Page 19 of Happy Is On Hiatus
TALKIN’SHIT.
“You still can’t shuffle worth a damn,” Tariq said, a frown marring his face.
One of Aunt Margaret’s—who was actually Sharae’s great-aunt—grandchildren, Tariq was five years older than Sharae and had been responsible for teaching her and Rita how to smoke when they were in high school. Tariq had been in the streets all his life, at least that’s how the Aunts put it. Meaning, whenever Sharae, Rita, and Jemel wanted to know something the Aunts had forbidden them to do or learn about, Tariq was their go-to. He was also the Spades guru of the family. Nobody ever sat down at the card table to play without going through Tariq’s crash course of Spades for Black folk, a set of rules he swore by and would freak the hell out about if others didn’t follow. Dressed in a white T-shirt and dark-blue denim shorts, he’d reluctantly removed the Miami Heat fitted hat from his head when Aunt Ceil had come into the room and given him a warning gaze, followed by, “Hats off in the house. You know better.” Tariq did know better, and Sharae had grinned before shaking her head, because as old as he was, he was still down for breaking whatever rules he possibly could.
“Man, shut up, I shuffled the cards,” replied Ivan, Tariq’s younger brother and Spades partner.
“Nah, I’m gettin’ all the same cards ’cause you didn’t shuffle good enough,” Tariq countered.
Rule one for playing Spades with Black folk—know how to shuffle so the players won’t receive the majority of their cards in the same suit. Tariq looked like he was about to flip the damn table over as he picked up each card and sorted it in his hand. Ivan, the more laid back and scholarly of the brothers, looked as unbothered as usual.
Organizing her cards by suit in her hand almost managed to relax Sharae completely. But too many things had happened this week to make that possible.
“Are y’all ’bout to be arguing all night?” Jemel asked from across the table. She’d pulled her wavy dark-brown hair back with a pink-and-white-striped satin band tonight. The band matched her tank top, and her white shorts were—as always—short, short.
“Girl, don’t start. Just bid,” Tariq replied. “I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to get this ass whuppin’ anyway.”
“Oh boy, here we go,” Sharae said. “You talkin’ shit already.”
Tariq folded his cards into one hand and slapped the palm of his empty hand to his chest. “That’s what I do, bay-bee!”
Sharae couldn’t help but laugh. Tariq was always entertaining, even when he was trying to get under somebody’s skin for whatever reason. Talkin’ shit was farther down on his list of rules, but he never forgot to bring it out in full force.
“What you got, Jem?” she asked, ignoring Tariq’s glowing glare.
“Five and a possible,” Jemel replied, eyeing her cards carefully.
Sharae followed up with, “Okay, I got six,” and set her hand of cards facedown on the table.
“You bet’ not come up short, either, after this trash-ass hand you dealt me,” Tariq told Ivan.
The second rule was to bid confidently. The last thing a teammate was going to stand for was a predicted book being set by the opposing team. Hence the warning look Tariq was now sending his brother.
As expected, and without a care in the world, Ivan gave his low bid, and Jemel grinned. “And y’all plan to win.”
When Tariq playfully pushed her shoulder hard enough that she leaned over in her chair, Sharae chuckled. “Don’t start abusing my teammate.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got something for yo’ ass, too,” he continued and pushed her in the same way he had Jemel.
Three hands later, Sharae was focused on the game. She and Jemel were up in score, but she wasn’t cocky enough to believe that meant anything. Tariq liked to play ten games before declaring an overall winner, so they still had a ways to go. There was no doubt that Tariq and Ivan were good; part of the fun was simply getting Tariq hyped up and watching how seriously he took a simple card game. Rita didn’t find that entertaining, so she’d done as she usually did during card nights—hid out in the kitchen with the Aunts.
Across the room at the second card table, Uncle Jimmy yelled “Uno!” with the exuberance of a lottery jackpot winner. Ever since she could remember, this was how card nights went down in her family—with good food and competitive playing.
That would be why the house smelled like fried lake trout. The Aunts always had fish on Fridays. Without having been in the kitchen at all tonight, Sharae already knew there’d also be homemade potato salad, fresh green beans cooked in bacon fat with chunks of bacon included (because this was Aunt Rose’s house, and that was the way she loved to cook them), and Aunt Vi’s honey cornbread. If there was one thing the Johnson family did well, it was cook, and so they made sure to do it often. Another thing some of them excelled in was cards.
With that in mind, Sharae took the last book and folded it neatly into her pile. Across the table, Jemel did a fist pump, and Tariq scowled.Shaking her head at her surly cousin, Sharae was about to join the talkin’-shit bandwagon when her phone began to vibrate. She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled it out. Jemel had her phone on the table and was constantly checking her emails and texts—something else that got Tariq into a tizzy. He didn’t like any distractions during the game, especially when his team was down by a hundred points.
Not necessarily giving a damn about Tariq’s mumbling about her paying attention to the game, Sharae frowned down at the screen when she saw the caller’s name. She definitely didn’t want to talk to him again, not now, or ever if she could help it. Huffing, she swiped her finger over the “Decline” button.
“You good?” Ivan asked.
Shaking her head, Sharae glanced at him while slipping the phone into her pocket again. “Yeah. Just somebody I’m not in the mood to talk to right now.”
“Well, that’s good, since we’re in the middle of this game,” Tariq added.
Sharae sighed and tried to pick up her hand of cards, but her fingers were shaking now, and the cards flipped right through them, tumbling faceup on the table.
“Yoooo, what you doing?” Tariq asked, obviously irritated. “We don’t need no help winning this game.”
