Page 57 of Happy Is On Hiatus
“Get the extra folding chairs from the basement, and then start lining the table with that paper over there,” Rita told her.
“Y’all gettin’ along better?” Jemel asked when Taryn left the room.
“Yeah.” Rita was happy to report that news. It’d only been a couple of days since they’d had dinner, but she’d spoken to both her girls on the phone during that time. “We’ve been good since we got everything out in the open the other day. Necole even surprised me by stopping by last night, just to chill, she said.” Rita smiled at the memory.
“They think you’re going to be lonely,” Jemel said.
“Probably.” Rita could’ve told them all she was enjoying her alone time. “But it gave me a chance to talk to her about working on the graphic design for the event.”
“Oh, so you told them about opening the catering business too?”
“Yeah, I told them that when they were over for dinner on Wednesday. Figured since we were clearing the air, I might as well tell them that too. They’re not going to say anything to anyone else in the family, though.” Especially not Nate. While it wasn’t what Rita wanted, her daughters seemed more than a little agitated with their father at the moment. She’d decided not to advise them how to feel about him either way. They were grown enough to make their own decisions about the relationship they would have with their father from this point on.
“I still can’t believe Taryn actually pulled a gun on that poor trainer,” Jemel said. She was on the other side of the room, lining up the Sterno racks and trays.
In addition to the crabs, they would have corn on the cob, the country smoked sausage Rita had brought over, and the pasta salad that Aunt Ceil was in the kitchen making now.
“Girl, I can’t wait till I see Tariq so I can let him know how I feel about him arming my children.” Rita was still hot about that. But Tariq and their other cousins wouldn’t be at the house today. When her mother called this morning, she’d said “my girls” only, and that meant Rita, Jemel, Sharae, Taryn, and Necole. Every now and then the Aunts loved to sit in a room and marvel at how the generations of Johnson women continued. Of course, her father would be here, but he was used to being surrounded by the women.
Aunt Rose came into the dining room then. “Y’all in here chitchatting. There’s stuff in the kitchen that needs to be brought out.”
“I’ll get it,” Rita said, grinning behind her aunt’s back as Jemel scowled.
“Don’t put too much water in those pans, Jemel. It’ll spill over when we put the top tray inside,” Aunt Rose scolded, and Jemel rolled her eyes at Rita.
Laughing, Rita went into the kitchen and transferred the corn from the huge pot on the stove to an aluminum tray. After she reached into the refrigerator to grab the butter dish, she turned to see her mother sprinkling Old Bay over the corn in the tray. When Rita had put the corn into the pot, she’d seasoned the water with Old Bay and butter, but Vi always had to do things her way too. The Aunts always wanted things their way, even though they’d brag about how well they’d taught their girls everything they knew. It appeared they just didn’t all the way trust their girls to do it. The thought made Rita smile because it was something that would never change. And to be honest, if it did, she’d think one of the Aunts was terminally ill because that was probably the only thing that would stop them from being who they were.
Sharae and Necole came in just as they were sitting down to eat. Vi blessed the food, and Hale came up from the basement carrying a bucket of hot crabs that he dumped in the center of the table. Her father had a steamer in the backyard. He’d put a canopy over it and gotten to work right after he’d come home and showered. Hale used a variety of seasonings to flavor his crabs, and he wasn’t telling anybody what those other seasonings were. “Y’all don’t like to talk about anything other than Old Bay anyway, so no need for me to give you the details,” he always joked.
But it was the truth.
Taryn didn’t like too much seasoning on her crabs, so she’d brought a bucket of water to sit beside her on the floor. She dipped her first crab inside before bringing it to the table to crack open. Necole loved hers heavily seasoned while Rita preferred to get a little food in her stomach first before feasting on the crabs. They never filled her up, so she always felt she needed a meal to go along with them. She fixed her plate, cutting a sausage and adding a piece of corn. Aunt Ceil’s pastasalad wasn’t her favorite because she used a brand of Italian dressing that Rita couldn’t stand. Plus, Rita added a little more to her pasta salad, like cubes of Genoa salami, mozzarella balls, and yellow, red, and orange peppers for even more flavor.
“You okay?” Rita asked Sharae after she’d watched her cousin take the longest time to eat just one crab.
Sharae called herself a crab aficionado and could usually eat as many as fourteen in one sitting. Especially when Tariq and Benny were there to challenge her. Today she didn’t seem at all interested in the taste or the art of cleaning a crab quickly.
She sat back and sighed heavily. “I might as well tell y’all ’cause Aunt Margaret’s probably gonna be calling to ask for money sometime today.”
Aunt Rose looked up from the other side of the table where she was busy working on her third crab. “To ask who for money?” Aunt Rose could never be considered the generous Johnson sister. She made her own money, and she kept it until she decided to give it to someone else, which wasn’t very often.
“Why does she need money?” Hale asked. “She’s been getting a healthy pension check from the steelyard since Raymond died. I know because I sat with her filling out all the paperwork.”
Rita’s father had worked at Bethlehem Steel, along with a good number of his close friends, for twenty years before he left to become a full-time pastor when Rita was ten years old.
“What’s going on?” Vi asked.
“It’s for Tariq.”
“Tariq? I’ve been calling and texting him for the last couple of days, but he’s probably ducking me.” Rita didn’t want the Aunts, or her father, for that matter, to know why she was looking for Tariq. But her daughters knew, and they wisely kept their heads down and continued eating.
Sharae shook her head. “He’s not ducking you; he got locked up.”
Everybody at the table stopped eating at that announcement.
“What?” Rita asked.
“When?” was Aunt Ceil’s follow-up.
