Mama Fee stopped her humming and posed a question.
“Dear, are you okay?”
Delgado looked at her and looked and looked and then blinked in a snap of wakefulness that was marked with one final rub by Bast on his inner legs.
“Oh!” Delgado jerked. “Oh!”
“You need anything?” Mama Fee asked, concerned.
“What?” Delgado looked around the kitchen like he was waking from the longest dream. “What?” He looked at Mama Fee.
“I was asking you a question,” she said. “You look like you dozed off. I was telling you that I didn’t think Mrs. Taylor was coming home. Maybe you should leave and come back at another time.” Mama Fee smiled.
“Yes. Maybe I should,” Delgado said, taking the sug
gestion into mind like a prescription. “I should come back.”
“You look so tired. You young people, you work so hard. Maybe you should go home and get some sleep. Let that beautiful wife of yours make you something to eat.” Mama Fee grabbed the teacup from Delgado’s side of the table. “I’ll be sure to tell Mrs. Taylor you came by. Right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Delgado was on his feet and wondering what had happened. He couldn’t recall when he drank the tea or how Mama Fee had even ended up in the chair across from him. The last he knew she was at the sink or maybe the stove. Something that felt like peppers or maybe his breakfast gone bad was boiling in his stomach.
Mama Fee got up and took his hand to lead him to the back door, talking again and thanking him for keeping her company. What a pleasant chat it was about his work with the GBI and Jamison’s case. About how Delgado had been cheating on his wife and wasn’t sure if that little boy with his name was actually his son, anyway. Mama Fee laughed. “No worries. I’m just an old woman. I won’t tell anyone your secrets.”
“I told you all of that?” Delgado said, now on the outside of the threshold, looking in with Bast at his side.
“Of course you did,” Mama Fee said. “Now you go on home. Come back soon. I’ll let Mrs. Taylor know you were here.”
“Don’t you want my card?”
“No need. I know how to contact you,” Mama Fee assured him. “I told you, I know trouble.”
Chapter 12
Before Val could pick up Kerry, she had to make a drop-off for Coreen. Though she’d already given her the first sum, Coreen quickly called back requesting more and had a higher figure and worse attitude. It seemed like since Kerry had gotten out of jail, Coreen was more demanding and daring. Her threats now included Kerry and the business and every bitter dispatch was tainted with what Val knew was jealousy for Kerry and disdain for the fact that Coreen had never been in that position in Jamison’s life. Val understood, so she took much of the fiery venom Coreen spat in her direction with the same kind of ambivalence and pacifying that Jamison had applied. She kept reminding herself that she was in control of Coreen and that at any moment, when she was ready to, she could and would handle that woman. Val was thinking that maybe Jamison’s lawyer was right and she’d just have to let Coreen do everything she was threatening to do. If she did, then she’d end up splitting what little money she had with Coreen when the old contacts and contracts at Rake it Up shriveled up with the demise of Jamison’s reputation. But Val wondered if there was another way to deal with Coreen and everything that came with her. After Coreen threatened that she’d next contact Kerry about her financial needs, Val knew she’d have to figure out something fast and final.
When Val pulled up outside of Thirjane’s house, she honked the horn and waved at little Tyrian standing in the doorway. He was holding his iPad and looking at Val’s car sitting in his grandmother’s long driveway like he wanted to run out and say something to her. When Val thought about it, she realized that she was sitting in Jamison’s old car and that Tyrian probably remembered it and was thinking of his dad.
Just then, Thirjane showed up in the doorway and pulled Tyrian away, snatching the iPad away, and saying something that didn’t look kind from Val’s perspective in the car.
“That bitch is crazy,” Val said.
Kerry showed up at the door in country-club worthy khakis and a plaid shirt with a ruffle collar. She was back to looking sophisticated and neat and the beige tote tucked beneath her arms and Dockers on her feet were the final declaration of her return.
Val spied as Kerry seemed to parade to the car like an everyday Black American Princess who’d never been arrested, locked up, and charged with anything other than a traffic ticket.
Kerry walked up to the driver’s-side window with a welcoming smile to greet Val and kissed her on the cheek before climbing into the car. It was like they were college sisters apart for years, going off on a trip where the other “sistergirls” were waiting with lemon-drop cocktails and tales of kids in private school and husbands who couldn’t get enough of them.
Driving out of the complex, Val imagined that the above-mentioned might be the case. Her past and present erased in a new reality, where something other than the current situation would cause Kerry to befriend her. Val had two parents at home just around the corner from Thirjane’s house. Their names were Milton and Marjorie Wilshire. They were retired. Aging with gray hair, but graceful, elegant. They drove an old Mercedes-Benz. Contributed to the local Negro College Fund, especially to those girls attending Spelman College, where their only daughter, Valerie Bethanny Wilshire, had graduated with honors, earning a degree in art history after pledging whatever sorority Kerry belonged to. That’s how Kerry and Valerie met. Sorortity sisters. Sorors.
“Thank you for coming to get me out of that house,” Kerry said. “My mother’s positively driving me crazy. Everything is always a problem with her and she seems even worse right now. I don’t know what it is. But Mrs. Janie Jackson is about to make me kill her.”
“Careful what you speak into existence,” Val replied. “Has she said anything to you about Jamison? About the case?”
“Not really. She’s been glued to those news stations all day and night, trying to get information about the DA. It’s like she’s addicted to every little detail about the investigation. Funny how she’s so interested now, but when I was in jail, it was like she was too busy.” Kerry’s tone dallied in disappointment.
Val pulled onto the highway, driving in the direction of Dahlonega.