AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Bill was looking at me.
Zach was checking Cap out.
“No. I just heard the news,” I told him. “We were at the Botanical Gardens.”
Bill’s eyes narrowed. “Is there time?”
See?
If it wasn’t so damned good, I’d lament ever inventing that recipe. My pudding was better loved than me.
“She can’t snap and make a trifle bowl full of pudding appear, William,” Martha bit out. “It’s quarter to five, for goodness sake. This shindig begins at five.” She turned her steel-gray eyes to me. “Though, you probably have time to throw together some of that Asian slaw.”
I didn’t have the ingredients for my Asian slaw.
“We have to go up and take Cleo out,” I told her, because I didn’t know if Cap was up for an Oasis get-together, so we needed a confab.
“You know the rules, you can’t come empty handed,” Martha warned.
“Man, hat’s off to you. Shit,” Jacob strolled up saying.
His squeeze was at his side.
He was carrying a platter stacked high with raw hamburger meat formed into patties covered in plastic wrap.
“Longest date in history,” Jacob finished.
Alexis’s pretty cheeks went pink in Jacob’s presence, or because she was upset he still had his chick with him, or both.
“Now that’s how it’s done,” Martha confusingly stated, pointing at Jacob and his woman. “Watch and learn, Raye.” She swung her finger and jabbed it at Cap. “He’s too pretty. And you’re too pretty. Everyone knows, if you’re pretty, you swing low and get someone who isn’t as pretty as you. Gives you the upper hand in the relationship. Jacob’s a good-lookin’ man. He knows to swing low.”
This was met with complete and horrified silence.
Linda broke it by snapping, “Martha!”
“Am I wrong?” Martha asked Linda. She didn’t wait for an answer. She looked to me and her mouth kept moving. “My Jeremy, not much to look at, but in the bedroom department, shooie! He had to work harder to make up for other things he lacked. And work he did.Lawd. Your pretty boy probably thinks his looks will do the work for him.” Her gaze swung to Cap. “You’d bewrong.”
“I’ll apologize for her,” Linda said to Jacob’s squeeze, moving her gaze to Cap to include him in the apology that wasn’t hers to give (still, it was nice she gave it).
“Don’t worry. Jacob warned me about her,” The Squeeze responded.
I took a moment to wonder if I should petition our new landlord to put a sign out on the gates that saidBeware of Martha.
Then, even if I was still swimming through my horror that Martha said Jacob’s woman wasn’t as hot as him right in front of her, I realized this was a point to ponder.
Because Alexis was all petite, slender, ballerina loveliness, with gorgeous peaches and cream skin, amazing cheekbones and big eyes, and I’d always thought she was the perfect foil to Jacob’s rough and ready, muscle-packed, black-hair-and-bearded good looks. And he was maybe only three inches taller than me, but he was six inches taller than her.
Perhaps he knew the until-just-now-unknown rule of “swinging low.”
Before Martha could say anything else that might make Cap pack my belongings and move me somewhere else in fear of my mental health, I grabbed Cap’s hand, saying, “We need to go see to Cleo. Later!” and then I dragged him to my apartment.
Once inside, I put down my plant, divested him of his, pulled off my crossbody, slung it on the chair, turned to him and ran it down.
“Right, Linda. Retired schoolteacher. Really sweet. Everyone loves her. Never married, but since she is who she is, she’s kind of the mom of the complex. Jacob, in construction, and when he’s not on a job, he spends his time getting stoned and or laid. Nice guy, though. Bill and Zach, partners, not married yet, they have one of the two-bedrooms. They’re our community organizers. Really nice guys. Patsy, who called from the door, works at a doctor’s office and takes care of the plants and flowers around the complex. Alexis is a ballerina, and completely in love with Jacob. So much, it’s hard to watch. I keep hoping he’s biding his time, but now I think he might be swinging low.”
I took a deep breath.
Then I launched into Martha.
