10
Michael pulled up to his mother's condominium complex and waved at the guard. She'd been here for three years, but every time he visited there was still a sense of pride. Michael and his two brothers had purchased the three-bedroom condo in a luxury high-rise near the ocean, and then talked their mother into leaving the home she'd shared with their dad and moving there. At one time, they thought she'd never consider leaving the Long Beach community she'd called home for three decades, that had seen various levels of gentrification over the years. “So many memories of Sam,” she'd always say. But the changing face and cultural climate of the neighborhood where the boys had grown up, combined with the panoramic ocean view that could be seen from their mother's floor-to-ceiling windows on the twentieth floor, had sealed the deal.
“Hello there, Mr. Morgan,” the guard said, handing him the required guest pass sticker to be displayed on his dashboard. “Beautiful day today, huh?”
“It sure is,” Michael replied. He gave a final wave as he went past the raised arm, then looked in his rearview mirror just as his younger brother, Troy, steered his prized possessionâa Maserati GranCabrioâinto the complex. Michael shook his head even as he waved at his brother. Everyone had told Troy he was crazy for parking a luxury car in a crime-ridden neighborhood, but the youngest Morgan loved the Leimert Park community as well as his toys. “Who are the kids going to look up to if all of us leave?” he'd challenged his brothers. Neither Michael nor Gregory had had the answer to that question, so after that they'd left him alone.
Moments later, Michael noted the smell of something amazing and the sounds of something jazzy as he knocked on his mother's door.
Gregory answered. “Hey, man.” He glanced over his shoulder and then continued in a lowered voice. “You all right?”
Michael nodded, stepping inside the room and giving his brother a shoulder bump greeting. “I'm good.”
“And your client?”
Michael's brow furrowed. Aside from a text relaying her fears that Jarrell Powell might know where he lived and what type of car he drove, he'd not heard from Shayna, nor had he been able to reach her. “She's okay, I guess.”
“Was Troy able to find out anything?”
“I don't know. We've been playing phone tag since last night.” Michael walked over to the fireplace and nodded at the image in a large picture hanging above the mantel, as if in greeting, rubbing the frame with his fingers. He continued to stare at the picture of his father, the one the sons greeted at every visit. As strange as it may seem, he gathered strength every time he was near this work of art, sensed his father's presence, heard his father's voice answering the questions in his head. But before he could get to the most important query, the one about Shayna, his mother entered the room.
“Hello, son!” Jackie Morgan came around the corner with arms outstretched. A tall, slender woman with thick black hair and smooth brown skin, she was often mistaken for a much younger lady, sometimes a decade younger than her fifty-five years. Today, her shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, her face was devoid of makeup save for a hint of gloss on her lips, and the scent of vanilla and lilacs clung to her as loosely as did the ankle-length flowery dress that draped her frame. “You look worried, son,” she said after hugging Michael and then pulling back. “Everything all right?”
“Everything's fine, Mom.”
Dang! Pull it together, Michael.
Of the three boys, Michael had always been the one who wore his emotions on his sleeve, or in today's case, on his face. Yet he was determined to keep his worries to himself. At least for now. “Something smells good. What is that . . . roast beef?”
Jackie and Gregory exchanged glances before she followed her son into the dining room. “It's rump roast, son,” she answered. “Gregory, why don't you choose a nice bottle of red, a burgundy perhaps, or a smooth cabernet? Food's almost ready. Have either of you heard from Troy?”
As if on cue, the doorbell rang.
“What's up, my peoples, my peoples!” Without a doubt the most gregarious of the three, the youngest Morgan man made an entrance of swagger and noise, walking over and giving a quick nod to Sam's portrait before exchanging fist pounds with his brothers. He then went over to Jackie and lifted her off the ground.
“Put me down, boy!” Jackie's pummeling of Troy's back was halfhearted; she squealed like a schoolgirl when he spun her around. As she landed, she turned to see Michael standing by the window, texting. His expression suggested that something was going on with him, but she was close enough with her son to know that she'd find out nothing that he didn't want to tell her. She only hoped she could lighten whatever load he carried while he was here. “Michael, I need you to set the table. Gregory,” she continued, heading to the kitchen, “let's put those surgeon skills to work and have you carve the roast. Dinner is ready.”
For the first few minutes after sitting down, the most prominent sound in the room was silverware clattering against china. “As always, this is great, Ma,” Troy said, around a forkful of roasted potatoes, carrots, and Brussels sprouts.
“Stop talking with your mouth full, boy!” Gregory admonished.
“That's right,” Jackie said. “A matter you'd get reminded of more often if you had a missus in the house, if there were any more women in this family besides me.” She pointedly looked around the table before taking a ladylike bite of beef and then patting her mouth with a napkin. “I think y'all three should have sown enough oats to feed a starving country. Now I know you don't like my meddling and I'm not. Just giving my opinion is all and, for the record, I think it's time to move on to the next phase of your lives.”
Groans. Moans. The rolling of eyes.
“And the sermon begins.” Michael speared a healthy bite of roast beef and chewed.
“There are women in the family,” Troy offered. “They're called cousins.”
Gregory wisely kept silent.
Jackie went on, totally undeterred by the lack of enthusiasm. “Michael, Mary and I had lunch the other day. She told me that her daughter is now divorced and is moving back to Los Angeles.” Mary was a former neighbor and one of Jackie's best friends.
“Hmm,” was his noncommittal answer.
“I always liked Alison, and never did think she loved that guy from college.” A beat and then, “She's always loved you, Michael. You two made such a good-looking couple. I think she married that guy simply because she couldn't have you.”
“You think so?” Michael responded, ready to take the glare of the singlehood spotlight off himself. “I always believed her eyes were really on Gregory.”
Gregory held up his hands in a sign of surrender, even though he had no intention of doing so. “Don't get me into it, big brother. You're the one who dated her for a year.”
“And then broke her heart,” Troy added, loving that it was Michael on the hot seat and not him. For a change.
“Let's not start talking about broken hearts, baby brother,” Michael warned. “Because word on the street is that”âTroy coughed loudlyâ“somebody was seen at the Ritz.” Troy coughed again and this time, added a kick under the table to Michael's shin.
“Who was at the Ritz, Michael?” Jackie asked.
“I, uh, had dinner there, Mom,” Troy replied.
“Oh, yeah?” Gregory's eyes twinkled over his glass of tea. “I thought it was breakfast.”
Troy fixed Gregory with a frown.
Michael delivered the knockout. “Perhaps it was both.”
“I don't know why you boys think you can pull one over on your mother. I might have been born at night, but it wasn't last night!” She turned to Troy. “So you took some hootchie to the Ritz-Carlton? Really, son, you must mind your reputation.”
“Mom, it wasn't like that.”
“I agree,” Gregory said, reaching for more vegetables. “She didn't look like a hootchie at all, Mom. In fact, she looked quite highbrow.”
“Do they even say âhootchie' anymore?” Michael queried. “And do you really think we'd want their company? Mom, your sons may spread their share of love around, but we do so with class.”
Jackie crossed her arms as she fixed Michael with a look. “Whether you're screwing these women in the hood or in the Hyatt, a ho is a ho.”
The response was threefold and simultaneous. “Mom!”
“That's no way to speak about another woman, Mom,” Gregory gently admonished.
“I'm not talking about them, fool. I'm talking about you!”
Everyone laughed at this before Gregory continued. “How did I get in the hot seat? We were talking about Troy. He was the one coming from the bank of elevators and across the lobby. I was there to have breakfast!”
“Troy,” Jackie said, drawing out his name. “Is what your brother saying true? Was it like that?”
“Well,” he admitted, a bit sheepishly, “not
exactly
like that.”
“How was it exactly?” Gregory asked.
Troy saw his opening and didn't hesitate. “Probably about how it was with you and the two women I saw on your arm last night!”
“Two?” Jackie exclaimed.
“Twins,” Troy added, ignoring Gregory's warning scowl.
“What, we're into threesomes now?” Jackie asked, her brow raised in mock indignation.
“Mom!” The more conservative of the three, Gregory's skin warmed at the very thought of his mother's suggestion. Not that he'd be beyond participating in such an act, but he'd surely not want to discuss it afterward with one Ms. Jackie Morgan. “It was Lori and Lisa. We met for dinner.”
“Oh, the Wilhoite children. I haven't seen those girls in ages, except for Lori in that movie they showed on TV One. Neither one of them are married yet?” Gregory shook his head. “Lori would probably be very understanding of a doctor's schedule,” Jackie went on, remembering how nice the girls always looked at Easter and Christmastime. “She's probably quite busy herself, with her own acting career and all. She was always very respectable, a debutante. We've known her family for decades. Seems to me she'd make a suitable partner.”
“Funny you should say that, Mama,” Michael teased. “Lori and the M word came up in a conversation just the other day. Didn't it, Gregory?”
“Don't start,” Gregory warned. “Or else I'll have to tell Mom about the chocolate cutie I found in your bed Friday night.”
This led to a rebuttal from Michael, laughter from Troy, clarifications from Gregoryâbasically three grown men all talking at once.
Jackie listened to the ruckus for a moment, secretly glad for the cacophony of sound that filled the home that was sometimes all too quiet. She looked at her boys-turned-men and marveled at how fast the time had gone by. She thought of her late husband and their father, Sam, and how proud he'd be of them. Insisting that they break bread together once a month was her way of maintaining the closeness they'd shared growing up and keeping the family intact. What a legacy he'd left.
One that won't continue if these boys of mine don't stop their whorish ways!
“All right, boys, that's enough. Now, listen. I know that you all are grown, and that what you do in your private lives is really none of my business. But none of us are getting any younger. Michael, soon you'll be thirty-two years old. Gregory, you're already twenty-nine, and Troy, you're just a year behind him. By the time your dad and I were your ages, our family was complete.” Her voice softened as she looked around the table. “I loved being married to your father. Being single is great, but it is nothing compared to life with the right partner beside you. You don't want to be too old to play catch with your sons or swing your daughters in the air. And once they reach high school age, you don't want their friends asking if you're the grandfather. I'm tired of being the only female in this family. It's time for some in-laws and grandchildren. So, Michael . . . you need to get on it!”
“Whoa, why me?”
“'Cause you're the oldest,” Gregory and Troy replied simultaneously.
“What about you, Mom?” Troy asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin as he leaned back in his chair. “Did you use those digits I slipped you and call Robert?”
Jackie gave Troy a playful slap on the arm. “I'm not like these forward girls these days. What would it look like for me to be calling up your superior?”
“Not superior, Ma. When his type of expertise is needed, he works for me. As I told you before, Robert retired from the police force after thirty-five years of service. He's a good man, respectable, and when I told him about you, he sounded interested.” Jackie tsked, but her eyes showed a bit of a sparkle. “You're too young to be spending so much time in this house, watching those beautiful sunsets alone.”