“What?” She looks up from the soft, pale yogurt she’s scooped onto the edge of her spoon, as though any more would be too much. As though it doesn’t have the lightest texture and a delicate flavor, or as though it’s all she’s used to. Anything else would be too strong. “You said you won them over. They were gonna let you stay.”
“They were,” I snap. “Before you opened your mouth.”
She looks like she’s trying to press the creamy substance between her tongue and palate, but I can tell from the way she furrows her brow that she’s confused. Or she’s pretending to be.
“All I said is that you were sick,” she argues. She missed the entirety of what passed between my mother and me, but when I clip my words and refuse to say more than the bare minimum to show her my annoyance, Cherish can always tell. “I didn’t know it was a secret, Farrah.”
“Right,” I say, calm but serious so she stays uncomfortable. “Because we don’t have any.”
I don’t stay. I don’t tell her what I mean. I leave her with her spoon hovering between the yogurt and her mouth, and I dress to meet my parents downstairs.
* * *
—
WHEN I FOLLOW the voices into one of the more formal sitting rooms on the main floor of the Whitman home, four adults are trying very hard to camouflage what is really going on.
This is a confrontation.
This is a refusal to be ignored.
This is my mother’s brand of ambush, and it’s too polite to be countered or refused.
My dad’s sitting all the way back on the auburn leather sofa, his hand swallowing one of Jerry’s short glasses. There’s a set in three different rooms of the house, by my count, and Mr. Whitman’s holding one himself. They’re both wearing weekend attire, competing for most relaxed in a pair of respectable shorts, the kind that brush just above their knees and range in color from tour-guide tan to eggshell white. My father’s paired his with a day-off polo while Jerry’s chosen a V-neck that even from a distance looks soft and expensive, yet simple and noncommittal.
Brianne Whitman cannot be caught off guard. However long Cherish and I have been sleeping, Brianne looks like she’s showered, gardened, had a leisurely breakfast with Jerry, jogged, showered again, run errands, and met my parents as they were all approaching the front door.
My mother’s my reminder that something’s wrong. I noticed her small earrings, the studs she wears with her hair up when she has to make a first or intentional impression. No fringe or bangs, her hair is swept away from her face, and she’s wearing a gloss instead of lipstick, and a pair of flat, closed-toe sandals instead of her favorite summer espadrilles. This isn’t what she wears to spend time with friends; this is what she wears so that the opposing party gets the subtle message that she means business and that she’s capable of it. A Black woman in business can’t afford to neglect either. My mother’s been out of her primary field for a year somehow, but nothing dulls the knowledge that she must always be the most prepared. It’s something I’ve heard Brianne Whitman admit to more than once.
This is my mistake. I gave myself too much credit. I left too much silence between the night at my parents’ place and now. I thought that I was masterful in the words I chose, and maybe I was. Maybe they carried just the right amount of sting, but I should’ve known Nichole Turner would recover. Even with my father to focus on, she would clear her head sooner. It was never going to be a one-and-done discussion, and a new life with the Whitmans—and I’m almost glad.
I thought she’d chosen my dad, the way she always has, that she would coddle him through the entire process of moving to a new city and finding him a new home, and forget about me. I thought she’d expect that I could take care of myself, the way she knows I can, and I would slip away into the back of her mind for a while, just until my dad was comfortable in his new position, and he was stable.
I thought she’d forfeited our war games.
I would never have forgiven her, but I was prepared for that. I was resigned to carving her out of myself, the way I’m convinced must inevitably be done with most people.
But here she is. Nichole Turner is dressed for a conference with my teachers, or an escrow closing, or something where she’s approachably no-nonsense, and whoever is depending on her knows they can. She’s here to collect me and bring me home, and I appreciate it.
But I’m still staying.
I want my mother to refuse to give me up and I’m not going anywhere.
She should’ve chosen me before I chose Cherish. Before the Whitmans chose me. She should have imagined that they would.
“Are you sure you don’t want something, Nicki?” Brianne hasn’t sat down. She’s been balancing out my mother’s tension by floating around the room like a cloud despite the fact that my mother’s perched at the sofa’s edge. Finally, Brianne drapes herself over the arm of Jerry’s chair, ready on a whim to rise again. “It’s so good to finally see you two. I know things must be hectic at the moment.”
I sit down just inside the wide threshold of the room’s double doors, so that I’m outside the invisible borders set by the four adults, and try to blend in with the rest of the furniture. Cherish wanders in, and I tug her down beside me so our presence doesn’t interrupt whatever Nichole Turner has planned here. I might not be willing to give in, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see it. It doesn’t mean I’m not hoping she finally bares her teeth.
“The kids say Farrah was sick,” my mother says, brushing past Brianne’s frivolous pleasantries. “It sounded serious.”
“It wasn’t terrible,” Brianne says with a shrug. Her ethereal poise is uninterrupted; she’s even opted for cool reassurance. She manages to sound compassionate without validating my mother’s concern. Impressive.
“To be honest,” Jerry interjects, “it was pretty bad.” And he does a shrug of his own in my dad’s direction, as though inviting him to the conversation.
“Jer, you’ll scare them,” his wife says just a bit more quietly. She moves a small section of his hair though it wasn’t out of place, but the gesture succeeds in lending the exchange a misleading triviality.
“What scares me is finding out something like that after the fact.” Nichole Turner doesn’t blink. She’s looking at her dear friend with a resolute stare that makes no attempt at softening. “I can’t imagine why no one thought to call us.”
And then she looks at me. She lets me know I haven’t disappeared into the background. I’m not eavesdropping. I’m here because she told me to be. Something’s getting settled here and now, no matter how quiet I remain—so I choose a side.