A Family Reunion (7 page)

Alexia then curved her mouth into an even bigger smile when she thought about her cousins, especially three in particular, Taye, Rae’jean, and Michael. Bless Michael’s heart, when she, Rae’jean, and Taye had gotten to be teenagers who could get into even more trouble than they could manage as youngsters, their grandparents had assigned Michael to be their watchdog and protector. Wherever they went, he would have to go to keep them out of trouble, which wasn’t an easy thing to do.

She, Taye, and Rae’jean had called themselves the three musketeers. All for one and one for all. She grinned softly to herself when she remembered some of their escapades, like the time Michael had caught the three of them smoking a pack of Uncle Victor’s cigarettes under the house and how they’d sworn him to secrecy.

After a while indulging in more of her childhood memories, which she found herself laughing at out loud, Alexia rose from the tub and dried off her body. She would be retiring for bed early so that she could be on time for the practice session at the studio at the crack of dawn.

“Just where the hell is Raisa? She knew we were supposed to be here at five this morning to get started.”

Alexia shook her head as she watched Chloe angrily pace the confines of the room they used for practice sessions. “Chill, Chloe; she’s probably just running late.”

“Or she’s somewhere in bed with Myron. I still can’t believe she would do something like that.”

Alexia decided not to say anything. It was obvious that Chloe was all keyed up and just itching for a fight. Alexia didn’t want to be around when Raisa did show up. To be quite honest, it would be in Raisa’s best interests if she didn’t show.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about before Raisa gets here anyway,” Alexia found herself saying to Chloe moments later.

“What?”

“There’s going to be a conflict with me and that D.C. concert. Is there any way we can get out of it before the plans are finalized? My family is having a family reunion that same weekend.”

Chloe nodded her head. “I don’t see why we couldn’t get out of it, since it’s still a ‘maybe.’ I don’t have a problem with it, but I’m sure Raisa will since the whole thing was her idea in the first place. She graduated from Howard and likes going back there to show off.”

They both nodded their heads as they remembered their last concert in D.C. and the mess Raisa had made of things. She had tried letting half of the student body at Howard into the concert for free, which didn’t sit well with the promoters.

“Besides,” Chloe was saying, “I’ll probably be out of the picture by then.”

A sudden lump formed in Alexia’s throat. “Out of the picture? What do you mean?”

Chloe met her gaze with sad eyes. “I may as well let you know that I found out yesterday that I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant? From Myron?”

“Yes, who else other than that jerk?” Chloe said through clenched teeth. “Isn’t it a flip that I’m pregnant and the father of my child is now having an affair with Raisa?”

Alexia couldn’t help but nod. It was more than a flip. In her opinion, it was downright disgraceful. “What do you plan to do?”

“Leave the group, since I have no intentions of leaving my baby to anyone to take care of while I travel across the country doing concert tours. My child deserves more than that. And due to wise investments I’ve made, I have enough money saved to hold me over for a while.”

Alexia felt now was not the time to tell Chloe that by this time next year there may not be a Body and Soul because she had all intentions of trying to launch her career as a solo artist. “If you need anything you’ll let me know, won’t you, Chloe?”

Chloe smiled. “Yes. Just don’t say anything to anyone about this yet. I’m still trying to work out some minor details before I officially announce that I’m leaving.”

Alexia nodded. “Does Myron know about the baby?”

“No, and he’s the last person I want to tell right now.”

The soft chime of the elevator let them know that someone was arriving on their floor. When it stopped, Raisa stepped out with a huge grin on her face. “Sorry I’m late, but I had some things I needed to do.”

“Like you’re the only one with things to do!” Chloe snapped.

Alexia looked up toward heaven. It was going to be one of those days again.

By the end of the day Alexia didn’t feel in the mood for anything but going home and taking something for her headache. Chloe and Raisa had bickered back and forth continuously for the balance of the day. Now with Chloe pregnant and contemplating leaving the group, this would be a good time to cut out herself. If Raisa wanted to continue Body and Soul, then it would be up to her to come up with two replacements. That would serve her right for being the cause of so many of their problems.

The phone rang just about the time Alexia was about to go into the kitchen to fix a sandwich. “Yes?”

“Alexia, this is Abbott. Are you sitting down?”

She raised a brow. “No, why?”

“I think for this you should. I just got a call from Chad Dunning. He wants to sign you on—solo.”

Hearing Abbott’s news made her shoulders shake with laughter of joy and happiness. “Oh, Abbott, that’s wonderful!”

“Yeah, I think so, too. And the deal they offered isn’t half-bad. In fact, I think you’ll be pleased. How soon can you get to my office in the morning to meet with him?”

“How soon do you want me there?”

Minutes later, after hanging up the phone with Abbott, Alexia knew at least one of her dreams had come true. Now it was time to seriously think about doing something about the other one.

Her dream to have a baby.

Her marriage to Richmond Fulton never had a chance. He had been controlling and manipulative from the start, which was one of the reasons she would never let herself get involved in a serious relationship again, especially with a man who liked calling the shots. He’d gone so far as to tell her how she should look and act in public. He’d even wanted to send her to a speech therapist to try to get rid of her southern accent. The pain of the breakup wasn’t worth it. She did want a child, always had from day one, but Richmond had staunchly refused to let her do anything that would ruin her figure or require time away from her tours.

Now that she’d turned thirty she could hear her biological clock ticking. More than anything she wanted to have a baby by the time she turned thirty-two, and since she had no intentions of ever marrying again, that meant, like her singing career, she planned to go solo. She had no qualms about being a single mother.

She had ruled out artificial insemination since the process was so clinical, so technical, undependable, and, therefore, totally unacceptable to her. She wanted to experience a man making love to her, planting his seed inside her body, and then watch for nine months as that seed blossomed into a life, a life she would bring into the world.

Lately she’d tried not to think about her burning desire to have a child, but now, after learning about Chloe’s pregnancy and with the news of a solo career, she believed it was there within her reach and the time was right to act on it.

The only thing missing was the man who would go along with getting her pregnant and who would agree to relinquish all ties to the child afterward. She had all these grandiose ideas of finding the ideal man to get her pregnant. There were certain criteria he would have to meet. She wouldn’t let just any man place a baby within her body. He would have to be someone she considered the perfect specimen of a man to father her child.

She knew finding such a man wouldn’t be easy, but she was determined to do so.

Taye stood in the middle of her room at the hotel where the Bennett family had decided to stay for their family reunion weekend. She appreciated the fact that her brother Bryan had graciously offered to pay for her and the girls’ hotel stay. She stared at the king-size bed they would be using for the next four nights. Monica was a wild sleeper who didn’t know the meaning of staying on her side of the bed. She had a tendency of wanting to sleep all up under you.

Taye’s mind wandered when she remembered that Monica’s father had pretty much slept the same way, barely giving her breathing room. Even now she wondered what excuse Lynell Joyner had given his wife those two or three times he had spent the night over at her place. Chances were Mrs. Joyner probably thought he was out of town on a business trip for the fire department or something.

Taye balled her hands into fists at her sides. Lies, lies, lies. Everything Lynell had told her and everything he’d been about ten years ago had been lies. Even now the thought of it still hurt. He had been a man living a double life, one that included a wife and the other that included a girlfriend who actually thought he hung the moon. But like she’d tried explaining to Sharon, she had not been the only injured party. His wife, whom he’d neglected to tell her about, unknowingly had been injured just as much. In a way, even more so, because she was possibly still in the dark regarding her husband’s past and current backstreet activities.

“Boy, what a big bed!”

Taye turned around at the sound of Monica’s voice. She and Sebrina had just come inside the hotel room from out in the hallway where they’d been chatting with their cousin Victoria. Victoria was the daughter of Taye’s first cousin, Victor Junior. Taye couldn’t help but see the sparkle of mischief in Monica’s eyes. “Don’t get any ideas, young lady,” she said, smiling at her younger daughter. “I don’t care how inviting that bed looks; it is not a trampoline.”

She couldn’t help but recall a time when at the age of nine she, Rae’jean, and Alexia had accompanied Gramma Idella on a train ride up north to see her brother Aaron. Halfway there they had spent the night in some hotel that had a bed just as big as this one, although not as fancy. As soon as Gramma Idella had left them alone to go into the bathroom to take a bath, Taye, Rae’jean, and Alexia had attacked the bed for the fun they knew they would have jumping all over it. What they hadn’t counted on was Alexia falling off the bed and hitting her head on the metal frame. Blood had begun gushing everywhere and Taye and Rae’jean began screaming, thinking their cousin was surely dying.

Gramma Idella had come rushing out of the bathroom and had immediately taken in the scene before her. Without panicking she’d quickly walked around the hotel room, looking up in every nook and cranny until she found what she’d been looking for—spiderwebs. They watched in absolute horror as Gramma Idella gathered as much spiderweb as she could get, then proceeded to place the webs over the wound on Alexia’s head. Miraculously, the bleeding stopped.

Taye shook her head, smiling. That was just one recollection of the miracles of life her grandmother had seemingly been able to perform. While growing up she couldn’t ever recall going to the doctor for any of her childhood scrapes. Gramma Idella seemed to know what to do in every situation, even the time Taye had gotten a huge splinter in her backside from sliding across their wooden porch one summer. Instead of taking her to the hospital so a doctor could get it out, Gramma Idella had taped a piece of thick bacon over the area, and by the next morning the splinter had worked its way out of Taye’s butt.

“Mom, can we go and sit by the pool with Victoria later today?”

Taye glanced around at her two daughters. Already signs of excitement shone in their eyes. She wanted their first family reunion to be a fun one for them while they spent time with relatives they knew as well as getting to know those they had never seen or met before. “Yeah, maybe later, but first we need to unpack and then go find Cousin Agnes to see if she needs help putting those family reunion souvenir bags together.”

She watched how her girls went about working together to get the luggage unpacked. Although Sebrina and Monica were separated in age by three years, they’d always had a close relationship and gotten along well together. Monica thought the world of her older sister, and Taye knew she had missed Sebrina last month when she went to visit her father and grandparents like she did at the beginning of every summer. Taye was grateful that her brother Darryl had invited Monica to come spend some time with him and his family in Texas before school started in August.

“Mom, do you actually think your cousin Alexia is coming?”

Raising her head from putting away some of their things in the dresser drawer, Taye couldn’t help but smile at Sebrina’s question. When she had told Sebrina about the family reunion that was her first question. Alexia was Sebrina’s idol. Taye’s teenage daughter got a thrill knowing she was related to the world-famous singer.

“I haven’t talked to Alexia directly myself, but according to her mother, Alexia is coming. Like everyone else, she should be arriving sometime tomorrow. The reason we checked into the hotel a day early is to help Cousin Agnes get things together.”

“I’m so excited about the family reunion, Mom. I can’t wait to see and meet all the people I don’t know who are some kin to me,” Sebrina said in an energized voice. “Monica, Victoria and I are hoping there are more cousins around our ages. Wouldn’t that be just cool?”

Taye couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, sweetheart, that would be just cool.”

The afternoon and evening passed in a furor of activities. Poppa Ethan had selected the right person to head the family reunion committee, Taye thought as she watched her seventy-year-old cousin Agnes move around the hospitality room making sure everything was in order. They had stuffed close to two hundred souvenir bags that each attendee would receive as well as a T-shirt that proudly and boldly boasted the
BENNETT FAMILY REUNION
on the front and a family tree listing the names of the key persons who began the Bennett dynasty on the back.

“Do you think this many people are actually coming?” Fayrene Bennett whispered the question to Taye as they went back through the bags to make sure nothing was missing.

Taye smiled at Fayrene. “Evidently Cousin Agnes thinks so, and you know her; she has to plan accordingly.”

Taye couldn’t get over how good Fayrene looked. It seemed the older she got, the better she looked, which goes to show that some men would be dogs no matter how good a tasty bone they had at home. Fayrene, Victoria’s mother, was only two years older than Taye and had dated Victor Junior all through high school and college and had been his first wife. As far as the family was concerned, she was his only wife, since no one could stand his second wife, Evelyn. Evelyn enjoyed keeping mess going on in the family.

Besides being a pretty person on the outside, Fayrene was such a warm, loving, and caring person on the inside as well. The family simply adored her and had decided long ago that she was way too good for Victor Junior, who, like his father, just couldn’t keep his hands off other women, which was the reason Fayrene had divorced him a few years ago.

“I’m excited about everyone who’s coming; aren’t you? It will be so good seeing Rae’jean and Alexia again,” Fayrene said as her gaze swept over Taye. “You know Michael is coming, don’t you?”

Taye met her gaze. “No, I wasn’t sure if he would, although I was hoping so. It will be good seeing him again.”

“I’m sure it will be for you. I can remember how close the two of you were.”

Taye’s forced smile attempted to hide her increased pulse rate upon hearing that Michael had planned to come. “Actually, he was close to all three of us, me, Rae’jean, and Alexia.” Taye felt the need to clarify.

“Probably so. But I always thought you and he had a special bond for some reason, more so than the others.”

Taye couldn’t help but wonder if that was true, and if that had been the case, they evidently had lost it over the last fifteen years, since it had been nearly just that long since she had last seen or spoken to him. She went about the task of stuffing some items into a souvenir bag that she’d discovered was missing a few things. “Will he be bringing someone with him?” she asked, keeping her tone light.

“Other than his daughter I don’t think so. In fact, I heard Cousin Henry tell Agnes that Michael has moved closer to home. I believe he said that he recently moved to Atlanta.”

Taye’s head jerked up from bending over the souvenir bag. She sat up straight, not sure she’d heard Fayrene right. “Atlanta?” At Fayrene’s nod she asked to be certain, “Are you sure?”

“That’s what I heard his grandfather telling Agnes.” Fayrene studied Taye’s features. “Imagine the two of you actually living in the same city.”

After a long silence Taye finally said, “Yeah, imagine that.”