Insanity (13 page)

However, Queen was more cautious, waiting to see.
You heard what?
she wondered of her cousin.

“Yeah, my mom and Aunt Ju said that Queen had a new tall and handsome man over the house,” Amber filled in as Queen held her tongue. She was preparing herself for
anything
her cousin may say. Or anything that she may
do
.

Bryant laughed. “Well, that sounds like a
good
thing.”

“Oh, it is. And we’re such a close-knit family that we like to
share
handsome men around here.”

Bryant heard that and chuckled in Queen’s direction. “That’s crazy,” he muttered, somewhat at a loss for words. Even her cousin’s were outspoken. He had a feeling that her family members were liable to say anything.

Amber said, “Ain’t it. But that’s how we do around here. What’s mine is
hers
and what’s
hers
is
mine
.”

With that, Bryant began to feel uncomfortable.
Yeah, this family is a little off the wall.

He grinned and shifted uneasily in his chair.

Queen looked at her mother.
Yeah, here she goes, up to her shit again,
she mused of her vindictive older cousin.

“She don’t really mean that,” Mercille interjected with a grin. She was attempting to settle her niece down and move on from the foul sarcasm.

“Why
don’t
I mean it?” Amber asked her aunt. “Queen means what
she
does. Or is gettin’ it however you can only for the
Queen
to do, and us
peasants
don’t apply?”

Queen took a breath, wondering how she could avoid another family fall-out with her cousin.

I was hoping she wouldn’t go there today,
she thought.
But it’s best to get all of this family drama out in the open. That way I can get Bryant to understand it all instead of being shocked by it
.

Her family truths had been her reason for bringing him into the belly of the beast in the first place. She wanted nothing to shock him later on.

Finally, Queen shook her head at her cousin and said, “We were
kids
, Amber, and
kids
make mistakes.”

Amber looked disgusted with her cousin. She said, “We weren’t no damn
kids
. I was twenty-two years old! And you weren’t no
kid
either. You knew
exactly
what you were doing!”

The conversation started to heat up and get louder. Mercille moved in front of Amber to safeguard her daughter from anything physical.

“The man came on to
her
, Amber,” Mercille stated.

“Of course she would tell
you
that. What else is she gonna
say
; I wanted my cousin’s
man
? And so what if he
did
come on to her? Does that make it
right
?”

Bryant looked at Queen and was finally able to figure a few things out for himself.

Oh, this sounds like some deep shit
.
No wonder she’s tripping.

Queen read his concerned look and shook her head.

“I’ll tell you about it later,” she told him quietly.

 “I know you
will,
Amber shouted, overhearing her. “You gon’ put your little fucking
lies
on it like you
always
do.”

Queen stood up and shouted, “I was
seventeen
, Amber.”

She barely stepped out of the way as Amber tried to toss her food into her face with her left hand. The plate missed and flew over the edge of the deck, tumbling to the driveway.

“Now if you would have hit me with that shit . . .” Queen flared.

“
What
?” Amber cut her off and challenged her. She had a considerable size and weight advantage over Queen, but her younger cousin remained fearless.

Before they knew it, Kenyatta, Allison and Justina all had made their way onto the deck to stop anything from escalating.

“You know what? We can’t keep
doing this
,” Justina was the first to comment. “It’s been
years
now, Amber.”

“I don’t even
care
how long it’s been,” Amber responded. “She always thinks she can get away with shit. And my life could have been real
different
right now.”

“How, with a man who would do that to you in the first place? It takes
two
to
tango
,
Amber
,” Mercille commented forcefully.

Allison eyed her younger sister and spat, “Yeah, and your daughter was already well
experienced
at dancing, now
wasn’t
she?”

Queen grabbed Bryant by the hand and attempted to make her way back into the house, but Amber grabbed for her hair.

“Cut it out, Amber,” Kenyatta jumped in and shielded them.

Amber pushed her and yelled, “Girl, if you don’t get the hell out my way!”

That forced Justina push Amber back. “Stop it, now.”

Allison grabbed Justina. “Now wait a minute, Ju.”

Queen made use of the distraction and slipped through the back door for the kitchen with Bryant. And she kept stepping for the front door to leave.

“This is
crazy
,” she told her stunned man.

Uncle Mario looked up from the sofa where he was still watching
Dr. Dolittle.

“Where y’all going?”

“We got another cook-out to get to,” Queen answered him.

In a flash, she was out the front door and headed down the walkway toward the sidewalk.

“You better run, you little hot-ass
bitch
!” Amber screamed behind her through the house.

Queen never even looked back.

“Y’all leaving already?” Savannah asked her outside at the sidewalk.

“Yup. I’ll see you next time, cousin.”

Just like that, their Fourth of July with Queen’s family was over. They headed back down the Baltimore pavement hand-in-hand toward Bryant’s parking spot.

“I’ll explain it all once we get in the car,” Queen told him. She wanted to be clear of the area first. But when they reached the car at the second corner down the street, they had another surprise waiting for them, a parking ticket in Bryant’s windshield.

“
Shit
!” he saw it and cursed. “These money-hungry motherfuckers!”

He snatched the ticket from under his windshield wiper and read the amount.

“Fifty dollars.”

Queen grinned and said, “I told you not to park here. Oh well.”

Bryant shrugged and opened the car door with the remote key.

“All right, let’s go. I don’t have to worry about this parking shit at
my
house.”

Queen climbed in with him and thought,
Yeah . . . nor do you have to worry about this family damn drama all the time.

The Thompson Family

B
ryant drove only a block away before he wanted to know what Queen’s story was, and he had nothing else to say to her until he had heard it.

“So . . . tell me what’s going on,” he asked her solemnly from the wheel.

Queen exhaled before answering. It would be good to get it all out of the way.

“Basically, I was seventeen years old, I had just started having sex, and I ended up getting involved with my cousin’s boyfriend.”

Bryant listened to her quietly and asked her, “
How
?”

Queen grimaced at the question. “What do you mean, ‘
How
?’”

“I mean,
how
did you get involved with him? Did he come on to you or
what
? And I need to know the
truth
,” he warned her. He had a hint of anger in his tone with hard eyes on her.

Queen paused again. She said, “I was over my cousin’s house before they were ready to go out one day, and while she was upstairs getting dressed or whatever, he started talking to me about my boyfriend problems, and he slipped me his number. And at the time, I didn’t tell her about because I didn’t want to ruin her relationship, but then he asked me if I still had it when I saw him again at a family event. And since my cousin was always bragging about how good he was in bed . . . I mean, I started fantasizing about him. And . . . you know, eventually one thing led to the next.”

Bryant took it all in and said, “So, you slept your cousin’s man. That’s what she was talking all crazy about.”

Queen stopped again to read his emotions. The issue was a fork in the road that they would need to deal with.

She told him, “Basically, I just wanted to see what he was gonna say when I called him, and it ended up going the wrong way.”

“It ended up going the wrong
way
?” Bryant repeated. “But you were already having
fantasies
about him, right? How did you
expect it
to go?”

“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!