Zariah
Two weeks later…
August sweeps in, bringing with it drier heat and mounds of luggage as I help my mother settle her items in the bedroom she’s claimed since we bought our home.
“It’s my birthday weekend, baby girl,” she tells me, pulling out dresses and skirts from her rollaway.
“Move over Tina Knowles, Zamora Haskins is in town!” I rub a hand over a sequence dress with the tags still on it.
“Patience is a virtue, my dear daughter. Thanks to your father, it only took me two and a half alimony checks to purchase that dress.” She chuckles.
“Mama, where and the heck did you get this dress?”
“Just kidding, it was on the clearance rack. Saks Fifth Avenue. So yes, it was a scary price, but I clicked my heels together and scoured the store top to bottom for my birthday.”
I smile. The chat Martin and I had with her seems to have penetrated because I took a deep breath and gave her the once over when picking her up from LAX. Martin and his wife are also more available than they were in the past. And we almost have her agreement to attend counseling. Almost.
We head down stairs and outside to the outdoor kitchen where Vassili is grilling salmon and asparagus.
“Let’s go see Maxwell tonight,” my mother is all smiles as she holds Natasha on her hip.
With my mind still on Mrs. Noriega and being half a month into a rather extensive immigration process, I am confused as to why she’d like to see my father. “Mom, what exactly are you asking me?”
“Not your daddy, girl, the singer Maxwell. I got us tickets.”
“Mom, I have to work in the morning.” In actuality, I finally secured a spot on my father Maxwell’s busy schedule. The issue of Mr. Noriega still needs to be addressed.
“But you want me to be happy, don’t you?”
I groan.
“Ascension will make me happy. Bad Habits, Stop the doggone World, This Woman’s Work, hell, everything Maxwell will make me happy. And when you get home, Vassili will be willing and waiting for you to make him happy.”
“Dah, Zamora, good looking out.” Vassili grunts turning the asparagus on a Himalayan salt block.
“Yuck, mom.” I shake my head. My mom and I will never have what Taryn and Mrs. Takahashi have. So, I excuse myself. “Um, let me go see if those potatoes are soft enough to mash.”
“Girl, we’re all well aware of Maxwell’s magic.” She fans the tickets in her hands.
***
Later in the evening, while Vassili is studying his MMA textbooks and my mother spoils Natasha rotten with baby massage oil she purchased for the trip, I head upstairs and slip out my phone to call my new partner in crime.
“I expected more checking in,” Tyrese flirts. There’s mariachi music in the background, and I close my eyes considering how much I owe this man.
We’ve decided to move Felicidad and her children to a home Samuel suggested. He believes the case belongs to Tyrese for now, and I have yet to have a real conversation with my father about Mr. Noriega, but the paranoia of some imaginary entity tracking our calls causes me to forgo saying San Francisco when asking, “Humph, I believe in you. Are you almost there?”
“About an hour away. Did you finally buy your mother something for her birthday?”
I pause for a moment. The two of us have worked in tandem for almost a month in order to help secure a safe place for the Noriega family. He had insisted on facilitating their move, U-Haul and all. Although, I agreed that it would keep my family safe—namely my daughter and my husband’s frame of mind—it took serious convincing with Felicidad to allow Tyrese to make the move instead of myself. She still has a distrust of men, but seems to be warming up to him. When Tyrese took the reins on their move to San Francisco, my mentor mentioned that I needed to get ready for my mother’s birthday. Good ol’ Sammy even made impeccably good gift suggestions for my mother. I have yet to ask him why he’s still so afraid to try her Georgia Peach—just kidding, that’s some crap my mother would say.
“Yes, I bought her a gift,” I answer Tyrese.
“What did you get?”
“Let’s keep this strictly business, counsellor.”
“C’mon, this drive was… almost double the time it should’ve been, traffic.”
“Hmmm,” I note that Tyrese isn’t using time frames either. Damn, I must seek out my father soon, regardless of what’s new on his plate. “Okay, I purchased the most expensive pair of ostrich cowboy boots I could find. Although, I’m not sure what possessed my mother to ask for them.”
“You got the photo album as well, didn’t you?” He seems to smile through the receiver.
I feel uncomfortable chuckling. “Yeah, the silver one, engraved and all. I highly suspect that Sammy knows my mother more than she knows herself.”
“What’s the deal with those two?”
“Good evening, Mr. Nicks.” I hang up the phone. There will be no crossing the line because I understand there is such a thing as an emotional affair, and that is not allowed either.
Dear Lord, keep Felicidad and her family safe during this rough time….
***
“Wait a minute, wait a doggone minute, mama.” I glance my mother up and down as she saunters down the steps. I’m wearing a gold-toned, sequined body-skimming dress that loves each and every one of my curves, but my mother takes the cake! “Place your hands at your sides.”
Her head is held high. The shimmery eyeshadow brings out the hazel flecks in her orbs, so I can’t address her age in this regard. But, I’ll be damned if my mother is stepping out of my house in a skirt shorter than mine.
“What, why?” She does a 360 spin, in distressed denim jeans, a silk camisole and the boots I bought for her birthday. Lord knows she looks fit for a country concert, heck maybe even to see that Trace Adkins instead of Maxwell.
“Place your hands at your sides, mama! When I attended Pressley Preparatory Academy as an overprivileged wayward teenager, we not only outdid each other in the latest couture fashion, but we modified our checkered uniform skirts. If the tips of your fingers don’t exceed the hem of your skirt, it’s out!”
“Oh, hell, no,” she chuckles. “You have that shape. Heck, if we want to be square, give me half your booty and I’ll exchange my skirt for a pair of jeans.”
I laugh, and it takes energy for me to force her arms down at her sides. We’re almost in tears with chuckles as I get her to do what I told her to. True to form, her skirt is so short, it stops at her wrists.
“Mama! Go change, now,” I halfheartedly gesture for her to head back upstairs.
It’s a feat for Zamora to shake her head as she’s in tears from laughter.
Vassili comes to the top of the landing. My mom shouts up at him. “Look, son, she’s even more of a bully than cutie pie, or you.”
“You both look very nice,” Vassili tells her. It’s hard as hell to get him to laugh, but that sinful gaze of his is twinkling with laughter. “If any man touches either one of you inappropriately let me know, I’ll have it handled.”
“Nope, because I wanna be touched inappropriately,” My mother giggles.
“Vassili, you’ve learned well not to respond to my mom. I’m sure she’s snuck a box of wine into her bedroom. Goodnight, baby,” I blow a kiss to him.
“Oh, you think that’s enough?” Vassili’s bulky frame moves down the left side of the staircase, like a lion on the prowl. His gaze locks me down like a shiny new toy. “Zamora, please turn your head.”
His joke brings much more needed laughter to my mother. She’s such a beautiful woman when she’s happy.
My husband clutches me around the waist, his hand grabs for my ass, squeezing all the thickness.
“Will you be up when I return?” I cock a brow and lick my lips.
“If I’m not, kick me.”
Vassili is reluctant to let my hand go. I reach to my tippy toes, even in six-inch heels, and taste his lips again. “I’ll be thinking of you all night long,” I whisper, my lips a fraction of a second away from his. He has an impending match with a fellow fighter at Vadim’s Gym. He’s being trained by Nestor, and the other guy has their coach, Vadim’s attention. Needless, to say, I’ve juggled my ‘secret’ case and his dwindling time before we head to Australia. I need a resolution for Noriega first, or I may not be able to attend the fight.
On my heels, I go, turning around.
“Zar, call me when you’re on your way home,” he says.
“Okay, baby.”
“Alright you two,” My mom huffs. “Don’t make me miss the comfort of a man’s arms. Besides, this will be the best night of both your lives. I’m the one who has to return to a vibra—”
“MAMA!” I shout.
She stifles a giggle, and I swear I smell white zinfandel on her as we head out to the garage. Although I’m ecstatic about going to a Maxwell’s concert, an unsettled feeling coils around and makes itself at home in my abdomen. I attempt to tell myself that growing up in the middle of the warzone, that was my parents’ home, is what makes me so pessimistic. There’s a saying that troubles don’t last always.
Where I’m from, the opposite is true.