Late Sunday afternoon, Robert was laying on his bed, while his brain ate itself alive with thoughts. It made him mad that he couldn’t turn them off to do his assignments. Derek’s matter of fact attitude about everything that had happened hadn’t helped at all. There was way too much weird going on. Why the hell had he kissed Carmen?
A call from Patty had given him even more to go nuts thinking about. She told him to get his dad’s and he could race John’s car. He didn’t tell Patty what his father had already said because that would make it official. He would make one more attempt because that would be better than accepting the truth.
Carmen yelled from the bottom of the stairs, “Dad’s home,” but he continued to lay on his bed until his dad’s voice thundered, “Robert!!!, dinner.”
The smell of baked chicken intensified as he approached the kitchen. He turned the corner then stopped. His mom was filling a serving bowl, Carmen and Katie were already seated at the table with his father, and the room started shrinking.
“Is the house big enough for me and Orva. Why couldn’t she smell like a boy’s locker room or have a fat ass with moon craters?”. He said to himself as he looked at Carmen trying not to notice her lips, but that had been impossible since he would felt them against his own.
“How could anything of such supposed to be gross, feel so good? Kissing her should have been like accidentally eating a dog turd. Isn’t that the way it was supposed to be with mothers and sisters? Wasn’t there some genetic law that was supposed to make them ugly? If there wasn’t, it would be torture being under the same roof with them while hormones raged”. His mind was all stuffed up.
Robert looked at Katie for a sign, but she smiled the same way she always did. “She’s too in love to care if my father is married to her mother… Why did Carmen have to say that?”.
“Hi dad,” he said, and walk towards his mom. “Finals, studying for finals is a killer.”
“Good to hear you’re studying, Keep it boy”. He said.
He ignored the threat and rubbed Orva’s back, even though he never touched her in front of his father. “Need help?”
“Thanks, Honey,” she said. “Get the biscuits out of the oven for me.”
Her smile slammed him in the face with Friday’s memories.
“Sure,” he said, and almost grabbed the biscuits without oven-mitts.
Everybody ate like the world hadn’t been tipped off its axis, but he flicked his fried okra and jabbed at his chicken quarter without intent. “How was your trip?” he asked, even though he didn’t care.
“Very productive,” his dad said, and continued carving meat off the bones of his chicken. “There’s a big production facility coming online in Atlanta, and I’ll have to be there for the start up.”
Robert nodded his head without really listening to the details. All he wanted to hear was the when of the trip. If his father was gone for a few weeks, he could prove himself as a race car driver while he was gone, then his father would have to let him continue racing. He almost got a boner thinking about it. Other than sex, there wasn’t anything that came close him. He stuffed his mouth and smiled at Katie. He wouldn’t have to endure another dream crushing blow from his father, not yet.
That night, Robert called Patty and told her to set up a meeting with John Woodring during the week. Youth was wonderful, it granted it’s members the ability to forget all their troubles as long as there was something positive to hope for, regardless of the potency for chaos and harm. He closed his physics textbook with a thud and started down stairs for a snack.
The hallway air was moist with leftover shower steam, and it smelled like Carmen’s shampoo. Her bedroom door was ajar but he didn’t look in. Katie’s door was closed and there wasn’t any light showing under it. She was asleep, like she should be, in her own bed. He swung the corner into the kitchen and caught himself using the wall. ‘I guess mom is right’. he thought, those were his hand prints.
Carmen was at the sink and hadn’t heard him. The white towel on her head made her look top heavy. Unable to resist, he approached in stealth mode and grabbed her, pressing her against the counter. “Haaaa!”
She shuddered and did a pathetic fear dance. “Damn it!” she hissed. “Damn it, Robert, you jackass.”
“You’re lucky,” he said. She smelled fresh like a field of flowers.
“Lucky??,” she said, “lucky you scared the hell out of me?”
“No, lucky I didn’t yank your towel off like I used to do.”
“That would have been better than giving me a heart attack.”
“So???, you’d rather I see you naked than scare you?”
“I didn’t say that. I was talking about the towel on my head,” she said. “You’re the pervert who wants to see me naked.”
How had she suddenly flipped it to make him the bad guy? “It might teach you a lesson,” he said.
Carmen stared awkwardly at him, then finally said, “If you didn’t have a dirty mind, it wouldn’t matter what I wore around here!”
Was she right or was he still feeling the effects of that kiss? He changed the subject, “Hey, Brainiac, I need your help studying for my finals not everything though.”
“I’m not as smart as you think I am,” Carmen said.
“You get straight A’s.”
“That’s because I pay attention, instead of fantasizing about having sex with my teacher.” She flashed her all knowing smirk.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said,
“but I still need your help.”
“I’m sure we can work something out,” she said, and walked away.
He watched her hips swing side to side.
“Was she trying to look seductive? No, not Carmen, it had to be me, I was the one who sniffed her underwear. That had to stop”. He thought.
***
Orva laid on her bed watching Kebbi through the partially open bathroom door. He was naked, brushing his teeth. His muscled, six-four body was still intimidating after all these years. She had known him most of her life. At twelve, she became the babysitter. Robert and Carmen were babies then, but now, Carmen looked so much like her mother; Rita that it was scary, and Robert wasn’t her Little-man anymore.
Rita was younger than Kebbi, and the most beautiful woman Orva had ever known. She was wise and easy to talk to, so Orva told her all the things she couldn’t talk to her parents about. Other than herself and the father, only her sister, Tia and Rita knew who Katie’s father was. She loved Rita like a big sister, the same way she loved Tia, before things went wrong.
She was a teenager when Katie was born. Her parents, Duplessis and her brother, Larry insisted she do the right thing, but she refused to give Katie up for adoption like Cecilia had done with her baby. She still wondered what became of that beautiful, redheaded baby girl.
The teenager Orva had been, with all the fantasies, hopes and dreams, was gone. She was Mommy to Katie, and Rita became her mentor, and the one to suggest she move in and become their full time nanny.
Maybe she flirted, but Kebbi should have discouraged her, not taken advantage of her curious nature. One night, while Rita was home, Kebbi came into her room, the very room Katie now called her own, and he fucked her. That’s how she saw it now, even though Kebbi’s giant arms used to give her comfort, courage and confidence, now she said, “He fucked her.”
When Rita was killed in a car accident, Kebbi was a single father, she was a teenage drop-out with a baby, living in his house. He told her people and laid it out like a business deal, she should marry him or move out. Now, he owned her.
Kebbi came out of the bathroom and approached the bed. She had stopped taking the pill six months ago, hoping if they had a child of their own, he would love her the way he used to. He didn’t want anymore kids. He said three was enough. That was easy for him to say, he had his two kids, his business and his friends. But she had only Katie.
Kebbi climbed on the bed and the mountain of a man, who had made her feel alive as a girl, covered her like dirt on her coffin.
“Why now, after six months, why now?”.