It's Only Love (The Matthews Family)

“I was just trying to make a good impression after Anita ran off the last one,” was Uncle Willie’s only defense.

“Y’all need to stop telling that bold-faced lie. I didn’t say anything to that girl,” Aunt Anita said.

That’s when I noticed that the fruit salad that Rhonda made wasn’t there. I looked around and I notice that Paul and Vanessa weren’t there, either.

“Paul and Vanessa didn’t make it?” I asked when we sat down to eat.

“You know those are newlyweds,” Aunt Michelle said. “My son and his lovely new bride probably stayed home to do what newlyweds do.”

“If I was a newlywed, I wouldn’t be here with you people, either,” Aunt Anita said and looked at Uncle B. “I’d be home fucking, too.” Then she winked at him.

“Keep talking, Anita,” Aunt Michelle said. “B got that look like he about to take you home.”

“How you know that ain’t what I want?” she asked, and everybody laughed. By the way, once people finished eating and began breaking up, it wasn’t too much longer after that, when Uncle B and Aunt Anita quickly disappeared.

After a while Natasha and I disappeared, too, and walked off in the direction of the beach. And that was when Natasha finally got around to asking the question I’d been waiting for her to ask since we started our dance.

“Why aren’t you seeing anybody, Victor?” she asked.

“I was.” I replied.

“What’s her name?”

“Chantel. But you already knew all that.” I smiled at her.

“What do you mean?” Natas

ha returned my smile with her patented “I’m too innocent to know what you’re talking about” look.

“I’m sure Vanessa gave you the lowdown.”

“Huh?”

“My granddaddy used to tell me, ‘if you could huh, you can hear.’” I began to gesture with my hands. “Vanessa—the two of you talked about me over lunch.”

Her “I’m too innocent” look turned to bewilderment.

“Vanessa broke her lunch date with Paul to have lunch with you. So he called me.”

“Guess I’m busted, huh?”

“I asked them about you, why shouldn’t you ask them about me? I might have been Jack the Ripper or the Boston Strangler.”

“But you’re not. Are you, Victor?”

“No. I’m not,” I said, and she smiled at me.

“No, you’re not. You’re a very nice man and a very . . .” Natasha paused, “. . . good friend.”

The friend zone.

“And you have a very nice family.”

“That bunch?”

“Yes. They remind me of my family.”

“They do?” I asked in surprise. I pictured Natasha’s family as being nothing like mine.