Operation Get Rid of Mom's New Boyfriend (4 page)

Outside of the closed
bathroom door stood Kennedy, Daryn and Joy. The girls were huddling
as if they were planning the final play their team needed to win
the super bowl.

“
Can you believe she’s
taking a bath?” Kennedy whispered.

“
Did you say she’s taking a
bath?” Joy began her speed talking rant in a whisper. “I know you
didn’t say she was taking a bath.” She paused for a moment, sort of
puzzled before asking, “What’s wrong with her taking a
bath?”

“
Duh…since when does Mother
have time to take a bath?” Daryn decided to enlighten her in
question. “Come on, really? Like what single mom period has time to
take a bath. A bath is a luxury that only folks with lots of time
on their hands can afford. She doesn’t have time on her hands. She
has us.”

“
Oh yeah,” Joy said. “She
does always just take quick showers.” Joy backed up and began
sniffing the air. “And do you smell that?”

Kennedy began sniffing the
air as well. “Yeah, I think that’s the pizza burning.” She went to
walk away so that she could go check on the pizza.

“
No, stupid,” Joy said
softly after sniffing the air herself. “That other
smell.”

Kennedy stopped in her
tracks and once again began sniffing the air. All three girls
looked like dogs trying to sniff out a bone as they lifted their
noses and took in deep breaths.

“
Lilac,” Kennedy guessed
first. “It smells like lilac; some fancy bath crap or
something.”

“
Umph, umph, umph,
Rebecca-Joe’s big sister was right,” Daryn hated to admit. “First
she forgets that we even exist, and now she’s taking a long, hot
bath.”

“
And not just a long, hot
bath,” Kennedy added, “but one with good, fancy smelling bubble
bath.” Kennedy folded her arms and nodded. “Oh, yeah. This
definitely has something to do with a man.”

Joy stood there with an
I-told-you-so sort of look on her face.

“
Well, I’m not going to
stand out here and guess about it,” Kennedy said with authority,
shifting her weight from one leg to the other. “I’m going in
there.” She nodded toward the bathroom door and then pushed it
opened and entered. Daryn and Joy followed on her heels.

“
My goodness,” a startled
Sammi said as her daughters, one by one, came galloping through the
bathroom doorway like an army on a mission.

“
Sorry if we scared you,
Mother,” Daryn apologized.

“
That’s okay,” Sammi said
as she relaxed back down in the water and tried to get her fast
beating heart rate back to normal. She closed her eyes. Silence
filled the room as the girls each stood over the bath with arms
folded, staring down at their mother.

Slowly, Sammi opened up one
eye, noticing her daughters’ stance. She then opened the other eye.
“Uh, did you girls need something?”

Joy and Daryn looked to
Kennedy to be their mouthpiece. After all, she was the one who had
barged all up in there like Billy Bad. And secondly, it was safe to
say that since she was the biggest, she had the biggest mouth. She
might as well put it to good use and speak on their
behalf.

“
Uhh, well, uhh,” Kennedy
stammered.

Daryn sighed and uncrossed
her arms, allowing them to flop down to her side while she gave her
oldest sister a what-are-you-waiting-for look.

Joy shook her head at
Kennedy. She thought that not only was her oldest sister’s bark
worse than her bite, but Joy was starting to think that Kennedy
didn’t have any choppers at all to even bite with in the first
place.

“
Mother, we came to see if
you wanted pepperoni pizza or plain cheese pizza,” Daryn interceded
with a phony smile after realizing that the cat had the so-called
big dog’s tongue.

“
But we already cooked the
peppero-” Joy started before Daryn cut her off and Kennedy poked
her in the back. “Ouch!”

“
What’s the mat-” Sammi
started, reaching out to Joy.

“
We already put the
pepperoni one in the oven,” Daryn shot in, “but we can make the
cheese one too…if you’d like.” Daryn continued smiling. She was all
teeth.

“
Well, actually,” Sammi
said, putting both her arm and her head down. Her body then began
sinking down into the water as if she wished she could disappear
into the water altogether. Before she could submerge herself into
the lilac bubbles, she managed to ramble off the words,
“Iwon’tbehavingdinnerwithyougirls,” purposely slurring them
together.

“
Excuse me.” Kennedy put
her hand to her ear.

“
Well, uh, I said Iwon’t
behaving dinner withyougirls.” This time Sammi said it a little bit
more clearly, but by the look on her daughters’ faces, not clear
enough. She decided to repeat herself one last time. This time she
said each word clearly. “Girls, I won’t be having dinner with you
tonight. Like I said earlier, I have plans.” She couldn’t even look
her daughters in the face as she began to pretend to be concerned
with the bubbles that surrounded her.

“
Oh, but surely you’ll be
hungry after your…plans.” Daryn batted her eyes, trying to get her
mother just where she wanted her; in a position where she would be
forced to tell the truth. Not just some of the truth, but the whole
truth.

“
Well, uh, no, I don’t
think I will be,” Sammi said. “So you girls make what ever kind of
pizza you want and don’t worry about saving me any.” Sammi hoped
that would take care of the girls’ concerns. So she picked up her
sponge that was floating in the water and poured her new bath gel
onto the sponge.

“
So, you’re gonna go all
evening without eating, huh?” Kennedy said, after finally finding
her voice. She was determined to dig deeper in order to get to the
bottom of things.

“
Going to?” Sammi corrected
Kennedy’s grammar. “Going to go all evening without eating.” By
now, Sammi just wanted her daughters to scram so that she could get
washed up. “Look, girls, you all just eat dinner; enjoy your pizza,
okay?” She let out an irritated sigh. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I
need to get washed up so that I can get dressed. I don’t want to be
late for my da-” Sammi was on the edge of a cliff and felt like she
had just almost slipped and fell, plummeting into the jaws of
death. Which, in this case, would be her daughters’ accusing and
menacing interrogation. Then she suddenly caught her balance. “I
don’t want to be late for my plans.”

Tired of beating around the
bush, and not used to being a girl of few words, Kennedy boldly
spoke up. “Just what are these pl-?”

“
Out!” Sammi said sharply,
cutting Kennedy off. “Out of here…uh...while I…uh,” Sammi tried to
lower her tone and sweeten it a bit. “Get washed up…you know. Mommy
wants to be nice and clean.” She tried to smile, but the tension in
her jaws wouldn’t allow it.

The girls did not
budge.

Sammi pointed toward the
door for the girls to exit. She hadn’t meant to be so snappy, but
she knew where the girls’ interrogation was leading to, which was
nowhere she wanted to go…not yet. She quickly regained her
composure and managed to paint at least a half of a smile on her
face. “Like I said, I need to get washed up and
dressed.”

Reluctantly, arms crossed
again with tight lips and a dissatisfied look on her face, Kennedy
said, “Come on, girls. Let’s split.”

One by one, the Soul
Sisters began to exit the bathroom just as they had entered,
closing the door behind them.

“
Plans in the middle of the
week?” Kennedy spat as they stood in their mother’s bedroom. “Who
does she take us for? Marsha, Jan and Cindy Brady?”

“
Yeah, does she think we’re
three kids who don’t know what she’s up to?” Daryn
added.

After thinking about it for
a minute, Joy replied, “But that’s exactly what we are; three kids
who don’t know what she’s up to, because we couldn’t get her to
fess up about these so-called plans of hers.”

Kennedy sighed. “Yeah, I’m
afraid the little dumb one is right. We are three kids who don’t
know what our mother is up to.” Kennedy headed out of her mother’s
bedroom, feeling defeated. “Let’s go eat dinner…our burnt pizza
awaits us.”

Daryn and Joy followed
Kennedy out of the bedroom and down the stairs into the kitchen.
They sat and ate dinner in silence. This was the first time ever
that the Soul Sisters had all been in the same room and there was
complete silence. Their minds were too concerned with their mother
and her so called “plans.”

There was no arguing,
shouting or fussing. As a matter of fact, it was so quiet down in
the kitchen that they could hear their mother scooting around and
getting dressed upstairs. After a few minutes, Sammi finally made
her way down the steps and into the kitchen where they were now
cleaning up their mess from dinner. There wasn’t much of a mess
though. The pizza had only been half eaten. The girls just didn’t
have much of an appetite.

Coming down the stairs,
Sammi had been looking down at her outfit-making sure nothing was
out of place. When she landed at the bottom of the steps, she was
shocked to look up and see the girls all sitting at the
table…quietly.

“
Girls, you scared me!”
Sammi placed her hand on her chest. “It was so quiet that I thought
for sure…” her words trailed off when she saw the both
disappointing and questioning looks on her daughters’ faces. Their
eyes were like little, beady bullets, and she was the target. It
was time for her to get out of there before they started shooting
at her again. They’d already practically wounded her upstairs
during her bath.

“
Kennedy, you leave your
homework on the kitchen table and I’ll check it after I get back in
tonight,” Sammi said, walking over to her purse that sat on the
counter. “Daryn and Joy, I’ll take a look at yours in the morning.”
She began taking things out of her purse to put into the little
black clutch she was holding. The little black clutch matched the
little black dress she was wearing.

Kennedy looked her mother
up and down, admiring how sophisticated she looked. Her hair was
now, instead of sitting in a bun on top of her head, flowing
straight down her back.

“
All right, girls, I’ll see
y’all later.” Sammi closed the clutch. “Be good,” she said, as she
walked away. She then stopped in her tracks. “On second thought,
just try to keep from being in the same room at the same time, kay,
girls? All right. Nighty-night.” She then headed out of the
kitchen, the girls’ eyes burning a hole in her back.

“
I didn’t know Mommy had
legs,” Joy whispered in a surprised tone as Sammi walked out of
sight.

Sammi had always worn
pants. The only time the girls had seen their mother in a dress is
on the occasions she would wear one to church. Even then, the dress
or skirt was ankle length. “Did you know Mommy had legs?” Joy said
to neither sister in particular.

“
No, but I guess we all do
now,” Daryn said, almost disappointedly.

“
Humpf,” Kennedy huffed,
crossing her arms. “And it looks like we’re not the only ones about
to find out she has legs either.”

“
What do you mean by that?”
Daryn asked.

Kennedy sucked her teeth
and dropped her arms to her side. “To be so book smart, you sure
are naïve when it comes to things like this,” Kennedy told
Daryn.

“
Yeah, girl, can’t you
see,” Joy pointed to the door Sammi had just left out of, “Mommy’s
letting it all hang out.”

“
Yeah,” Kennedy
agreed.

“
And Rebecca-Joe said that
her big sister told her that there’s only one thing a woman is
willing to let it all hang out for.”

“
What?” Daryn
asked.

“
Let me guess,” Kennedy
said as Joy opened her mouth to answer. “A man.”

“
Right on, sista,” Joy
said, giving Kennedy a high-five, their arms stretching in front of
Daryn’s face.

Daryn angrily brushed her
sisters’ arm away. “Well, I think this Rebecca-Joe, whoever she is,
is just making up stuff to tell you. She probably doesn’t even have
a big sister,” Daryn said in denial, too afraid to face the fact
that their mother just might be out on a date with a
man.

“
Well, I think Dr. Phil
better watch out, because Rebecca Joe’s big sister might be on to
something here, and we’re going to have to get to the bottom of it
sooner or later.” Kennedy glared off and added, “And I’m going to
see to it that it’s sooner rather than later.”

Chapter Six

Girl Time

“
Miss Rachel, we had a
great time,” Joy said to their mother’s best friend as they pulled
into the driveway of their split-level home. Pink flowers that
matched the pink shutters on the soft yellow house sprouted up from
the dirt of the flower garden.

After Mr. Soul had passed
away, one morning Rachel had showed up with her answer to cure the
sad and melancholy state the family had been in for some months.
The cure came in the form of buckets of pink and yellow paint, a
ladder and paint brushes.

“
A pink and yellow house?”
Sammi had said to her best friend. “Are you kidding? People will be
able to notice our house from miles away.”