Chapter Seven
I thought I had put my phone on vibrate while I was in the midst of recording but of course, that didn’t happen. Because while I was recording my phone kept right on ringing, I had left it in the room with Anthony and I could tell by the annoyed expression on his face that it was getting to him.
Soon, the music stopped and he said over the speakers, “Do you want me to answer it?”
“Yes please.” I took off my headphones and made my way out of the recording booth. But even before I came into the room where he was, I could hear him stuttering with whoever he was talking to. Then I noticed the confused look in his eyes, along with how he looked so frustrated with the person on the other end that he couldn’t get out his words. “Ma’am, hold on, she’s right here.” He handed me the phone, shaking his head.
Now I was wary about even hearing who it might be on the other end. “Hello?”
“Who in the hell was that man answering your phone?”
Lord, help us all I thought when I heard that gravelly voice on the other end and now, I knew who it was. “That was Anthony,”
“Is he some man you’re fucking?” All I could do was try to stifle my laughter because I knew what she would ask me next would make the conversation go towards something even wilder than her asking me the first question. “No ma’am, he’s not some man I’m fucking.”
The look on Anthony’s face was priceless as his jaw dropped.
“I need you to come and pick me up and take me onto the store.”
“But I’m clear across town. What about your car?”
“It’s in the shop again. Now come on over because I have to grab a couple of things from the store. I’m sitting here on the porch waiting on you.” She hung up.
I let out a sigh of frustration because this is not how I wanted my day to go. I had plans on finishing up with these two songs.
“Who the heck was that?” Anthony asked in a hushed tone.
“I’m going to have to go.”
“What? But we just got started on this song, why do you have to go?”
“Because my Aunt Reva wants me to take her to the store.” I grabbed my purse.
“Why can’t she go herself?”
“Car’s in the shop.”
“Why can’t she get someone else to take her?”
“Because out of everyone in the family, I’m the only one that can tolerate her but I will be back, so we can finish up.”
“Well, since you are going to the store and you plan on coming back, do you mind if I come with you? I’ve got some stuff I’ve got to pick up for dinner tonight.”
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”
He looked a bit hurt by this statement. “Why not? I mean you are going to the store and I need to go to the store so at least I’ll be saving gas by hitching a ride with you.”
I found myself sighing because this man didn’t know what the hell he was getting himself into. “Listen there is something that you got to know if you plan on going with me to the store today.” He nodded as I grabbed my purse. “My Aunt has a tendency to be overly eccentric to the hilt. This is the part of the reason why no one in my family wants to be bothered with her. Hell, even during a family reunion no one wants to be bothered with her because she has a mouth on her that would make a sailor blush and because of the way she acts around others in public.”
“How bad could she be?”
I just blankly looked at him, letting out another deep sigh. “You really don’t even know what you are getting yourself into.”
“What? I’m just saying that I can go with you since you are going too. Come on, let’s head on over to pick her up.”
“Alright then, it’s your funeral son.”
Reva Stainwich was my dad’s only sister out of the seven siblings and what was referred to in the family as the most eccentric out of them all. Some said that she went crazy after she had married her sixth husband and some of my uncle’s said she was crazy long before she even got married to all those men. Either way, over the years, her off the wall antics made her unbearable to be around much less live with as in the case of her and my Uncle Cary.
Uncle Cary decided to let her stay with him and his wife, my Aunt Roslyn for about six months while she was getting her home renovated. Those six months were extreme torture for the two because Aunt Reva criticized everything my Aunt was doing. She always hated Aunt Roslyn from the beginning and I guess this was just way of getting back at her for all those years. If it wasn’t how she made her food, it was how she cleaned up the house, how she treated Uncle Cary, how the radio was always playing twenty four seven because both loved to listen to the oldies during the day.
One day, it all came to ahead in what was known in our family as ‘The Great Potato Salad Fiasco of 1985.’
It happened during our Fourth of July family get together and my Aunt Roslyn was famous for her potato salad. I would literally eat so much of it that I would get sick but of course, never could I get sick of potato salad. Well, on this particular July the fourth in the year nineteen hundred and eighty five, my Aunt Reva decided to try and outdo her by making her own potato salad, much to the shock of my Aunt Roslyn who had no idea that she had made her own potato salad. It seems she went over to a neighbor’s house to make it and decided to present her creation to the family.
I had to admit that when I tasted it, it was nothing like Aunt Roslyn’s as Aunt Reva added away too much onion to it, which I had never heard of anyone adding onions to potato salad before. When people kept eating more of Roslyn’s rather than touching Reva’s potato salad that was when all hell broke loose when she called poor Roslyn ever single name in the book. Told her how she caused so much friction between her and her brother over the years and it ended with Roslyn throwing Reva’s potato salad in her face. Poor Roslyn had finally had enough abuse.
My Aunt never let the incident go to rest as she always brought it up every now and then to make everyone hate on Roslyn. But that never came to be because they all knew that Reva was nothing more than a pot stirrer. After that along with some other incidents that happened in the family, no one wanted to be bothered with her unless it was a total emergency like if she was in the hospital. I was the only one who would tolerate her mess because of course, she was family and no matter how crazy or eccentric they might be, family was family nonetheless.
So now, Anthony had to bring himself into this crazy equation. Lord only knew what she would say when I pulled up to her house with him sitting in the back. “There is something else I must tell you about my Aunt,” I said when we got to the stop light.
“What’s that?”
“Well, I told you about her being eccentric and all?”
“You’ve been telling me ever since we left the studio how she is.”
“Well, there was something else I forgot to warn you about? She also makes her own clothes and they tend to be, well you’ll have to see it to believe it.” When the light turned green, I kept right on going until I made it to Stevens Way, which was her street. Now you could always tell which house was Aunt Reva because it was painted in a very bright hot pink with green shutters because she was part of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and she had been a part of it for years. Not only was her house that way but her yard had a collection of different oddities she had collected over the years like little statues from Africa. Even though her neighbors had told her about the clutter, she would out argue them up and down until they just left her alone.
“What is all that?” Anthony asked when we pulled up.
“That is my Aunt’s house.”
“No, I mean who is that coming towards the car?”
There she was in all her glory, wearing one of her latest creations, a multicolored patchwork dress of what looked like every single piece of African print that she probably had in her little studio she made her clothing from. She always wore her hair in some crazy kind of way but this time she had her braided hair pinned up in some sort of style which had no name whatsoever. Hooked on her arm was a bag that would put anyone to shame who wore it except for her, because she made it.
“That is my Aunt, now hush,” I warned him. “Hello Auntie.”
When she opened the door, she peeked in first before she got in, looking back at Anthony with those glasses with the same frames, from what my mom would tell me that she had got from a place that she had been ordering her frames from since nineteen seventy three, the year I was born. “Who are you?” she asked him.
“I’m Anthony ma’am.”
She got into the car, fixing the rearview mirror so she could keep her eye on him and of course, the entire time we were in that car, I felt nothing but sorry for him as well as for me.
“Anthony, what do you do?”
“I’m a musician, singer and songwriter ma’am?”
“Oh really, so that’s why you were with him then Melanie. Still doing those songs of yours huh?”
“Yes ma’am, I am. You know I’ve always wanted to sing, plus Anthony is helping me make a demo tape.”
“I thought when he answered the phone that you two had slept together. You ain’t sleeping with my niece are you?”
“No ma’am not yet,” he chimed in.
I thought in real dismay that only the lord knows why in the hell he had to say this. I knew it would just make it all worse.
“Why haven’t you? Is she not good enough for you? Is it because she’s black huh?”
Poor stupid fool I thought in misery but he came right back in true form. “The relationship I have with your niece ma’am is strictly that of a business nature.”
“You only answered part of my question hon, I did ask you wasn’t my niece good enough for you and was it because she’s black.”
“No ma’am, I’ve dated black women before, so she wouldn’t be the first if I was to date her but as I said, our relationship is strictly business.”
“Don’t get with that man there, he’s nothing but trouble.” She poked me in my arm with one sharp nail.
“Why do you say that?” I flinched at the poke.
“I can tell by his eyes, nothing but the devil in those eyes of his. I don’t trust him but to look at him.”
All I could do was laugh but she pinched me this time and that’s when I knew she was serious because whenever she was serious, she would pinch me. This time, I winced. Thank God, we were pulling up into the store parking lot and I found a spot right near the front because if I parked too far from the store, she would get onto me, but if I parked in the middle, she would really get onto me. I had to make sure that we had a spot right up front as if I was her getaway driver during a robbery and she had to make a mad dash from the bank.
When going out on any excursion with Aunt Reva you must understand the following…..ANYTHING CAN AND WILL HAPPEN THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO HAPPEN.
When Anthony went to pick up a basket, she asked him, “What are you doing with that basket?”
“I’m shopping too, ma’am.”
“Oh no, you will have to shop after I’m done with my shopping.”
“But I’m just picking up a few things,”
“I don’t care if you are picking out a damn plum. You are going to have to wait.” She pushed her cart away.
Looking puzzled, he turned his head to stare at me as if I were crazy or we all were.
I mouthed out, “I told you so.” As we followed in behind her, while she pushed her cart through the produce section. She looked over the fruit and called out, “Melanie, come over here and help me look over these tomatoes.” Whenever Aunt Reva was in public, she would shout out loud enough for everyone within a hundred mile radius to hear. This rule happened to apply, especially when we were in a store.
I walked over, grabbing a few I saw that looked ripe enough for her taste. “How many did you want?”
“Pick me out four while I go and get me some ginger and some sweet potatoes.”
I watched her make a mad dash towards the potatoes were she literally pushed some poor lady to the side.
“Is she always like this?” Anthony asked me while opening up a bag for me to put the tomatoes in.
“Oh, we’ve only just begun. Hell, we are just in the produce section. We haven’t even gotten to the other parts of the store yet.”
Anthony gave me a look.
I had to laugh because he had no idea what the hell he was in store for. I did try to tell him from the start though, so now he was doomed. “By the way, what was that crack you said about not having slept with me yet?”
I noticed that grin slowly curled along those lips of his and a mischievous glint appeared in his eyes as he moved in closer to me. “I only did that to see what you would say but you kind of left me hanging there.”
“Don’t be getting so close to her over there now,” I heard Aunt Reva shout out loud enough for everyone that was probably five aisles over could hear. She immediately made a mad dash back over to me, pulling me by the arm as we continued our excursion through the supermarket.
It wasn’t until we came around to the deli department that the show really started.