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“Sorry about the mess. I was just—”
“No apologies. Your mess, as you call it, is actually very organized and controlled. Besides, you’re at home. I’m the one infringing on your personal time.”
“Temporarily.”
“Huh?”
“It’s my temporary home,” she explained as I sat down.
“I’ll be right back. What would you like to drink? Water? Juice? Wine? Beer?”
“Water will be fine.”
I set the food out as she disappeared into the kitchen. When she returned with napkins, forks, and bottled water, she took a chair opposite me.
“I haven’t heard from Jude much since you’ve been gone.”
“Yeah, he had to go out of town for some seminar,” I explained.
“Mm . . .”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as I uncovered the lid on my platter.
I had picked up some food from Off The Bone. They were a barbeque joint that served a variety of barbeque along with all the fixings.
“It’s awfully convenient how he was able to drop everything to come running to my rescue when my sister called. But now that you’re involved, things suddenly came to a halt.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Mm-hmm,” she replied as she licked some barbeque sauce from her fingertips. “He was out of pocket at first because of pressing issues with clients whom he put on hold for me. And now he’s out of town at a seminar. Just saying, it’s mighty convenient in keeping me here in your place.”
“It could look like that, but trust me, my homie’s a nig—man of integrity if nothing else.”
“It’s okay, Casimir. You don’t have to do that,” she stated as she removed the top from her container of collard greens.
“Do what?”
“Alter your speech for me. You’re in your home . . . or a place that you own, I should say.”
I chuckled. “You caught that, huh?”
“Yeah. You present yourself in one light around me. I would dare say that it’s this altered version that you said your in-laws created. A façade that you feel pressured to uphold in the presence of some.”
“Some like who?” I asked.
“Those who have ties to your wife and in-laws.”
“And you think that you have those ties?”
“Not like that,” she denied and forked some potato salad. “I mean, people you met through them or because of them in some way. Like, take me for instance. If your wife hadn’t insisted that you come to marriage counseling and hadn’t made the appointment, you wouldn’t know me,” she explained before shoveling the potato salad into her mouth.
I bit into my rib and nodded. I took my time chewing before I answered. “You’re right.”
“And you shouldn’t have to do that, especially in a place that belongs to you. I mean, you did tell me that was why you were leaving her, right? Because you wanted to be yourself again.”
“I did.”
“Then do nothing less than that no matter who you’re around. Be yourself when you’re around me too.”