We Are Not Like Them(6)
“The glam life of a cop’s wife.”
Jen bites the edge of her bottom lip, a lifelong nervous habit that’s left her with a tiny white scar. “I wish. It’s been hard. The holidays are such a shit time to be a cop. Thanksgiving and Christmas are supposed to be, like, the happiest time of year for most people, but there are way more calls, more domestics, and a lot more suicides. Kevin had to go to one last week—day after Thanksgiving, guy hung himself in the backyard from his daughter’s swing set. So awful, right? He left a note taped to the swings that said he couldn’t fight the demons. It messed Kevin up for days. He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell. It’s too much for the cops… to be the social workers, the therapists…. Anyway, enough about that. God, so depressing. How’s Gigi?”
For as long as Jen has known her, she has called my grandmother by the same nickname my brother, Shaun, and I use, the one I gave Gigi when I was first learning to talk and couldn’t say “Grandma.” Of course, Gigi loves this, since Jen is basically her granddaughter too. I tease her that she loves Jen more than me and vice versa. Ever since the very first day Jenny came to the day care that Gigi ran out of our house, the one she started when she moved in with us after Grandpa died and she retired from thirty years at Bell Atlantic, she took a special shine to Jenny, calling her “my little firecracker.”
I always rib Gigi about this. “But can we trust her, you know, her being white and all?”
To which Gigi responds with the utmost sincerity: “Oh, baby, you know Jenny is different. She isn’t like the rest of them.” It was too funny since I can bet on the number of times people have said that about me.
“I overheard my mom talking to Pastor Price about needing to think about ‘the arrangements’ for Gigi and I got so angry. Like Mom was acting like she was already gone.”
Jen puts her hand on my arm. “Gigi’s a fighter, Rye. She’s still got a lot of life in her.”
“I don’t know…. The dialysis isn’t cutting it anymore, and there’s just not much else the doctors can do.” I pause for a moment, worried I’m going to sound crazy, but then I tell her anyway. “Gigi’s been haunting me. I hear her voice everywhere, Jenny, and it makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“Is she reminding you that nice girls wear pantyhose?” Jen scrunches up her face and cackles, so loudly people look over again. She’s clearly thinking about the time Gigi insisted Jenny borrow a pair of her stockings to wear to church one Sunday after she’d slept over, even though the Hanes Her Way were two shades too brown for Jenny’s pale legs.
“It’s not funny!” I say. “Maybe I’m losing it.”
“Shut your mouth. You’re not crazy. You’re worried about her. You love her. And you got a lot going on.” Jen rubs the knot between my shoulder blades. “I should go see her.”
“Yeah, she’d love that. She was asking about you, and I told her I was seeing you tonight. She’ll want to rub your tummy and tell you the baby’s future. Who they’re gonna marry, when they’ll be elected president…”
“You know because of Gigi I grew up thinking all Black people were psychic.”
“It’s not psychic. It’s the tingles.”
Gigi always claimed that the women in the Wilson family had a touch of the “tingles,” a sense of knowing the future.
I’m about to remind Jen of the time we tried to convince Gigi to let us charge the kids at school for her psychic readings when I see the moment has taken a turn. Jen is staring off into space, brows knitted. “Don’t you wish you really could see the future, Rye? I just want to know everything’s going to be okay. He, she… it’s all going to be okay, right?”
Jenny and I were always making wishes together as kids—for our crushes to notice us, for Juicy sweat suits our parents couldn’t afford, for boobs. She’d offer a fallen eyelash on the tip of her finger and tell me to blow. She would get annoyed when I wouldn’t tell her my wishes, the ones I was too embarrassed about or most wanted to come true; I didn’t want to risk ruining my chances.
I grab Jen’s hand to reassure us both.
“Is this the hormones? A second ago we were toasting to all our dreams coming true. Of course the baby’s fine. Little Bird is healthy and happy and can’t wait to make fun of their mama with me.”
When Jenny first starting calling the baby “Little Bird” after the Philadelphia Eagles mascot, it sounded like the corniest thing I’d ever heard, but over time I’ve decided it’s sort of cute. I even found these adorable onesies on Etsy with baby birds and bought twenty of them that I’m planning to string up at her baby shower. Also, a shirt for her that reads, “Momma Bird.” So I have done something for the shower, even if it was without Cookie’s approval, which I suspect isn’t going to go over too well.
“I’m just freaked out, you know. The closer I get…” Jen stops and looks down at her stomach again. “The scarier it is. There are so many things that can go wrong. You know what I mean?”
I know exactly what she means—the biting fear that everything you’ve worked for can disappear in a second, that you can bust your butt, do everything right, and it won’t matter one bit. I know it all too well.