Page 90 of Real's Love

He had the nerve to sound all innocent; I could just imagine the look on his handsome face. I kissed my teeth.

“I'm ready to go now. Scoop, were they almost through with our truck?" I demanded of the gentle older man who seemed to be escorting them.

"Good afternoon to you beautiful ladies. Don't think they had even pulled it into a bay, Ms. Everly," he said.

I sighed loudly. “Could you call them and?—”

"Ev, you knew it would be a minute. We might as well go to Darnita's. I could eat. Y'all could eat, right?" Emory asked, rubbing her heavy belly.

"Shiii, I could," Juvie said, even though my sister had been talking to my cousins.

"Me, too," Calanthe piped up.

Hyacinth cut her eyes at her little sister. She was definitely crushing on Juvie.

"Be a good way for y'all to get a taste of Louisiana cooking from our part of the state," Scoop told Real and his crew, like they were best friends.

Real smiled at me. "Well, I guess we can eat."

Em sniffed. I could tell that between her attitude and his arrogance, this was going to be a long night.

Darnita was a smart lady.She knew people heard “Louisiana” and “restaurant” and thought of delicacies like gumbo, jambalaya, and seafood, so she had some of that on her menu. But Scoop had been right about us getting a taste of the kind of North Louisiana cooking Love had spoiled me with. The over-sized platter of oven-fried chicken, smothered neckbones, purple hull peas, candied yams, mustard greens, and hot water cornbread had me five seconds from the -itis.

“Yo, ya girl be cooking like this, too?” Juvie asked when he finally looked up from his empty plate.

I nodded. “She cooks a lot of stuff, but yeah, she can throw down like this.”

“Shiii, I gotta get me one. Watch me work,” he mumbled, before looking down the line of tables to where the Millers sat. “Ay, yo, Pip, how you feel about having a charming younger man in yo’ life, mama?” he called.

“I feel like I don’t want to spend my coins on formula, boo,” she replied smoothly before winking at him as the tables cracked up.

He shook his head. “Beautiful but heartless.”

“Looks like you gon’ keep giving yo’ money to Darnita,” Targen fucked with him.

“Unless I asked the wrong sister. You think their grandmother taught Theory?—"

“You wanna go back there in that big ass deep fryer Darnita got, then keep playing, Juvie,” Targen threatened.

“Swear his dumb ass be having a death wish,” Markel said, shaking his head.

Juvie shrugged. “Everybody gotta go someday.”

“And you want to go out as an entree, darling?” Theory asked him.

Little soft-spoken ass was an expert ear-hustler, I guessed, grinning.

“He still might, you keep calling him pet names,” mumbled Targen.

“How you gon’ fuck me up for what she say?”

Juvie’s question was met with more laughter. We cleared out of the diner a few minutes later. The cousins were going to check on the Infiniti so they could pick up a few more things. Scoop showed us a couple of other places like Freedom Park, the town’s historic public meeting grounds, and Antioch Baptist Church, the church the newly-freed people had brought above ground shortly after they left bondage.

“What’s up with this reunion stuff?” I asked him as we walked back toward the repair shop.

“Hmm? Oh! Emancipation High is the oldest high school in town. There’s a private school, but most of us went public. Because the graduating classes were so small for the longest, we have a tradition of having multi-year reunions,” he explained. “Your lady friends are coming.”

“Yeah, we heard,” I responded sarcastically, then felt kind of bad.

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