I just nod and mmhm and hope she stops talking about him soon. Friday knows my avoidance tactics well enough to read me. She pulls me up the steps that lead to her porch, where a pitcher of sweat tea is already sweating in the shade. Two tall glasses are set out side by side, and a part of me finds this amusing. I’m so used to California now; in Los Angeles you’d never find such an open sign of hospitality. Friday put two glasses out, not because she knew I would be stopping by at some point, but because she knew someone would, they always do, and she wanted to be ready to receive her guest.
“Sit yourself down, baby girl. I need to hear all about that Hollywood lifestyle of yours.” Friday, despite being such a huge woman, moves with grace as she crosses the porch and sits herself down in one of her white-painted Adirondack chairs. “I know what goes on out there. All those loose morals flying around. All those pretty boys with they bleached white teeth. It’s a wonder a woman can get any work done. You taking commissions from all them A-lister celebrity types, huh?” She says all of this in one breath, before I’ve even had chance to sit myself down.
Once I’m confortable, I take a deep breath and start at the beginning. “I don’t live in Hollywood. I live south of the city, right on the ocean. I do take commissions, but I haven’t painted anything for anyone famous yet. And I never go into Hollywood. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be looking at pretty boys with bleached teeth. I have a boyfriend, remember? Ben? I told you about him last time I emailed.”
“Email? Baby girl, you know I ain’t reading no email. I can’t work that crazy machine. What’s wrong with a regular letter? The postal service is still running, ain’t it?”
“Yes. Though not very well,” I concede. “Are you still taking your insulin?” Friday’s been diabetic for the past few years. Whenever I find the time to call her and see how she’s doing, she skirts around the topic of her medication. Sitting right in front of her, looking her right in the eye, makes it harder for her to lie or dodge the question.
“When I need it, child. I don’t see the need to be pumping that nonsense into my body every five seconds of the day.”
“You’ll get sick if you don’t take it like you’re meant to,” I chide. “You could go blind. Lose your legs. Do you want that?”
“What kind of a backward, hair-brained question is that? And there I was thinking you was smart. Of course I don’t wanna lose my damn legs.”
Friday always grows hostile when you point out the truth. I don’t take offense. “Then start doing what you’re meant to. Your insulin intake wasn’t a suggestion. It was doctor’s orders.”
Friday makes a disgruntled sound, refusing to look at me. She pours out some sweet tea and thrusts the glass at me. “I saw that one yonder coming home earlier.” She points across the street, toward the house I’ve been avoiding looking at. Both houses, in fact. To the left, the Cross household, where Callan grew up, and next to it, the three story building where I existed in the shadows for seventeen years.
“He grew again, if that makes any sense to you. The boy never stops growing.”
I blink slowly at the house across the way, trying to understand what Friday is telling me. “Callan? Callan came home?”
Friday sighs heavily, shifting in her chair. “Ain’t that what I just said? He rolled up this morning in a terrible piece ‘o’ shit car. Pretty sure there was smoke pouring out from underneath the hood.”
“Callan shouldn’t be here. Callan is in New York.” I know this because I somehow always know where he is. I never mean to notice him so much, but the guy does have social media accounts, and, well, I sometimes look him up.
Friday stretches, rolling her shoulders back so that her considerable bust protrudes even further. “Then Callan has a twin brother with a surly gait that I never done knew about when you kids was growing up, because a tall, dark-haired guy walked into that there building five hours ago that looked just like him.”
After the stern telling off I gave myself on the plane about not making myself throw up anymore, it’s funny how badly I want to stick my fingers down my throat all of a sudden. The Klonopin Margo gave me has been nicely dulling the sharp edges off the day thus far, but now it feels as if all the world is in glaring Technicolor and my head is about to split open.
“How? How did he even know to come back? I don’t understand.” Telling him about my father never even crossed my mind. Callan hated him almost as much as I did. There’s no way he would ever want to come back here and pay his respects. Given our history and every single heartbreaking thing that happened here, him showing up unannounced was the very last thing I was expecting. Jesus Christ, how the hell am I going to deal with this?