”
My aunt’s exasperated tone forced my eyes from my phone. When I met her gaze, she was studying me.
“Stop,” she repeated.
Shifting uncomfortably, I tucked my phone between my thighs. “Stop what?”
“Stop overthinking.”
My eyes widened slightly. The way she always seemed to read my mind was uncanny.
“Explore a new city,” I blurted.
“That’s a good one. A little safe, but good. Give it here.” She outstretched her right hand until I situated the notepad on her thigh and put the pen in her right hand. “I’ll make your list.”
“Aunt Addy,” I protested with a laugh.
“Throw out some suggestions, and I’ll add the suitable ones.”
Shaking my head in amusement, I did as I was told.
After her rejecting my ideas and throwing out some outlandish ones of her own, my resulting list was a perfect blend of semi-attainable goals and absolutely wild aunt-inspired shenanigans.
“There’s no way I’m going to be able to do everything this summer,” I argued, after she added the seventh item on the list.
She can’t be serious!
Aunt Addy stared at the flowers that lined the back of the room with a contemplative look on her face. “Fine. You have until the end of the year—eleven fifty-nine P.M. on New Year’s Eve.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re serious?!”
“I am.” Looking down at what she’d written, she nodded.
“One, explore a new city because you need to stop and smell the roses. Two and three, get a belly ring and dye your hair for the twelve-year-old you because you wanted to and got scared. Four, get a tattoo for the pain thirty-year-old you has experienced and overcome. Five, go to a Monarchs game because you love it and haven’t been in years.
Six, finally write your book because it’s your dream.
Seven, learn how to swim because you’ve put that off long enough as well. ” She stared at me. “What’s eight?”
“Vegetarian diet for a month,” I answered.
She frowned. “Why? You love burgers.”
“I wanted to put something on there that seemed hard but doable,” I explained. “I think it’ll be hard to be a vegetarian for a month, but I’m interested in doing it.”
She nodded. “I like that. And speaking of something hard but doable, I’m going to add that you pay off your student loans.”
“Pay off my student loans?” I balked, my eyes bulging out of my skull. “Is this a summer list or a bucket list?”
She let out a strained laugh as her lashes fluttered shut. “You need something hard but seemingly impossible because you have faith. And you have until the end of the year. That’s nine.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to—”
“Faith,” she interrupted.
“But—”
“Would you really deny me this?”
“Fine, that’s nine.” I sighed loudly.
She smirked and then cleared her throat lightly. “And we both know what your last one needs to be.”
“What’s that?”
“Getting back on the horse.”
“What horse?”
“A man. A date. Dating.”
“What?!” My voice squeaked as I reacted.
“A man. A date,” she repeated, opening her eyes and giving me a look. “Several dates. And you can start with that man from last night. What’s his name?”
The corners of my lips quirked upward as I said it. “Lamar.”
“Did you pack date attire?” she asked.
Feeling heat creep up my neck, I shook my head. “It’s not like that. I can wear my regular clothes.”
“You can borrow something from my closet if need be.”
Even though she was twenty-four years my senior, she was stylish, and her closet was flush with things I’d wear. But because she was a size eight and I was a size sixteen, her clothes would not fit me.
“It’s not necessary because it’s not a date,” I assured her, shifting uncomfortably. “He just offered to show me around Spring Hill in exchange for me looking over some paperwork for him.” I shrugged. “And I don’t even know if I’m going to go.”
“Oh, you are absolutely going.”
“I don’t want to leave you—”
“Rose will be here.”
“I don’t think—”
“You’ve been divorced for two years, single for almost three,” she interrupted. “It’s time.”
“I told you I’m not interested in relationships and marriage anymore.”
It was her turn to balk, making almost the exact same facial expression as I had moments ago. “Who said anything about getting married?!” She shook her head wearily. “You need to … have some fun with a man.”
I rubbed her left hand as it rested, slightly elevated, on a pillow. “Aunt Addy, I don’t think I have it in me after everything that happened with Tyson.”
She quietly assessed me.
A minute or so passed before she finally spoke again. “Sweetheart, Tyson wasted your twenties. You want to let him waste your thirties, too?”
Damn.