The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

26





BY THE TIME WE GOT BACK TO THE HOUSE, AFTER stopping several times so I could take pictures, it was an hour till sundown.

I offered to make pizzas for dinner. “We’ve got a can of artichokes. Might make them a little classier.”

“Whatever you want as long as you’re cooking!” Jesse said.

“Do you ever cook?” I teased.

“Only in the face of starvation, honey. But don’t I make the most fabulous party hors d’oeuvres?” She took note of Isabel’s judgmental expression. “Hey, listen, you two—I cooked enough when I was a kid, for an ungrateful mother.” She waved a finger in Isabel’s direction. “And I cooked for you, didn’t I?”

Isabel rolled her eyes. “If ordering takeout counts.”

I laughed but Jesse got visibly upset.

“Hey, I was a working mother!”

“Yeah!” Lynette said, moving next to Jesse with a hand on her hip.

I knew better than to take them both on. Jesse laughed. “Okay, I hate cooking. What is so great about it? What century are we living in? Huh? What did Gloria Steinem and all our NOW sisters fight for?”

“The right to order takeout!” Isabel shouted, with a fist raised like Nelson Mandela.

“Yes, my smart-ass darling daughter. Takeout. Women have better things to do than spend hours a day cooking for kids and husbands.”

“Yeah,” Lynette said again.

I cocked an eyebrow at them. “Why don’t you two—oh ye divine Creators of Feminism—go wash up and we’ll handle supper in this uncivilized land with no takeout?”

“These kids have no respect,” Lynette said to Jesse as she took her arm to leave. “No idea what we fought for. For them.”

“Ungrateful little brats,” Jesse agreed.

“Whatever, Mom,” Isabel said as they sauntered off. Under her breath, she added, “You made money off a billionaire ex-husband, apparently.”

Jesse stopped dead and spun around. “You kiddin’ me, young lady? I raised you by myself and ran a business. And Lynette—you don’t know a thing if you think Lynette isn’t worth a hearty thank you, ma’am, for what she did for your generation. You think it was easy for the homecoming queen to date a Negro in Virginia?”

Isabel and I stared at Jesse, speechless.

Jesse looked back and forth between the two of us, her eyebrows raised damn near to her hairline.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, her head bobbing about like a pigeon. She linked arms with Lynette again. “My God, what do they teach these children in school?”

Lynette gave a little harrumph and stalked off with Jesse. “They don’t know shit, do they?”