Chapter 25 #2
Lesha noticed instantly. Her eyes softened. “It’s okay, baby. You can say it out loud. Don’t nothing bad happen when Black women speak about their joy.”
Meadow swallowed and turned back to the sink. “It’s…new.”
Lesha tilted her head. “New doesn’t mean wrong…new sometimes means overdue.”
She tapped Meadow’s shoulder gently. “You two look good together, not just physically…spiritually, too.”
Meadow paused mid-wipe. “Spiritually?”
“Yeah, his energy meets yours, your softness wraps around his hard edges, and his protection covers your cracks. That’s spiritual, baby girl.”
Lesha bumped her hip. “Plus he been smilin’ more the past few months than he has in the past few years. I been waiting on a reason for my son to stop lookin’ like he carry the whole west coast on his back.”
Meadow laughed so suddenly she dropped a fork. “You are too much.”
“I’m the perfect amount,” Lesha corrected proudly.
She grabbed the drying towel and started wiping down the counter with exaggerated precision. “Now, let me ask you somethin’, Meadow.”
Meadow stiffened playfully. “Oh boy.”
Lesha put a hand on her hip. “Is he putting it down?”
Meadow’s neck snapped. “Lesha!”
Lesha cackled. “What? I’m grown…you grown…he grown…somebody putting something somewhere!”
Meadow covered her face. “I cannot-”
“You can,” Lesha insisted, “and you gon’ tell me.”
Meadow tried to breathe. “I’m not talking about that with you!”
Lesha sucked her teeth. “Girl, please. I changed that boy’s diapers. Ain’t nothing you gon’ say that can shock me.”
“Oh my God.”
Lesha grinned, wicked and proud. “So it’s like that?”
Meadow couldn’t even find the words. She just blinked, flustered and smiling helplessly.
Lesha smacked the counter twice. “I knew it. See? I knew God wouldn’t play me like that. I knew he’d bless my son with a woman who wasn’t scared to keep up.”
Meadow wheezed. “You are actually insane.”
Lesha reached over and hugged her again - quick, warm, gentle. “I’m glad he chose you.”
Meadow’s breath caught. “He…didn’t choose.”
“Oh baby,” Lesha sighed, cupping her cheek for a second. “Men like Zaire don’t bring women into their worlds unless they already made the choice.”
Meadow didn’t know what to say to that.
“And for the record,” Lesha added, lowering her voice, “I’m sleepin’ in your room tonight.”
Meadow blinked. “What?”
Lesha sighed dramatically. “Baby…I’m fifty-two with arthritic knees. I ain’t sleeping on no couch, and that little guest house full of Zaire’s junk. He’s too clean for me and I’m not trying to hear his mouth every morning.”
She said every morning like she planned on staying longer than a day or two.
Meadow cracked up. “Lesha!”
“I said what I said.”
She tossed Meadow a dish towel. “Now hurry up before your man come in here trying to take you back. That boy always hated to share.”
After they finished cleaning the kitchen, Lesha wiped her hands on a towel and stretched her back with a dramatic groan.
“Oohh, these knees,” she murmured. “I’m too fine to be achin’ like this.”
Meadow snickered. “You sure you don’t want the guest house? It’s quiet in there.”
“Quiet?” Lesha scoffed. “Baby, I’m a city woman, quiet feels like death and I’m not sleepin’ in nobody’s shed…no offense. Please show me my room.”
“None taken.”
Meadow led her down the hall, heart warm from the easy comfort between them. She pushed her bedroom door open and stepped aside so Lesha could enter.
Lesha walked in and stopped so fast her purse almost slid off her shoulder.
Her eyes widened.
She blinked twice…then slowly looked at Meadow. “Baby…”
Meadow froze. “What?”
Lesha pointed one manicured finger in horror. “Is that a stripper pole in the middle of this sweet, innocent country bedroom?”
Meadow slapped her forehead. “Lord-”
Lesha stepped closer to it, circling the pole like she was inspecting a crime scene.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “This not no cheap pole either. This sturdy. Whoever put this up got upper-body strength.”
Meadow covered her face. “It’s for exercising!”
“Exercise?” Lesha turned around dramatically. “This? This right here?”
She slapped the pole lightly. It didn’t budge. “Baby, this pole got a retirement plan. Don’t you lie to me.”
Meadow’s voice cracked from laughing. “Lesha, please-”
“No, no, no,” Lesha shook her finger. “You gon’ stand here and explain to me why my soon-to-be daughter-in-law got a Magic City starter kit in her room.”
“Oh, God!”
“I said what I said.”
Meadow tried to breathe. “I…listen - Ray bought it for me.”
Lesha’s eyes got bigger. “Ray? Your Daddy?!”
Meadow wheezed. “It was for fitness!”
Lesha stared at her for a long beat…
Then burst out laughing until she had to lean against the pole to stay upright. “Oh, this family crazy,” she giggled. “I love it here.”
“It’s for fitness,” Meadow protested, again.
“Fitness?” Lesha scoffed. “Fitness what? Fitness yo’ ass in a circle?!”
Meadow couldn’t breathe she was laughing so hard.
Lesha walked to the closet, opening it casually. “Where yo’ heels at?”
Meadow shrieked.
“Cause I know pole work when I see it,” she teased. “You don’t get on this barefoot. That’s how you roll an ankle.”
“I’m ‘bout to tell Zaire to come get you.”
Lesha turned, hands on her hips. “And he been in this room?”
Meadow froze. “He’s seen it, yes.”
Lesha gasped, covering her mouth. “And you ain’t danced on it for him?! Girl, what is you waitin’ on? A sign from Jesus?”
Meadow threw herself back on the bed. “Oh my God - stop.”
Lesha ignored her, grabbing the pole with one hand and lifting her leg experimentally. “Let me see somethin’ real quick. I used to be cold with a chair dance - ”
“No.” Meadow sat up and practically tackled her.
Lesha caught herself, laughing. “I was gon’ keep it PG!”
“No, you wasn’t!”
Lesha placed a hand over her heart. “You right, I wasn’t.”
Meadow laughed so hard she had tears pooling in her eyelashes. It had been so long since she almost stopped breathing from laughing.
Lesha wiped her own eyes. “Lord have mercy…this room has personality.”
“It’s embarrassing,” Meadow muttered.
“No baby, it’s fun.” Lesha gave her a warm, knowing smile. “You’re young, sexy, alive…no shame in that.”
Meadow’s blush deepened.
Lesha’s grin turned mischievous. “Question is…why you ain’t showed my son what you can really do with this yet?”
Meadow grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. “Zaire!”
Lesha cackled, nearly doubling over. “Girl, he walkin’ ’round this house actin’ like he in love. You got a whole pole and ain’t even tapped into your superpowers yet.”
Meadow sat up, flustered and giggling. “He knows it’s here. He just ain’t seen me on it.”
“And he gon’ ask,” Lesha said knowingly. “Trust me. I raised a man, not a mark ass bitch.”
“You are not normal.”
Lesha shrugged. “I’m fun.”
Then she eyed the bed. “Now…show me the bathroom.”
Meadow got up to show Lesha where everything she would need was.
“Here,” Meadow sighed.
Lesha grinned. “Perfect. Now go find that boy before he smoke himself into the sky.”
Meadow stood in the doorway. “Lesha?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Please…do not get on the pole.”
Lesha winked. “Girl…I ain’t makin’ no promises.”
Meadow stepped outside, the night warm and heavy. Zaire sat on the porch steps, blunt glowing at the tip, looking out over the yard like he was thinking about ten things at once.
He glanced back when he heard her footsteps. “You good, baby?”
Meadow walked over, sat beside him, and took the blunt from his fingers without asking. She hit it slow, letting the smoke warm her chest.
He watched her lips. He always watched her lips.
“Your Mama,” Meadow whispered, exhaling, “is chaotic.”
“Yeah,” Zaire nodded proudly, “ain’t she perfect?”
Meadow laughed. “She found the pole.”
Zaire smirked. “That didn’t take long.”
“She said it wasn’t for exercise.”
“My OG, knows what’s up.”
Meadow shoved his shoulder. “Stop.”
He leaned in closer, voice low. “You gon’ show me one day.”
Her stomach flipped but she nodded, the buzz of the weed already coating her eyes in a sheen.
“You good?” he asked again.
Meadow nodded. “Tonight was…nice.”
Zaire nudged her knee. “Say what you wanna say.”
She swallowed, heart racing. “I love you.”
Zaire froze.
Meadow touched his jaw, thumb brushing his cheek. “I love you, Zaire.”
His breath left him slow. “Say it again.”
“I love you.”
He took the blunt from her, put it out on the step, and pulled her into his lap like he’d been waiting hours to do it.
“Com’ere,” he whispered. “I love you too. Been lovin’ you since before you let me touch you.”
Her eyes watered.
She melted right into him, letting the night wrap around them both.
Tonight was a fairytale.
No glass slipper…no fancy Prince with golf clubs in his hands, just two real people, finding love at the 19th Hole.