“First of all, it’s not a family party—it’s a party. This is for Gillian’s people, too.” He stands and sets a few pills on the wide lip of the sink. “And you aren’t seriously concerned about the drinking. You were being a jerk to her.”
My mouth opens to tell him he’s wrong, but everyone in that room knows I was a jerk, most of all me. Still. I’m not quite ready to admit that out loud, and especially not to him.
“I’m allowed to feel how I feel,” I say, just barely holding the orange bottle steady enough to drop in the collected pills.
Pierre frowns and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I never said you weren’t, but you don’t have to be rude to my sister. You’re not the only one who’s upset about the move. You’re being dramatic. It’s not like they’re dying.”
At that, my entire body starts shaking. I’m still able to secure the lid and shove the bottle back into the cabinet. But he notices. And he starts to say something, reaches for my arm, but I slip past him wordlessly for the second time this evening.
And somehow I manage to get out of the room without telling Pierre to go fuck himself.
* * *
The house has filled with a good-size crowd that’s eating, dancing, laughing, and talking at volumes that confirm it is a full-fledged party. I recognize Audrey and Gillian’s friends from protests and some people from Aunt Farrah and Uncle Howard’s Baptist church, where I’ve been to a few services over the years. But there are plenty of people I don’t know. I remember Pierre’s comment, that this isn’t just a party for my family, and it makes me cringe.
My father has arrived which should put me at ease but doesn’t. He’s accompanied by his new girlfriend, Bev, a secretary at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he works as an art history professor. Bev is whatever. Nice enough, I guess, but I have to wonder what my father likes about her. That she’s stable? Predictable? Reserved? My mother was none of those things, and it never occurred to me that she should be.
Dad waves me over, so I join them by the record player, weaving through guests holding glasses of wine and beer bottles still dripping with icy water, freshly plucked from the cooler. I pass Gillian, who’s standing by the big window behind the sofa, talking to someone I don’t know. Gillian is always energetic, but I’ve never seen her like this—gesticulating grandly to punctuate each word of her sentence, twisting her face into expressions that I don’t think are supposed to be as comical as they appear. I glance at her hands, and sure enough, the blue cup is sitting firmly in one of them.
“How was dinner?” I’m asking only to be polite.
They invited me but I declined, saying I’d agreed to come over early and help my aunt and uncle with the setup. Which was true, but by the time I got here they’d already finished cleaning and had hung the banner (GOOD LUCK AND FAREWELL!) and set out the food, so I mostly gnawed on pretzels and weighed in on my aunt’s prospective party outfits. But my father doesn’t need to know that, because standing around idly before a party celebrating the departure of my favorite person on the planet was still preferable to sitting in a restaurant with him and his girlfriend.
“Oh, we went to this fantastic new seafood place in River North,” Bev says a little breathlessly, the most excited I’ve heard her sound about anything. “The mussels were outstanding!”
“You missed out, Rashida.” Dad leans down to kiss the top of my head. “Some of the best oysters I’ve ever had.”
“I’m allergic to shellfish,” I remind him. “So it’s probably good that I missed out.”
“Well, I knew that,” he says quickly, stroking his beard. His professor’s beard, my mother used to call it. Silver hairs started growing in among the black ones after she died. “We only decided to go there when you said you couldn’t come.”
I don’t believe that. At his best my father is absentminded, but lately it seems like he’s even more forgetful when it comes to me. I’ll be heading off to college in a year, and sometimes I wonder if he’ll be happier once I’m gone.
“So, how have you been, Rashida?” Bev tucks a piece of her light-brown bob behind her ear. “Have you started thinking about college yet?”
She looks more nervous than usual. I’ve watched her glance around the room at least three times, and I realize—only after she visibly relaxes when she catches sight of a blond guy—that she’s anxious about being one of the few white people at the party. I wonder if she notices when she’s out with my father and he’s one of the only black people in the room. Does his potential discomfort ever cross her mind?
“I’ve thought about it,” I say, and stop just short of shrugging. I can’t not think about it, with a college professor as a father. He’s not pushing me to study a particular subject, but he brings up the topic often, asking if I’ve narrowed down my first-choice and safety schools yet. He’ll be okay with whatever I study, so long as the program isn’t based in Chicago. I think having me around reminds him too much of my mother.
“Any idea what you want to major in?” Bev presses on. Clearly not reading me, not seeing that I don’t want to talk about this with her right now. Or ever, really.
“I’m not sure,” I respond. “Maybe linguistics. Or sociology.”
Or horticulture, if I’m being honest. There wasn’t a week that went by in the spring and summer that my mother and I weren’t in the backyard before the sun got too hot, working our fingers through the soil of our vegetable garden. Tending the garden was relaxing, and it made me feel accomplished. I let everything die after she did.
I tilt my head to the side. “What did you study in school, Bev?”
My father’s head swivels toward me, but I don’t look at him because I don’t want to see his face. He knows I’m being mean, that I’m aware there’s a good chance Bev isn’t using whatever degree she has to work in reception.
Audrey saves me. She swoops in from out of nowhere to greet my father with a hearty “So good to see you, Uncle!” and a kiss on the cheek. She tells Bev it’s nice to see her, too, then turns to me. “We’re going to play bocce out back and we need another person. You in?”
I can’t say yes fast enough. And as I take her hand and head out to the backyard, I wonder how I’ll survive when she’s no longer around to rescue me.
* * *
My heart only sinks further as we step outside. Audrey didn’t tell me Pierre would be here.
He’s standing at the edge of the lawn, a tall shadow beyond the light that spills off the porch and onto the bocce balls lined up on the freshly mown grass. His gaze shifts to me, and neither of us smiles before he looks away. Gillian is swaying to imaginary music by the deck railing, cup in hand. Her eyes are unfocused—a little wild, even, as they flit about the yard.
The air is humid and warm, scented with the sweet perfume of Aunt Farrah’s rosebushes, the fat pastel blooms dotting the trellis at the end of the deck. Earlier, Uncle Howard strung white Christmas lights along the porch, and they glow softly around us, working months ahead of their usual gig. Tonight is beautiful. It could even be romantic, if I were with someone besides my cousin, her tipsy girlfriend, and a guy who hates me.
Even Audrey and Gillian can’t enjoy it. Audrey is holding her girlfriend by the elbow, and I can’t tell if it’s to show affection or to keep her steady. Gillian slams her cup on the railing and takes Audrey’s face in her hands, smashing their mouths together. It doesn’t look pleasant, and my cousin pulls away quickly, shaking her head. She says something so quietly I can’t hear it. Pierre stares at the detached garage at the back of the yard, mortified.
A few moments later, we’re spread out across the lawn, standing in teams. Audrey started to pair off with Gillian, but the look I shot her made it clear that wasn’t an option. Pierre must have been relieved, too, though he doesn’t look so happy next to Gillian, either. She’s wrapped her braids around her chin in a makeshift beard, prattling on about the Gettysburg Address.