Page 69 of Summer Breakdown
Jasmine hums. “Frankie, please. I’m having a conversation.”
Frankie screws up her nose, and Jasmine thinks she’s utterly delightful.
“Lani, we need to set the table,” Cam says, then looks at her with a smile while Lani looks at the distance of the table.
Lani hums. “I could do two trips.”
Cam nods. “Okay, babygirl. What about just one, but with the bread?”
Imani asks, “You don’t need your chair today, Kehlani?”
Lani shakes her head. “Ezra always picks me up, so we left it in the car.”
“So clever. Ezra talks about you a lot.”
Lani giggles. “He does?”
“Oh, yes. We have all the rules. My hands are clean, and he said if I wore yellow, you might think I was cool, and if I watched the football, Marcel would want to chat about it, but I zoned out in the first half.”
Lani smiles, bending with the force of it. Cam holds her hand against her chest because Lani’s still sitting on the side, and she has no self-preservation skills. “I love yellow.”
Imani winks at her.
“The path looks great, son,” Daraki says. “Did you do it? Keith said he was going to drop the bricks off.”
“Yeah,” Ezra replies, as he dishes up. God, it smells good. “He did. Talked at me the entire time.”
“Did you speak back?”
Ezra grunts.
“What did you need the path for?” Lani asks.
“In case you need your chair,” Ezra replies.
Lani blinks. “Oh. Mama, we didn’t even use it! We should go get it.”
“You don’t need to get it, baby,” Jasmine replies. “It’s just in case. But it’s very kind.”
“We didn’t have to think about it,” Cam says, with a frown. “No one needed anything accessible. Now I feel gross about it. Everyone’s fixing it quickly, though, and we’re sorry.”
“Fixing what?” Jasmine asks.
“Making sure Lani can get in. The shop is fine. It has flat surfaces throughout so babygirl can come and take cookies whenever she wants,” Cam says, tapping her on the nose. Lani’s eyes light up.
“Sugar fixed the path the other day, but Frank’s lift has been broken since she moved in, and she’s spent like eight hours threatening to sue the landlord if he doesn’t fix it.”
Jasmine looks over at Frankie. The woman she’s been studiously ignoring for weeks, while she’s been trying to make sure Lani could come over.Ugh.Jasmine might really want to like her.
“My place is a nightmare for chairs, but I’m hoping to move soon, so we can’t do events there until I do. And Zach put a path to their back door this week—you’ve seen the width of their front door.”
Jasmine blinks rapidly. Yes, access is something she must think about, and for public spaces, she wishes it was thought about more. She wasn’t expecting them to all run and fix it in their homes and workplaces in case Lani wanted to go around in her chair, though. Her throat burns. She has friends.
“I could have carried her,” Marcel replies.
“Because you’re great,” Cam replies, and, true to form, Marcel blushes. “But what if babygirl wants her chair?”
“That’s very nice of you,” Jasmine replies. “I can’t believe everyone is trying to steal my children.”
