“Itching? Why do you say that?” Instinctively, Zena turned and looked out at the street with her mother.
“I had a little visitor a few minutes ago,” Lisa answered mysteriously as she backed up from the door to let Zena into the house.
“Zola? So she told you?” Zena charged, ready to argue her points against everything she’d come to her mother’s house to discuss. Beginning her plea, she led her mother into the kitchen beside the front door, where most discussions occurred.
“No. Not Zola.” Lisa laughed in a way that left a clue for Zena.
“Who?”
“You know.” Lisa took a seat at the kitchen table beside Zena and put out her cigarette. While she’d stood firm in most of her fights with Zena about her smoking, reminding her firstborn that she was grown and Zena could not control smoking or anything else about her, she seemed like she was in no mood to have that fight again.
“Who was it, Mommy?” Zena pushed, though it was clear she’d read right into the clue.
“You know,” Lisa repeated more firmly and enticingly.
Zena rushed to the bay window above the kitchen table and peered through the half-open blinds, careful not to reveal her position. “What? Why was he here? When was he here?” she asked, struggling to look up the street as if she could actually see anything five houses down where Roy Douglass, Adan and Alton’s father, now lived alone after Mrs. Pam had died of breast cancer New Years Day.
“The usual,” Lisa said. “Pretending he was here to check on me, but really trying to get news about you. You know these Southern men—so charming and a little manipulative.” Lisa laughed. “He looked good. I don’t see how you missed him. I swear he left just a few minutes before I saw you pull into the driveway.”
Some tall teenage boy came into view, walking in the street in front of the house, and Zena thought for a second maybe it was Adan, so she jumped back, afraid her cover was blown, but then the baggy pants and basketball jersey proved otherwise.
“Asked about me? You didn’t tell him anything. Right?” Zena looked back at Lisa.
“Don’t start worrying. Lord! I told him the usual—I don’t know anything. You don’t tell me anything. Wasn’t hard to say since it’s the truth.” Lisa’s gaze cut to Zena.
“Mommy, don’t go there.” Zena plopped back into her seat like a teenager. She felt exhausted by everything—her mother’s comment, Zola and the wedding, the idea of Adan lurking outside. What did he want anyway? Why was he always visiting her mother? She looked back at the window. She didn’t feel like herself. She knew she didn’t look like herself. She remembered being in the courtroom just twenty-four hours earlier. She was winning. She was what she wanted to be. Who she wanted to be. But now she was back at home in that little house and arguing with her mother.
“Don’t go where? Ain’t nowhere for me to go. I’m just an aging old lady, sitting at home and minding my business. You and your little teenage love are the ones who came knocking on my door,” Lisa retorted.
“Fine. I didn’t come here to talk about that man anyway,” Zena said snidely. “I don’t care what he wants or why he was here.”
“You sure don’t sound like it. I thought you’d be over Adan by now, but I guess I also know that’s impossible.” Lisa grinned.
“First, we broke up in freaking college and I’m completely over him. Second, you know I’ve asked you not to say his name.”
“Adan!” Lisa slapped her own lips playfully to punish herself for the intentional slip.
Zena ignored her comical routine and went on with her list: “And third, I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! And finally, like I said, that’s not why I came here to talk to you.”
“Well then why did you come to bless me with your presence, Ms. Zena Nefertiti Shaw?” Lisa joked.
“It’s Zola. Did she tell you what she’s planning to do?”
“What—you mean the wedding?”
“Yes. About eloping. So, she did tell you? You told her she couldn’t do it, right?”
“No. Why would I do that?” Lisa asked.
“Because, it’s crazy.” Zena stared at her mother. Behind Lisa on the wall was a framed print of one of her many Gordon Parks pictures that were in the center of most walls throughout the house. This one was of a black girl standing before a whites-only water fountain. All through Zena’s childhood, the picture inspired her to become a lawyer and fight injustices. “And because she’s supposed to be studying for the Bar, so she can be an attorney,” Zena went on. “And because you’re her mother and you should be at her wedding.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that. She can do whatever she wants to do. She’s twenty-five. I keep telling ya’ll that. I’ve lived my life. You can’t live for me. Got to live for yourself,” Lisa said with too much Zen.
“That’s ridiculous. Who doesn’t want to see their daughter get married?”
“Who said anything about not wanting to see it? All I’m saying is that Zola is young and she’s a free spirit. You know that,” Lisa said. “I want her to have whatever she wants. Besides, I get it. I’m single and I don’t have the best track record with marriage. Your father is up in New York doing God knows what, and then with Pam just passing from breast cancer four months ago, I see why Alton isn’t trying to put his father through a wedding right now. Maybe it’s best they elope. They’re happy. Let them have some fun. We can always throw them a reception later.”
“But what about her life? Her career? She could be making a huge mistake. You know the Bar Exam is in like eight weeks! She’s talking about waiting to take it next year.”