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I shrugged. “I might. It’s one of my favorites. Um…I noticed that Isaac bought a table.” I inched my eyes up to see her reaction. Her face gave away nothing.
“Yes, he did, but Isaac has always been very charitable, hasn’t he?”
“Yes…”
“Are you upset? I didn’t sell him the ticket personally. The letters and emails soliciting support from people who’ve supported this department went out before you were hired. He bought the table online.”
“I’m sure he did. I just…it’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”
“So, you’ll still come? Jovani’s dad bought two tables. We’re sitting at one of them. You can sit with us. My mom might come, and ima try to nag Vann into coming. Oh, and I think Nadia and Nate are sitting close to us. Ginger and Ms. Lovey will be there too. Child, I hope Vann and Ginger don’t get into an entanglement.”
Well, that made my ears perk up. “They’re seeing each other?”
“Nah, I don’t think they’ve met, but you know Ginger. She fucked her own sister’s half-brother. I mean, no, she’s not related to him, but you never know with her or Ms. Lovely. Those two are some kind of oversexed.”
I don’t think I heard another word Sharla said after that other than our meeting was over, and I spent the rest of the day staring into space thinking about the possibility of Vann and Ginger hooking up. Not that I cared. Nope. I didn’t care at all.
I wasdeep in my African Musicology textbook, trying to finish up my latest reading assignment when my phone rang. Isaac. As in myex-husbandIsaac.
I stared at the screen of my phone until Bailey yelled from her room, “Your phone is ringing, Mama!”
Snatching it up from the sofa beside me, I begrudgingly accepted his call with a flat, “Hello.”
“Brooklyn,” floated on his aging Belgian accent. “How are you?”
He was always so damn nice. It irritated me. Why couldn’t he be mean, angry, curse me out, anything other than what he did do, which was marry my freakin’ mother.
“I’m well,” I finally said, my eyes unfocused on my book.
“That is magnificent. And my Bailey?”
“She’s well, too, as she always is.”
“Truthful!” I think he was trying to say “facts.”
Nevertheless, I replied, “Yes, that is very truthful.”
I knew what was coming next, or at least I thought I did, because instead of him saying, “I was just checking out on you two,” as he usually did (he meant checking in), he said, “I have been pondering, thinking about us, about you, Lief.”
Lief.
A Flemish term of endearment he’d assigned to me shortly after we began dating. Back then, I was twenty-three and desperate for something I’d never known—security. He was fifty-five, handsome and kind. He also adored me. Lief, he told me, meant loved one. He’d declared his love for me early on, and eventually, I’d reciprocated.
“Isaac,” I said softly. “Uh…”
“I apologize. I just wanted to say I think of us, our family, and I wish it could’ve been salvaged. I wish things had been different.”
But they could’ve been different. If you’d just forgiven me, things would’ve been different, I thought. “Well, things are going great for you and my mother, right?”
“Brooklyn, I wish you would let me explain—”
“I have to go. Thanks for calling to check on us. See you or my mom on Sunday. Are you picking Bailey up or am I dropping her off?”
“Phoebe would like to talk to you. She misses you.”
Phoebe. Mymother, Phoebe. She hadn’t missed me a day in her life. And I knew she didn’t miss me now that she had direct access to Isaac’s money.
“She knows my number and my address. Let me know how you want to do the exchange on Sunday.” And then, I ended the call.
