Chapter 19 Maverick
CHAPTER 19
MAVERICK
M e: You there, Hendrix?
I replied to her text message about the trip to Colorado almost an hour ago, but the message seems to be unread. I asked how she was doing, how her visit home was going, and she never responded. I should leave it there. It’s none of my business really.
But I’m coming to the end of doing what I should do when it comes to Hendrix Barry.
Fuck it.
Pausing on the beach during a quick afternoon walk, I pick up the phone and dial her number.
I’m about to hang up after the third ring, but she answers.
“Mav?” Her voice comes over husky, heavy.
“Yeah, it’s me. You didn’t answer my text message,” I say, and it sounds lame in my own ears because why should she? She doesn’t have to, but she always has before and I was concerned. “Just thought I’d check on you.”
“You mean about the trip?” she rasps and sniffs.
“Are you… have you been crying, Hendrix?”
“Shit,” she whispers, and it’s a fragile sound, barely held together. “Let’s talk later. I—”
“Hey, I’m sure you have friends you can talk to about things, but I… if it’s about your mom, with you being home, I might understand. If I’m overstepping—”
“You’re not,” she says, her breath hitching before she steadies her voice and goes on. “Not overstepping, I mean. And it is about my mom. It’s just been harder than I even thought it would be. She had an episode and I… Hold on.”
She mutes for a few seconds before returning, bringing with her the sound of a few cars passing by and a bird chirping in the background.
“I stepped out on the porch to talk,” she says. “What’s that sound in the background? Where are you ?”
“On my beach.” I survey the ocean, more serene that it was earlier this morning when I came out to surf. “I’d been at my desk all day. Just needed to move a little, but tell me what’s going on with you there in North Carolina. You good?”
“Not at all.” She lets out a tired sigh. “I just mishandled one of Mama’s meltdowns really badly. Like I know better. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Don’t put that on yourself. Tell me what happened.”
“I know personalities can change with this condition, but she was mean to my aunt and cursed at her. You just have to know this is the woman who literally has the “Footprints” poem up in like three rooms and once washed my mouth out for calling someone a bitch. I was fourteen and as tall as she was.”
“Who’d you call a bitch?” I tease, knowing it’s not important, but hoping to relieve some of the tension choking the atmosphere.
“My cousin Ellie.” Hendrix breathes out a laugh. “She was a bitch. She put gum in my hair and Mama had to cut it out. It was right before the school dance. Don’t get me started.”
“Oh, you already started,” I say with a chuckle. “So what happened today?”
“I’ve never heard my mother curse, much less at her sister. She called my aunt fat. It was not her.”
“My grandfather used to take it out on my mother a lot, too. She was the one with him the most. It was very intense and hard to manage.”
“I’m sorry. That sounds awful.”
“It’s a lot to handle.”
“And Aunt Geneva has been managing this on her own. I feel guilty, Mav. Conflicted. I can’t live here permanently right now, and my mother refuses to move. I want to honor her wishes as long as I can, but seeing how much this condition has progressed, the house feels like a ticking time bomb.”
“What does your aunt think?” I ask, digging my toes into the sand. “How does she seem to be processing everything?”
“Better than I am. My mom forgot that my father is… gone. That he died.” Hendrix draws a sharp breath. “I watched her relive it and it was terrible. For her, it was happening for the first time.”
“That used to happen with Pop Pop.” I hesitate before going on. “Look, I’m not trying to give you advice or anything.”
“Oh, I’m not proud.” She laughs without humor. “I’ll accept advice.”
“We used to try to correct him, to tell him the truth, to try to keep him straight, but we realized something that changed our perspective.”
“And what was that?”
“This was one time when the truth wasn’t the right thing to do—not for him. If letting him believe a lie brought him any peace at all, it was worth it. A kernel of peace was better than the whole truth.”
She’s quiet for a beat. “You’re right. I read about it. They call it therapeutic fibbing. In the moment, I just forgot and blurted that he was gone. But what good does it do for her to know? She could forget again tomorrow.”
“And even though it’s not the first time she’s heard it, it will feel like the first time every time you try to convince her the worst day of her life actually happened. Maybe she keeps going back to a time when he was still with her because more than anything that’s where she wants to be.”
“Yeah,” Hendrix whispers, sniffs, and draws a sharp breath. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Is she okay?” I drop down to sit on the sand, elbows propped on my knees and the phone pressed to my ear.
“Now she is. I talked to Aunt G a little after she got Mama settled. She said sometimes there’s nothing you can do and you just have to ride it out, but sometimes you can distract them either with an activity or a different memory.”
“That’s tough. This is a lot, Hen.”
“I know.” She exhales slowly. “I’m definitely getting into one of the support groups you sent.”
“That’ll be good, and just relax. Carve out some time for yourself. I know you’re busy.”
“Look who’s talking, Mr. Big Time.”
“I work hard and rest harder. I got shit I enjoy outside of work.”
“Like surfing?”
I grin, tasting the salty air and relishing the subtle ocean breeze that makes this property in my portfolio the one where I spend the most time.
“Yeah, like surfing. Been stalking my socials, have you?” I ask, inordinately pleased if she has.
“Black boy surfing,” she teasingly scoffs.
“I could teach you. Lemme get you on a board in my backyard Pacific here in Cali.”
There’s a silence in the wake of my invitation. I didn’t mean it like that, but now that I’ve said it, I can’t shake the image of her under me on a slick board early in the morning, droplets of water beading on her gorgeous radiant brown skin. She would be luminous and lush at sunrise. Should I check my rapidly growing fascination with Hendrix? Hell, yeah. Her proximity to Zere is a problem. Not so much for me, but for Hendrix and her business interests. I won’t, though. I know I’ll keep finding ways to see her. My whole life is a calculus of risk and reward. It’s undeniable that pursuing Hendrix involves risk, but the reward of possibly having something with her outweighs the pitfalls we’d inevitably have to negotiate.
Pursue her? Is that what I’m doing? It’s tickled the back of my mind maybe since the moment I saw her leading half my party in the electric slide. It slowly bloomed in my thoughts as I’ve watched her devotion to her mother under shitty conditions and her commitment to the Aspire Fund. Hendrix is an exceptional woman.
“I, uh, better go,” she says, breaking into my thoughts.
“Yeah, all right,” I say, but still search for another conversational lure to cast and keep her a little longer. “I’m glad you’re coming to Colorado.”
“I don’t think I have much choice. Nelly and Kashawn are determined. They think it’s a good idea.”
“And you don’t?”
“I think…” She pauses, and all the reasons it may not be a good idea for us to spend more time together seem to accumulate in inches, in the silence. “Maybe they could come and I could skip because—”
“No, that’s not how this works.” I harden my voice. “If you don’t come, no one comes.”
“Maverick, that makes no sense.”
“Those are the conditions.” She can read that however she wants. “So next week. Is that too soon?”
“I’m sure they’ll clear their schedules to accommodate,” she says with half-hearted bitterness that tells me she might just want to see me as badly as I want to see her.
“My people will coordinate with your people then,” I tell her.
“My people and your people can’t seem to be in the same room for two minutes without devouring each other,” she says with a laugh. “You can let Bolt know Skipper won’t be coming on this trip. And I mean that in every way you could interpret it.”
“I’ll make sure he’s prepared…” I pause, weighing the words before I say them because I know they will show a bit more of my hand. “I don’t care if Skipper comes or not, as long as you do.”
I’m not sure what has emboldened me. Was it hearing her tears again over her mother? Is that what bonded us even further and cemented my determination to see where this could go, damn the consequences?
She releases a heavy sigh. “I’ve already told you I’ll be there. Whether it’s a good idea or not remains to be seen.”
“Trust me. It’ll be fine.”
I don’t actually know that whatever happens between us will be “fine,” but I know damn well it will be worth it.