Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Sure.” She turns and disappears back into the office.
Vashti is in the kitchen and Yasmen is in the office. Preach would laugh his ass off and say I’m torn between two women, but there’s nothing torn about how I feel. I’m very clear. Wanting my ex-wife is not new. Have I ever not wanted her? I may want her till the day I die. We’ll be eighty years old and my dick will probably still get hard when that woman shuffles into a room using her walker, but I won’t let her close again. She has proven she cannot be trusted, and I’d be a fool to ever believe otherwise.
“So what do you think?” I ask, picking up a few of the photos Harvey left. “Worth considering?”
I hope acting like everything is normal will make it so. Considering my conversations with Dr. Musa, apparently, that’s my modus operandi.
“My gut says yes.” She settles into the armchair. “But I could be wrong.”
We both know how reliable her gut has been in the past. Opting to put some distance between us, I sit on the edge of my desk instead of on the sofa across from her.
“I want to see the numbers,” I say. “But if it’s as good an opportunity as Harvey seems to think—”
“And he’s rarely wrong.”
“And he’s rarely wrong, then it would put exactly what we wanted to do before…”
I stop, holding her stare and letting the unfinished sentence speak for itself. Before everything.
“It would put us back on track,” she finishes. “I mean, for expansion.”
“Right. And you’d be okay going to visit for an overnight trip?”
I ask the question as if it’s harmless.
She clears her throat, lifting her eyes to meet mine. “Sure. My mom’s coming for Thanksgiving and staying a week. Maybe we could go while she’s here so she’d be with the kids.”
“Not a bad idea.” My smile comes involuntarily. “So Carole’s coming to dinner? I hope she cooks chitlings again. The kids still aren’t over that.”
“Oh, my God. The smell. Remember how they complained about it and refused to touch it? She’s determined they’ll taste them this year.” Her smile dwindles. “Are you, um…well, we haven’t talked about your plans for Thanksgiving.”
“I’ll be here obviously.”
Where else would I go? From the beginning we agreed we wouldn’t ask our employees to work Thanksgiving or Christmas Day. We didn’t want to ourselves.
“Oh, I wasn’t sure if Vashti…” Yasmen looks away and licks her lips. “I thought maybe you might be meeting her family or something.”
“Not yet.” I cross my legs at the ankle and study her closely. “What about Mark? Is he coming to meet your mother?”
“Are you kidding? Why would I…? No.”
“Too soon?” I ask, hoping my tone is light.
“We just haven’t even discussed that at all. We aren’t there.”
“You two been out again?”
She narrows her eyes, tilts her head. “A few times. Why?”
“Just wondering.” I shrug nonchalantly. “Let’s see if your mom wants to hang out with the kids for a day or so.”
“And ask Harvey if the owner would be okay with us coming maybe that Saturday after Thanksgiving?”
“Sounds good.”
With that settled, she stands, but doesn’t leave right away.
“Um, so about Thanksgiving. Are you eating with us?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I ask with a frown. “It was fine last year, right?”
I don’t know that describing the bitter silence that hung over Thanksgiving dinner last year as “fine” is entirely accurate, but it’s safer than the truth. It was awkward as hell every time Yas and I were in the same room, but the family was together, dammit. The kids went up to their rooms as soon as they finished eating and I got out of there immediately.
“Yeah, it was fine.” Yasmen’s stiff smile tells me she remembers it the same way. “I just didn’t want to assume anything.”
Yasmen’s wrestling with something.
Tells: biting her bottom lip, tugging her left earlobe, crease between her brows.
I wait for her to decide if whatever she’s working up to is worth saying.
“I mean, you could bring Vashti with you,” she says after another three seconds. “To Thanksgiving dinner, I mean.”
That I didn’t expect.
“Vashti? You’re saying I should bring her with me to Thanksgiving dinner?”
Hearing it aloud seems to give her pause. She nods slowly, blinking several times as if she’s processing it herself.
“Yes. If you want. It’s up to you. I mean, the kids will want you there and—”
“I’ll ask what she wants to do and let you know. Thanks for thinking of her.”
“Of course,” she says, and without any more conversation that could turn awkward, she leaves.
Chapter Twenty-One
Yasmen
So let me get this straight,” my mother says.
I stop washing the sweet potatoes in the sink to glance at her. If looking at Deja is looking in a rearview mirror to my past self, looking at my mother offers a possible glimpse into my future. Besides a few lines around her eyes, her skin remains taut and smooth and brown. Pretty sure my mother has used Noxzema her whole life. I used to watch her smear the thick white cream on sometimes at night. Nothing fancy or expensive. Everything straight from the drugstore, but her skin is fantastic. I can only hope I look like this when I’m her age.