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“I will have Gretchen send you a schedule of meetings. We will need to have a meeting with the clients to introduce you to them.”
“Yes, and I need to hear the story from them. I read the file, but I need to hear them speak about it. It helps with my process.”
“We can make that happen.”
Averie
I turnedoff the main road onto my parents’ street. So many things had changed in this neighborhood over the years. I used to be able to name every family that lived in every house on the block. Mr. and Mrs. Gregory and their three sons, Mr. and Mrs. McCaslin and their whore daughter who slept with all the boys in the neighborhood. The Sutherland family that had at least twelve children, all of whom would fight you if you crossed one of them.
People were friendly and took pride in the way their homes looked. Now there were a bunch of strangers milling around. No one cared about their lawns or the condition of their houses. It was such a shame. I pulled into my parents’ driveway behind Keeva’s Audi. My parent’s end of the street still held most of the families that lived here when I was growing up. They still cared about their yards and the condition of their houses.
Kenzie and Travis had arrived in town earlier today, and we were all meeting at my parents’ house for dinner. I was excited to see my sister, but I was not looking forward to my love life being the dinner topic. I always got the third degree about my love life because both my younger sister and older sister were in long-term committed relationships. Forget the fact that I graduated from high school with a four-point-five GPA. Forget the fact that I graduated from law school second in my class due to a grading technicality. I should have been first, but one of my professors had a hard-on for one of the guys in the class and gave him a higher grade than me. Oh, and definitely forget about me having my own law firm. None of those things mattered because I didn’t have a man on my arm when I came for dinner, such bullshit. I knew it was going to come up, so I tried my best to prepare myself for it.
I turned off my engine, reached behind me to grab the desserts I’d purchased and made my way into my childhood home.
“Hey, Averie!” Mr. Cortopassi, my parent’s next-door neighbor called.
“Hi, Mr. Cortopassi! How are you?” I called back.
“As good as I’m gone get! What you know good?”
Mr. Cortopassi was raised in his home. When he got married, he and his wife moved into his childhood home and raised their children there. He was one of the few white people who welcomed us into the neighborhood when we first moved in. It’s crazy to think that in the nineteen-eighties, we were one of the first black families to move into this neighborhood.
“Mr. Cortopassi, I never know how to answer that question!”
We both laughed.
“Tell your parents I said hello.”
“Will do!”
I used my key to open my parent’s door. I heard music and talking coming from the kitchen. I walked past my mother’s wall of fame. It was a wall dedicated to family portraits. Every baby, class, school, and event picture my sisters and I had ever taken were proudly mounted on the wall.
There were pictures of Keeva and Kerem next to photos of Kenzie and Trevor. The next set of pictures were of me at prom with my high school boyfriend, Stan. My mother was so sure that Stan was my husband. She still calls him her son-in-law and Stan and I haven’t been together for at least thirteen years. He had moved on, gotten married and had three beautiful little girls. We just wanted different things. He wanted to settle down and have a family. I wanted to run around DC and make power moves. We separated as friends, but my mother still rallied for him.
I followed the voices and found my mother and both of my sisters in the kitchen.
“Averie!” Kenzie came barreling towards me. I hurried and put down the desserts to catch her.
“Hey, baby sis!” We hugged.
I moved further into the kitchen to hug my mother and Keeva.
“You look good,” I said to Kenzie.
“Thank you, so do you. I love this haircut!” Kenzie touched my hair.
“Tsk,” my mother made a noise I chose to ignore.
“Thank you. You look good too.” I ran my hand through her custom Brazilian wig. “Oooh, this is nice.”
“I know right?” She laughed while swinging her hair from right to left.
“Do they make those here?” My mother asked.
“They make them everywhere, Mommy,” Kenzie answered.
“Averie, maybe you could find you one,” my mother said. “I mean you know for when you go out on dates. Men like hair,” she continued stirring something on the stove. “I mean, your eggs aren’t getting any younger.”
