FanGirl Squeal (RockStars of Romance Book 1) (40 page)

Right then and there, I wished his NBA schedule had him
playing in Canada on Christmas Day so he wouldn’t be in Harlem to antagonize
me. No such luck. The first thing he said when he walked into the house was, “Did
Savannah’s white boy show up?”

Ashley and I hauled ass upstairs and haven’t been back
downstairs since.

Even though my nuclear family is relatively small and
consists only of me, Ashley, and our parents, the Ford family is huge. With
aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-grandkids, foster kids, and adopted
kids, we’re spread all over the country at least three hundred deep. Relatives
from all walks of life, from the hoods in Chicago to villas in Martinique,
diverge on Harlem every year from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve. Although I’ve
tried at least ten times, I’ve never been able to come up with an acceptable
excuse to stay in Los Angeles during the holidays. I didn’t even try this year.

However, Ashley and I have enough reasons to stay hidden
upstairs. We’re better off in here than in the kitchen with three generations
of Ford women considering that neither one of us can cook as well as our mother
would like to believe we can.

“Do you think we should answer her?” Ashley asked.

“Hell no!” I yelped while flipping through a stack of
Charlene’s old 45s from the 70s. “Do you feel like listening to Aunt Diane and
Grandma recap your pending divorce to everyone? Because, I certainly don’t feel
like hearing about Cash.”

“Speaking of Cash, has he called?”

I pulled out a Donna Summers’ 45 and looked around for the
bedroom for Aunt Charlene’s record player. It was shoved under her old twin
bed. After plugging it in, I laid back on the bed while Ashley sat
crossed-legged on the floor playing with her son.

“He sent me an email last week, but he hasn’t called,” I
told her.

“Would you talk to him if he did call?”

“Would you talk to Kevin?”

“I don’t think so,” Ashley replied. “He cheated. I’m done
with him.”

My sister’s nonchalant attitude regarding the dissolution of
her marriage was astounding in every single way. Ashley and Kevin’s marriage,
for all intents and purposes, was the bar in which all marriages in our family
were measured against, at least amongst the relatives our age. Now, all of a
sudden, it’s over and my twin sister is acting like she couldn’t care less.

I think she’s holding back her real emotions because she’s
not used to talking to me about these kinds of things. I’m pretty sure she
wouldn’t be talking to me about it at all if she wasn’t too embarrassed to talk
to her sorority sisters about it. I know that if Troy and Brandon were here, I
probably wouldn’t be talking about Cash with her so much.

Baby steps are important between me and Ash, that’s for
sure. However, there’s real solidarity there because neither one of us can
stand to deal with the scrutiny and judgment from our family.

“I think you should talk to Cash.”

“Don’t start. I’m up here with you to escape the Cash talk.”

In all actuality, I cannot talk about Cash, even if I wanted
to. I’m totally discombobulated and out of sorts when it comes to him and the
demise of our relationship.

I miss him so much.

Usually, I’d turn to my music to help me through this sister
but I can’t even listen to his music. His voice over the beautiful melodies he
creates used to wrap around me like a security blanket. Now it just makes me
cry. I don’t think I made a mistake by ending things. His lifestyle isn’t for
me. I was crazy to think that my mild mannered, esoteric, and private
personality would mesh well in his world. It’s not even about the baby...that
much. I know that he’s not sleeping with Victoria. I just don’t think I can be
with someone’s baby-daddy. But damn, I miss him.

A loud banging on the bedroom door startled us and made
Jordan cry.

“Savannah! Open this door!” our younger cousin, Kira,
yelled. “Mommy said for you and Ashley to come to the dinner table.”

“Is the food ready for real?” I called back. “Don’t lie to
me either, Kira. If I come out and there’s no food on the table, me and you are
going to fight.”

“For real,” Kira laughed. “We’re about to say grace.”

I looked at Ashley who shrugged and pulled herself up off
the floor then picked up her kid. I turned off the turntable and followed her
to the door.

Our walk to the dining room felt like walking the Green
Mile. My grandparents’ oak table seats at least fifteen and there were folding
tables set up in the living room and the family room. For grace, everyone, all
thirty-five of us at last count, were gathered around the dining room table
holding hands. Ashley and I squeezed in next to Kira and her little brother,
Zack, as my grandfather led the family in our traditional Christmas prayer.

The women had loaded the antique buffet and sideboards with
turkeys, dressing, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, collards, green beans,
hams, yams, casserole…there was enough food to feed six or seven families.

It was a traditional soul food feast. I laughed a little.
Cash and I had talked about the difference in his traditional holiday foods and
mine. He couldn’t wait to taste my grandmother’s cooking.

“Don’t load your plate with food you ain’t gon’ eat, Banana,”
my grandfather bellowed. “Everybody knows your eyes are bigger than your itty
bitty stomach.”

“Every year,” I mumbled and filled my plate anyway. I was
making a beeline for one of the folding tables when Great Grandpa James called
my name and patted the empty chair next to him.

“Sit next to me, baby girl. I want to talk to you. You too,
Ashley.”

A series of four letter words floated around in my head. Even
though I cuss like a sailor sometimes, I would never think about cussing in
front of the patriarch of the Ford family.

James Ford, born in 1925, is the healthy, vibrant, and no
nonsense head of this family. He fathered twelve children with my
great-grandmother, Mary. She passed away two years ago. The entire family
thought he’d go soon after since he loved her so much. We surely had mistaken
the eighty-six year old. He mourned his wife and dusted himself off. He was
preaching at church again within a week.

He did move back to Memphis, where the Ford lineage began.
He knows every single one of his grandkids and great-grands by name and all of
our business. I’m impressed. I don’t plan on remembering anyone when I’m eighty-eight
years old.

Mom took Jordan out of Ashley’s arms and we slowly took our
seats next to our great grandfather. I looked around the table at all of the
matching faces. I remember the first time Cassie and Joy spent Christmas Eve
with us. They were totally freaked out by the amount of twins and triplets in
our family. Seems like everyone here has a double. I’m surprised that Ashley
didn’t pop out twins. I bet I will.

“So, I haven’t been hearing very good things regarding the
both of you. What’s going on, young ladies?”

“Just life, Granddad,” Ashley answered.

“You got fired from your job. What did you do?”

I giggled to myself. Getting fired, in my grandfather’s
eyes, was serious and incomprehensible stuff. Ashley had committed a Ford
family sin by getting fired.

“I confronted one of the partners about sleeping with my
husband,” Ashley mumbled. “She didn’t like what I had to say so she fired me.”

“And just what did you say?” Granddad asked. Frown lines
wrinkled his face and he was cutting his turkey in tiny bite-sized pierces so
furiously that I thought he was going to cut right through Grandma Julia’s good
china.

“She told her that only a desperate harlot would sleep with
another woman’s husband and that black women should stick together and not
sabotage each other,” my mother shouted from across the table.

“She should have slapped the shit out of her,” Aunt Charlene
stated simply and ducked out of Grandma Julia’s slapping range.

“You had no idea that Kevin was stepping out?”

Ashley shook her head. I noticed that my sister’s jaw was
set tightly. Underneath the table, her leg was shaking. She was trying so hard
not to cry and be seen as weak, especially when she was so strong for walking
out of that house and not karate-kicking Kevin in his throat. I decided to take
the attention off of her so she wouldn’t break down. She’s been by my side
every day since I came home. It’s the least I can do.

“Enough about Ashley. This is hard for her, despite what
everyone thinks,” I spoke up. “But, I think you all should know that I’m in
love with a white boy and I think I may have just broken both of our hearts.”

“Savannah!” my mother gasped as all the color drained from
my great-grandfather’s face.

Oops. I guess he didn’t know about that part.

My grandfather jumped up and started patting his dad on the
back then handed him a glass of cool water.

I awkwardly apologized to Grandpa James and focused on my
now tasteless meal. I swirled gravy around my mashed potatoes while half of the
table just glared at me.

Honestly, I had no idea that Grandpa James didn’t know about
Cash. My eighty-eight year old great-grandfather is surprisingly tech savvy. He’s
been using the Internet since it was invented and my name has been linked with
Cash Myers online for weeks.

“Don’t pay her any attention, Papa,” my mother chimed in. “You
know how Savannah is. Our little wild child. She’s out in California
experimenting with all kinds of things. Let’s just be happy she’s dating again.
She’s just like my sister,” she added with a roll of her eyes.

“Don’t put that on me,” Aunt Charlene laughed. “I’m not a
Ford so I don’t share your same beliefs on interracial dating, but
coincidently, I’ve never dated outside my race. That’s all Savannah.”

“Your father tells me that you’re not working. What are you
doin’ way out in California if you’re not doin’ what you went out there for?” Grandpa
James asked sharply. His deep southern accent was so out of place at the table
full of New Yorkers.

I was caught completely off guard. Surely, canoodling with
the enemy was a bigger deal than not having a job. Except in the Ford family. What
you do for a living defines you. And right now, I know my great-grandfather
thinks I’m a bum.

“I’m taking a break,” I explained. “I’m a freelance
journalist so I don’t really work for anyone anyway. Maybe I’ll write a book or
start my own magazine. I don’t know yet.”

“Write a book? What kind of book?

That was the wrong thing to say. A lot of people in our
family have written great books, some are even New York Times Bestsellers. My
parents wrote a book about parenting in the African-American community that is
now part of the curriculum at Howard, Hampton, and a couple other HBCUs.

“I don’t know yet,” I shrugged.

“What’s wrong with getting a real job? You have great
credentials and a Master’s Degree in communication. You know your parents want
you back in New York. Los Angeles isn’t a place made for a girl like you. Too
much temptation out there. A girl like you needs to be around family to keep
her grounded and focused. In love with a white boy,” he scoffed and waved his
hand. “That’s that California bullshit. Get back to New York and find a real
job. You’ll meet a nice young black boy soon. You’re pretty enough.”

“Wow,” I muttered. Heat flooded my cheeks. Pretty enough?
Seriously?

“That’s awfully nice of you to acknowledge my looks,
Grandpa. But look at Ashley. She looks just like me and her good black boy didn’t
see that as a reason to stay. This family,” I shook my head and decided to
leave that statement unfinished.

The chatter amongst the eldest of our relatives died off as
eyes focused on me. My mother and father were wearing matching frowns while
Aunt Charlene just smirked. I absorbed the angry gazes of my kin without a
care.

“Finish your sentence,” my father’s sister, Maureen,
challenged me. “What about this family?”

I pushed my plate away and ignored the scornful way my mom
was shaking her head.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of each and every one of us.
I am who I am because of the strength of this family. I know our history and I’m
honored to be related to people who’ve influenced the world. But,” I paused. “We’re
not perfect. In fact, we’re far from it. How is that we can fight against the
injustice that black people face every day, but be so prejudice that we cannot
fathom the idea that love could just possibly be colorblind? It’s not a
newfound idea. It’s not living in L.A. that caused me to think like this. I’m
not with Cash anymore but my next boyfriend might be white. He might be
Hispanic or Asian or Black. I don’t know. But I’m not looking for just a good
black man. I’m looking for a good man. Period. If that’s disappointing or you
disapprove, I feel sorry for you because you’re the ones who have forgotten
what our family name stands for. You can’t keep judging an entire group of
people because some of them are bad. Isn’t that what they already do to us?

I took a deep breath and stood up. “I’ve been labeled a
gold-digger, an opportunist, a whore, ghetto, an Oreo, and a disgrace to my
race just because I made a decision to be with a man whose skin doesn’t match
mine. That’s bullshit and all of you know it.”

I stormed out of the dining room with my plate in hand and
walked up the steps back to Aunt Charlene’s room. I finished my Christmas Eve
dinner while listening to Jimi Hendrix LPs as loud as the old turntable would
go and ignoring incessant knocks on the door from my mother and father.

****

“Ashley and Savannah, where have you been!” Mom called when
we walked into the house four days after Christmas.

She and my father, along with his parents were sitting in
the living room talking about us, I’m sure.

“You answer her,” I said to my twin. “I’m tired of talking
to them.”