My Mother's Boyfriend

TRIAL AND ERROR

I bury my face into my bowl and scoop soup with my spoon casting my mind into a state of oblivion. I noticed it when my mother came in. She had her lipstick drooling away from her lips. Of course it didn’t move by itself. Nor does it melt.

“You heard what your father said.” Mom barks at me.

“No, he is talking to you.” I hit back.

“Tyra, I am talking to you.”

“Oh my Gosh.”

“Use your mirror young lady.” Mom rejoices.

I look around embarrassed. Once bitten twice shy. What about twice bitten? I lift my ring finger to inspect my beefy chick. Surely, there is lipstick there. Devil! I curse.

“Maybe you should teach her how it is done.” Dad remarks.

“Such a big girl? I wasn’t taught by anyone.”

“But you do it so nicely.”

“It’s Aunt Perry. She taught me the basics. Such a great woman”

Her phone vibrates on the table. It is Frankie. She is an i***t. She even never edited the name? Some women. The evil part of me wishes that she concealed her dirty tracks. The saint me rejoices at the attention caught by the phone. Shifting eyes from me. Her eyeballs grow bigger than the oval office.

She feigns a smirk, “This i***t!”

“Frankie must be finding out if you arrived.” Dad spews.

“Yes.” She replies huskily, her eyes downcast then laughs heartily, “Stupid Frankie.”

You see, if a woman calls another man an i***t in the presence of another her man, it has two meanings. That the man in question is really an i***t, or he is the one who turns her into one. The one who overruns her body until her titties shake like jingle bells. She utters that insult under the inspiration of crazy imaginations.

“I need to change now.” She sets to get onto her feet. Dad cuts in.

“We may have to postpone changing into night clothes coz we gonna have a long night... I mean family night.”

She slowly gets back to her seat and gives me those eyes of ‘what the f**k is going on here.’ She then smiles. You know women smile when there is trouble, there smile can wash away their sins. This is going to be my case study. If indeed the smiles work, then I’m gonna publish a thesis.

“So what are we gonna go late into the night?” She asks.

“We need to talk.”

Whoosh! Dad is rising steadily towards the c****x. It is like in this finale minutes of a movie where the antagonist is on a tragic flaw and every minute into the movie brings her close to a dead end. I cannot sit here. The seat is getting hotter every minute. The merry that was at the beginning of the dinner has passed and replaced by nimbus dark clouds. I need to get away.

“I guess I shall leave you two here to talk.” I stand up.

“No. We are going to talk about you. Sit.”

Dad’s emphatic tone tears my imagination into fear. I’m perplexed, sent to a complex web of confusion. I starting stammering these funny statements.

“Is it about the dress dad?

Oh no! That wasn’t funny at all. Never try to get funny under pressure. That s**t never works. You become offensive or personal. Mom stares at me with sharp eyes. She wants to speak but as I said, we are under pressure her. I stare back at her and seize that opportunity to repair my bad joke.

“It is fitting mom. Dad was just wondering how I bought you a dress...”

Dad interrupts. “Tyra wants to Aunt Perry’s place. For a while.”

“No. what about computer classes?” She retorts. “I am against.”

“Really mom.” I rant.

“Really!”

“Mom you be against everything. You just said that Aunt Perry is a great woman?”

“I never said she is a great mother. No one is going nowhere.”

“Maybe we should ask her why she wants to go.”

Dad brings all the boiling to a sudden pause. He just increased the amount of gas. This is heading towards an explosion.

“Tyra, why do you want to go.”?

I turn and sit sideways. Off the table. I cannot do this. I cannot. Dad has captured both of us in one corner. Only one can get out of his mental captivity. That is me. But as I said in the beginning, I don’t want to lose my parents. At least not now. If I play the saint card. I gonna loose them. If I play the evil card, I gonna keep them but keep the devil alive too. Or maybe I can talk to my mother? Hell no, whom am I to advise her?

“Look. Dad, I cannot do this!” I stand up and walk to out on them.

“Come back here, Tyra.” Barks dad. His demon has awaken.

I CANNOT DO THIS! My mind shouts. I hold the kitchen sink. My eardrums want to burst at my dad’s incessant calls. He is persistent. It is either now or tonight. I rage at my own self. I should let stayed off adult issues. Estate girls would have shouted, “Let people cheat in peace!”

I shudder at what gonna happen. All over sudden I make resolve. If it is gonna be bad it gonna be bad. I try to gather courage and strength at the same time. Strength arrives faintly and defeated. Courage makes a no show.

“If you are my daughter, you better come here.” My father had never made such a strong demand on me.

I drag my spirit back to the dining room. My body is not willing at all. I CANNOT DO THIS. My mother is glaring at the sack of body I am trying to drag. Her shape. Her face. Her hips. Her height. Her own image and likeness. But her character, nope. I sit down and look at my mother.

“What? Speak?” She bangs the table.

Dad intervenes, “Don’t do that.”

I gesticulate then finally words form at my lips.

“Mom is a bitch.”

“What the hell is that?” she demonstrates.

Dad stops her, “Relax Comelince.” Things have gotten formal here. From darling to Comelince. Next up?.....