Chapter 20 Amelia
amelia
I wasn’t letting anything get me down today.
I decided it as soon as I opened my eyes – I was just going to roll with whatever little thing might go wrong.
Starting with the cold water in the faucet not turning on.
Like, that side literally would not give me any water, which baffled even the quick internet search I did, thinking it might be a simple fix.
Fine.
Brushing my teeth in hot water was a departure from my norm, but my teeth were still clean after, so no big deal.
The water refusing to get hot for my shower though… that was a pain.
But not the end of the world.
Mystery stain on the jeans I’d planned to put on – no biggie.
Snagging a hole in my favorite sweater with my fingernail, and ripping the nail too deep into my goddamn nail bed with it…
I had to sit down for a second after that, to collect myself.
But… a bandaid from the first aid kit in the bathroom, and a quick search for a skilled seamstress on Proxy made everything a little brighter.
I was ready to head to Urban Grind and start my day.
“Good morning Mama,” I greeted as I breezed up to her in the kitchen to kiss her cheek… wait a damn minute. “Mama?!” I squealed, wrapping arms around her to squeeze. “What are you doing here?!”
“Did you forget about my visit?” she questioned, putting down the knife she’d been using to slice cucumbers at my counter.
“So… yes and no,” I admitted. “Like, I knew, and even told people about it, but it wasn’t like… top of mind. Yesterday was a lot,” I sighed, referring to the app outage that had felt like the end of the world.
“I know baby,” she said, cupping my face in her hands. “So I’m glad I was already coming. I’m going to make you some fresh pickles.”
“Ooooh,” I mused, glancing around the kitchen at all her supplies – things I’d clearly tuned out breezing to the bathroom earlier.
“You lugged all this stuff up here by yourself instead of calling me?” I fussed.
“Also… actually… how did you even get this in here without letting me know you’d made it in? ”
She smirked, stepping away to peek into the pot boiling on the stove. “A very, very handsome young man, with large arms let me in.”
“A… what? I… what?”
Was… this what dying felt like?
This explode-implode-freezing-burning-overwhelming tightness, jelly-legs, staticky sensation.
I was transitioning to the other side.
“Don’t start stuttering now,” Mama laughed, moving back to slicing the mountain of cucumbers on the counter. “He was very well-mannered – can tell his Mama raised him right. Not like that Hunter boy. Saw him too.”
Oh.
Okay.
This feeling, where it felt like my skin was turning inside out.
This was the end.
“He just froze – didn’t say nothing until I spoke to him. He mumbled something and ran off – didn’t even hold the door open for me. Can you believe that?!” he fussed.
“He probably just didn’t know how to react, Mama – he thought really highly of you,” I assured her. “It’s just awkward. These are the cucumbers you were supposed to be bringing to him, right?”
She sucked her teeth. “He can have a jar of pickles – that’s all the cucumbers he gets out of me,” she said.
“And to be clear -- that young man coming out your door right when I was about to knock – that was awkward,” she corrected, bringing a fresh round of heat to my face.
“But he recovered well – straight into gentleman mode. Told me he sees where you get your beauty from,” she bragged, and I shook my head.
Because, of course he’d charmed my mother.
He was very, very good at saying the all right things – and doing all the right things.
Like showing up at my door the night before.
If he’d mentioned it, I would have surely encouraged him to stay in Blackwood, to rest up from his day.
But man was I glad he’d just popped up.
The comfort of his arms, the humor of his commentary, and… the distraction of sex were exactly what I’d needed to wake up optimistic this morning.
I just hadn’t expected to walk into… this.
“So when were you going to tell me about this young man?” Mama asked. “Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“No,” I immediately refuted. “Not… exactly. It’s just not like… official yet?”
“Why not? Something wrong with him?”
I chuckled. “No, actually. Everything so far is… pretty right. It’s just really soon after Hunter, and… I don’t know. I don’t want to move too fast.”
“Very understandable,” she nodded. “Sit down – talk to me about it. Or what, you got something else going on?”
“Nothing that can’t wait,” I answered. “Let me text Shia real quick though, catch her before she leaves to meet me at the coffee house.”
I was supposed to be having a sit down to work through the customer service logistics for yesterday’s outage – my team, however, wanted me to sit it out. They were insistent on just coming back to me with options, instead of me being super involved… while I was super emotional.
They were probably right, honestly.
I just found it incredibly hard to take that step back and let them get at it.
With my mother being here though… I kinda had to.
So… I dropped that text to Shia, knowing she would actually be relieved to get it, and be able to figure things out with the rest of the team without my overly-neurotic input.
“Okay,” I said, once I’d put the phone down. “Where do you need me?”
“Wash your hands first,” she said. “Then come on and help me cut up these pickles. You talked to the realtor about your other place?”
For a moment, I frowned, not knowing what in the world she was talking about – that just how far removed my dream brownstone was from my mind.
“It got completely taken off the market, actually,” I answered. “A couple days ago. Chase let me know, and there was so much other stuff going on that it barely registered a blip.”
“Well, if you were wrapped up with your new boyfriend, that makes sense.”
“Mama!” I laughed. “Calvin was gone to training camp already – I was working on a business deal!”
“Tell me anything,” she shrugged. “Is that what y’all are calling it these days? We used to say going to see a man about a horse. You know, since you ri—”
“I get it!” I spoke up from the sink, turning to wrinkle my nose at her. “Can you please not?”
“And why not?”
“Because I am not grown enough to talk sex with my mother?”
“You was grown enough for that big tall man to let me in here before the sun was up good.”
I gasped. “Now how could I have helped that?!”
“Choosing a different day then the one your mother was visiting to get your little feminine itches scratched?”
“Feminine itches?!” I shrieked, laughing. “I know what you mean, but that sounds like something else entirely was going on, first of all. Second – I didn’t know he was coming. He saw how upset I was about the outage, so…”
“He came to give you something else to think about. Like his penis.”
“Mama! He came to comfort me!”
“With his penis.”
“Mother, pleeeeassse.”
“Okay, okay,” she laughed. “I’m just teasing you – you know that, right?”
I sighed. “Yes, I know.”
“Good. I’ve only had to worry about you once – I know you’ll navigate things just fine.”
“When did you have to worry about me?” I asked, frowning.
“When you brought Hunter in my house to introduce him,” she answered, immediately.
Like… so fast.
“I thought you liked him, Mama, it’s been years!”
She shrugged. “He was your choice, so I went with it. And he was a nice young man – nothing wrong with him. Just… not for you.”
Yeah.
Definitely not for me.
“This other young man though – Calvin. I like him.”
I smiled. “Yeah… I like him too.”
Mama stayed all day.
By the time she was climbing back into her rental, I had a pantry full of homemade pickles that would last a month tops once my friends found out I had them. Mama was headed to Sugar Valley for a retreat – her pop-in with me was a pit stop after flying into Blackwood.
I was really, really glad she’d come.
But it felt so, so quiet after she’d left.
I followed up with Shia and my team, and actually ended up blending two of the options they offered for making things right with both the customers and the contractors that depended on Proxy. I took a jar of pickles up to Hunter’s door, and left them there.
Closure, one last peace offering, closing the loop on me telling him my mother was giving him… whatever it was, I wasn’t quite sure.
But it felt like the thing to do.
And kinda felt like the way to fully close that door.
As if my mother had spoken it up, I also had a message from Chase, about the brownstone.
My deposit had been returned, and he was wondering if I wanted him to start looking for something else.
Which… did I?
As much as I’d wanted that – wanted something fresh and new and mine… now I wondered if I’d just needed to break up with Hunter the whole time.
My desire for a brownstone had started back when we were together, as if a fresh space that was ours would fix the cracks in our relationship.
He’d hated the idea.
So when we did breakup, I’d gone after it full throttle.
At this point, with months of time behind me… would I even still be happy with it?
The apartment I was in now – I loved it.
I’d decorated, curated the space, and it was all very me. It was the perfect size to have all my stuff and it still felt airy, instead of empty. And it wasn’t so big that it felt like a major task to keep clean.
It suited me.
And having Calvin next door is a perk, too.
I grinned to myself.
Was it nice having him right next door, but in his space instead of mine?
Uh, yeah.
But I wasn’t sure how big of a perk it really was, when he was about to be gone anyway, flying and practicing and playing and whatever the hell else professional basketball players did.
Life was about to change for him, as he transitioned back to his team.
He didn’t seem too worried about it, which made sense – he was getting back to his normal.
But it was all going to be new for me.
Sitting outside on my balcony, I pulled my knees up under my chin and hugged them, staring off into the distant city lights.