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“What? Are you scared?” Vi taunted.
“I’m not scared. Just not stupid. You must get that boldness from your mother’s side,” Imani joked. “Messing around with all that is definitely some white people nonsense.”
“Eden!” Vi whined.
Sitting on the arm of the couch, I chuckled low. “What? Why are you calling me?”
“Your dad is white. Is it white people nonsense to play around with a Ouija board?” Vi asked.
Taking a long sip of my wine, I considered. If I dared come into my house with a Ouija board in hand growing up, my mom would have reacted much like Imani. “I think it is, Vi.”
Her mouth gaped. “Rude!”
A lift of my shoulders was all I offered her. I looked around the living room to the grey chair in the corner. It was a cozy chair, with deep cushions and a wide seat. Sarika sat sideways, legs over an arm, with her head rested on the other. An open book sat on her face and her feet kicked lazily as her hand wrapped around her glass on the floor.
If the book wasn’t over her face, I was sure one of her thick and perfectly arched eyebrows would be cocked. Her oval eyes with the cat-eye liner she effortlessly accomplished would be closed and her double nose ring on the left side of her narrow nose with its arched bridge would gleam in the lighting. The corners of her wide lips with the upper lip noticeably thinner than the bottom would be quirked in the way they eternally were when she was with us.
“You alive over there, Sarika?” I laughed. Everything was funny after four… or five glasses of wine.
Instead of lifting the book, she shook her face. The book toppled to the floor, narrowly missing her glass. Her silky, thick, raven hair hung loosely over the arm of the chair. Her thick brows arched over dark eyes. “Yeah.”
“You’re not asleep already, are you?” I asked.
“No.”
“Liar!” Imani danced over, playfully poking Sarika in the side. “You were sleeping under that book!”
Sarika swatted Imani’s hand away. “Was not! Every song is your jam. You keep spilling wine all over Eden’s house, and Vi is up to some white people nonsense. I’m listening. I’m just vibing.”
Imani’s eyes met mine as she forced a smile. She sidestepped onto the rug, her feet barely covering the red wine stain. “I did not spill wine anywhere.”
Snorting, Sarika shook her head. “I know your thirty-two-year-old, mother-of-three ass isn’t trying to hide a stain on the carpet like a toddler.”
Vi threw back her head, a deep bellow escaping her throat. “Imani!”
“Shut up!” Imani snatched the Ouija board off the table, walked over to the window, and tossed it outside.
“Really?” Vi crossed her arms over her chest. “Just a whole ass toddler tonight?”
“You’ll be thanking this toddler when you don’t have a ghost haunting you.” She walked over to the table, grabbed a glass I was almost positive wasn’t hers, and tossed back the wine. “No Ouija board.”
Vi threw back her head, an exaggerated moan slowly leaving her. “Well, this is boring. Let’s do something besides listen to Imani sing off-key and dance like we’re sixteen in the club. I had to go to brunch with my mother-in-law to get her to watch the kids this weekend. Brunch! Where she reminded me how wonderful her son is and how much of a fool I was to separate from him. The precious king that he is. You guys owe me something.”
Vi’s mother-in-law was a piece of work who thought her son was Midas and everything he touched was gold. Except Vi. She was far from gold, but being the mother to her only two grandkids meant she wouldn’t say that in as many words right to her face.
I wasn’t sure there was any amount of money that would persuade me to go to lunch with the woman who refused to admit she raised a man-child who weaponized his incompetence until Vi was left with only two choices: kill him or leave him.
She left.
And hadn’t heard the end of it from his mother since.
Her situation made me thankful to be single. No man whined at me for socks, misplaced keys, or things right in front of his face.
Imani’s husband was the gold standard. She often tried to pull me to the dark side with Instagram posts where he gave her flowers for no reason, took the kids when she was feeling overwhelmed so she could have the house to herself, or constant celebrations of their milestones and accomplishments.
There was a stretch where she almost got me but I held strong.
Barely.
