Cherish Farrah, page 18
I don’t do any of that. I don’t give her an excuse. If she wants it escalated, my mother will have to do it herself. I won’t go willingly, but I won’t be unreasonable, either. If I’m dragged back to my parents’ sterile rental home, it’ll be because Nichole Turner lost control of everything in her life a year ago, and she’s trying to restrain the one thing she still can. It’ll come with pitiful glances and compassionate conclusions about there being only so much she could take.
It would humanize her. Her breakdown would debunk the myth of the stalwart, inexhaustible Black woman, carrying the weight of the world without need of rest. In any other household, it might be worth it, but the Whitmans already understand. That’s why it would work so well—because they are raising a Black woman of their own. Because they refuse to lay the weight of the world and society on her shoulders with the expectation that—despite or because of all the ways the world has tried to break or betray her—she alone can fix it. Instead, they spare her every burden, and because she’s a Black girl, it’s a revolutionary act.
So I elect to use them instead.
I look up at Brianne. Her mouth is open like she’s ready to launch into some shapeless, half-baked plea, and I lock eyes with her before the useless words come tumbling out.
I need her to follow my lead. I need to show Cherish’s mom how to compete with Nichole Turner, what works once my mother’s guard is high and her mind is made up. I need to show her how to spare me, the way she’s so accustomed to sparing her daughter.
But it’s more than that. I need to know if the connection is real. I need Brianne and Jerry Whitman to be on my side, the way I think they are, and I have no time to test it. I just have to leap and hope they catch me.
“So I don’t get a vacation this year?” I ask, and collapse my shoulders. I sink out of the embrace, and my gaze falls to the side, first toward Cherish, and then to the floor.
No eye contact. No signals or subtle cues. I have no guarantee that either of Cherish’s parents understands that one of them has to take it from here. If they want me to stay, they have to finish what I started, and I can’t explain.
Brianne is the one who speaks.
“I’m sure that’s not what your mom means, honey,” she says. “She didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know what?” Beside me, my mother’s voice shifts, like first she was speaking to Brianne, and now she’s looking at me. But I can’t say anything else.
“Oh.” Brianne’s sigh is perfect. It’s like a gesture, a yielding even before the explanation has been heard. “Jer and I were planning to take the girls away,” she says, and instead of looking at her husband, Brianne Whitman just takes his hand.
I watch their skin where it’s made contact. This is where the agreement will happen, if there is one. If Cherish’s dad understands what we’re doing, this is where the performance transfers to him.
I hold back a smile, but I can’t stop the way my chest expands when Jerry Whitman squeezes his wife’s hand and then stands. He disrupts any attempts at interrogation by taking his and my father’s glasses for refills. It’s just a casual conversation now, with players moving about the room, but the room is also more chaotic. My parents’ attention has to volley between Jerry Whitman’s back as he refreshes the ice, uncorks the decanter, and pours new drinks, and Brianne Whitman’s charmingly disappointed smile.
“It wasn’t going to be anything fancy, and nothing too far,” Brianne’s saying. “Just something to keep the blues away while you two get situated in your new space. Just so Farrah doesn’t miss you too much.”
In her corner of the room, Cherish is ribboning her brow.
There are levels to this conversation, and my best friend is only privy to one. She didn’t pick up on the silent struggle upstairs, and she’s just as oblivious to the unspoken strategizing that took place between her parents and me. It’s a side effect of her parents’ revolutionary coddling, and as usual Cherish is none the wiser.
Maybe that’s what’s been missing for them, even with a daughter they so obviously adore—the ability to communicate without words. The ability to decipher more than the shallowest subtext. Cherish’s obliviousness is a gift—but maybe that’s why they want me.
“I didn’t know we were going on vacation,” she interjects, but it’s just Cherish, and it’s easy enough to diffuse.
“Well, we hadn’t gotten that far,” Jerry says. He’s returned my father’s glass to him and elected to sit next to his daughter now, loosing one finger from his drink to poke her playfully in the side. “We needed to be sure Farrah was even up for it, sweetheart, so we spoke to her first.”
While her dad wraps his arm around her head and pulls her close enough to be kissed, my best friend stares at me, but her face is no more relaxed.
I know what she’s thinking. It’s something her father asked when Tariq was here. If her parents were planning a trip for all of us, why wouldn’t he have said so instead of asking what us kids were planning to do?
Cherish is staring at me instead of them, but I don’t speak. I won’t. I adore her, but none of this depends on her playing along, or even understanding. I’ll take care of it for both of us, the way I’ve always done.
“I guess you, me, and Dad can just do a vacation of our own,” I say, and I put a lilt in my voice like I could get excited at the prospect of something I know they can’t possibly supply.
“I don’t think we have time for that,” my dad says. “Not between moving and getting started in my new position. Frankly, I don’t expect to have time to even get settled.”
There’s no money for it, either, I’m sure, but no one will force them to admit to that.
“I still have to job hunt in earnest,” my mother says. It’s like a concession, the way she says it a little more softly than everything that came before, or like she’s making a mental list and accidentally spoken it aloud.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Nicki,” Jerry says, Cherish comfortably sidled up against him, her feet drawn up into the sofa. She won’t be any more trouble now. “I know a few headhunters in the area. I could send one your way. He’s an absolute shark. I know he can get you tapped in with the right people. Find a place that’ll offer what you’re worth? It sounds like it worked for Ben.”
His eyes flicker toward the end, and he recovers quickly, focusing on the daughter in his arms.
But a flicker is all it takes.
“A headhunter approached Ben,” Nichole Turner says.
“Same guy,” Jerry Whitman concedes immediately.
I stiffen, but my eyes roam. How did Cherish’s dad accidentally derail our stunningly perfect play to end up here? And what is being confessed to?
“I don’t think I mentioned, Ben, that I’d passed your name to him,” he says, and he’s charming the way he always is. The words roll out almost casually, except for the way he’s avoiding two pairs of eyes. Brianne’s wearing a pursed expression I’ve never seen before, and I’m sure it means she doesn’t mean to. My mother’s feels more familiar. I’ve seen hers before. The night I had dinner at my parents’ house, the night I coerced them into agreeing I could stay, when she thought Brianne had told me about my family relocating.
It’s an expression that marries disappointment with something resembling disgust, like she didn’t appreciate Mrs. Whitman taking something upon herself, but she wasn’t entirely surprised. It says she should have known better, that she partly blames herself.
“Why would you pass his name to someone out of state?” she asks, but her voice is flat so that it doesn’t sound at all like a question. She’s making a statement, and Jerry Whitman can’t justify looking anywhere but at her, even with Brianne’s chest starting to flush with color.
Brianne Whitman is trying to hold a smile to her lips, but it’s too tight. It’s verging on a grimace, and she’s looking above our heads while she twists a bracelet around her slight wrist.
“It’s Cameron, isn’t it, honey?” she says, and if she weren’t standing where I could see her, her voice would be completely convincing. It’s strange to watch the words come out of her mouth when the sound and the appearance are so mismatched. It’s a disaster, but only because I’m looking at her. It’s a talent that would be very useful in another scenario.
“That’s right,” Jerry answers, pointing to his wife as though the name was on the tip of his tongue.
“Well, he isn’t out of state, of course, but he does have contacts all over the country.”
“He’d better,” her husband replies, once again adopting the tenor of a completely different conversation. “A good headhunter has to grant access to more than what’s already in somebody’s backyard; otherwise what good are they?”
That’s Jerry Whitman’s gift. It always comes across as charm, but today I can see the moving parts. It’s an ability to assume authority over the narrative and the tone, shifting it right under the congregation’s feet in a way that compels them to acquiesce. It’ll either diffuse my mother’s inquiry or require her to be more overtly confrontational.
Which is, admittedly, a somewhat despicable position to put a Black woman in, for a man who is as conscious and invested in our liberation as Jerry Whitman is.
“It just so happens that the people most convinced of Ben’s talents were farther away than I guessed,” he finishes, and it means my mother doesn’t have to ask.
But it also means my dad might’ve been telling the truth.
Maybe it was a whirlwind connection, and maybe the Whitmans didn’t pass along my dad’s name until the situation was clearly untenable. Until the Turners’ daughter was living under their roof.
Maybe there was no secrecy or betrayal on my parents’ part—but the Whitmans still saved the day.
Maybe the fact that my mom’s still looking at them like she’s come to fully understand something just means she’s a sore loser.
“Can I stay?” I ask her, quietly so that even though everyone can hear me, it seems like I’m trying not to put her on the spot. “Just until the vacation?”
I watch her jaw clench while she rubs my arm. Only I can hear the way her breathing is labored, the effort she’s putting in to keeping it steady.
I squeeze her and smile up at her.
She’s lost. She must know that.
Whatever she thought Jerry Whitman’s misstep was going to expose, it’s already forgotten. Everything, easily explained.
“Just until we get back from vacation?” I ask again, because I can push back one step at a time. I can ask permission as many times as I need to.
The Whitmans don’t insist. I can get away with it as her teenage daughter; they are patient, smiles reestablished, and ready to accept whatever my mother decides.
“Just until after the vacation,” she says. Her breath hitches before she’s done, but all that matters is that I’ve won. “And then Dad and I want you to make the drive with us.”
“Well, that sounds like fun,” Brianne says, and smiles at me. “A summer road trip with the whole family.”
I kiss my mother’s cheek, while Jerry launches into a new conversation with my dad about the golf courses closest to our future home.
“Nicki, you and Ben’ll stay for a bit, won’t you?” Brianne comes close now, trading sides with her husband, so the couples split and pair off again the way they’ve always done. “You two can use a day, I insist. Let’s just relax and make some dinner later, and have wine, how does that sound?”
“That sounds great, Brianne,” my mother says, and there’s a pause before she says her name. It interrupts Brianne Whitman’s smile—but only for a moment.
* * *
—
WHEN MY MOTHER weaves her arm through mine and says she wants to talk, I lead her out to the gazebo. I bring her right to the spot where Kelly collapsed, even though there’s no place marker or evidence that he was here. I just remember. I know exactly where his body fell, where his head pressed into the soft grass while he was struggling to breathe. I can put him there, in my mind, and I only have to make slight adjustments so that we’re standing on his back.
She studies me while I perfect our position. She knows I’m doing something, but she can’t know why, and when I’m finished, I look at her and smile.
“What’s the matter?” she asks me, soberly. My amusement isn’t contagious. It doesn’t catch on the corners of her lips, snag an uncertain smile, the way it’s supposed to. The way it would on anyone but the two of us, who are capable of control.
“I smile, and you think something’s the matter?” I don’t tame my expression. I could, if I had to, but no one hears the sound of Kelly’s body rustling against the ground, the noises he makes that for anyone else would be so difficult to place.
Nichole Turner only stares, and in a moment I realize she’s not here, either. She’s standing beside me, our arms still entangled, but like me, she’s somewhere else. A different time, and—for her—a different place, too.
“You know, you never cried,” she tells me. “When I brought you home from the hospital.”
“Lucky you,” I say, and nudge her with my shoulder.
“No.” And the way her breath escapes with the word pulls some of the lift from my lips. “It terrified me. I never knew when you were hungry. When you wanted to be held. Nobody told me how important it is to hear your baby cry, especially when you’re a new mom, and you don’t know what you’re doing. The crying tells you there’s a need. And you didn’t.”
I should say something. I should interrupt wherever this is going before my mother’s seriousness quiets Kelly for good—only I can’t decide what. I filter through a series of sentence fragments, but I can’t see the outcome for any of them. I can’t tell what reaction they’d elicit, and what comes out falls flat.
“So I was a peaceful baby.” My eyes hop around involuntarily.
“I said you were quiet.” My mother brings them back to center.
This is a criticism, and she knows that I know now. She lost in the sitting room, so she brought me out here to confront me one-on-one.
“I’m sorry I didn’t cry more,” I say, but there’s no affect.
“You cried,” she says, like I’m following the script perfectly, leading her where she already planned to go. “Eventually. But not until you decided to.”
I clamp my lips shut when she leaves space for my reply. I refuse to speak, letting my gaze fall to the grass at my feet. Willing myself to hear the clipped breathing of a boy I brought down in the middle of the night.
I step to the side, and my mother has to follow because we’re still arm in arm. When I slip free of her, it’s so I can place both hands on her arms and turn to face her. Make sure she’s exactly where he was. Turn her around so that my back can face the gazebo like it did when he was here.
She doesn’t ask what I’m doing, not even when my smile returns. She just keeps looking at me like she knows. Like she’s always known.
“I worry about you, Farrah,” she says, when I’ve put her in exactly the right place. “I always have.”
“I guess I can understand that,” I tell her, and finger one of her stud earrings. “We’re just alike. I guess the parent who sees themselves in the child knows exactly what struggles they’ll face.” Her expression tightens. “But you also know I’m smart, and capable. And ruthless. Just like you.”
“Why do you do that? Why do you need to think I’m a monster, too?”
It’s like the gazebo has a decloaking effect. The same way I was with Kelly, I feel honest and free with my mother, despite the lack of moonlight. We’ve both slipped out of cryptic, coded speech, and neither one of us is surprised.
“Why do I have to be a monster just because I scare you?”
“Come home,” she begs me, and it doesn’t seem to follow.
“I am,” I say, before I can stop myself. I’ve started uncoiling again, and it’s because of Kelly writhing on the grass, the way the moonlight bathes his white shirt and seems to make him glow. It’s the way I hurt him so badly but I didn’t make him bleed. The way I let myself, and still managed to scale it back. “You don’t have to worry about me, Mom. I’m in control.”
“I don’t think you are, Farrah.”
“If we aren’t alike, then how would you know?” I say with a bite. “How could you know anything about me?”
The way her expression shifts is insulting. Nichole Turner looks at me like I’m a ridiculous child, like what I’ve implied is beyond reason and she’s surprised to hear me say it.
“We’re not alike, Farrah,” she says. “Why would I have to be to see you clearly? I can see past myself.”
Our eyes are locked but I say nothing.
“I’m always alert, even when I think I’m getting what I want. I don’t mistake fixation for loyalty. I don’t think someone showering me with attention makes it healthy, makes me safe.”
“Am I a predator, or is someone preying on me, Mother? Which is it?”
“A smart girl would know it can be both.”
“This is about Jerry’s friend finding Dad a new job. A better job,” I stress.
“And when you thought Dad and I were responsible for it, it was a betrayal,” she says, and it quiets me. “When you thought we’d given up on the life you still want here, you twisted our words and feelings until we let you have your way. No strategic, chess-master level of interrogation now, Farrah? No wondering where this shark of a headhunter was when we were drowning for a year?”
Despite what they can clearly see with their eyes, people always say that dark skin doesn’t blush. Before me, my mother’s face has flushed, a fresh pink lifting beneath her skin, as though a light is shining from inside her. Her eyes go glassy and a rose rim begins to form around them. It’s lovely.
