Operation Get Rid of Mom's New Boyfriend (5 page)

“
That’s the point,” Rachel
said in her Latino accent, pushing a paintbrush into Sammi’s hand.
“You ladies have been hiding long enough behind this dull gray
house. It’s time to stand out!” On that note, Rachel summons the
girls from their rooms, and what once stood as a cloudy gray
colored house, now stood as a lively yellow one with soft pink
shutters.

As far as Sammi was
concerned, Rachel’s answer had been the correct one to bring her
and her daughters out of the funk they had been in. She knew she
was truly blessed to have a best friend like Rachel who would
always be there for her and her girls. And thank God, too, because
when she had called Rachel up just last night to ask her to keep
the girls busy this Saturday afternoon, Rachel immediately
obliged.

Rachel had just spent the
afternoon with Kennedy, Daryn and Joy. She had taken them to lunch
and a movie.

“
Yeah, thank you, Miss.
Rachel,” Daryn added.

“
It’s nothing, chica,”
Rachel said, shooing her hand, then turning off the car’s ignition.
“There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for my god-daughters,
and don’t you forget it. Besides, I hadn’t had any girl time with
just the three of you since forever.”

“
Well, thank you,” Joy told
her as the girls removed their seatbelts.

“
Yes, Miss Rachel, and
we’ll have to do it again real soon,” Kennedy said as she opened up
the front passenger side of the door. Her sisters had wanted to do
“rock-paper-scissors” to see who would ride shotgun, but when
Kennedy displayed her balled up fist with a mean-mug, somehow they
knew she wasn’t displaying just a rock. Just that easily she’d won
the front seat privileges.

Daryn and Joy followed the
suit of their big sister, both exiting out of the back passenger
doors of Miss Rachel’s silver frosted BMW. It had personalized
plates that read LATNBABE, announcing how proud Rachel was of her
Latino heritage.

“
You’re coming in, Miss
Rachel?” Kennedy questioned, realizing that Rachel had shut off the
car engine and was now getting out of the car.

“
Uh, well, uh, yeah. Si.
Yes, I am coming in,” she finally said with certainty after
stammering over her first few words.

“
Are you coming to spend
some girl time with Mommy now?” Joy assumed.

“
Well, uh, actually,”
Rachel swallowed, “I’m going to come spend a little more girl time
with you guys. You see, your mother isn’t home right now, so I’m
going to sit with you girls for a little while longer.”

The girls looked from one
to the other before Kennedy spoke. “Mom’s not home?” Although
Sammi’s car wasn’t parked in the driveway, that wasn’t unusual. She
always parked in the detached two-car garage, which is where the
girls had assumed her car was today. Obviously that wasn’t the
case. “She didn’t tell us she was leaving.”

“
And since when do we need
a babysitter?” Joy threw in.

“
Well, I’m not here to
baby-sit; just to…you know…spend some more girl time with you
three.” Rachel cleared her throat and rushed past the girls quickly
as if she could really speed walk away from all of their questions.
Her caramel cheeks began to turn a plum red.

“
Stop the press!” Kennedy
said, holding up her hand. “Where did Mom go?”

“
She didn’t tell us she was
going anywhere today, did she?” Joy asked her sisters. “Did Mother
tell us she was going anywhere today?” She shook her head. “No, I
don’t think Mother told us she was going anywhere
today.”

Rachel stopped in her
tracks and thought for a minute. “Where did she go? Is that what
you asked me?” she stalled.

“
Uh, yeah. I do believe
that was the question,” Daryn smiled.

“
Well, uh, you know…she had
plans,” Rachel said, and then quickly made her way to the front
door. Her long hair with the perfect bronze dye-job swayed as she
walked.

“
The girls looked back and
forth at one another. “Plans?” they sang.

“
Did she say plans? Because
I thought she said plans?” Joy questioned.

“
She said plans alright,”
Kennedy confirmed.

Daryn shook her head.
“There’s that word again; plans.”

Rachel fumbled around her
keychain for the spare key to the house Sammi had given her. All
the while the girls stood behind her giving each other the curious
eye as if to say, “Oh, we are so not done with her yet.”

Once Rachel got the door
unlocked, she went inside and held it open for the girls to enter.
Slowly, but surely, they each made their way inside. Rachel turned
and closed the door and locked it behind them. Once she turned back
around, the three girls were each standing in front of her with
their arms crossed.

All three girls were
staring down Rachel. She could tell by the look on their little
faces that they were ready to fire off more questions, and she
didn’t know what to tell the girls. In an attempt to dodge their
bullets, she just smiled and shouted, “Who wants ice-cream?” and
then led the way down the foyer and into the kitchen.

“
Let’s see,” Rachel said,
going straight to the freezer and looking inside of it. “You guys
don’t have any ice cream,” she said with disappointment. You’re mom
usually always has ice cream.”

“
Yeah, well, looks like she
forgot to pick some up the last time she was at the grocery store,”
Daryn said.

“
Mommy’s been forgetting a
lot of stuff lately,” Joy added.

“
Yeah, like telling us
she’d be gone once we got home.” Kennedy did not bite her tongue.
She then looked up at Rachel with a raised eyebrow. “How’d you know
she would be stepping out?” she asked Rachel. “I didn’t see you on
the phone any while we were out. So that must mean that you knew
ahead of time that she wasn’t going to be home once we got
back.”

Rachel had to think fast.
“Uhh, she sent me a text.”

“
A text, huh?” Kennedy
expressed her disbelief. She expressed it even further by holding
out her hand and saying, “Let’s see.”

“
Well, uh, what do you mean
let you see it?” Rachel panicked and began looking through the
freezer again.

“
Yes, let’s see that text
our mother sent you,” Daryn requested. “And you can probably stop
looking through the freezer now. I think we’ve established there’s
no ice cream.”

Rachel let out a sigh,
slowly closed the freezer, then turned to face the firing squad.
“Text, huh?”

“
Text,” Kennedy said with a
quick fake smile appearing and then quickly disappearing from her
face.

“
Well, I, uh, can’t show
you the text because I, uh, deleted the text. Yes, that’s right. I
deleted it already.” Rachel bobbed her head as she smiled, doing
everything but singing out, “Nan, nan, nan, nan, nan,
nan.”

“
Something tells me there
was no text to begin with,” Kennedy came right out and said.
“Something tells me this entire girl time crap was just a set
up.”

Daryn caught the drift that
Kennedy was throwing. “Yeah, like this so-called girl time was
really just a scheme to get us out of the house while Mom went on
a-”

“
Jell-O!” Rachel shouted,
interrupting Daryn’s accurate observation. She had opened the
refrigerator door and was now pulling a bowl of cherry Jell-O with
pineapple chunks in it from the refrigerator. “Who needs ice cream
when we have Jell-O?” Rachel then did a poor impersonation of Bill
Cosby, trying to throw the girls off. She might have sounded just
like him had she not had an accent.

When that didn’t work,
Rachel decided to put the girls to work. If she could keep them
busy with their hands, then maybe that would keep their mouths
closed. “Kennedy, you’re the tallest; grab some dessert bowls from
up in the cabinet.” She looked at Daryn. “You get us each a spoon.”
She then turned to Joy. “And you, short stuff,” she said, pinching
Joy’s cheek, almost putting a smile on Joy’s face, “you reach down
in the cabinet and grab some place mats and lay them out on the
table for us.

Each girl did as she was
told while Rachel carried the big bowl of Jell-O over to the table.
She pushed aside the centerpiece of artificial sunflowers floating
in a brushed stainless steel bowl that matched the kitchen’s
stainless steel appliances. She then placed the bowl of Jell-O in
the middle of the table.

The silence was short
lived. After the girls sat down at the table and said their grace
before indulging into their treat, they picked up where they had
left off in their line of questioning.

“
So, Miss Rachel, did you
or didn’t you?” Kennedy asked her, swishing Jell-O in her
mouth.

“
Huh?” Rachel replied,
dumbfounded.

“
Did you or didn’t you know
that when you came and picked us up to go out this afternoon that
our mom would be stepping out herself?” Kennedy swallowed her
Jell-O, then stuffed her mouth with yet another
spoonful.

Rachel took a deep breath
and exhaled. She had wanted to talk to the girls about their
mother’s whereabouts, but she wanted to be the one to initiate the
conversation. She had had it all planned out; everything she would
say. Sammi had gone over her lines with her a thousand times at
least, and now she couldn’t remember not a single one of them to
save her life.

It was Rachel’s idea for
Sammi to allow her to warm the girl’s up a little bit before their
mother had the official “talk” with them about all of these sudden
“plans” that she’d had in the past three months. Sammi had wanted
to just sit the girls down herself and tell them straight out, but
Rachel felt their heart’s needed softened first. She reasoned that
by doing it this way, the girls could let all, if any, initial hurt
or anger that they might feel out on Rachel first. Rachel could
then be the voice of reason and perhaps that way the girls would be
more accepting and reasonable once they talked with their
mother.

In her and Sammi’s twelve
years of being best friends, Rachel had always seemed to have the
right answer for situations. Rachel had prided herself on such, but
now, as Rachel sat in between a rock and a hard place with all
three girls staring at her as if she had stolen their lunch money
on chicken strips and fries day, she wondered why she had ever made
the offer in the first place.

“
Listen, girls,” Rachel
said as she sat her spoon down in her half eaten bowl of dessert.
“Your mom has worked really hard to support the three of you since
your father passed.”

“
We know,” Daryn
said.

“
She loves doing it,”
Rachel assured them.

“
But…” Joy chimed in. Her
sisters looked at her confused. “A ‘but’ is coming,” she informed
them. “Whenever someone’s voice fades out like that, it means a
‘but’ is coming. I learned that in drama,” she said proudly,
tooting her nose in the air.

Kennedy and Daryn looked to
Rachel to see if Joy was on point.

“
But…” Rachel confirmed,
picking her spoon back up and playing around in her JELL-O. These
girls were tough-tougher than she imagined they would
be.

“
See, told ya,” Joy said,
then took a bite of Jell-O.

Rachel continued. “She
hasn’t had any time to take care of herself.”

“
You could have fooled me,”
Kennedy said, rolling her eyes. “She’s been taking care of herself
just fine with all those new little dresses, and
colognes.”

“
And scented bubble bath
and stuff,” Daryn added.

“
And
besides, what are you trying to say?” Joy’s attitude was clear.
“That we don’t take good care of our momma?” Joy had an expression
on her face similar to Gary Coleman’s when he played the role of
Arnold on
Different Strokes
and would ask his brother, “What you talkin’
‘bout, Willis?”

Rachel put her hands up in
defense. “Slow down, chicas. That’s not what I’m trying to say at
all.” She shifted in her seat and then dropped her spoon into her
bowl. “I mean, your mom hasn’t really had any time to take care of
herself here,” Rachel said, pointing to her heart. “You see, your
mom has been so busy taking care of and loving everybody else, and
that includes me, because a Chiquita is a needy best friend,” she
laughed, “that she hasn’t had time to allow anyone to take care of
and love her.”

“
But we love her,” all
three girls said in unison. They each then looked at one another,
nodding.

Rachel just looked at them
and smiled. The only thing she had ever seen them do in unison was
pull each other’s hair out. “Look, Mamis,” she said in her settle
accent. “She knows you love her, but I’m not talking about a love
that comes from a little girl’s heart. I’m talking about a love
that comes from a big person’s heart.”

“
You’re a big person,” Joy
reminded Rachel. “Don’t you love her?”

Rachel’s saucer, deep brown
eyes with long black lashes hovering over them began to moisten.
“Oh, and I do,” Rachel told her, placing her hands on her heart
with a sincere expression on her face. “But not that kind of love
either.” Rachel swallowed then said, “The kind of love that comes
from a grown man’s heart.”