Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
The smell of chili powder and cumin from the kitchen made my mouth water. I was hungry, and tired of fighting and being mad. Auntie did so much for us, and the least I could do was play nice with Sage for a couple of hours. Even if that entailed listening to his “funny” stories about jail. I didn’t think the fights he witnessed were all that funny. Auntie must have talked to him, because he didn’t mention our dad or the letter again.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket.
Dan IT: Be there in a few.
I knew it was boring to have him as “Dan IT” in my phone, but I was practical and didn’t want to chance anyone at work thinking he and I were anything more than what we were, which was strictly friendly coworkers. Also, seeing his contact as “Native Daddy” on Teams at work was more than enough to deal with at the moment.
Me: I hope you both are hungry. Auntie is insisting she feed you for giving me a ride.
Dan IT: Starved
“Sage, grab the extra chairs and extend the table. We have two more joining us,” I yelled from the couch.
He came out of his room and opened the closet where the extra dining chairs were stacked on top of each other.
“Is Joanna coming by?” My brother looked hopeful and dumbstruck. He’d had a crush on Joanna since forever. Poor kid, the woman would break him—mentally and, knowing her repertoire of kinks, probably physically.
“No, my friend from work and his sister are giving me a ride back into the city.”
“A’ight then.” He went to work setting up the table.
“Ember, come in and help me fry this bread. I made more dough,” my aunt said.
On my way back to the kitchen, I stopped next to Sage and grabbed his arm. Under my breath, I warned, “Do not do or say anything rude to scare off my friends.”
He shook his arm out of my grip, and I saw the little shit’s smile. “Is a boy coming for dinner, E?” He was loud enough for our aunt to overhear.
“It’s not like that,” I huffed.
“They’re friends without benefits,” she said, pointing with the spatula she used to brown the meat.
“Don’t say that,” Sage and I said in unison. And then cringed that we still were able to jinx ourselves even having been apart for so long.
“What? That’s what you told me!”
“You told her that?” Sage asked, bewildered.
“No, she asked if we were hooking up, and I said no and told her to stop talking about it.” I rolled my eyes and went to beat the dough into submission. This dinner was going to kill me.
“Remind me never to talk to her about my love life.” He sat down at the now extended table with enough room for six people.
“You would need a girl to actually be interested in you to have a love life,” Auntie said with a cackle.
“Sick burn,” I said. I missed this. The silly family comfort. This was what it was like before Sage went to jail. My heart broke a little more remembering how things had changed, but some things always stayed the same. Sage’s love life was as dismal as mine. But that was Ada. We knew these people all our lives, and while some had high school sweethearts and married early, others, like us, never found our soulmates next door.
The doorbell sang through the house. Sage and I locked eyes and sprang into action. He beat me. He always did.
He threw the front door open, his hand palming my face to keep me away. I heard him say, “Whoa.”
“You okay there?” I knew Danuwoa was asking me, because he was always so damn nice.
I swatted Sage’s hand away and pulled him from the door to let Danuwoa and Walela inside. “I’m great. This is my brother, Sage. Sage, this is Danuwoa and his sister, Walela.”
“Sup.”
“Hi!” Walela’s bright smile erased the awkwardness that followed my brother and me everywhere. She had left her crown and smudge fan behind, but her sash was worn proudly.
“Pretty dress,” Sage complimented her. It earned him a bright red blush and shy smile.
“I made it,” she said.
“I’ve always wanted to learn to sew,” he said.
“It’s easy,” she said with a shrug.
“This is our aunt’s home, welcome,” I said as the sound of the dough sizzling in the pan gave me an out from awkward introductions. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“Come on in. Can I get you anything to drink?” Sage asked, unprompted, so I guess he was going to be on his best behavior.
“Water would be great, thank you,” Walela said to Sage.
“It would be my pleasure, Your Highness.” He looked to Danuwoa for his order.
“Water is great, thanks.”
Sage nodded and headed to the kitchen, and the rest of us followed him.
“Howdy! Have a seat. I’m so glad you both could join us.” My aunt was flipping the last of the dough over in the pan.
“It smells great!” Walela announced.
“I’m Ruthie,” Auntie introduced herself as she placed the last hot piece of fry bread on the counter. “Go ahead and serve yourselves.”
Sage placed cups of water on the table as I directed our visitors to the assembly line, handing them Auntie’s favorite mismatched plastic plates she’d had since Sage and I got to pick them out from the thrift store when we first moved in. She had said she wanted her home to feel like ours, so we got to pick out all our own stuff.
I gave Danuwoa my favorite Rugrats one. He smirked and under his breath asked me, “You doing better?”
“Much,” I said through my teeth, hoping he got the hint to drop it. He nodded and started scooping the chili mixture on top of his fry bread and layered it with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, all the goods.
I was a weirdo. I liked all that, plus cayenne pepper hot sauce and canned black olives.
Loaded plates in tow, we all sat at the table. I sat in the middle of Auntie and Danuwoa. She grabbed my hand and nudged me to take Danuwoa’s and bowed her head to pray. The funny thing was…we never prayed over our meals. My aunt was a religious woman who went to church sometimes, always made it for the major holidays, but Sundays we were busy catching up on chores when we all worked on the weekends. We thanked Creator regularly, and Auntie was better about her before-bed ritual of burning braided sweetgrass she got from her friend living in South Dakota and showing gratitude for the day’s blessings. But I saw her shit-eating grin as she glanced at Sage. She was orchestrating this whole thing just so I could hold Danuwoa’s large, perfectly calloused, and entirely too nice hand.
“Dear Creator, blessed Lord, please bless this meal and everyone at this table. We humbly thank you for keeping Ember safe after her car broke down and making it so that her handsome friend and his lovely sister were able to rescue her.”
“All right,” I mumbled and squeezed Auntie’s hand with as much force as I could muster.
“Ehack!” She coughed her surprise and started wrapping up. “And all god’s men said?”
“Amen,” we all said in unison. Walela was the only enthusiastic one.
I loaded my fork with the perfect bite. The ratio of fry bread to meat, cheese, and iceberg lettuce was perfect with one olive and a drizzle of the hot sauce. As soon as my mouth was full, Sage asked, “So, Dan, you Ember’s boyfriend? Ow!”
My mouth may have been too full to say anything, but my foot reached his shin just fine under the table.
Danuwoa swallowed his bite, both elbows on the table, his fork hanging from his hand, and looked Sage in the eye. “We’re friends.” The boys had a staring contest. Sage lost and looked down at his plate first, smiling to himself.
“For now,” Sage said, because he refused to allow Danuwoa to have the last word.
“As Ember’s friend, I hope you can convince her to finally buy a new car. She is so cheap,” Auntie said, laughing.
“So that is Ember’s car on the side of the road?” Danuwoa asked.
Shit. I knew he saw through my lies, but to confront it like this…
“Yes, that’s my shitty car, okay? Can we drop it? I’ll get a newer car.” I threw myself back against my chair, arms crossed.
Danuwoa looked at me, then to my aunt. “Walela and I were talking about it on the way here actually.” Walela smiled at me from the end of the table. “We wanted to offer to give you a ride to a car dealership and keep you company while you looked for something.” He blushed and cut into his meal. “Only if you want.”
“That’s a great idea.” Auntie slapped my arm. “She’d love to,” she answered for me.
“Excellent! I am a great negotiator,” Walela said matter-of-factly.
“No one would dare offer a bad deal to Miss Indian Oklahoma. She’s definitely going,” Sage said.
“It’s settled. We’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.” Danuwoa took a large bite as if the matter was closed. It most certainly wasn’t. All it would take would be one person from Technix to see us out together before the rumor mill started. Neither of us could afford to lose our jobs.
“I—” I started to protest.
This time it was Sage who kicked me under the table.
“Thank you,” I said as I glared daggers at Sage, rubbing my shin. “Can we eat in peace now that you two are done meddling?”
Danuwoa’s rough-denim-clad leg bumped mine. Through my lashes, I saw a hint of a smile. He was enjoying my discomfort. They all were. Traitors, the lot of them. It made me smile too.
The rest of dinner was comfortable. I had not forgiven Sage, but with Danuwoa and Walela there to take the majority of my aunt’s attention, I could breathe and relax. When it was time to go, I hugged Auntie tight and waved to Sage from afar. He waved and went back to looking at his phone. I hoped something would push him to grow up and finally be responsible.
We piled in the truck and headed back to the city. It was still a little light out and the heat had finally broken, so going to pick up my piece-of-trash car off the side of the road wouldn’t be too difficult.
Danuwoa drove around, pulled up in front of my car, and backed up until he was a couple feet away. He got out, and instead of forcing Walela out, I exited from the driver’s side to help. He took the tow bar and a toolbox out of the bed of his truck.
“You just happened to have a towing kit in your trunk?” I asked as I followed him to the hood of my car. He set the triangular tow bar on the ground and began setting up to attach the bracket, sitting on his knees in the dry dirt.
“Nah, I borrowed this from my buddy.” He took a look under the front of my car.
“Does your buddy live close by?”
“Eh.” He came up and twisted his long hair into a bun at the nape of his neck.
“Just eh?”
“I gotta get this done if we want to make it back tonight.”
“How far out of your way did you guys go?”
He set down the tools and braced his hands on his thighs. “God, you’re relentless. Can’t you just say thank you?”
“I was just asking.”
“Do you want to tell me why you lied about where you lived and your car?”
“What? No. I…” I trailed off, unable to finish.
“Didn’t think so. Go wait in the car with Walela.”
“No, I want to help.”
“You can help me by dropping it.”
“Fine.” I glared.
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes and got under my car and flexed the muscles of his arm. He totally did that on purpose. Macho man bullshit.
It was dark, but my car was successfully being towed along the highway as we made our way into the city. The lights made everything look pretty. The darkness blanketed the dust and run-down parts of town. After our little tiff, neither Danuwoa nor I said a word. Walela seemed tired, so we just drove along for a bit in silence.
Walela finally spoke up. “I like your family.”
“Yeah, they can be pretty great,” I said with a smile I didn’t fully mean.
“It’s just me and Danuwoa. Been that way for a long time.”
“I didn’t know that.” I looked at Danuwoa. He gripped the steering wheel tighter. We were similar in that we did not like talking about our personal issues. Mine seemed so trivial compared to this man single-handedly taking care of his sister. I needed therapy. Lots and lots of therapy. “It sounds like you have an amazing big brother who looks after you.”
“He’s the best! But he sucks at laundry.” She stuck out her tongue.
“I ruined one dress, Walela.” He sounded like this was an ongoing argument.
“My best dress. I do all the laundry now. I like it. No more wrinkles or bleach stains,” she said with a giggle.
“I’ll tell you a secret. I just wash all my clothes at once…on cold.” I laughed.
“What about your whites!” Walela gasped.
“I’m too busy to do separates. Maybe when I slow down, I can give it a try.”
“Yes, you should. It’ll change your life.”
Danuwoa barked out a laugh. I laughed too as he pulled his truck up to the curb, my apartment yards away. He got out and I followed him, waving my goodbyes to Walela. Outside, I walked around the front of his truck to the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Everything felt like it was too much.
I did what was safe and deserved. “Thank you.”
He pushed his hands into his jean pockets and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I was grilling you and you were only helping me. I’m sorry.”
He leaned against the grill of his truck and nodded. “Sulphur.”
“What?”
“My buddy drove up and met me. He came from Sulphur and lent me the tow bar and toolbox.”
“Oh, that’s really awesome.”
“It’s what we do. We help each other. No questions asked.”
“And I ask a lot of questions. I know.” I played with my fingernails, a nervous habit.
“You just make a list of the stuff you want in a new car. We’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yup, been making the list for years.” I pointed to my head. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Going shopping together, I mean?”
He rolled his eyes and headed back to the driver’s side of the truck.
“Okay, good night.” I headed toward my complex, feeling Danuwoa’s eyes watching me the entire way.