Good to Me (4 page)

“I ain’t fussing at you. You’re doing a good job with him, but all that whining ain’t necessary for a boy. People gone think
he a punk. He’s already small for his age and I know the little boys are gone tease him. I’ve been there, I know. You used
to work with kids, you know that too.”

She could still hear him talking even though she’d taken the phone away from her ear. Every now and then she’d put the phone
up to her ear and mouth to say, “Uhm hum.”

“All right, Emmitt. It was good talking to you. You have a nice night and kiss Zavey for me.”

“I will. Just think about what I said.”

“Okay, good night.” She hung up the phone before he could respond.

She grabbed the Bible she kept in the bathroom on the shelf above the toilet. She could feel her emotions rise up on the inside
of her like boiling hot lava in an erupting volcano. She was either going to cry or vomit if she did not calm down. She hated
feeling like this—like a scared child who could not stand up for herself. No one could make her as angry as she allowed Emmitt
to. She turned her Bible to Ephesians 6. But she kept going back and repeating verse 12 over and over. “For we wrestle not
against flesh and blood,” she read aloud. “But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness
of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” She meditated on that Scripture until the strong
grip of her anger was loosened.

She ran more hot water into the tub and relaxed every part of her body easing into the water. She wondered if Calgon could
really take her away.

Iesha was glad to get those boots off her feet. It felt as if she’d already spent the night on the dance floor and she hadn’t
even left the house. She figured that if she soaked her feet for a few minutes and wore her bedroom shoes for awhile, her
feet would be rested by the time her friends arrived to pick her up for the club.

“Raquan, what’chu in there whining about?” she yelled from her room to her son.

“Sha-Lai hit me, Momma,” he whined.

“Sha-Lai, get your fast tail somewhere and sit down ’fore I come in there and sit you down. I done told you, you ain’t nobody’s
momma. You ain’t got no chaps to be hitting. Is your stuff packed?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Quan, you done packed your bag?”

“Almost.”

“Get y’all stuff together so I can drop y’all off at Momma’s. Y’all getting on my nerves and we ain’t been home but fifteen
minutes.”

Raquan walked into her room carrying the cordless phone. “Telephone, Momma.” She’d been yelling so loudly that she hadn’t
heard the phone ring. “She got it, Sha-Lai,” he said into the telephone, “hang up that other phone.”

Iesha snatched the phone from him. “Hello?”

“Hey E, what you up to?”

“Nothing, girl. Hollering at these hard-headed chaps of mine. Wait a minute, Mercedes, hold on a minute.” She covered the
mouthpiece with her hand and yelled, “Sha-Lai, put some water in my foot spa and bring it here since you need something to
do with your hands besides hitting people.” She took her hand away from the phone and continued her conversation with one
of her best friends, Mercedes. “I’m back, girl. These chaps getting on my nerves. Sha-Lai is nine, going on nineteen. And
Quan seven acting like he two. They’re getting ready to go to Momma’s.”

“You late. Mine are already gone. Why yours still there?”

“You know I started working today.”

“That’s right. E is a working woman now. How ya like it?”

“It’s all right, I guess. I don’t think I’mma like working for Cherry and all her uppity, super-Christian friends,” she said,
plopping her feet into the bubbling foot spa. “She got this one chick working for her who be talking in proverbs like Gandhi
or somebody. We had to introduce ourselves tonight and she gave a freaking speech. And then had a nerve to bow. I think something
wrong with her, myself. She ain’t quite right if you ask me. She weird and I don’t fit in with them and I ain’t gonna try.”

“That’s right. Keep it real. West siiii-eeed,” Mercedes chanted.

“Girl, you stupid. There is a lot of plus sides though.”

“Like what?”

“For one, her office is in the black Taj Mahal.”

“You lying? Your sister got an office in Present Day? She is uppity, ain’t she?”

“Watch your mouth. Can’t nobody talk about my sister but me.”

“My bad.”

They laughed together. “Girl, the biggest plus is all the BMWs they got in there. It’s black men working in there everywhere.
Doctors, lawyers, you name it. I even met one today.”

“Whaaaaaat?”

“Yep, a businessman. His name is Wallace and the boy got it going on. You hear me? He gotta body like a man fresh out of prison,”
she laughed. “Ya’ll gone have to come and eat lunch with me in the courtyard one day.”

“You ain’t said nothing but a word. How ’bout Monday?”

“Long as you don’t come looking as desperate as you sound. What time ya’ll gone get here tonight?”

“I don’t know why I’m still your friend with all the junk I let you talk to me.”

“’Cause you know I love you.”

“Nah, it must be because I love you. It’s almost eight-thirty. What time you gone take the kids to your mom’s?”

“As soon as I get off the phone with you, I’m out the door.”

“Well, I’mma pick Traci up and we’ll stop by the ABC store and then head on over to your place. You want anything in particular?”

“Nah, the usual will be fine.”

“All right then, I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Peace out.”

Iesha carried Raquan into her mother’s house. He had already fallen asleep during the fifteen-minute drive.

“Hey, Ma,” she said, opening the door with her own key.

“Hey, Mah Mah,” Sha-Lai sang as she wrapped her arms around as much of her grandmother’s wide waist as she could. It was unmistakable
that Iesha got her looks from Mama Lorraine. They were both the same cocoa complexion, same height of five-foot-seven, and
had the same body type. Mama Lorraine looked young for her age and was always mistaken to be Charity’s and Iesha’s sister.

“Hey, Tootie,” she reached down to return her granddaughter’s hug. She kissed Iesha on the cheek, “That boy already sleep?
Go lay him across the bed in the back.” Iesha left the kitchen but she heard her mother tell Sha-Lai, “I guess we’ll have
to watch
The Son of the Mask
and eat this popcorn and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies all by ourselves.”

“Ma, ya’ll still buying those bootleg videos?” Iesha called from the back room. “I thought Daddy said he wasn’t going to buy
any more of them tapes since the last ones were messed up?”

“Chile, Willie gave him his money back and let him trade them tapes. Your daddy’s been a faithful customer ever since.” When
Iesha walked back into the room, Mama Lorraine pointed to the long cabinet drawers on the bottom of the entertainment center.
“Look down there. We got
Mudear Goes to Jail, Man of the House,
and
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
.”

“Ya’ll wrong. Ya’ll still Christians ain’t you?”

Mama Lorraine laughed. “Where in the Bible does it say we can’t buy bootleg tapes?”

“Ooooh, Ma. You know you’re wrong for that. Your Bible does say ‘thou shalt not steal,’ don’t it?”

“Since when you know what the Bible says, Ms. Lady-of-the-night? If I’dda known it was only going to take one day for Cherry
to rub off on you, I would’ve prayed about this sooner than I did.”

Iesha raised her eyebrows. “Cherry ain’t rubbed off on me. I ain’t nothing like her and never will be.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing to be like her.”

“I don’t mean it like that—”

“I was gone say, ’cause the girl doing good. She done gone to college and got not one, but two degrees. She has her own business
and got you working in it. She in church every Sunday, not to mention that she’s a preacher. And, she doing a good job raising
that boy all by herself without so much as a penny from that sorry ex-husband of hers who still living with his momma. What
you see that’s so bad about that?”

“Nothing Momma,” Iesha said, figuring she’d better quit while she was ahead. Mama Lorraine was not the type of mother to lose
an argument. At least not without a fight. Iesha still remembered the whipping Mama Lorraine put on her when she was thirteen.
She recalled sneaking out of the house after Mama Lorraine changed her mind about letting her go to the mall with friends.
When she returned, Mama Lorraine didn’t let her get in the door before she pinned her to the floor. If her father hadn’t pulled
her off Iesha, Momma would probably still have her hands around Iesha’s neck. If she didn’t know it before, she learned it
then that Mama Lorraine doesn’t play. “Cherry never could do no wrong in your eyes anyway,” she heard herself say before it
registered in her brain.

“What’chu say?”

Oh Lord
. Iesha didn’t say anything, for fear that she’d already said too much.

“I said, what did you say?”

“I was just saying, Momma, you always call me on my mess but you don’t never say nothing to Cherry when she mess up.”

“Girl, I’ll slap the tastebuds out your mouth, accusing me of treating y’all differently. As hard as I work not to give one
of y’all more than the other. You been whining about I love Cherry more than you ever since she became a part of our family.
I love that girl like she my own flesh and blood and here you is acting like the adopted one. Girrrrrrrl,” she growled.

Iesha grabbed her purse. “Ma, I did not come over here to argue with you. I just wished you’d realize Cherry and I are two
totally different people and be okay with that.” She turned her back on her mother to walk to the door. She just knew Mama
Lorraine would snatch her back.

“I am okay with it, you’re the one that’s got a problem with it.”

“Okay, Ma. I gotta go.”

“See, there you go. You’re always running when you get uncomfortable with something.”

“No, I don’t want to keep Mercedes and Traci waiting. They’re probably already at the house,” she said, trying to sound like
she wasn’t lying.

“All right then. I expect we’ll finish this over dinner on Sunday. That way your daddy and Cherry will be involved. I wanna
get this out in the open. Should’ve done this a long time ago. You go on. I’ll see you tomorrow. What time you coming to pick
up the kids?”

“About noon.”

“All right, I’ll see you then.”

When Iesha got outside she couldn’t do anything but thank God because she knew it was only Him that kept her mother off of
her. She sat in the car for almost ten minutes, to think more than to warm up the car.
Maybe Momma’s right. Maybe I am the one with the problem not being like Charity
.

IT HAD TO BE ALL OF SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING.
The bedroom was enveloped in total darkness. Emmitt raised up high enough to look at his alarm clock.

“Boy, you better go back to bed,” he said, lying down again. Xavier was on his knees bouncing up and down on the foot of his
father’s bed.

“Is it time to eat, Daddy?”

“Time to eat? Xavier, it’s six twenty-seven. Go back to bed.”

“Six twenty-seven in the day or at night?”

“Xavier Ahmad, it is early in the morning. You need to go to your room before you get a whooping.”

“Ooookay, Daddy,” he whined, crawling backward off of the bed. “Can I sleep in your bed?”

“Only if you gone sleep.”

Xavier climbed back onto the bed and snuggled so close to his father that he felt like a second layer of skin. He and Emmitt
lay on their sides, and he fell asleep with his head under Emmitt’s chin and his back against his chest. Emmitt secured his
son in position with his arm over him. He wished it could be like this always. He hated that Charity had left him.
Talking about she didn’t want a divorce, she just wanted to separate for a while
.
She could’ve at least left Xavier
. Emmitt smiled before he drifted off to sleep, remembering how hurt she was when she received the divorce papers in the mail.
That was a move she never expected him to make.

“Aaahhh… ain’t that sweet?” Emmitt’s mother sang as she watched them sleep from the doorway.

“Can a man get some sleep around here?” he joked as he yawned and stretched, waking himself up. “Lil’ Man came in here ready
to play at six this morning. I thought I was gonna have to whoop his behind to make him go back to bed.”

“He probably used to waking up that time of morning since he’s in school now.”

“I know he tired.” Emmitt smoothed Xavier’s hair with his hand. “Always running with Charity—she got a meeting on this day,
working out that day, church services this, and prayer meeting that. The boy be up from six in the morning to about seven
thirty at night. That ain’t good for a little boy. I bet that’s why he so hyper.”

“Now, don’t you go worrying yourself about that girl and what she do. All that matters is our baby is here. And, if we gonna
spend some quality time with him, y’all might wanna get up soon. You know how fast the weekend goes. Breakfast will be ready
in a few minutes. We can talk then about what we gonna do with the baby today.”

He was so focused on what it would be like if he had custody of Xavier full-time that he did not hear his mother invite herself
to the things he planned to do with his son for the weekend. And he had gotten on her about calling him a baby, let alone
treating him like one. “That’s why I wish I had custody of him. If I could take my son I’d…” He stopped when he realized
that his mother was the last person with whom he wanted to have this type of conversation. Anytime he made it known that he
wanted something, she did not stop until she made sure he received it. It was like she owed him something, like she was guilty
for something. And he had no idea of what. Besides, he was not sure he was serious about what he was saying.

“Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I what? Take him?”

“No! Well, not like
that
. You know we got one of them pre-paid legal plans? Call one of them lawyers and see if we can get the baby.”