effect that followed it, was a big change. Sometimes, she even looked a little sick compared to the full, sunny face I was used to. The old Tracey, who knew how to pick the best ice cream and crush potato chips to perfection for the tops of her tuna casseroles, seemed to have sunk into the collarbones of this new person. My friend was still in this new body, but her light seemed dimmer.
Tracey ran a hand down her washboard abs, discernible even under her dress. “It’s strange for me. I can imagine it’s hard for you, too.”
I managed a one-sided smile. Hard for me? I couldn’t have her worried about me on her day. Time to stop and act grown up. I could always have a fit later. “You did good, girl. Got slim and got married.” Not that I cared about either anymore. Aside from the somewhat formidable danger of cannoli cream bursting out of my arteries, I’d live. I didn’t care beyond that.
She tilted her head again. “Yes, you do,” her eyes seemed to say.
Maybe I did. A little. Not as much as Tracey, but maybe about two clothes sizes worth. “I’ll probably rejoin Weight Watchers for the umpteenth time, if that woman’s car isn’t in the parking lot.”
Tracey shook her head. “The receptionist? I told you, she still looks at me crazy even though I’m at goal. It’s just her personality. She’s like Naomi. Just overlook her.”
Yeah right. Overlook someone staring at you and saying, “You? Again?” Easy for Tracey. Difficult for me.
Rochelle sat down across from us and slid a full cup of punch toward me—complete with napkin—but her eyes were fastened on her son, talking with a too-old girl in a too-little dress.
Tracey focused the same look on Ryan, the tallest in a circle of tuxedos a few feet away. “Weight Watchers was definitely a big part of my success. But Ryan helped, too. He loved it off me, what can I say?”
Tracey was joking, of course, but it still rubbed me wrong. I gave her my funkiest look. “No loving was allowed until tonight, so you’d better rephrase.” Immediately, I regretted my tone and my “countenance,” as Tracey would say. Being overbearing was Rochelle’s job, wasn’t it? What was wrong with me today?
The bride laughed nervously. “That’s not what I meant, silly. You know, I lost that first bit with the trainer, and then more when we rejoined Weight Watchers. By the time I got to Ryan, well, we just talked and walked and walked and talked…. Somewhere in there, I wasn’t hungry anymore.”
How convenient. “Must be nice. He should open a woman-walking service. I’d sign up. At a discount, of course.”
She laid her hand on mine. “Hush, you.”
I did hush, wishing I’d been silent all along. Ryan was part of us now. An uninvited member of the hush-you club. He was a good guy and Tracey really loved him. Why couldn’t I accept him, too? Sometimes I could be such a bum.
Rochelle’s son, Jericho, sauntered to the table, bringing the eyes of every female from seven to seventy with him. I prayed he’d sit next to his mother today. I’d pay for it later if he didn’t. It was at weddings that Rochelle felt the loss of her own love most. Sometimes I wanted to remind her that at least she’d gotten a kid out of it, that at least she had somebody, but we’d had that conversation once before. It didn’t go well.
Not missing a beat, Jericho dropped wide-legged into the seat beside me, his seventeen-year-old knees and forever legs pressing against my shorter, softer ones. He picked up the remains of my bouquet and sniffed, then dropped it again.
“I don’t know why they always throwing them flowers at you, Aunt Dana. You ain’t never getting married. Mama, neither.”
“Jericho!” Rochelle straightened in her chair. Her eyelids peeled back like only a mother’s can.
I bit back a smile. I loved that kid, but he had a habit of saying just what came to his mind.
Wonder who taught him that?
“It’s okay.” I turned toward Jericho, not quite face on, but at an angle. If I turned more, I’d laugh and he would, too. Then we’d both be in trouble. “You’re right. Marriage probably isn’t in my future.”
Why did just saying that bring me a strange comfort? A relief even? Maybe that’s why I was eating myself silly, so I wouldn’t have to deal with it at all. I took one of Jericho’s ball-palming hands into mine.
He smiled at me, ignoring his mother’s look that said he should apologize, that his comment had surely hurt me more than Tracey’s thorns. Jericho knew better. He knew, as I did, following his eyes to the pink satin behind he’d left at the punch bowl, that it was his future that concerned me, not my own. I pressed his knee with mine until his legs knocked together. He smiled once more, then tossed back a cup of punch. “Oooh. The pineapple stuff.” He squinted. “Y’all mad at each other about something?”
I kissed his fingers. Even at this age, he made me want to cry. “Something.”
He nodded. “Is it over, or do I get baklava, too?”
“It’s over.” His poor wife, I thought. He’s going to read her like a worn paperback. She’ll never see it coming.
Holding his hand, I stared up at the sky—blue, lazy and slipping on a thin coat of afternoon. The unspoiled haze reminded me of the treasure I’d lost, the gift I could never regain.
The gift only God could restore.
I smiled at the thought that God was restoring me, verse-by-verse, piece-by-piece, but oh, how it hurt. Why did rebuilding seem so much harder than building? Perhaps because now I knew it could all be knocked down again. And so easily.
A throng of girls waved in our direction. Jericho’s leg pressed against my knee. The look in his eyes as he took in each one of them iced my veins. I swallowed the rest of my punch. And my speech. He had a mother for that. Prayer was my job.
And pray I would, for Jericho and for myself. I usually skipped out on weddings long before this point and always limited myself to two cups of punch, even the nasty red kind they were serving now that Daddy’s stash was depleted. I was currently working on cup number four and the sugar was making me dizzy.
Random thoughts and pictures did enter my mind, slipping back to when Rochelle and I—well, really her, but I watched—founded the Sassy Sistahood, boasting over 2000 members, the largest group of African-American women on the Internet back then. Then one of the members befriended us in real life, met my best friend Adrian at my house and somehow convinced him to marry her. I’d dropped offline and out of sight for a long time after that and when I came back, Rochelle was Bible-thumping so hard people dropped out of the group like crazy. When I returned for good after my mess with Trevor, our fun little social group had morphed into a tribe of prayer warriors sharing daily thoughts about the Lord. We considered changing the title, but never got around to it. Besides, with everyone else married off, it was just the three of us and we liked to think we had a little sass left in us. I was beginning to wonder.
Already assuming his role as absent husband, Ryan disappeared across the green with his business partner. Tracey looked longingly in his direction, and then hugged me. I knew from her grip that she’d had enough and was going after him.
It begins.
Tracey tugged at her gown, which for some reason, she
