Page 45 of Pride and Protest
“I may have scanned past your station. I forget.” He was teasing her... and she liked it.What is this?“So it’s a date, then?” he asked. His voice cracked in the middle of his question.
The word seemed to snap Liza out of a haze.Remember how he treated WIC.That’swho he really is.Liza crossed her arms. “It’s a class.”
They emerged from the hallway with everyone watching Janae and David’s chemistry, and no one had even noticed they were gone—except for Chicho, who looked between them with a raised brow.
“The decorations,” Liza announced.
“Oh.” Granny clapped whimsically. Dorsey’s face had such a disapproving look on it that Granny eyed him nervously. “You didn’t eat your oxtail, D,” she said.
“Oh no, I wasn’t really hungry, and just Dorsey is fine.”
Liza grimaced. In her family, nicknames were a thing bestowed on you by impressed, mean, or nostalgic adults. It was not a negotiation of identity. You were “Hambone” or “Jughead” whether you liked it or not. And passing upanygrandmother’s food was just signing a death certificate.Just eat the damn oxtail.
“How about Mr. Fitzgerald, then?” Granny said. “I wouldn’t want to get too familiar.”
“If that makes you more comfortable,” he replied. All Liza heard were the church bells tolling for the immediate death of Granny’s regard for him. Why did Liza want to throw the cooling plate of oxtails at his head?
Liza pulled homemade decorations out of the box, and Granny slowly shifted her attention. All of Liza’s, Maurice’s,Janae’s, and LeDeya’s childhood ornaments and Christmas notes came pouring out of the box. Dorsey stood apart from everyone, sometimes pacing, sometimes looking at the door.
Liza took great pains to ignore him. One long look would have her family on high alert. She picked up the delicate ornaments and threw them haphazardly on the tree. Dorsey seemed to curl into himself, overfocusing on tiny tasks like tinsel placement and ornament distribution instead of talking to people. She went behind him and repositioned every perfectly placed ornament he had put on.
“That’s not evenly distributed,” Dorsey complained.
“Neither is wealth,” Liza quipped. “I’m putting the ornaments on the side of the tree that people actually see.”
“Yes, the Instagrammable shot,” Dorsey shot back.
Another knock on the door had all the women in the house rolling their eyes.
“Are you guys expecting someone else?” David asked.
Liza sucked her teeth. “Yes... yes, we are.”
“Colin!” Bev’s high-pitched false enthusiasm nearly shattered the glasses.
Dorsey’s face was a mask of confusion, so much so that Liza rushed to explain.
“He’s my play cousin,” Liza said.
His eyes widened. “What the hell is a play cousin?”
“A family friend you grew up with that’s not related but feels related,” LeDeya said and stepped between Dorsey and Liza toward the foyer to give Colin a decidedly fake hug.
“So, why not just say friend of the family?” Dorsey asked, genuinely curious.
“Because this fool is no friend of mine,” Liza stage-whispered and walked to the door as well. She attempted to give him apassing church hug, but Colin pulled her in and gave her a squeeze so aggressive that Liza was short of breath. He had beefed up since his skinny days in Longbourne Gardens. He had a face cut right above generic, but his green eyes turned a bland face into a striking one, as they were set in deep contrast to the brown of his skin. He handed them all signed copies of his book.
“I wrote a personal note in there for all of you,” Colin said. “Oh, Liza, you ladies are somehow more lovely than those Instagram pics.” He let Liza go and let his round eyes settle on Janae.
Bev walked hastily to David and introduced him to Colin. “This is David, Janae’s man.”
Colin’s face fell visibly as he gave David a limp handshake. He then turned to Dorsey, and his face lit up again.
“Wait, are you... is this who I think it is?” He stopped to do a quick Google search. “Dorsey Fitzgerald, as I live and breathe. Net worth seven billion, sitting on a peeling leather couch in the hood?” He blinked and laughed. Liza cringed with secondhand embarrassment. The tone and tenor of Colin’s voice immediately changed. Liza recognized it as the same voice her granny used when she interacted with white people. He pronounced hisRs and kept his vowels flat. He stepped across the room, nearly knocking Bev over to shake Dorsey’s hand. He pumped furiously, but Dorsey couldn’t even be bothered to turn his body in the poor man’s direction.
“What an amazing coincidence! Do you know who I just recently sat down with?”
Dorsey said nothing.
