Vision Ch. 04

"What's for brunch?"

"I was thinking Omelets, toast and coffee, but I'm not sure I have enough eggs. I've not made groceries so I don't have enough of anything really. But I know where we could score a good home cooked meal because we need to get out of here, or else we're going to fuck each other to death."

She shrugs. "I am about to be a woman of a certain age. I have needs and now that I've warmed up I think I could pretty much fuck you sideways. We're just getting started, so man up." She calmly smiles as I almost choke on my coffee. I hear her stomach growling and look at her pointedly.

"I'm going to ignore that threat, Lou. Now put your clothes on. We're going across that lake or rather around it to that house for a meal.

"In that case I need to scrub up first. You're that friendly with your neighbors? I barely know mine," she snorts.

Here goes. "No. My parents live there."

"You live with your parents?" She hisses, looking incredulous.

"I don't live with my parents. I live here and they live there. Don't panic, they're going to love you."

"Your parents. Meet your parents? Absolutely not. No! You have completely lost your mind." She hops down.

"They're just people, just ordinary black folk from Tugaloo, Mississippi."

"Take your black girlfriend to meet your parents from Mississippi?"

I give a small inward chuckle. She didn't hear me.

"They are not even like that Lou. You're in for a shock when you meet them. I know it. They probably know I'm here anyway by now. I've not seen them in days and need to check in. C'mon don't be rude?"

Appealing to her home training seems to work. I see her jaw working though as she grits her teeth.

"Fine."

Turning on her heel she goes into the bathroom. I hear the shower start. I go in and pull back the curtain and join her. She's wrapped her hair in a towel and is lathering furiously with the soap using my washcloth.

"Dove soap?" She looks at me accusingly. Slapping the washcloth and soap into my hands she rinses and exits the shower leaving me to quickly wash myself. I come out to find her wrapped in a towel, hairbrush in hand.

"I saw you had this brand in your cabinet at home and decided to get some is all."

"And you decided this when? You bought razors, deodorant, condoms and underwear this morning," she says ticking the items off on her fingers, "not soap."

Fucking lawyers man always with the cross exam and indictment.

"I texted Pop's to pick up some for here that's all. I just want you to be comfortable. If you don't like the Dove maybe you can bring some of your fancy soap to use here."

"Your dad bought you soap for me? Jesus Dax!" She's working herself up over nothing.

"My hair is a mess."

She takes a threatening step towards me holding the brush like she'd like to smack me with it. Taking it from her stiff fingers I sit her down and brush out her hair. She relaxes breathing deeply as the bristles drag against her scalp.

Cool calm and downright flinty at work but having a meltdown about meeting my parents. Hmmm . . . I kiss and massage her a bit and she slowly calms. She lets me dress her, but her little lip is poked out.

Not wanting to come off as showy she makes me take my Mustang for the drive over. But when I shake my head and chuckle she gives me a look that could freeze hell.

"Man, you are testing the fucking friendship."

For all that piss and vinegar she's fidgeting and nervous and trying to make sure her cleavage is not too much. She's tense.

"If I'd known this was happening I wouldn't have worn this. Do you have a safety pin or something?"

"Calm down Lou. You look fine."

I quickly get out and open her car door. She gives me another withering glance and steps out, quietly looking around.

Their home is set back on an incline from the lake amongst fragrant Linden trees and there are wild ducks and geese. And right across you can see my place.

"It's nice here."

"At night, if the breeze is right you can smell these trees clear across the lake, 20 acres of mostly woods, Pop made me purchase my house from him, he gave me a good deal, but said there was no such thing as a free lunch in this life."

She nods. "He's not wrong."

I take her hand and call out as I bring her inside. "Mom? Pop? Where Y'at?"

The whirring ceiling fans are the only sound. There's the lingering smell of something recently fried and the more definitive smell of Mom's sweet potato pie. They can't be far and sure enough there they are, side by side, asleep in their chairs on the side sun-porch. They look small and innocent in their sleep. I gently wake them.

"Dax, where have you been?" Mom says smiling at me.

"Son, you know you forgot to put on your timer lights and it was pitch dark over there. I did it for you and your mail is in the parlor as your mailbox was full to overflowing this morning. That dog of yours is out chasing something in the woods, I fed him but he likes to supplement his diet. It must be nice to have someone look after a place when you just up and disappear for days without word, not being a man of luxury, I wouldn't know." Pop grumbles.

I sigh and shake my head.

"Mom, Pop? This is Lulu James. Lulu, this is Aurelia and Hannibal Wilde."

Hiding behind me she's pulling against me as I squeeze her hand hard and pull her around to meet them. She looks up at me giving me a quick little frown. They scramble to their feet.

"Lord boy you could have told us you were bringing company. I know you have a phone on you somewhere, you call and text here for everything else in the free world!" Says Mom.

"Aurelia! He's bought a young lady home, be nice!"

"Hello there young lady," he says.

"Hello." She's looking at him in the oddest way. I know she's trying to figure it out because except for the eyes we look just alike, he's about a shade or two darker than me. She looks at mom and she's even more confused. I have my mothers eyes. My mom is a beautiful black woman, just like her. I probably should've told her but some things just defy explanation and are easier to show than tell.

"Hello Lulu, welcome." Says mom looking at her curiously.

Lulu is shocked but she's rolling with it.

Pop puts on his glasses and looks her up and down and smiles from her to me and back again and looks at Mom and smiles and nods. He's a terrible flirt. Taking Lulu's arm, he escorts her in, asking if he can get her anything.

She looks amused and says she'd love a glass of iced tea if they have it.

"Coming right up."

"Mom we're starving, is there enough to go around?"

"We were just sitting down to supper. I've made chicken and dumplings for dinner and fish and chicken fried steak and garden vegetables for supper, there's pie for dessert, more than enough. You know what we don't eat goes down to the shelter and I always fix plenty, never know when company's coming." She winks at Lulu.

Pops grumbles. "Feeding those scalawags and ne'er do wells. Nothing but bums, drunks and ladies of the night. We are on a fixed income!"

"Hanni, stop it. You know you don't like leftovers. Besides, we have plenty to tide us over. We're doing better than most. That's what's wrong with folk, no one cares for their neighbor anymore.

"If they ever did", grumbles pops, he looks at his wife and softens.

"You know I love how sweet and kind you are."

He pinches her side and she laughs girlishly. Ah hell, they're in rare form today.

"But do you have to feed half the county Aurelia? I could see when you did it back home, hell most of those people are family. But you don't even know these people here. There is no free lunch!"

Lulu, looking amused by the exchange, quietly sips her tea.

"Can we eat now?" I ask a little impatiently. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

Mom gives me the hard look. "Watch your tone. You and I are not too old to tango around here. Set the table Junie."

Lulu looks on the verge of choking from suppressed laughter and I just know I'll never live this down.

I set the table and go out to the kitchen to help Pop bring in the food.

"Now she's alright. Seems worldly without being low-down and common, very down to earth. She's got a familiar look about her, like she's Creole or something nother. That red hair of hers is something else. She got people down our way?"

"No idea, she might, I'm not sure. Her way of talking though, some of her phrases are straight from there. She'll say she needs to 'make groceries' for instance. She looks familiar to me too, but for the life of me I can't place her."

"Well I do like the look of her, she's a pretty little thing. Nice and busty too, just the right amount of thickness."

He rubs his fingers together. "I take it this is the one you wanted the soap for."

"Yes sir. She's got me spinning though Pops. She cooks, she's funny, she likes ball."

Pops grunts. "They all say that at first. Your mama got me with that lie too."

"Yeah, well this one actually plays, or at least she did in high school."

"That itty bitty thing does not play?"

"I've seen it Pops. She's got a jump shot and everything." I cock my head at him and he cocks his back at me.

"I'll be damned." He pauses and thinks. "So, you like this one?"

"I do, but she's hard. Hard headed. A lawyer."

Pops rocks back on his heels and looks at me. I'm dealing out the shocks today. "That sweet little thing's not a lawyer?"

"As vicious as they come. You should see her around the office. She barks and they jump. That guy that was giving me trouble the first few months by email - L. James, turned out to be her."

"Ooooeee! Spicy! But spicy food never did agree with you."

I sigh and shake my head. "If spicy is another word for stubborn, she is that."

Looking at me he takes pity. "Take heart, stubborn people won't do anything they don't really want to. She must like you pretty good, here she is meeting us."

True. Though I decide not to tell him about how I got her here to meet them in the first place let alone her stance on marriage and children. He'd tell me to run for the hills.

"You're treating her right?" He levels his hand across the air.

This is Pops being subtle. His version of 'the talk' consisted of a repeated listening to Otis Reddings Tenderness. Sage advice. Most women, if you treat them right, they'll pretty much do anything for you.

"Yes sir, I am. She's . . . eager, capable too, no problems there." Just thinking about how eager and capable she is, is enough to get me going.

"Well if that's good the rest tends to fall into place sooner or later. Either that or one of you just gives in through frustration and worration. He chuckles and sighs. You are lucky I'm not younger."

"Old man, you know Aurelia March does not play." I look at him and we both laugh.

I've heard the story. They met at a dance. He was on a date with someone else when mom saw him. 'She just reached right out and took me and that was it.'

Mom comes from an impressive matriarchy; responsible, complex, self-sufficient, of the earth, capable women. Most of them are business owners. All of them, to a one never wait to be asked, they inform a man they like him and that's it. Those March women were as fine as silk, soft as Sea Island cotton and hard as steel.

Once Mom decided to have him he never stood a chance. Something about Lulu that reminds me of those women.

Checking his watch Pops gets up and excuses himself for a moment and quickly comes back and hands mom a pill for which she thanks him.

"Don't look like that Dax, its just vitamin D to help with calcium absorption. I lost a little height is all. I'm getting old it happens to everyone if you're lucky."

A shadow crosses Lou's face as she sips her tea. "So you've already found a doctor here?" She asks.

"Yes and the doctors here are good, but I think I'm still in the market."

"That's putting it mildly. Mom doesn't like her new doctor."

My parents both scowl at me.

"What? We all know it's true, mom needs to be monitored, you both do."

There's an awkward silence as my parent look at me with pursed lips.

Lulu pipes up. "My friend is a doctor, an OBGYN. I can have her ask around for you or have her get in touch with you if you'd like."

Mom's eyebrows go up in surprise. "That's mighty kind of you cher." Mom says smiling softly before looking at me and quickly winking.

This is going well, these two are liking each other more by the minute.

Having spotted the beautiful basket in the center of the table Lulu asks about it and mom informs her that she wove it herself. They start talking up a storm about crafting. Lulu it turns out loves to crochet and is mostly self-taught, it's great on long flights. Says she'd like to learn weaving but it looks complicated.

Talk turns to gardening with heirloom seeds, 30 minutes on varieties of corn, tomatoes and peas alone. We let them talk. Pop and I look at each other and shake our heads in commiseration.

Mom says, "We have about half of our 15 acres under cultivation with soybeans and cotton. Our side-hustle generates a pretty steady income. Not too bad for a retired pediatric nurse and oilrig driller. There'd be even more under cultivation if it weren't for the kudzu.

We are fighting a losing battle against that stuff. To say that it's tenacious is an understatement; it grows a foot a day during the summer. I've never seen anything like it. We've been here a while now, a few years ago half the beehives on the property started producing odd colored honey. I set the hives amongst some Tupelo trees.

The whole reason we purchased the property was for those eight misplaced trees near the boggy part of the property and the Linden trees surrounding the main house. I was aiming for the white tupelo honey I grew up with in Mississippi. We are able to harvest the Tupelo honey easily enough during early to mid-May.

But the other year we were surprised that some of the hives presented with pale lavender honey in late early July. After some research by a botanist friend it was determined that it was a result of the kudzu and soybeans blooms. Hanni calls it Purple Haze and sometimes it is purple, depending on the heat levels, though mainly it's a pale lavender color. It tastes a little like tupelo honey, but sweeter. It's so popular and sells so well that I put in more hives.

Between that and the soybean craze we do alright around here. Hanni here spends half his good winter days beating back the kudzu while it's dormant so that it doesn't eat us alive in the summer. We purchased a backhoe last year to help with clearing the property. But since the blooms give us lavender honey I've decided to keep a good deal of it. That kudzu is an excellent reminder that everything and everyone has a purpose in this life and can be of use.

Finding that purpose and or use can take a while, but it's there, in everything. I even use the vines to make baskets like this one from time to time and those sell as well. The Linden trees around the house produce an especially fine honey as well. Those trees when they flower actually smell like honey. I've got about 12 hives going right now all over the property."

Opening a cabinet, Mom takes down a large jar of lavender colored honey and hands it to a clearly awed Lulu.

"Do you mind if I try some?"

"Mais oui, cher!"

As they have been since forever, the biscuits are in their usual center spot on the table sitting in a basket on a hot flat Mississippi River warming stone surrounded and covered with a moist clean tea towel. Opening the steaming biscuits they smear the butter and drizzle the honey.

Lulu's eyes roll back in her head a bit. She sighs in deep satisfaction. I've quickly come to understand her sighs and I could have sworn that those contented sighs were just for me.

"I love homemade biscuits, but I only make them at Christmas because they're so much work with the cold butter not to mention how hard it is to find full fat buttermilk these days. There's only one place in the city that I know of that consistently sells it. The honey is amazing, it's got a kind of flowery perfume to it."

"That batch might have more linden in it and maybe a touch of black locust flower too I suspect.

Biscuits are only hard work if you do it the long way and," mom tilts her head to the side and looks at Lulu. "It sounds like someone taught you how. If you come back I'll show you how I whip up the base in the food processor, takes no time a'tall.

As for the full-fat buttermilk, I feel you, if you have a source, send some back by Dax. I use a combination of heavy cream and sour cream these days as a substitute, that's what's going on here as I don't have the patience to make a proper clabber, as that would really set the biscuits just right."

"This honey is delicious. You may want to shop this around the city." She names two popular food stores in the city.

"Or at least some farmers markets, between this and those baskets you could have quite the business going, maybe even charge a little more, they'd eat this up."

They are enjoying themselves immensely and I have to practically pry them apart when it's time to leave 2 hours later.

Mom has given her a canister of her homemade Tilleul blossom tea and 3 large jars of honey. A white Tupelo, a golden Linden, and lavender Kudzu- inside one of her more elaborate baskets.

It's heavy and Lulu makes me carry it very carefully to the car. It went better and longer than I thought. They pause and then hug each other they've exchanged email addresses promising to stay in touch. Uh oh.

Pop hugs her too and looks beside himself.

"It was very nice to meet you Mr. Wilde."

"Call me Hannibal or Hanni for short."

She kisses his cheek, and that's just it for him, he's a goner.

"Oh, I like her much better than that Angela!"

Mom pokes him with her elbow. I drag a laughing Lulu away. There's no telling what they will do or say next.

--

She's rooting around in my closet. "J. Crew, J. Crew, J. Crew. You are consistent I'll say that much. Ah Hah! Signs of possible style Paul Smith, Thomas Pink, Ben Sherman. So you are capable of something more than this glorified farm boy routine you've got going day in and day out."

She looks me up & down. "You're changing right now. Here put this on."

Sigh, so it begins. We are headed to my timeshare at the beach, it's gotten even warmer and the trade winds will feel nice.

We stop off for a few essentials. I try to get her a bathing suit but she says she's not much for swimming; she picks up a couple of pairs of shorts and little tank tops.

She loves the house, says she's always wanted to live at the beach but is not an especially strong swimmer and is deathly afraid of being swept out to sea.

I put on a rediscovered linen trilby, she kicks off her sandals and we go for a walk. She's very quiet, but looks content.

I snap some pictures with my iPhone and she laughs and poses playfully. I snap pictures of the two of us, we look well together. Her in that white dress has my brain in a spin.

"I like your folks. Especially your dad, he has a wonderfully cantankerous exterior. Though the way his eyes light up when he looks at your mom I suspect it's merely window dressing for his creamy soft center. He has eyes just like my babyfriend. Your mom seems to know how to handle him."

"Well they like you too Lou."

"Why didn't you tell me about them?"

I expected this. "How does one explain something like that?"

"You open your mouth and say it."

"It's common enough where I come from but the rest of the world generally doesn't understand it. Every other person there is a product of some sort of swirl. You missed it when I said that my parents were ordinary black folk."

She blinks at me looking a little perturbed.