Sunday Best
by Lori D. Johnson
Curtis
jiggles the loose change in his pockets as he struts up the tulip-lined
path. His suit is a blue Armani; his
shirt, white, wrinkle-free and French cuff bold and his tie, a crimson, Italian
silk foulard, bearing a blue diamond motif.
Something akin to glitter dances in the space between his Rolex-strapped
wrist and his brand new wingtips with the twenty dollar shine. He marches up
the porch steps, pushes open the front door and glides over the threshold,
chest puffed and grin wide. But rather
than extend her usual fawn, Grandma Rose whirls past him, as if he'd been
idling there all morning long, like a young barnyard rooster who can’t wait to
impress the sleeping hens with his ability to crow.
"Hey!" he says, grabbing
her on her re-entry. He plants a peck on
her cheek. "And a lovely morning to
you, too."
"Oh, I'm sorry,
sugar." She scrunches her lips and
returns his affection in double.
He nods toward the spread on the
dining room table. "I see I'm just in time for breakfast.”
Grandma Rose frowns and extends her
hand. "Help yourself. The twins
done already messed over all they could before running out of here, like
somethin' done bit 'em on the backside."
A round of bumping and squealing
lures her eyes and his toward the ceiling.
Her scowl deepens as she stomps over to the stairs and hollers up,
"All right ladies. Enough with the
nonsense. I'm leaving outta here in
exactly ten minutes. And I 'spect you
both to be ready. You hear me?"
A giggle-filled, "Yes
Ma'am," drifts down the staircase.
Curtis walks over to the table and
butters a piece of toast. “They're not
giving you problems are they?"
“The twins? Oh, they’re a handful, all right,"
Grandma Rose says upon her hurried approach to the dining room table. "But no more than would be expected
given the circumstances.”
He
nods and chews as the old woman scurries around him, scraping plates, fastening
tops on opened containers and shoving dirty utensils into the deep pockets of
her apron.
“But that brother of theirs, Mark, I
‘clare if he ain’t ‘bout to work my last nerve.
Take this morning, child’s stomach growling so loud I can hear it from
way across the hall. But will he come
down and eat? No-ooo! He claim he ain’t hungry.”
Upon surveying the hearty breakfast
of oatmeal, toast, cranberry juice, banana slices, raisins and the required
dose of castor oil, Curtis can hardly blame the boy for passing on the morning
offering.
"And all day yesterday,"
Rose continues. "He was 'round here
carrying on 'bout some ole tie. 'I
need me a tie. I ain't going to church tomorrow lessen I get
me a tie.' So what do I do? I takes the boy shopping. 'Course he ain't satisfied with just your
ordinary clip-on. No sir, he got to go
and get his heart set on one of these here fancy, one hundred percent silk,
wrap around numbers."
Ties? Thanks to his line of work, as well as
the generosity of both his late cousin Rodger and Grandma Rose, Curtis
owns tons of ties in every style, pattern and hue imaginable. How could she have possibly forgotten? "Why didn’t you just--" he starts.
"So silly me," she
says. "I go 'head and buy the fool
thing. But do you think he appreciates
it? No sir, he's sitting up in his room
this very minute talking 'bout he can't go 'cause the tie ain't right. I 'clare if his Mama wasn't gone and I wasn't
a Christian, Lord knows I'd be up there now strangling the holy spit out that
child."
Curtis is still stuck on the
ties. He'd only taken them at her
insistence. "I can't do nothing
with them," is what she'd told him.
"Besides Rodger would have wanted you to have them."
Again, he opens his mouth, only to
have the silver-haired woman wag a finger in his face. "Uh-uh," she says. "He ain't 'bout to make me lose my
religion. Hear me?" Instead waiting for Curtis’s response, she
smiles and lowers her finger to his lapel.
"Curtis baby," she says in a softer tone. "Why don't you go see if you can't talk
some sense to the boy? Being that you a
man, he'll probably listen to you."
"Aww Grandma!" Curtis
says, throwing up his hands. "Come
on, I don't even--"
She plants a kiss between his eyes,
pats him on the chest and says, "My, don't you look right smart today . .
. handsome too." In a wink, she's
off to the kitchen, where she sheds her apron before trotting back out and over
to the stairs again where she hollers up, "All right ladies. Grandma Rose is 'bout to grab her hat and get
up outta here. Unless you looking to get
left, you'd best be right behind me."
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