Bad Idea

Chapter 4: Being Family

Chapter 4: Being Family

“Wait, wait, wait, Mom.” Terrell Hubbard stopped his mother before she carried the casserole out to the car. “It’s not ready.”

She frowned at the red dish, still wearing oven mitts. “You’ve been working on it all afternoon. How can it not be ready? We have to go! Maura already texted me. She thinks no one’s coming.”

“Why do you care? You never liked her.”

“We’re not going over there for Maura. This is for Riva. She’s family whether we like it or not. Are you looking out for her in school like I asked?”

Terrell shrugged guiltily. Keeping an eye on his mostly white cousin didn’t seem all that important. He’d seen the house she lived in. Maura might have been a single mom, but she wasn’t hurting for cash. Riva might be new in town, but she wasn’t in any kind of trouble. He had problems of his own. Serious ones.

He nudged his mom gently out of the way. “I need to put the garnish on top.”

Terrell had already chopped parsley and tarragon. Taking one of the oven mitts, he lifted the lid off the casserole and carefully sprinkled the green herbs across its crispy surface. It smelled just as he’d hoped it would, garlicky with a hint of sweetness, the savory richness of pork fat rolling up through the clean, starchy smell of noodles, appetizing but not overpowering.

“Are you sure you don’t want to claim the credit for this?” his mother asked. “It looks delicious, and I don’t even know what it’s called. One of these days, someone’s going to ask me for cooking advice, and I’m going to put them on the phone with you.”

Terrell took a deep breath, his pleasure in his creation dissolving into the tension that always lingered at the back of his skull. “No. Tell them you made it, okay?”

“Honey, what are you scared of? Fine young man like you. Smart. Basketball scholarship on the way. If the girls find out you can cook, too, they’ll be beating down the door.”

He forced a smile. Maybe he was being paranoid. Cooking didn’t mean he was gay. Kissing boys, on the other hand—that’s what meant he was gay, and Terrell had done plenty of it. The problem was that people thought cooking was a gay thing for a guy to do. Maybe if he’d been into barbequing and grilling, it would have been okay, but caring about the flavor of tarragon versus marjoram wasn’t going to win him any manliness awards from the other guys on the team. The last thing he needed was for someone to think he was gay for some stupid, stereotypical reason, and stumble on the real reason by mistake.

“I’m not ready for all those girls,” he said instead, then winced. Given what he’d just been thinking, that sentence sounded way too revealing.

His mom didn’t notice, though. She started lecturing him about how she wouldn’t mind if he went on a few dates before college, and then she started worrying that it was her fault he didn’t go on dates because she appreciated it so much when he stayed home and helped her around the house.

“You got elected Homecoming King!” she said. “Since when does the Homecoming King not have a date to Homecoming?”

“I had a date to Homecoming. The Homecoming Queen.”

“I bet you barely talked to that girl.”

Terrell shrugged and finished the casserole, letting his mom’s conversation wash over him. “See? That only took five minutes longer. We’re not that late.” He led the way to the garage.

“Nobody’s going over there, though. Riva’s going to think she doesn’t have family here.”

“Maybe she doesn’t,” Terrell said.

His mother gave him a sharp look as she started the car. “She’s your Uncle Nelson’s daughter.”

“She’s a white girl.”

“Her momma’s a white girl. She’s family.”

“You never call Uncle Nelson. He’s family, too, right?”

Terrell’s mother sighed. He knew he was pushing her, but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d never heard her say anything good about either of Riva’s parents. Now, all of a sudden, he was supposed to befriend her in school, and it was a big deal for them to go visit at the house.

For the rest of the car ride, his mom tried to explain it to him. Uncle Nelson was always busy at work and didn’t want to be called. Probably it would be good to treat Maura like family after all. It was just that old habits die hard. It was too bad the family had split apart when Terrell’s grandfather had left his grandmother for a younger white woman, but Riva shouldn’t suffer for the mistakes of the older generation. It was complicated and sort of annoying. Terrell did understand how important it was to look out for family, but Riva and her mom had appeared out of nowhere six months ago as far as he was concerned. He couldn’t imagine having Riva’s back the way he would for his other cousins—especially because he really couldn’t imagine her returning the favor. Even if she was family, he didn’t see how she needed him and his mom.

They pulled up outside Riva’s house. Terrell couldn’t help noticing the little flag in the yard that announced which landscaping service they used. He snorted to himself. He’d been mowing his mom’s yard since he was nine years old, and before that, she’d mowed it herself. He couldn’t picture his mom ever paying for a landscaping service. That was just a waste, a sign of people who had more money than sense.

“There aren’t any cars out here,” his mom noted.

“Maybe we’re early.”

“We’re not early.”

They rang the bell. Riva’s mom, Maura, was all dressed up, diamonds at her ears, her wrist, her throat. Her dress looked like an outfit for a movie premiere. Terrell felt embarrassed for his mom, worrying so much about this woman who didn’t have a problem in the world that he could see.

“That casserole smells delicious,” Maura said.

There was a long pause. Terrell realized his mom still wanted him to admit he’d made it. He nudged her. “Her cooking is the best,” he said.

Maura took the red dish, lifting the lid to peek at the contents. “It looks like the best,” she said. “And it looks like I’ve got a fellow Food Network aficionado on my hands. I saw this recipe two nights ago, Edna, but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. You’ll have to tell me how it worked outside the test kitchen.”

Terrell’s stomach dropped into his shoes. How could he be such an i***t? It had never occurred to him to worry about where he got his recipes.

His mom shook her head slightly and muttered, “This is why it’s bad to tell lies, son.” Then she pasted on a smile and followed Maura to her kitchen. “It took a little longer than I thought, but, otherwise, it went pretty well.”

“Well, I can’t wait to try it,” Maura said. She started chattering about her favorite Food Network shows.

“Where’s Riva?” Terrell hadn’t thought he was anxious to hang out with his cousin, but now he couldn’t get away from the kitchen fast enough. He didn’t know which was worse, fearing exposure or listening to his mother struggle to remember basic cooking terminology.

“She’s in her room upstairs, second door on the left. She said she had some homework to finish up.”

Terrell rolled his eyes. That was obviously an excuse. He didn’t know why parents bought lies like that. He climbed the stairs two at a time and knocked on Riva’s door.

“I’ll be down in a minute, Mom. I swear!”

“It’s your cousin Terrell.”

“Oh. Hang on.”

She opened the door a couple of seconds later, releasing the telltale smell of the beach. He noticed the balled-up towel in the corner of the room and the hint of coconut rising from her skin and gave her a lopsided smile. She didn’t look happy to see him.

“I was looking forward to visiting you, too, cuz,” Terrell said.

“Sorry,” Riva said. “It’s not you. I had a bad day.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet it was real tough. All that sun and sand…”

Her eyes widened, and she swatted his upper arm. “Shut up.”

“So this wasn’t a sanctioned trip.”

She hauled him into the room and closed the door behind him. “If you’re going to make me tell you about it, don’t do it with the door open.”

He shrugged and took a moment to look around. Riva’s room didn’t look like what he’d expected from a girl’s room—not that he’d been in many. There were no bright colors and no pretty smells. A rat’s nest of wires and electronics took up the entire wall next to the computer, and the poster over her bed would have inspired his mother to send him straight to church.

“Diablo?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Her eyes sparked. “Yeah. Do you play? I usually group with people from back home, but if you want in…” The moment of enthusiasm died when she saw his blank expression.

Terrell tried to look cool and casual, not like a guy worrying that she might think he was gay because he didn’t play video games.

“Never mind,” Riva said. “I’m glad you showed up. My mom was having a nervous fit down there.”

Terrell took a seat next to her computer. “So, what was the problem with the beach?”

“No, the beach was fine. The beach was great. Before I went there, I made an i***t of myself in school, and now my boyfriend’s mad at me.”

Terrell sighed. “Who’s your boyfriend?” A word or two from this year’s Homecoming King would probably settle him down, and then Terrell wouldn’t have to feel guilty about ignoring his mom’s exhortations to look out for Riva.

“You wouldn’t know him.” She sat on the bed and picked at her fingernails. “We started dating back in Jersey, just before I left. He goes to college in Atlanta now, at Emory.”

“That’s a good school.”

“Yeah, he wants to be a doctor.”

Terrell recognized the expression on Riva’s face. He’d worn it himself a few times, before he’d wised up. She was too into this guy for her own good. A certain kind of college guy loved high-school admirers, who would think he was cool no matter what and would do just about anything to keep from getting dropped. The first three or four guys Terrell had dated had been like that, and he’d felt pretty stupid when he’d seen the pattern for what it was.

Terrell searched for a question he could ask without giving away too much about himself. “What’s he mad about?”

She gave him a helpless look. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Really. I’m an i***t, and it’s embarrassing.”

Terrell took a deep breath. “If you’re embarrassing yourself over a guy, he’s probably not worth it.” He’d told himself that on more than one occasion. He didn’t always follow that advice, but he’d been sorry every time he’d ignored it.

Riva laughed. “What are you, my dad?”

Terrell thought of his Uncle Nelson, his mom’s half-brother. He’d only met the man a couple of times, but Nelson had always seemed to exist in a completely different world. It had taken work for Terrell to identify the features Nelson had in common with his mom—the width of their noses and jaws, the slope of their foreheads, the color of their hair. He remembered Uncle Nelson taking him and his mom out to a restaurant that was too fancy and expensive to be comfortable, as if he could use money to make up for all the distance between them. It hadn’t worked.

Terrell looked at Riva. She had that same nose, too, which Terrell had also inherited. She was only a few years younger than him, but she seemed so lost and sad, lonely every time he saw her in school, and even lonelier now, talking about this college boyfriend who was probably pushing her around. He turned his head toward her wall of electronics, thought about this nice house he’d been judging her for, and remembered the way her dad hadn’t seemed to know how to have a friendly conversation.

“You miss him, huh?” he said.

“My dad?” She jumped, blinking rapidly. “I mean, yeah, I miss him. Everything about Jersey.” She sighed, scrubbing a hand through her short hair. He’d only ever seen it styled before, but she must have gotten into the water at the beach because a bit of kinkiness was asserting itself. That also helped him see the resemblance between the two of them.

“I miss my dad, too,” Terrell said quietly. “I go to church with him every Sunday, but I miss having him around.”

Riva shook her head. “I don’t think my dad was ever really around. Not even when he lived in the house, you know? I mean, it’s okay, but…”

He stood from the chair and sat next to her on the bed. She seemed startled. He gave her a brotherly push with his shoulder, hoping to reassure her. “Look,” he said. “I’m not your dad. But I am your family. You remember that, okay? You can come to me if you ever need anything. If you need me to talk to that boyfriend or whatever. I’ve got your back.” Terrell didn’t look at her face. He wanted her to understand the importance of what he was saying, and he didn’t want to see if she didn’t.

She turned and hugged him quickly. When she pulled back, he saw, before she turned away, that her eyes were glistening. “Uh, you, too, okay? I mean, I don’t know what I can do, but I mean it. Seriously.”

Terrell hugged her back. His eyes stung a little bit, too.