Insanity

  “I mean, he didn’t know what I was thinking,” Queen argued.

  “He could assume it after you called him up. What else were you gonna call him about, the weather?” Bryant snapped.

  Queen read his temper tantrum and acquiesced. “Like I said, I was young I didn’t know any better.”

  Yeah, that’s bullshit! Bryant thought to himself. She’s way too smart for that, and seventeen is no baby in Baltimore. I even I was fucking by then.

  There was silence in the car as he began to doubt everything. Nevertheless, he wanted to hear more information to validate his beliefs.

  “All right, so go ahead. Tell me what else happened,” he pressed her.

  Queen became annoyed by it. “For what?”

  Bryant nearly rear ended the car in front of him as he jammed down on the brakes.

  “Shit!” he yelled. “Yeah, we need to pull over to have this conversation. I can’t even think straight.”

  Queen thought, Okay, he’s a man all right. Now he’s about to get on my damn nerves about something that happened seven years ago, and that neither one of us can do anything about. Thanks a lot, big cuz!

  Bryant pulled the car into a busy KFC parking lot and found an open space.

  “Okay, I’m all ears now,” he told her, shutting off the ignition.

  Queen stared at him. “You seriously wanna hear all of this?”

  “Yeah, if we’re gonna talk about it, then you need to tell me what happened, right?”

  She said, “And you’re gonna tell me everything I ask you about whatever went on in your past relationships?”

  Bryant had to think before he spoke too soon. But he didn’t have any skeletons worth hiding. His dating life had been pretty simple, filled with open and shut cases and few complications.

  He nodded and said, “Of course. If I need to, yes.”

  Queen continued to eye him in concentrated silence. Then she pointed at him. “I want you to remember that you said that.”

  “I will. Now tell me what happened next. How did your cousin even find out about it?” He assumed that she didn’t volunteer the information.

  Queen answered him with an attitude, “He started taking me places on the sly, you know, to movies and out to eat, shopping at far out malls, and stuff like that. But then he started trying to pick me up from school, and I told him not to do that. And that’s when my cousin found out about it when people started talking.”

  Bryant looked stunned, like a deer in the headlights of a Mack truck.

  “He started trying to pick you up from school?” he repeated.

  Queen was unwilling to repeat herself. What was the use? It was the past. But for Bryant, the plot continued to thicken.

  “And how old was this guy?” he asked her.

  “He was twenty four.”

  Bryant thought about it. That wasn’t that bad, he told himself. He had dated a nineteen-year-old when he was twenty-four himself. But it wasn’t any of his date’s younger cousins.

  “So, what did your cousin do?”

  That answer was simple. “She had it out with him. Then she had it out with me. And then our parents got all involved in it.”

  Bryant stopped and shook his head. He couldn’t believe his misfortune. He had already begun to fall for the girl, but now he wasn’t so sure if he could trust her.

  Queen read his wavering mind and asked him, “Okay, so now you’re ready to drop me back off at home?” She was bluffing him to see how he would respond to it all.

  “And what if I did?” he challenged her.

  She shrugged. “That’s your prerogative. But if you’re gonna let something that happened seven years ago affect your opinion of who I am now, then you’re just as crazy as my cousin is.”

  She looked out her passenger side window and went mum.

  “So, that’s it? That’s the whole story?” Bryant continued to press her. “Was he doing both of y’all at the same time, or did he stopped dealing with your cousin all together?”

  Queen stood her stubborn ground and gave him the silent treatment until he started his Mercedes’ engine back up. She figured she had told him enough. Anything else would be overkill. However, she had no idea what to expect from him while hoping for his maturity. Maybe he actually would drop her off at home. She had to wait to find out. But when he drove out of the KFC parking lot, he headed for Interstate 95 South instead of toward her apartment.

  “Where are we going?” she asked him.

  Bryant paused with his answer for a stroke of suspense. “To my parent’s house,” he told her. “We’ll just get there a little earlier now.”

  On the outside, Queen was nonresponsive, but on the inside, she was overjoyed with the outcome. She told herself, I knew he didn’t have it in him. He’s just a little sweetheart. He’ll get over it. All he needs to tell himself is that I’m HIS GIRL now!

  And she sat back and relaxed in the comfortable Mercedes passenger seat.

  FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

  Once they arrived and parked outside of the Thompson family’s four-bedroom home in the South Baltimore suburbs of Glen Burnie, Bryant wanted to establish a few rules of his household before they climbed out of the car.

  “Now, I’m just letting you know that my parents are quiet and humble people,” he informed her. “And they may not say much, but they do listen. So make sure you say exactly what you mean and nothing more.”

  Then he smiled. “Otherwise, they’ll have you in here explaining yourself with me trying to help you.”

  Queen looked out the car window at the elegant, two-story home of light brown stone and burnt orange stucco, surrounded by tall trees, shrubbery, a healthy lawn of thick green grass, and a half circle approach and driveway, and she knew that she had hit the jackpot with Bryant. It was after five o’clock that evening, and the approach and driveway were filled with luxury cars and fully loaded SUVs. To the side of the house was a two-car garage which led to a side door and a stone walk-up to the front, where there was a pair of double doors of fine dark wood.

  Damn! Queen mused. You don’t have to worry about me fucking this up.

  She nodded to Bryant passively and gave him a weak response. “Okay.”

  Whatever you say, she thought.

  They climbed out of the car in unison and held hands as they approached the stone walkway towards the front doors.

  “Are you ready for this?” Bryant teased her.

  Queen flipped the question back to him. “Are you ready?”

  Bryant continued to consider it all, especially in light of her recent revelations to him. Nevertheless, he had his own strategy in mind.

  “Yeah, I’m ready. I’m ready to eat again. I think I lost my appetite earlier,” he joked, in reference to Queen’s family dispute with her cousin.

  She grinned and said, “Me too. So I hope your mother can cook as much as you like to eat.”

  Bryant grimaced. “Are you kidding me? My mom loves to throw down in the kitchen, especially when having company over. I just didn’t like helping her to clean up afterwards,” he commented and laughed.

  He seemed to be in a jovial mood about Queen’s introduction to his family, but a plan was boiling.

  I’ll just see how she gets along with my parents and friends before I decide to drop her or not, he told himself. Getting serious with a woman was not to be taken lightly.

  As they reached the front door, Bryant took out his house keys and found that the door was already open.

  Queen grinned. “This doesn’t seem like a neighborhood where you have to lock down all the doors.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” he told her as they walked into the house. “We had a serial burglar around here that broke into three houses this year.”

  “But not while people were still inside, I’m sure.”

  They entered into the large foyer area where Queen could smell the delightful aroma of food, and hear family and friends knee-deep in conversation from the dining-room to the right. Sh
e had to restrain herself from jumping up and down like a winning contestant on a game show Original artwork covered the foyer walls, with a quality, off-white paint job, golden crown molding, valuable figurines in the corners of the room, and a large Indian rug across the hardwood floor where shoes had been left toward the right side of the door.

  Queen looked up at the second floor cat walk that separated the master bedroom from the rest of the house, and she immediately wanted a bedroom island and an elaborate home of her own.

  I need to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming or a character in someone’s scripted movie, she thought with a smile.

  “Come on, let’s go in here and meet everybody,” Bryant told her, yanking her hand forward. Queen seemed satisfied with taking in the magnitude of the house for an extra minute and had not budged. She responded as if she were in a museum. But there was much more to see and live people to meet.

  As Bryant walked into the dining room with Queen’s hand in his, his father looked and made an announcement. “There he is! We weren’t expecting you until later.”

  “Yeah, we got here a little early,” Bryant stated.

  Ramon Thompson was shorter, slimmer and smaller than his son by several inches and at least twenty pounds. He was also a shade or two lighter in complexion. He wore a basic white Polo tennis shirt with beige khaki pants, and his straight gray hair was low for a smooth and distinguished cut.

  He looked into Queen’s inviting eyes and nodded to her. He then stood to extend his right hand to her.

  “How are you doing? I’m Ramon, Bryant’s father.”

  Queen took his hand in hers with a smile. “I see. Nice to meet you.”

  Ramon looked across the large, food-filled dinner table and raised his left hand toward his wife.

  “And this is my wife, Clarisse, Bryant’s mother.”

  Clarisse Thompson was thicker than her husband, but not as thick as Queen had imagined her to be. He nodded calmly from her chair, wearing a lime green linen set with shoulder length hair that was just beginning to gray. She was the same tree-bark brown as her son, and she and her husband both looked to be in their late fifties or early sixties.

  “Hi,” Queen spoke to her.

  “Hi,” Clarisse responded tersely. There was no sense in engaging the young woman across the dinner table. Clarisse imagined catching up to her and chatting her up over time.

  Ramon proceeded to introduce the young woman to the other family and friends inside the room, with a total of eight. Then it was Bryant’s turn to introduce Queen to them.

  He worked his right arm around her waist and said, “Well, everyone, her name is Queen Tillis, and that’s what’s on her birth certificate. You guys wanna see her driver’s license?”

  Queen chuckled at his jest and playfully elbowed him in the ribs.

  Bryant laughed and said, “It’s the truth.”

  His mother was not as amused by it. “Queen?” she asked to make sure. Was her soon pulling their legs or what?

  Queen read her concern and commented with humility. “I’ve always thought about changing it, but I didn’t want to disrespect my mother.”

  Clarisse backed down with a nod.

  But her girlfriend, Wanda, tall, slim and talkative, sitting on the left side of the table, asked her, “What about using your middle name?” It seemed like a doable solution.

  Queen grinned, sheepishly. “My mother didn’t give me one.”

  “Oh, so she was just gonna stick you with that name,” Wanda added for more snickers around the table.

  Ramon spoke up to stop it all. “Now come on now, that’s rude. A young woman can’t help what her name is.” But he was still smiling himself.

  Queen shrugged. “It’s not a problem anymore, I’m used to it now. But it’s funny how adults seem to have more of an issue with it than kids. My friends and classmates called me Queen or Queenie without a problem. So I didn’t know there was a problem until I got older.”

  “Yeah, because kids don’t know any better. Any name sounds good to them,” Wanda commented. “How old is your mother?” she asked, insinuating.

  Ramon had heard enough. He brushed the question aside. “You don’t have to answer that. Are you guys hungry or you’ve eaten already?”

  Ignoring the slights of her name, Queen and Bryant focused on the fantastic spread of food. There was sliced turkey, ham, fish, barbecued chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, white rice and brown turkey gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, light brown buttered biscuits, deviled eggs, tossed and pasta salads, and several desserts all covering the massive dinner table.

  Bryant didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, we’ll eat again. Grab us a couple of plates and let’s bring the noise.”

  Queen smiled and nodded in agreement. The food looked too good to pass up.

  Clarisse told them, “I’ll get the plates,” and rose from her chair. She gave Wanda a look and a jerk of her head to follow her into the kitchen in an adjacent room.

  Wanda stood up quietly to follow her. “Excuse me.”

  Once they made it inside the kitchen and opened the cabinets, Clarisse asked her good friend, “So, you’d don’t like her already?”

  Wanda frowned immediately, speaking in lowered tones. “I mean, come on, Clarisse; Queen. What kind of mother does that to her daughter? We’re not in slavery days anymore. And it makes it sound too obvious that her mother was hoping for something; a Queen out the ’hood,” she assumed.

  Clarisse shook her head and grinned at her friend’s bluntness. “What’s so wrong with wanting better for your children? We weren’t all born with silver spoons in our mouths. We all had to work hard for it.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t brand your kids with a name that’s supposed to do it. That’s like naming your child Perseverance or Chastity. It ends up doing more harm than good. Now you know I’m usually right about these kinds of things.”

  “Come on, give the girl a chance,” Clarisse pleaded. “Like my husband said, you can’t knock a person for what their parents named them. Some people may not like the name ‘Wanda’.”

  “Yeah, but Wanda doesn’t get in my way; Queen does. That’s why your son felt a need to introduce her like that. He was trying to make the obvious a little less shocking for everyone.”

  “Well, he still brought her over here to meet us, so we at least need to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  Wanda smirked and said, “O-kay. We’ll see.”

  When the two friends returned to the dining room with large plates and glasses from the kitchen cabinets, Queen and Bryant took them and began to load food for a second time. Queen was very cautious not to appear too hungry. She made a light plate of mostly tossed salad, and the company made room for her and Bryant to sit and eat at the table. Then the interview process began.

  As Queen and Bryant began to eat, Clarisse and Wanda started asking the young woman a series of fact-finding questions; “Where did you go to school? What was your major? What are you now mastering in? What do you plan to do with it? Where did you meet Bryant? And on and on to find out what made the young woman tick.

  Queen handled every question with professionalism and poise.

  In the meantime, Bryant’s good friend, Garrett Chamberlin, popped into the room.

  “Hey, man, nobody told me you were here yet.” Garrett had the energy of a teenager, as tall as Bryant but slimmer and lighter in complexion, with a lower haircut. He wore a Baltimore Raven’s t-shirt with his blue jean shorts.

  “I didn’t know you were here either,” Bryant told him. “I didn’t see your car parked outside.”

  “Yeah, I let the old lady drive her Infiniti. She wanted to show off the new ride,” he joked. “But I was back there in the family room playing video games with the young ones.”

  He looked over at Queen sitting next to his friend.

  “How are you doing?”

  She nodded, swallowing down her food. “I’m good,” she told him when finish
ed.

  Garrett nodded back. “Yeah, I’m good too.”

  “And her name is Queen, Garrett,” Wanda filled in for him.

  Garrett repeated, “Queen?” and looked over at Bryant. “Like Queen Latifah?”

  Bryant grinned and nodded to him. “Yeah, like Queen Latitah.” He hadn’t even thought of that one. He nudged Queen to his right and told her, “We need to use that next time. Everybody knows Queen Latifah. She’s knee-deep in the movies now. So we could make your name work to your advantage,” he quipped.

  He looked up at his friend and said, “Thanks G.C.”

  Garrett shrugged it off. “Yeah, okay.” It was no big deal to him. A name was a name.

  As usual, Bryant wolfed down his plate of food much faster than Queen could and then stood to excuse himself to speak to his friend Garrett in private. He grabbed his glass of mixed punch and Sprite to take along with him.

  “I’ll be back,” he told Queen and his family at the table. He left her there alone to finish being interrogated by his mother and her best friend. It was all a part of his master plan as he led Garrett outside and onto the back patio for man talk.

  There were folding lawn chairs out back, with tables and large, shading umbrellas to protect from the sun and the rain. A short but healthy green lawn led into a nap of wetlands and tall trees toward the back of the property. It was all pure suburbia and well kept.

  “So, that’s the girl you were telling me about before?” Garrett asked his friend. They continued to stand instead of sitting.

  “Yeah,” Bryant answered. He grinned and sipped from his drink, expecting to hear Garrett’s raw opinions of her. He had told his friend all about the West Baltimore girl who had given him a night to remember before avoiding him for months. Now he had her up in his parent’s house and eating food at their table.

  Garrett nodded and said, “Man, she looks sexy. She got that little feisty look.”

  Bryant frowned at him. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, she got a lot of appeal in the sex department. And I could see how she could put it on you in the bedroom,” Garrett explained. “You can read it in her eyes. But I wouldn’t get too serious about her though. I would just keep her like, my chick on the side.”