Insanity (14 page)

And she sat back and relaxed in the comfortable Mercedes passenger seat.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Once they arrived and parked outside of the Thompson family’s four-bedroom home in the South Baltimore suburbs of Glen Burnie, Bryant wanted to establish a few rules of his household before they climbed out of the car.

“Now, I’m just letting you know that my parents are
quiet
and
humble
people,” he informed her. “And they may not say much, but they
do
listen. So make sure you say
exactly
what you mean and nothing more.”

Then he smiled. “Otherwise, they’ll have you in here
explaining
yourself with
me
trying to help you.”

Queen looked out the car window at the elegant, two-story home of light brown stone and burnt orange stucco, surrounded by tall trees, shrubbery, a healthy lawn of thick green grass, and a half circle approach and driveway, and she
knew
that she had hit the jackpot with Bryant. It was after five o’clock that evening, and the approach and driveway were filled with luxury cars and fully loaded SUVs. To the side of the house was a two-car garage which led to a side door and a stone walk-up to the front, where there was a pair of double doors of fine dark wood.

Damn!
Queen mused.
You don’t have to worry about me fucking this up.

She nodded to Bryant passively and gave him a weak response. “Okay.”

Whatever you say,
she thought.

They climbed out of the car in unison and held hands as they approached the stone walkway towards the front doors.

“Are you ready for this?” Bryant teased her.

Queen flipped the question back to him. “Are
you
ready?”

Bryant continued to consider it all, especially in light of her recent revelations to him. Nevertheless, he had his own strategy in mind.

“Yeah, I’m ready. I’m ready to
eat
again. I think I lost my appetite earlier,” he joked, in reference to Queen’s family dispute with her cousin.

She grinned and said, “Me too. So I hope your mother can
cook
as much as you like to
eat
.”

Bryant grimaced. “Are you kidding me? My mom
loves
to throw down in the kitchen, especially when having company over. I just didn’t like helping her to clean up afterwards,” he commented and laughed.

He seemed to be in a jovial mood about Queen’s introduction to his family, but a
plan
was boiling.

I’ll just see how she gets along with my parents and friends before I decide to drop her or not,
he told himself. Getting serious with a woman was not to be taken lightly.

As they reached the front door, Bryant took out his house keys and found that the door was already open.

Queen grinned. “This doesn’t
seem
like a neighborhood where you have to lock down all the doors.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he told her as they walked into the house. “We had a serial burglar around here that broke into
three
houses this year.”

“But not while people were still inside, I’m
sure
.”

They entered into the large foyer area where Queen could smell the delightful aroma of food, and hear family and friends knee-deep in conversation from the dining-room to the right. She had to restrain herself from jumping up and down like a winning contestant on a game show Original artwork covered the foyer walls, with a quality, off-white paint job, golden crown molding, valuable figurines in the corners of the room, and a large Indian rug across the hardwood floor where shoes had been left toward the right side of the door.

Queen looked up at the second floor cat walk that separated the master bedroom from the rest of the house, and she immediately wanted a bedroom island and an elaborate home of her own.

I need to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming or a character in someone’s scripted movie,
she thought with a smile.

“Come on, let’s go in here and meet everybody,” Bryant told her, yanking her hand forward. Queen seemed satisfied with taking in the magnitude of the house for an extra minute and had not budged. She responded as if she were in a museum. But there was much more to see and live people to meet.

As Bryant walked into the dining room with Queen’s hand in his, his father looked and made an announcement. “There he is! We weren’t expecting you until later.”

“Yeah, we got here a little early,” Bryant stated.

Ramon Thompson was shorter, slimmer and smaller than his son by several inches and at least twenty pounds. He was also a shade or two lighter in complexion. He wore a basic white Polo tennis shirt with beige khaki pants, and his straight gray hair was low for a smooth and distinguished cut.

He looked into Queen’s inviting eyes and nodded to her. He then stood to extend his right hand to her.

“How are you doing? I’m Ramon, Bryant’s father.”

Queen took his hand in hers with a smile. “I see. Nice to meet you.”

Ramon looked across the large, food-filled dinner table and raised his left hand toward his wife.

“And this is my wife, Clarisse, Bryant’s mother.”

 Clarisse Thompson was thicker than her husband, but not as thick as Queen had imagined her to be. He nodded calmly from her chair, wearing a lime green linen set with shoulder length hair that was just beginning to gray. She was the same tree-bark brown as her son, and she and her husband both looked to be in their late fifties or early sixties.

“Hi,” Queen spoke to her.

“Hi,” Clarisse responded tersely. There was no sense in engaging the young woman across the dinner table. Clarisse imagined catching up to her and chatting her up over time.

Ramon proceeded to introduce the young woman to the other family and friends inside the room, with a total of eight. Then it was Bryant’s turn to introduce Queen to them.

He worked his right arm around her waist and said, “Well, everyone, her name is
Queen
Tillis, and that’s what’s on her
birth
certificate. You guys wanna see her driver’s license?”

Queen chuckled at his jest and playfully elbowed him in the ribs.

Bryant laughed and said, “It’s the
truth
.”

His mother was not as amused by it. “
Queen
?” she asked to make sure. Was her soon pulling their legs or what?

Queen read her concern and commented with humility. “I’ve always thought about changing it, but I didn’t want to disrespect my mother.”

Clarisse backed down with a nod.

But her girlfriend, Wanda, tall, slim and talkative, sitting on the left side of the table, asked her, “What about using your
middle
name?” It seemed like a doable solution.

Queen grinned, sheepishly. “My mother didn’t give me one.”

“Oh, so she was just gonna
stick you
with that name,” Wanda added for more snickers around the table.

Ramon spoke up to stop it all. “Now come on now, that’s
rude
. A young woman can’t help what her name is.” But he was still smiling himself.

Queen shrugged. “It’s not a problem anymore, I’m used to it now. But it’s funny how
adults
seem to have more of an issue with it than kids. My friends and classmates called me Queen or Queenie without a problem. So I didn’t know there was a problem until I got older.”

“Yeah, because
kids
don’t know any better. Any name sounds good to them,” Wanda commented. “How old is your mother?” she asked, insinuating.

Ramon had heard enough. He brushed the question aside. “You don’t have to answer that. Are you guys hungry or you’ve eaten already?”

Ignoring the slights of her name, Queen and Bryant focused on the fantastic spread of food. There was sliced turkey, ham, fish, barbecued chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, white rice and brown turkey gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, light brown buttered biscuits, deviled eggs, tossed and pasta salads, and several desserts all covering the massive dinner table.

Bryant didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, we’ll eat again. Grab us a couple of plates and let’s bring the noise.”

Queen smiled and nodded in agreement. The food looked too good to pass up.

Clarisse told them, “I’ll get the plates,” and rose from her chair. She gave Wanda a look and a jerk of her head to follow her into the kitchen in an adjacent room.

Wanda stood up quietly to follow her. “Excuse me.”

Once they made it inside the kitchen and opened the cabinets, Clarisse asked her good friend, “So, you’d don’t like her already?”

Wanda frowned immediately, speaking in lowered tones. “I mean,
come on
, Clarisse;
Queen
. What kind of mother does that to her daughter? We’re not in slavery days anymore. And it makes it sound
too
obvious
that her mother was
hoping
for something; a
Queen
out the
’hood
,” she assumed.

Clarisse shook her head and grinned at her friend’s bluntness. “What’s so wrong with wanting better for your children? We weren’t all born with silver spoons in our mouths. We
all
had to work hard for it.”

“Yeah, but you don’t brand your kids with a
name
that’s supposed to do it. That’s like naming your child
Perseverance
or
Chastity
. It ends up doing more harm than good. Now you
know
I’m usually
right
about these kinds of things.”

 “Come on, give the girl a chance,” Clarisse pleaded. “Like my husband said, you can’t knock a person for what their
parents
named them. Some people may not like the name
‘Wanda’
.”

“Yeah, but
Wanda
doesn’t get in my way;
Queen
does. That’s why your son felt a need to introduce her like that. He was trying to make the obvious a little less shocking for everyone.”

“Well, he still brought her over here to meet us, so we at
least
need to give her the benefit of the
doubt
.”

Wanda smirked and said, “O-kay. We’ll see.”

When the two friends returned to the dining room with large plates and glasses from the kitchen cabinets, Queen and Bryant took them and began to load food for a second time. Queen was very cautious not to appear too hungry. She made a light plate of mostly tossed salad, and the company made room for her and Bryant to sit and eat at the table. Then the interview process began.

As Queen and Bryant began to eat, Clarisse and Wanda started asking the young woman a series of fact-finding questions; “Where did you go to school? What was your major? What are you now mastering in? What do you plan to do with it? Where did you meet Bryant? And on and on to find out what made the young woman tick.

Queen handled every question with professionalism and poise.

In the meantime, Bryant’s good friend, Garrett Chamberlin, popped into the room.

“Hey, man, nobody told me you were here yet.” Garrett had the energy of a teenager, as tall as Bryant but slimmer and lighter in complexion, with a lower haircut. He wore a Baltimore Raven’s t-shirt with his blue jean shorts.

“I didn’t know you were here either,” Bryant told him. “I didn’t see your car parked outside.”

“Yeah, I let the old lady drive her Infiniti. She wanted to show off the new ride,” he joked. “But I was back there in the family room playing video games with the young ones.”

He looked over at Queen sitting next to his friend.

“How are you doing?”

She nodded, swallowing down her food. “I’m good,” she told him when finished.

Garrett nodded back. “Yeah, I’m good too.”

“And her name is
Queen
, Garrett,” Wanda filled in for him.

Garrett repeated, “Queen?” and looked over at Bryant. “Like Queen
Latifah
?”

Bryant grinned and nodded to him. “Yeah, like Queen Latitah.” He hadn’t even thought of that one. He nudged Queen to his right and told her, “We need to
use
that next time. Everybody knows Queen Latifah. She’s knee-deep in the movies now. So we could make your name work to your advantage,” he quipped.

He looked up at his friend and said, “Thanks G.C.”

Garrett shrugged it off. “Yeah, okay.” It was no big deal to him. A name was a name.

As usual, Bryant wolfed down his plate of food much faster than Queen could and then stood to excuse himself to speak to his friend Garrett in private. He grabbed his glass of mixed punch and Sprite to take along with him.

“I’ll be back,” he told Queen and his family at the table. He left her there alone to finish being interrogated by his mother and her best friend. It was all a part of his master plan as he led Garrett outside and onto the back patio for man talk.

There were folding lawn chairs out back, with tables and large, shading umbrellas to protect from the sun and the rain. A short but healthy green lawn led into a nap of wetlands and tall trees toward the back of the property. It was all pure suburbia and well kept.

“So, that’s the girl you were telling me about before?” Garrett asked his friend. They continued to stand instead of sitting.

“Yeah,” Bryant answered. He grinned and sipped from his drink, expecting to hear Garrett’s raw opinions of her. He had told his friend all about the West Baltimore girl who had given him a night to remember before avoiding him for months. Now he had her up in his parent’s house and eating food at their table.

Garrett nodded and said, “Man, she looks
sexy
. She got that little
feisty
look.”

Bryant frowned at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, she got a lot of
appeal
in the sex department. And I could see how she could put it on you in the bedroom,” Garrett explained. “You can read it in her eyes. But I wouldn’t get too serious about her though. I would just keep her like, my chick on the side.”