Page 8 of The Birthday Girl
Danielle laughed nervously. “Don’t be like that. You’re sitting on billions. I just knew I’d get a push gift. That Ferrari I told you I wanted would’ve been nice.” She giggled again, a sound that grated on Tahlia’s ears.
“Isn’t that the father’s job?” she pressed, genuinely baffled at why her sister’s needs and wants were thrust upon her.
“Tah, stop!” their mother hissed, her fingers latching onto Tahlia’s wrist below before pulling her to the side. Her voice dropped to a scolding whisper. “Leave it alone. Do not embarrass your sister at her baby shower.”
Tahlia stared at her, dumbfounded. “How is asking about the child’s father embarrassing? To have a child, a man is typically involved. Am I wrong?”
“Yes, but—”
She cut her off with a raised hand. “But nothing. I went out of my way to make sure this shower was beautiful, and I even brought a stroller that costs more than her rent. Now I’m responsible for push gifts too?
Tell me, is that my child? Or better yet, isn’t it ungrateful when I’ve done more for her baby in one day than she managed in nine months? ”
“That doesn’t matter. Her child is your niece. You should want to spoil her. Isn’t that what the rich aunties with no kids do?” Tisha spat back, her eyes sweeping over her daughter with disdain.
Tahlia scoffed. “Fuck you. Fuck her. Fuck that child. Fuck the man who got her pregnant and disappeared. Fuck this baby shower and the fake smiles. Fuck every one of you standing here with your greedy hands out. I am not your bank, I am not your savior, and I am not about to keep pouring into people who’ve never done a damn thing for themselves.
You want a rich auntie? Find another one. ”
“Tah-Tah, why are you looking at me like that? Are you still here?” her mother asked, waving a hand in front of her face.
Tahlia blinked and shook her head. “Yes, Mom. I’m here.”
“Are you sure? You looked spaced out for a moment.”
“Oh, sorry. What was it you were saying?”
“I think maybe you should leave and get some rest. You look exhausted, Tah.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Tahlia smiled awkwardly, already done with the conversation and the entire engagement.
She wished her mother had let her stay in that space. Cursing her out in her head felt better than the reality, where her checkbook earned more respect than she did as a person.
“Damn right, I—”
Mid-sentence, Tahlia walked away from Tisha, her heart bleeding and heels violently stabbing the floor as she made a beeline for the bar. Behind her, her mother's voice faded into the bass.
She ordered tequila, neat, and watched Danielle across the room, cooing at her swaddled infant. Their eyes met briefly, and Danielle's lips curled upward at the corners before she ducked her head back to the baby, whispering something that made the circle around her erupt in laughter.
The bartender slid over two shots. Tahlia knocked them back in quick succession, the burn spreading through her chest. The exit sign's red glow beckoned, so she headed that way. Outside, the evening air hit her flushed face hard.
Her Aston Martin gleamed under the parking lot lights, the only thing waiting for her.
She slid in, slammed the door, and gripped the leather steering wheel until her fingers ached.
A sound escaped her throat, something between a laugh and a sob, as she pounded the wheel again and again until her palms stung and her lungs emptied.
She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel and sat in the darkness, panting, the violence in her hands pulsing up through her tendons to her heart.
She didn’t cry. Tahlia Banks hadn’t cried since the day she slid out of the birth canal, and she wasn’t about to start now, but the urge to split herself open and scatter her insides over the parking lot asphalt was strong.
Tahlia always left with resentment at the end of family events.
Then she’d spend the entire drive home reliving each microaggression, each snicker and side-eye and ungrateful request, until the anger peaked and her mind splintered off into parallel universes of revenge.
She let herself drift, fantasy and reality loosening their handshake.
In her mind’s eye, she set the banquet hall on fire with everyone still inside. She pictured the flames licking balloons until they were blackened plastic, the cake melting in a slumped heap, the air deluged with shrieks and the smell of scorched cotton candy.
She’d watch Danielle’s fat ass waddle toward the exit, the heat peeling her acrylics and singeing her wig into a blackened crown. Their mother, pursing her lips even as the smoke took her, would try to dial Tahlia’s number with melting fingers.
“Help us! Help us!” people would scream, but Tahlia would only lean against the hood of her car, arms folded, lips bloodless and perfect, and watch the windows blacken.
She imagined the papers the next morning: “Tragedy at Belvedere Banquet Hall.” There would be a photo of her family, eyes closed, faces serene, not a single one of them asking her for shit, ever again.
That was the fantasy.
The Aston’s clock blinked through a full hour, then another half, and Tahlia sat there, parked beneath the jaundiced floodlights on the edge of the banquet hall lot until her pulse slowed to a manageable throb.
For a while, she watched the front doors and the constant churn of bodies.
Relatives staggered out for a smoke, an old man pissed against the curb, and a cousin in a cheap suit chased his toddler down the sidewalk, and not a single soul glanced her way.
At some point, the sky bled toward indigo, and the party inside reached critical noise.
She could hear the bass shudder even with her windows up.
Tahlia let her head fall back against the seat, her hair pooling over the headrest, and scrolled through her phone, unfortunately reminding herself that she no longer had Tyriq.
As if conjuring him up with her thoughts, his Porsche Macan came gliding across the lot, headlights off, the matte black finish catching only the sickly yellow of the lamps.
The Porsche rolled to a stop three slots down from her, and for a long moment, nothing happened.
Then, like a snake uncurling from a burrow, Tyriq unfolded himself from the driver’s seat.
He wasn’t alone. Darrius, his close friend from college, exited the truck right after him.
“What the fuck are they doing here?” Tahlia whispered as Tyriq's unmistakable silhouette reached inside his trunk, his eyes sweeping the parking lot.
Neither man seemed to notice the Aston Martin idling just beyond the security lamps. They moved with the carelessness of people who had always assumed they were being observed, but never by someone who could do them harm.
Tyriq, dressed in a dark suit with a purple tie still knotted from a workday he had left hours ago, began unloading baby gifts.
Out came monogrammed diaper bags, baskets wrapped in cellophane and curly ribbon, and a box so large that Tahlia guessed it held a $400 infant swing.
Next came a shrink-wrapped car seat, an Apple-white diaper genie, glossy bags from Hermès and Gucci, and a baby monitor system that looked advanced enough to hack the Pentagon.
Unable to carry everything themselves, Tyriq waved a cousin over and gave brisk instructions on what to grab.
Then, balancing the baby’s carrier on his forearm like a football, he surveyed the haul with a boyish pride that made Tahlia’s lip curl.
He and Darrius gathered the remaining gifts, stacking them between their arms as they laughed at some joke she couldn’t hear.
Darrius leaned in with another remark, and Tyriq’s smirk widened as he reached for the door.
Her mind kept circling back to her mother.
That phone call, the sigh, the way Tisha had sounded almost relieved when Tahlia said she wouldn’t be there.
At the time, it had stung vaguely, but now, parked outside and staring at the double doors, the memory gave her clarity.
That wasn’t relief for Tisha. It was for Danielle, and whatever secret her family had chosen to keep.
Nothing should come as a surprise. Danielle had always been envious.
It was stitched into her bones, the same way ambition was stitched into Tahlia’s.
She was jealous of her clothes, her success, and the way men turned their heads when Tahlia walked into a room.
She had watched her sister simmer under it, year after year, laughing too loud at her mistakes, and clapping too hard when she fell, always waiting for proof that Tahlia wasn’t as untouchable as she seemed.
And now Tyriq.
Tahlia had never believed he was capable of crawling so low. Despite his arrogance and betrayals, she still believed there were lines he wouldn’t cross. But Danielle? Danielle was a different story. She put nothing past her. Danielle had always wanted everything she had, regardless of its nature.
“Nah.” Tahlia shook her head, her voice trembling as she spoke. “Not him—not them. Unless Darrius—” The thought died on her lips as certainty settled in her chest. Darrius was just the wingman tonight.