He laughed again and I could imagine him shaking his head at my paranoia. “See you at two,” he said, and then hung up. I could breathe again with the awkward conversation behind me. My father continued to stare at the television which meant that my words had gone right over his head as I’d hoped.
Just then, a set of headlights turned into our driveway. Mom jumped up to her feet. Aunt Lisa’s the older sister and she’d practically raised my mother after their parents died. Mom always looked forward to seeing her around the holidays. As soon as Aunt Lisa walked through the door she dropped her bags and she and mom both started screaming as they jumped up and down in one another’s arms.
Angel came through the door carrying what looked like every piece of luggage from the car. Daddy and I rushed over to her to grab what we could. She took one look at me and smiled.
“Sammy!” She screamed. She’s the only one who calls me that and I was glad of it. Sammy sounds like a dog’s name to me and it still hasn’t grown on me after all these years. I threw my arms around her. Even though it had only been months since we’d seen each other, it felt like years had passed.
“Come on up. You’re staying in my room.” I motioned her toward the steps.
We ran up, carrying her luggage and tossed it all right on the floor as soon as we shut my door. The first thing Angel did was change into her pajamas and then lay back on my bed with her feet crossed and her hands interlocked across her chest. There was so much I wanted to tell her, but it seemed selfish to unload on her after such a long and tiring trip. She looked over at me and smiled as I pulled out a pair of pajamas from my dresser.
“Sooooo…..?”
“Sooooo…..?” I replied.
She sighed and sat up on her elbows. “Are you gonna make me beat the information out of you or are you gonna spill it on your own?”
I smiled. “What are you talking about?”
“What’s going on in your life? What’s up with that boy you were telling me about at the reunion? You still with him? I need to see some pictures or something, now!” She rambled.
I laughed at her. There was that New York charm of hers that I loved so much. “No, we’re not together anymore, but we’re friends,” I replied as I reached into my nightstand drawer and retrieved a picture of Antonio and I that we took at Homecoming.
Her eyes bucked when she looked at him. “Wow, he’s a cutie! So…..ya’ll friends like ya’ll still get busy friends, or friends like let’s braid each other’s hair friends?” She asked.
“First of all, we are friends as in we’re just cool. And second, we never ‘got busy’.”
“Yeah right,” she scoffed as she took a second look at the photo.
“I’m serious. We never did it.” I sat down on my bed across from her.
“You tellin’ me you never ever?”
I smiled. “I didn’t say that. I said that we never did it.”
“Whoa…..Look at you. So tell me about this new dude.”
Angel frowned at how giddy I became when I started talking about him. “His name’s AJ and you’ll meet him Thursday.”
Her expression was thoughtful. “You must really like him, huh?”
“That’s one way to put it,” I replied. When I looked over at her she was yawning again. “Girl, go to bed. I’m gonna take a shower. We’ll finish talking about it tomorrow.
“Fine, but you’d better be ready to give me every single detail by then. I’m not playin’ with you.”
“I will,” I assured her.”
“Good. And I’ll just say goodnight now cause I’ll probably be knocked out by the time you get out.”
I smiled at her, glad that she’d be here with me for a while. Maybe she could help me sort some of my mess out. “Goodnight,” I said, and then turned to walk into the bathroom.