Chapter 26
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
LOVIE
Barnes-Blank Park felt like the size of Central Park when I was younger. Now at twenty-four, it feels like the five acres it’s always been.
“Hey! Stop all that running through here!” Uncle Kenny yells, slamming the lid to his barbecue pit.
“Man…we outside, Mr. Kenny!” one of the boys from the gym whines, tossing his hands up then trampling over a cluster of wild sunflowers.
He runs toward the Slip ‘N Slide fully clothed with his frizzy locs flopping in the wind.
“Don’t you take your ass on that slide with them tennis shoes on, Chase! I ain’t buying another one.” Uncle Kenny huffs from behind me. “After you drop the weenies off, I need you to grab these ribs, Lovie!”
I roll my eyes and keep walking.
After the talk we had, that “biological thing” feels even bigger than it did before.
It hovers between us like the dense fog that blanketed the yard when I woke up this morning.
It even made my stomach ache while he and Aunt Faye moved around each other in the kitchen like robots, grunting out questions with no thought behind them, then mumbling back noncommittal replies.
It was obvious they hadn’t talked about what I told him…
or anything else besides this stupid Family Fun Day.
The sun beams on my bare shoulders as I amble from underneath the tent Uncle Kenny and Chico set up for the barbecue pit with a pan of beanie weenies.
It’s late October, but the leaves on the trees still haven’t fallen, and the high today is a scorching ninety-one degrees.
It’s one of those weird “fall” days I missed while in New York.
Family Fun Day always starts at noon, but most of the adults hide inside until it gets later. Now with the sun setting, the measly five acres of land feels like two while everybody roams around with beer, red Solo Cups, and games the kids aren’t allowed to play, like Dominoes and Spades.
“What you got there, cutie patootie?” Lucky asks, dragging a lawn chair and his set of dominoes toward the oak tree they built the park around.
“Nothing a grown man would want!” I call out, stepping over a stray Jordan lying in the grass while his son eyes my bare legs.
I don’t remember his real name—only what Rich called him that day at Lucky’s: D.
D pushes his glasses up from the bridge of his nose as Lucky’s gravely laugh mingles with the Frankie Beverly and Maze that Chico’s playing. In the two years I was away, Chico picked up a side hustle DJing around the city, and now he thinks he’s the seasoned version of DJ G5.
“Tell your aunt to come holler at me later!” Lucky yells.
I give him a brief nod and giggle at the shy wave his son tosses my way as he trips over his own feet. He’s tawny-skinned like Lucky and so lanky that I’d probably look plump standing next to him.
I wave back and keep walking.
When I make it to the pavilion, there’s a lot more people ambling around than there were before because something about alcohol makes folks hungry. They wander from table to table with paper plates in their hands while I scan the covered area for Aunt Faye.
I catch a glimpse of the back of her blinged out “Worthing Gym 10th Annual Family Fun Day” shirt. I spent last night jazzing it up to keep my mind off Rich because the easy way my fingers find their way between my legs at night as soon as I miss his touch can’t be healthy.
Just as I take a step forward to follow the jewels I sewed onto Aunt Faye’s shirt, my body freezes.
“Where’d you say the drinks were, Ms. Faye?” a shrill voice yells across the pavilion.
“In the red cooler!”
I want to turn back around even though I have nowhere to go. I can’t run to Rich’s because it’s Saturday—Senior needs a visit, Arnez needs a new bedroom set, and there’s some vague thing he says he needs to take care of after he leaves Arnez’s apartment. He won’t be home for a while.
I dig my freshly manicured nails into the sides of the aluminum pan as Meechie’s lotus flower tattoo stops in my line of vision while she bends down to open the red cooler.
The thing about Bayou Crest is that you can’t outrun people for too long no matter how overrun it’s become with transplants, college students, and white people moving in. Eventually, you’ll find whoever you don’t want to see.
Nothing about Meechie has changed in the two years I’ve been away—except for her ass.
Before our sordid friend-breakup, Terrica told me it was a gift from some white guy Meechie met at a golf course in The Woodlands where she’s a part-time caddie girl, and I’m supposed to act like I don’t notice it because she’s insecure about its shape.
Meechie grabs a Dr. Pepper out of the cooler, then stands up and whips her long braids over her shoulder. She scans all the faces under the pavilion.
She’s gonna see me.
It doesn’t matter how many people are squeezed together under here. She’s gonna spot me. It’s just how the universe works.
Her almond eyes widen the moment she catches mine, and my stomach drops to my knees. She smiles and I think I’m smiling back, but I’m not sure. The sides of the pan crumple under my fingers because she’s waving now and beckoning me toward her, and I guess I am smiling back.
I swallow a ball in my throat and start walking her way until Terrica’s brown hand circles her arm.
I stop.
Meechie slaps her wrist excitedly and points toward me. I see my name falling from her lips, and Terrica’s excited smile melting into a neutral one.
“You’re tough,” I mutter to myself, taking another step under the pavilion. “Fuck whatever they think.”
I hear Rich and I want Rich just like I wanted him yesterday while I dealt with Uncle Kenny on our back porch, but today I’ll have to fly solo.
So I take my time strolling toward them while I practice all the ways I’ll dodge whatever intrusive questions Meechie will ask because our friend group was built around all the things most girl groups are typically built around: oversharing and gossip.
“I can just say me and AJ didn’t work out…but then she’ll want more because she’s so fuckin nosy,” I mutter to myself, shaking my head. “Or I…I can just tell her to mind her own business like Rich would probably tell her.”
“Girl!” she yells as soon as I stop in front of them. “You look… refreshed.”
She stares at the embroidered bodice on the lemon-colored sundress I found on the clearance rack at Ross when me and Aunt Faye stopped to browse between cleans yesterday. It looks like a polyester version of one of my House of CB dresses I left back in New York.
I give her a tight smile. “Thanks.”
“Why you ain’t tell me you were back home?”
I glance at Terrica, but her eyes are elsewhere even though her hand is still wrapped around Meechie’s arm.
Marking her territory.
I nod to myself.
Noted.
“I…you know, it was a spontaneous thing.” I shrug. “But…I’m here. I figured Terrica had told you.”
Terrica glances at me, shrugging. “I did. Guess she wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
Meechie rolls her eyes at her. “Well, you just fell off the face of the earth. I figured you’d at least hit me up with the wedding details.
You knew I wanted to be a bridesmaid. We were supposed to go to Vegas and do the whole bachelorette thing.
You know we love Drai’s. You said you’d put the details in the group chat, but then one day you just up and left it… ”
Each word feels like a dagger to the chest and Terrica doesn’t even care. She even lets Meechie stare at my empty ring finger.
“I—yeah. We did say that.”
Terrica chokes out an awkward cough.
Meechie frowns, tilting her head. “So what happened? What’s going on?”
All of my vague responses don’t make her stop, but Meechie never really understood context clues. Aunt Faye always said there wasn’t much going on in her head, but most people weren’t drawn to her for her intelligence anyway.
“I…” My eyes dart between her and Terrica. “I left New York.”
“Well, yeah, clearly. I mean you’re here, but when are you gonna go back to AJ?”
Ugh. She knows I left him.
I narrow my eyes at Terrica, but she looks off to the side.
Meechie sucks her teeth. “You know how you and AJ do, besides I know he’s gonna invite some of his teammates to the ceremony and I’m tryna see what that’s like—”
The same boy who trampled over the wild sunflowers whizzes past us, bumping into my back.
“Oh shit. Pup here!” he yells.
Pup?
I pull the beanie weenies into my middle and turn around, catching the back of Chase’s locs bouncing up and down for the second time today.
“Hey!” Meechie yells. “I know his lil’ bad ass saw you standing there.”
His wet footsteps leave a trail on the pavement, and I follow them until they stop at the edge of the pavilion.
“What’s going on? What is Chase hollering about now?” Aunt Faye asks.
I look up and find her squeezing between two of the ushers from New Bethel with her eyebrows furrowed.
Terrica points toward the field of grass outside the pavilion, and Aunt Faye’s eyes follow her finger until they stop on Chase sidling up to Rich and slapping his hand. He grins up at Rich when Rich drops his hand on top of his head.
Another boy runs up, and another one, until a small group of them and their wide-eyed mamas gather around Rich. My sweaty palms slide against the pan, and I shift from foot to foot to keep myself from running up to him too.
I’ve seen men in twenty-thousand-dollar bespoke Louis Vuitton suits gliding down runways in Paris, but seeing Rich in a plain white Polo crew neck and black fleece shorts makes me scoff at the way I had drooled over those custom suits draped over those models’ lanky bodies, because he’s the one that makes everything look expensive—even simple things like a fresh haircut.
The sun beams down on his deep skin, making it pop against his stark white shirt and I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t even remember how many days I’ve been home, but somehow I remember how many days it’s been since I saw Rich in person.