Page 53 of Anything Goes

“Mmhmm, what’s her name?”

Shaking my head, I told my mother, “I’m not telling you all of that.”

“You might as well. You know you can’t keep stuff like that from me for too long. Are y’all dating? Is it serious? Do you love her?”

“Damn, Yvonne. Give the boy a minute to get his words out.”

“See, that’s why I didn’t want to say anything. You’re already doing too much.”

Leaning back in her seat, she lifted her hands. “Okay, sorry. It’s just been a while since you talked about a woman. Oh, and speaking of which, you had a visitor drop by my house earlier today.”

“A visitor?”

“Yeah, I think her name was Maxine. Is that who you’re seeing?”

Frowning, I leaned forward. “Wait, what? She came to your house?”

“Yeah. She said that she’d been trying to get in touch with you, but she couldn’t.”

Of course, she couldn’t. I blocked her ass a long time ago.

“Wow, that’s crazy,” I mumbled.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. And to answer your question, no I’m not dating her. Maxine is just an old friend I met while on the police force.”

“Oh, so she’s a cop?”

“No, she just spends a lot of time at the precinct.”

“Oh okay. Well, she was very pretty. Definitely your type. You should—”

“No, Mama, I shouldn't,” I said, standing up from the chair. “I need to get going.”

“Already? You just got here.”

“Yeah, I know. But I just remembered that I was supposed to make a stop before I got here.”

“Nah, sit your ass back down,” she snapped. “You came over here for a reason. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Yes, it is. You were just fine until I mentioned this Maxine chick. I get the feeling that she's a problem, and you know how I feel about problems.”

“We all know how you feel about problems, Yvonne,” my father chimed in. “But Law is a grown ass man. He doesn’t need his Mama trying to fight his battles.”

“Well, if a woman is involved, he definitely does. These chicks out here are crazy. I’m not trying to find my son in a body bag because some woman took her obsession for him too damn far. I’ve seen enough episodes ofSnappedto know how things can take a turn.”

I hated to agree with her, but her observation wasn’t that far off. Maxine was definitely a candidate in the crazy department. The fact that she showed up at my mother’s house out of the blue proved that. But what I couldn’t seem to figure out was why. We hadn’t seen or spoken with each other in months.

“Don’t worry Mama. I’m good. I was just thrown for a loop by her visit. That’s all.”

“Yeah okay. Well, I got her license plate number. If something happens to you, that’s the first one I’m coming for.”

“Lord, help her,” my father said with a sigh.

Trying not to put any more energy into the conversation, I simply laughed. “I’ll see you two later. Oh, before I go, I did want to talk to you about something, Mama.”