That was a flat-out lie and if it were drama day for me instead of fishing expedition day, I would have really said, “He and I ended up at the same wedding and to make sure I had some ammunition to use later on, I fucked the best man.”
I chuckled as they both stared at me. I wondered what their reaction would have been if I had really blurted that out.
Flower came into the kitchen. “Are the cookies ready yet, Miss Meredith?”
Meredith ran over to the stove like she was Flower’s nanny or some shit like that. “Yes, they are, sweetie. Why don’t you go wash your hands in the little girls’ room while I make you a plate of cookies and a glass of milk?”
Flower pouted. “I want some of the tea Daddy made.”
“Okay,” Meredith conceded. “But just one glass of tea. We wouldn’t want you to consume too much sugar. You’re a growing girl.”
Flower looked at me and asked, “What does consume mean, Sis?”
“It means eat, drink, take in,” I replied, irritated.
Just when I was about to make a speedy exit, Meredith dropped a bombshell.
“Um, Jonquinette, we were going to call you earlier to ask you for a favor.”
“What favor?” I asked, hoping the Queen Bitch wasn’t going to ask me to do something ridiculous.
“Henry and I have tickets for a play this afternoon at the Neighborhood Playhouse and we were wondering if you could watch Flower for us.”
I glimpsed down at Flower, who grabbed my arm excitedly. “Yeah, Sis, can I hang out with you?”
Henry said, “We’d really appreciate it, Jonquinette.”
It became painfully clear that Meredith and Henry were caught up in their own little world and not thinking clearly. If Jonquinette were really Jonquinette at the moment, which she wasn’t, and agreed to watch Flower, what did they think would happen if Jude showed up and took over, which I already had. After all the negative things that had been said about me, why would they risk the possibility of me ending up baby-sitting Flower? Stupid asses!
All three of them anxiously awaited my answer. I had planned to go find some dick action that afternoon to relieve some stress. Baby-sitting would definitely put a damper on my plans, but Jon would never think of telling them no so I had to suck it up and say, “Sure! I’d love to spend the afternoon with Flower!”
Within thirty minutes, Meredith and Henry were glowing as they pranced out the apartment arm in arm. Jon still had a key to Meredith’s place and there was no way I was going to sit there and watch kiddie television all day.
I took Flower to the park and hated every minute of it. A bunch of brats running around, full of hopes and dreams that their lives would be wonderful when they became adults. If they only knew the real deal. I wondered how many of them were the opposite and tried to pick out the ones that looked sad—the ones who looked like they were mistreated, abused, or just had issues to deal with period. Since it was too early for school to let out, most of them were five and under. I saw one little boy off by himself. He was sitting up underneath a slide as other kids took turns plummeting down it above his head. For the entire time we were there, he didn’t talk to another child or play with another child.
His mother was sitting on a bench with a baby in a stroller. She barely paid him any attention. She would shove the pacifier back into the infant girl’s mouth whenever she cried and glimpse at the boy every ten minutes or so. The rest of the time she had her head buried in a novel. Someone could have snatched him easily and she wouldn’t have noticed until they were in a car five or six miles away. Damn shame.
Flower was mighty talkative and I have to admit that she began to grow on me. After all, it wasn’t her fault that Henry had donated the sperm to create her. She was inquisitive, asking me about everything under the sun. She was good-humored and in high spirits and had good manners. I took her on the miniature train ride, let her ride the merry-go-round, and then we played two rounds of putt-putt. She beat me something terrible because Jon never played and I normally had better things to do, like fucking.
After she was worn out from playing, I took her to Paschal’s to grab a bite to eat. We ordered fried chicken, collard greens, and creamy potato salad and threw down on all of it. I should have taken the opportunity to eat some red meat, since Jon refused to, but I couldn’t go to Paschal’s and not jump on the fried chicken.
Flower opened up to me and talked a lot about her mother. Allison seemed like a decent human being so at least she had one parent she could count on. Then Flower turned the tables on me and started asking a lot of questions about Jon’s childhood. I lied and said that it was the greatest and that Jon was popular and had tons of friends and all the boys were in love with her. What a crock of bullshit!