Page 10 of Leave It to Us
She swallowed. “I get that,” she told him. “But I’m really not as irresponsible as everybody seems to think I am. I do have a little bit saved up, so I should be able to scrape by until I get another job. Plus, I’d never ask you—or anybody else, for that matter—for money.” She’d work it out. Like she’d been trying to do for the past few years.
That hadn’t been the case during college or the years immediately following, when all Tami had seemed to do was make one mistake after another. She could admit that, but she had attempted to soothe the guilt for her bad decisions with the fact that she was young and just figuring out how to be an adult. That excuse could only last for so long, according to her sisters—still, neither of them had ever totally abandoned her. Sure, every time they’d come to her rescue with money for the utility or cable bill in the apartment she’d insisted she needed instead of staying on campus, or filled her refrigerator with groceries, or helped with her car payment because she also hadn’t wanted a used car that she was certain would break down on her and cause more financial woes, a lecture had followed their assistance. But neither of them had ever left her hanging; she knew without a doubt that they were there for her no matter what.
This time, though, she’d sworn she wouldn’t ask. She couldn’t—not with Yvonne shouldering all the responsibilities where their mother was concerned. Although that was and had always been Yvonne’s choice. And Tami knew that Lana was trying to have a baby, because she’d let it slip one day when the two of them had gone for coffee after a stressfulvisit with their mother. No, Tami was through running to her sisters for help, and she wasn’t going to start a new habit of leaning on her best friend instead.
Gabriel nodded and continued to chew. “First, I never thought you were irresponsible,” he said. “I’m just saying that I’m here if you need me, Tami. That’s all.”
There was something to his tone—an obvious tinge of irritation, she supposed, at what she’d said. But there was definitely something else that wasn’t usually there; she just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. And anyway, she didn’t like this conversation, so it was best she just change the subject.
“I killed that interview yesterday,” she told him. “I thought I was going to be late for it because after that meeting at the lawyer’s office, I had lunch with my sisters. But I made it back here just in time. Logged on to Zoom and proceeded to wow the two executives that interviewed me.”
“I’ve never even heard of a record label in Boston,” he replied, reaching for one of the sodas to pour into his glass. “And what position did you apply for?”
“Executive assistant,” she told him. “And it’s a relatively new label. So this is a really, really entry-level position. But at least I’ll be in the industry I’ve always wanted to be in.”
He turned to her again, this time with his head tilted. “You never told me you seriously wanted to work in the music industry.”
She began picking the pepperoni off her pizza. For some reason, it seemed too salty tonight. “Probably because when I told my family, they didn’t take it seriously. Guess I just figured you wouldn’t either.” She shrugged. “But I actually think it’s some kind of fate that I aced that interview right after being told I inherited a house from my grandmother, who’d been a famous R & B singer.”
“Wait, what?” He took a gulp from his glass and then set it down on the table. “Your grandmother was famous? Who was she?”
“You might not have heard of her, since you’re so into hip-hop you think no other type of music exists,” she said with a shake of her head. “Her name was Betty Butler. And she was amazing. If I close my eyes and let my mind wander back to my childhood and those summers spent with her, I can still hear her singing a cappella.” A shiver eased down her spine as she said those words out loud and actually heard Grandma Betty singing in her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever missed her as much as I did today, with my thoughts on the possibility of finally getting a job in music.”
“Whoa—first, I know about all types of music; my favorite is just hip-hop. But I think my mother might’ve had some Betty Butler albums in her collection. She had a deep, throaty voice like Aretha Franklin?”
It warmed her heart to know that he had heard of her grandmother. She’d always been famous and pretty spectacular in Tami’s mind, but it was cool to know that others had appreciated her talent too. “Yes! She’s been compared to Aretha a lot over the years. Of course, she hated it—said she was better than the Queen of Soul—but on odd days, she could recognize the huge compliment.”
“So she passed away? I’m sorry to hear that. When’s the funeral?”
She frowned. “They cremated her and had a memorial service quick, fast, and in a hurry. By the time we found out she was gone, it was all over. But yesterday, they read the rest of her will.”
“And you inherited her house? Damn, that’s amazing.”
“Right! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my sisters, but they’re all, ‘Let’s just hurry up and sell the place,’ and ‘I don’t wanna go to Daufuskie Island just to babysit renovations.’ I swear, they’re both pains in my ass.”
“Hold up,” he said. “You and your sisters inherited a house on Daufuskie Island, and now you have to go there to, what—make renovations on it?”
She picked up her pizza sans pepperoni. “We have to oversee the renovations and then decide whether we want to sell it.”
“And your sisters want to sell?”
She chewed and nodded. “Of course they do.”
“But you, what? You want to keep it? But you live here in the city, and you’re not working right now.”
“I know,” she said—because shedidknow. She’d been weighing the pros and cons of this in her mind just as much as she’d been celebrating her great interview and reminiscing about her grandmother. At this point, all those things seemed somehow interconnected. “But it’s our legacy,” she continued. “My grandfather’s family bought that land after Union occupation, when many of the Gullah people either worked for landowners or made a way to purchase their own. There was only one slave cabin on it at the time, and they fixed it up, painted it blue. And when my granddaddy died, he left that house to my grandmother. She built a bigger house on the property but kept the original house as a nod to the Butler-family legacy. I think she left us both houses and the surrounding property so that we can do the same thing.”
“Generational wealth,” he said with a nod of his own. “That’s what’s up.”
“Exactly! I know I don’t personally have any money to put into this project, but the lawyer said there’s an escrow account to take care of the renovations. And since I am unemployed, I don’t have anything holding me here at the moment to keep me from going down there and seeing this project through.”
Gabriel was quiet for a little longer than she expected, but then he nodded again. “Did you explain why you feel so strongly about this to your sisters? I mean, did you tell them about the connection you feel to your grandmother and her music—and subsequently, this house and all it represents for your family?”
“That sounds so much easier to do than it really is.”
A melancholy feeling draped over her as she chewed another bite and glanced over at Gabriel. He still wore the black cargo pants of his security uniform, but he’d taken off the matching shirt before he’darrived so that he now wore only a white T-shirt. The intricate snowflake tattoo that he’d gotten on his upper-right biceps in memory of his mother, who’d loved the snow, peeked out from beneath the edge of his sleeve. Tami knew that if she pushed the sleeve up higher, she’d see some of the words from his mother’s favorite scripture sketched between the lines of the drawing:Love is patient.
“You really do get me,” she said after a slightly uncomfortable swallow of her food. The words had that weird silence falling between them again as Gabriel only stared at her. “I mean, my sisters just see it as a thing to do, to get out of the way. Like, I don’t know ...” She paused and then shrugged. “Another item to check off on their to-do list.”
