New Title 1 (17 page)

“
Oh my fucking god, what are they doing here?” Noelle whispered under her breath.

“
What, they didn’t tell you they were coming?” Jordin responded in the same hushed tone, keeping a smile plastered on her face.

Before Noelle could answer, Julez’s mother made her way over to the two of them, stepping past Julez who stood at the open front door.

“
Well aren’t you pretty? I don’t think I met you before.” She spoke to Jordin in a sweet voice, completely opposite of her normal demeanor. Noelle rolled her eyes subtly at what she felt was phoniness. “I’m Deborah, Julez’s mother…and you are?”

“
Jordin. Jordin Spears…Noelle’s friend. And well, thank you very much.” Jordin smiled brightly and took in Julez’s mother. She was a few shades darker than Julez and had little resemblance to him. Jordin figured he must have taken after his father. Deborah noticed Jordin’s kindred and kind spirit and smiled.

“
So sweet. You certainly don’t seem like any friend of Noelle’s.”

“
Ma,” Julez intervened. “Knock it off.”

“
So funny,” Noelle remarked sarcastically with a dry smile. “I love your bag, Deborah,” she added, complimenting the Gucci hobo.

“
Do you? Thank you, Noelle.” Deborah wasn’t expecting a compliment from Noelle, so she was shocked and a bit disappointed. She was ready to come back with a witty response to whatever slick stuff she was sure Noelle would say.

“
Julez bought me one just like it…last year,” Noelle then added. Her grin let Deborah know it was an insult, letting her know that her bag was a season behind. Julez, being a man, didn’t catch on. Jordin did.

“
Um, Mrs. Payne, how was your flight?” Jordin tried to referee, not believing how Noelle was acting. In her mind, at the end of the day Deborah was Julez’s mother, and she should respect her. But Jordin knew Noelle, and Noelle figured you gotta give respect to get it.

Deborah wrenched her scowl from Noelle and beamed at Jordin.

“
Oh please, call me Deborah! None of that Mrs. Payne stuff. I haven’t been with Julez’s punk ass father for over twenty years, so there is no ‘Mrs.’ here, honey. But the flight was okay.”

“
Flight was terrible!” Jordin looked up at the door and saw the smallest, tiniest, cutest, and most feisty old lady making her way inside with a cane and Louis Vuitton roll away luggage in her free hand. “Damn babies crying, nasty food, and the stewardess was dumb to the bone! She kept telling me the movie was something about Mary. I asked her who the hell is Mary? And she kept saying it’s just something about Mary. How the hell she don’t know the name of the movie, and what the lord child do I want to watch a movie about some lady named Mary that I don’t even know?”

Jordin held her head down and laughed and Julez chuckled.

“
Grandma, that’s the name of the movie.
‘There’s Something about Mary’
is the name of the movie.”

“
Then why didn’t she just say that!”

Julez’s grandmother, who everyone called Miss Augustine, suddenly noticed Julez trying to grab her luggage from her.

“
Boy, get yo’ hands off of me, I know how to carry a bag. Thing got wheels on it, I aint that useless.”

Julez just shook his head, throwing his hands up because his grandmother was no one to go against, and Deborah stepped up.

“
Ma, didn’t I tell you to wait in the car until Julez came to help you? And I told you to leave that bag.”

“
Child, what I need help fo’?” She exclaimed, letting go of the luggage and now resting her free hand on her bony, fragile hip and rolling her little neck. “I been getting in and out of cars for over seventy years, I don’t need nobody to show me how it’s done now.”

Deborah only huffed a response.

“
Hi Miss Augustine,” Noelle interjected, shaking her head and preparing for the antics.

“
Mmm hmm, hello. Why you aint tell my boy I called yesterday? If ya woulda told him then ya woulda known we was coming, have some food cooking or something?” She fanned her wrinkled and yet still pretty face with her hand and then ran it through her head full of perfect, honey blond curls. “Good lawd, it is hot as the devil’s breath in here! This wig liked to be the death of me.” And without further ado, she snatched the damn wig right off, revealing her gray cornrows underneath.

“
Oh lord,” Jordin whispered, not being able to contain her laughter.

“
And I’m hungry as I don’t know what, now who gonna feed me? Y'all wanna pick me up out the car, carry my bag, but nobody talking about giving me no food. I liked to drop dead from starvation while y'all tryna grab my bags!”

Jordin took that as her cue.

“
I’m on it,” she said to Noelle, making her way to the kitchen.

“
Who’s that child? Y'all done got a maid?” Miss Augustine asked.

Julez and Noelle both laughed.

“
Grandma, that’s Noelle’s friend, Jordin. She’s staying with us for a little while.” Julez closed the door and led his mother and grandmother to the couch with Noelle in tow behind.

“
Sure hope she can cook,” Miss Augustine spat under her breath.

“
Aint she pretty, ma? She reminds me of Duffy wife,” Deborah interjected. Noelle was growing irritated of the Jordin compliments and Julez was trying to ignore them. Miss Augustine huffed and started to sit slowly on the couch.

“
She a whole lot cuter than Duffy wife. Duffy wife ‘bout a lazy old hussy, with too much makeup and not enough hair.”

“
Oh ma, stop it. Duffy’s wife is nice. And Julez, help your grandmother sit down.” Julez walked toward his grandmother.

“
Nice my butt, she still bald headed as a chicken’s ass. And boy if I tell you one mo’ time to get yo’ hands off of me and let me sit, it’s gon’ be the resurrection of Christ up in here.”

“
Grandma, you shot out,” Julez chuckled, still standing by to assist if she needed it.

“
Shot out, shot out. I’ll shot you out, shot you out right in yo’ ass you don’t leave me be.”

Deborah shook her head and Noelle sighed, preparing for the madness. She needed to ask Julez ASAP how long they were staying because she knew they’d drive her crazy. Between them, Jordin and Slim, and McKenzie being there, someone was going to have to sleep on the pull-out couch. She knew Jordin would volunteer but she figured it should be them. Either that, or Julez should put them up in a hotel. She watched as Miss Augustine grabbed the remote and turned the channel to the Sunday’s Best Gospel hour on BET and began to rock back and forth. Noelle rolled her eyes in despair.
Lord, please help me.

“
Grandma, you sure about sleeping on the pull out couch? You heard Jordin at dinner, she said you could have their room.”

“
Boy, I am fine. I like sleeping down here. I get to hear everything going on, and if somebody come through that door, I can knock they head clean off.” She smirked at Julez and they shared a laugh, hers was toothless because she had taken out her dentures.

It was just them two, everyone else was upstairs, Deborah was in the shower preparing for bed. And this had given Julez and his grandmother a moment to have some one on one time, just like the old days. He was her only grandchild and she loved him dearly.

“
And you sure you don’t wanna go to a hotel?”

“
Boy, I am fine. I want to be here in my grandson’s beautiful house, finer than any hotel. Now leave me be and let those people have they bedroom,” she spoke, speaking of Jordin and Slim. Slim had come in toward the end of their dinner but had went right back out. The one good thing to Julez, seemed to be that Slim was barely there, so it was really like Jordin was the only extended house guest. Julez’s grandmother took a deep sigh and patted the bar-stool next to her.

“
Come…come have a seat with me boy.”

She seemed serious, and Julez walked over and sat next to her. He put his arm around her shoulder and rubbed her gently on her back as she closed her eyes and smiled.

“
How you feeling grandma?”

“
I’m…I’m okay. I got this old surgery I got to go to next week,” she threw in there and Julez looked at her.

“
What kinda surgery?”

“
Mm, just this little cyst the doctors say they gotta get outta me. No big deal.”

Jules furrowed his eyebrows.

“
What you mean no big deal? You need me to come to Tennessee?” He asked seriously. “I can come. Nah, you know what? I’m coming.”

Miss Augustine shook her head.

“
Boy hush, don’t nobody need you to come nowhere, I’ll be fine. Just a small procedure, nothing serious. But that aint what I want to talk to you about no way, so wrap your head around this.”

Julez nodded and felt a little better. Ever since he was young, his grandmother had a way of making him feel like certain things weren’t that important and she had a way of putting his mind at ease. She had a ‘let go and let God’ approach. It made him smile.

“
Wrap my head around what?”

His grandmother looked up into his eyes, eyes that were so much like hers and she spoke softly, bringing her hand to his cheek.

“
Listen to me Julez, I want you to take care of yourself.” Julez chuckled and grabbed her fragile hand, kissing it softly.

“
C’mon old woman, you aint gotta worry about me.” Her face remained stern when she would have normally yelled at him for calling her old. She continued.

“
Julez, you’re a good man. You’ve got a good heart and despite some of the things you may have done, the way you lived your life at one point, I know you a good person inside. I love you, always have. And that love is in you. You got that love to give baby, but let me tell you, not everyone is deserving of that love.”

Julez scratched behind his ear and smirked, knowing that neither his grandmother nor his mother cared for Noelle.

“
Grandma, Noelle is my wife. I-”

“
Boy, hush. Let me finish.” She paused and then spoke again. “All your life, you’ve been in control. People looked up to you, you always had the nicest clothes, the nicest car, lots of money, lots of women. People like to be around you because of who you are. Always was that way. But baby, that don’t mean that they love you. And it don’t mean that they gonna look out for you. Julez baby, there’s a foul feeling in this house. There are some feelings of deceit and just plain negativity. And that woman…I’m not saying she don’t love you. But that woman, she got her intentions, you hear me?”

Julez sighed and shook his head. He knew where this was going and he didn’t want to go there, although he couldn’t help but to agree with one thing that his grandmother said. He always wondered with Noelle, just like with any other woman he was ever with, if they were with him for him, or because of who he was and what he had. He felt in his heart that Noelle was different though, he knew they were in love with each other.

“
Grandma, please. I hear you, but…please.”

His grandmother clapped her hands together and then ran her fingers across her mouth.

“
Okay, okay. My lips are zipped about that. New topic.” She smiled and then looked at him with a twinkle in her eye. “Dinner was good, right?”

He nodded, still in thought from what she had said but trying to snap out of it.

“
Uh, yeah…yeah, dinner was good.”

“
And…Jordin. Jordin can really cook well. She’s such a sweet girl. Did you two know each other before you knew Noelle?”

Julez didn’t know how his grandmother did that.

“
Uh, nah. No.”

“
Boy I practically raised you. When your mother had to work her fingers to the bone with three jobs when ya daddy left, I took care of you day in and day out. It’s one thing to do it over the phone when you cover for that little simple wife of yours, but you gonna lie straight to my face? Do I got the word fool written across my forehead?”

Julez snickered before answering.

“
I met her once before.”

“
And you love her.”