“And maybe pigs shit potato salad. And maybe the Easter bunny is real. You know I don’t make mistakes like that. Do I?”
“No, Mama. You don’t.”
“Exactly. Now, something ain’t right with that girl. I been telling you that from the door. She ain’t good enough for you and she’s trifling. Now, beauty fades, son.”
“Please don’t give me a lecture. I’ll get up. I’ll leave the house. Just don’t lecture me.”
“No, you listen to me.” Mrs. Taylor stopped Jamison from leaving her side. “Apples don’t fall far from the tree. What you see in her mama is what you’ll be looking at in ten years. I told you that about that Kerry and her mama. And when Val’s mother left this house, what did your maid tell you?”
“What?”
“Don’t play stupid with me.”
“What? About the picture frame missing?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Taylor said. “That and that silver candelabra from the dining room. And the little card holder from your office. Now, what does that tell you?”
“That Tyrian probably took all of that stuff and hid it somewhere in this house.”
“And you’re a damn fool if you believe that. Her mama stole that stuff. Probably pawned your stuff as soon as she got off the bus in Tennessee. Worse, she took it to the geechie man and got a voodoo rook on you. Ever think of that?”
Jamison rolled his eyes and finally broke free of the hold he let his mother have on him. He promised to do anything she wanted, only so he could escape her mouth.
After I saw Keet at Paschal’s that night, he started calling me every day, at every hour. I had Leaf change my phone number twice complaining some crazy person must’ve gotten my number, but when Leaf mentioned that he could stop the crazy person by having the calls traced, I knew I couldn’t go back to him again. I had to answer the phone.
Keet wanted to meet. He wanted information. I told him I didn’t know anything and he just laughed. He reminded me about some naked pictures I took for him in Negril. Said he was looking at them on his phone. Then he reminded me how often people lost their cell phones. I knew what he meant. And I knew Keet wasn’t one to place idle threats. He was more than serious, so when he called from outside the house one morning when the sun was really low, I got my ass out of bed and went right to the window. He was standing beside his car in the driveway. Waving at me.
“You always look beautiful in the morning,” he said when I got in the car.
I ignored him and insisted that he pull out of the driveway and drive around the corner so Jamison didn’t happen to come to the window and see us sitting there. I had no intention of telling him anything—I didn’t know anything. I just wanted him to go away.
“What’s going on with my mayor? How’s he doing?”
“He’s fine,” I said.
“No one’s seen him around. I keep calling the office about my new job and everyone’s quiet.”
“He’s sick.”
“Sick or fine?” Keet looked at me, and I felt as fragile and breakable as that girl in the blue skirt outside his apartment that night. He looked at my stomach. “How’s my baby?”
“Stop.” I looked around the car to see if there was anything I could grab.
“I was thinking the other night about the last time we had sex.” Keet relaxed himself dramatically and cradled his head in his headrest. “I know we slept together last year. But that was eleven months ago, so if that was my baby you’d have had it by now.”
“This is not your baby,” I said, but he kept talking right over me.
“But there was also that other time,” he went on. “You know when you came crying to me about how your new boyfriend and his mama were so mean to you. You remember that?”
“This is not your baby.”
“Now, that couldn’t have been more than six months ago, First Lady.” Keet laughed. “You’re about six months pregnant right? Isn’t that what you told that reporter during the press conference you had with Mr. Mayor?”
“This is not your baby.”
He looked at me. “But that’d be nice. Right?” He ran his finger along the side of my face. “So fucking pretty. Make a brother lose his mind, fucking with you. Got the mayor whipped—don’t you?”
“What do you want to know?” I asked, remembering that Keet kept a loaded .38 in the glove compartment and probably had another gun under his seat and behind his back. “Just tell me.”