Lynnia (37 page)

Dario

That evening

Dario walked up the walk to Momma Norton’s house. It seemed right that this thing end where it began. The day that he’d come over to sit down with Mrs. Norton, she’d told him that she was tired of watching her daughter suffer. At the time, she’d been under the impression that it was him dragging his feet. After listening to his side of things, she told him that she had some things she needed to take care of and set up a dinner meet for them to talk more. He hadn’t understood why she’d sent Lindsay his way.

Looking around, he recognized all of the sisters’ cars and Lindsay’s. What was he getting ready to walk into? The door swung open before he could lift his hand to ring the doorbell. Chyra was standing there. She looked a little tired, but happy to see him. There was something else there. If he didn’t know any better, he would say she looked apologetic.

Following Chyra, he was led through the house to the family room where the rest of the sisters, Lindsay, and Momma Norton were sitting.  Chyra sat down next to Rayna and patted her knee.

“First off, we’d like to say that we’re very sorry. Our schemes usually pan out, but this one wasn’t well coordinated so it wasn’t executed to the fullest.”

“Ray, I’m sorry you weren’t in on this from the start. You are now. Ssh!” Momma Norton turned from her daughter and looked at Dario. “A few months ago, I asked you here to talk about what was going on between you and my Evie. Please sit down. You’re making me antsy and I don’t do antsy.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Zoie added while trying to cover a laugh.

“Zo-way, did you have anything else you wanted to say?” Momma Norton asked and the tone of the ultimate mother came through loud and clear.

“No, Momma.”

“Damn. I haven’t heard that tone in years. Momma’s still got it.”

Zoie cut her eyes at Chyra at the same time Mrs. Norton did.

“Sorry. Shutting up now.”

That look from both of the strongest Norton women in the room was enough to make Dario immediately have a seat. He didn’t say a word. He waited for one of them to speak. Momma was the one to continue.

“I enlisted Lindsay’s help because I knew of the shared past you had with her being her mother is one of my dearest and oldest friends. I figured having a woman the total opposite of my daughter would light a fire under you and give my daughter the push she needed to tell you what she was feeling. I underestimated the stubbornness and silly nature of the two parties I was involving.”

Dario sat back. “Ouch” was what he wanted to say. That blow hurt. He was going to say as much, but one of the sisters began talking.

“Momma didn’t expect for Lindsay to be quite as … excited to be a party to all of this. Nor did she factor in the shy, reserved sister that our usually boisterous sister is,” Wynter spoke while shooting her mother looks. “Lynnia gets her stubbornness from that woman. She didn’t want to hear that someone else might have insight on one of her children that she didn’t. Nyema filled me in on some things a few nights ago. Things that I’ve recently learned only you and Chyra knew about our Evie. What was shared is Evie’s to share. If anyone else learns of it, it will be from our sister, Evie’s, lips and no one else’s.”

“Well, that leaves myself and Zoie out of the loop. It means that everyone else knows except for us.”

“Nika, if she wanted any of us to know about it, then she would’ve told us herself. We have a habit of keeping things to ourselves until we are able to deal with it. She isn’t ready. None of you were really ready until you were faced with the issue. Tell me I’m lying? It’s how we deal with things. It’s our process. That’s the reason I said what I did to momma. I’ll tell you what was said in a moment, D’Olliver. They have confessions to make.”

Momma went first. “I already confessed my part. I don’t have anything else to add. I asked Lindsay to meet with you and provide you with a necessary … distraction, if you will.”

Nyema was next. “Well, Zoie and I saw you and Lindsay at the restaurant and the movies. We assumed you were dating someone else. We didn’t know about the thing momma set in motion until well after. Evie found out about that from us. We might’ve milked it a bit since we were trying to get a rise out of her.”

Chrya spoke up. “I just learned about the scheme. I was the one that called this crew together. I’d been thinking about that last conversation we had at the shop. You were pissed and looked like you didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I had a feeling. It turned out I was right. Momma confessed as soon as I asked her about Lindsay.”

Everyone looked at Lindsay. With an exasperated sigh, she started to talk, “I wasn’t lying when I said that I liked you before. I didn’t take the chance then because you seemed like you were really into someone else. I figured out it was Lynnia a long time ago. I thought this was my chance. It didn’t seem to be happening with the two of you so I worked the situation to my advantage. Only you wouldn’t cooperate. I could clearly see where you wanted to be and it wasn’t with me. It wasn’t for lack of trying on my part. I set things up so it looked like you were planning to propose to me. I convinced one of my friends, who is getting married, to have her bridal shower at the restaurant and volunteered to deliver all of the gifts to make it look like it was my thing. The fact that you and Victor knew Timothy, Rebecca’s fiancé, worked out in my favor. I even volunteered to pick up the rings for Timothy which led them to seeing you coming out of the store.”

“Hold on. Who saw D’Ollie coming out of the jewelry store?” Chyra sat forward and looked around the room.

Each of the sisters shrugged their shoulders.

“If none of us did …”

“Lynnie saw me coming out of the store.”

Dario’s hand hit his forehead. Yes, he’d been there, but it wasn’t recent. It had been about two months ago. He’d purchased a gift for Lynnia. There was a necklace with a sunflower charm sitting in his dresser drawer at home. It was supposed to be her Christmas present. The ring that he’d commissioned was her birthday present.

“What’s wrong?”

“If Lynnia only saw me coming out of the store, then she saw me when I was getting her Christmas present a couple months ago. It would explain why she kicked me out of her place that day. If she saw me coming out of the store with her, then she might actually believe what she’s been fed over the past few weeks. Either way, I come out looking like the guy that has moved on and doesn’t want her.”

All of women in the room were quiet before the phrase “I’m sorry” began to fill the room. Wynter cleared her throat.

“Are you available anytime this week? I’m in need of your handy work and I’m pretty much not going to ‘no’ for an answer.”

Dr. Wynter Norton was in full on big sister mode.

“What do you have in mind? I’m available to do a walkthrough. I won’t be able to get started on any work until I’m cleared to do so. I want to table that for a moment and deal with the issue of repairing things with Lynnie.”

“My point exactly. Face it head on is what I told everyone. You need to man up and tell that fierce woman that is our sister exactly how you feel. You will have that opportunity tomorrow. She’ll be home all day because I told her my person was coming to meet with her then. She should’ve thought of you first, but her own pigheaded nature caused her to dismiss even the thought of it. Will you help me?”

All of the women looked at him. He could tell they were waiting to learn what his decision would be.

“Two birds with one stone. Done and done. Lindsay, I’m sorry, but we could never have been more than just friends. Lynnie’s had my heart for as long as I could remember. She was the reason I could never have sex with you. I couldn’t do that to her.”

“Fair enough. I think that my part in this is all done. I’m going to head on out. I’ll see you guys soon. Momma Ella is expecting all of you at her house next week. Good luck, D. Wish you the best.”

Dario nodded, but didn’t say anything. He had one more thing to do before it was time to let his woman know how he really felt. He had to break up with the woman he’d been dating.

~~~~~~~

Dario arrived at Tyson’s apartment about an hour later. He hadn’t planned on getting anything to bring to the man’s house, but Brittney had insisted that it was bad manners if he didn’t bring at least a small token. She picked up the potted plant that he was sure his boy would kill within a matter of days.

“You don’t think he’ll like it, do you?” she asked him as they walked up to the main door of Tyson’s apartment building.

“It’s not that. I think it’ll be dead before we leave tonight, that’s all.”

She smiled and pushed the door that had just been buzzed with her hip.

“I think Tyson might surprise you. He might have a green thumb.”

“If it’s green it has nothing to do with caring for plants and everything to do with some kind of illness.”

They made it to the door just as he finished his statement. He was surprised to find Paulette on the other side of the door. Had he been gone long enough for the two of them to get serious enough for her to answer his apartment door?

“Fancy seeing you here Paulette? I was expecting a big, black guy.”

“Not the petite, white girl that he’s dating? Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot tonight. All of the guys are here. Ty is over by the makeshift bar.”

“All righty then. This is Brittney Taylor. Brittney meet Paulette Hughes. Apparently, she’s Tyson’s girlfriend.”

“I heard. Hi, nice to meet you. We brought a plant.”

They shook hands and the plant was handed over. Paulette practically bounced in place.