A Love Song for Ricki Wilde (92)

While her sisters hung out at the Wallace, Ezra had gone food shopping and Ricki had cleaned her studio. She felt like sex was all over her apartment: in the rumpled, rainy-day sheets, the coffee mugs on the nightstand, the pile of his clothes in her hamper. What was hers had quickly turned into theirs, and it was intimate, beautiful and sacred. Ricki didn’t want to share it with her sisters, who’d never understood her and didn’t want to. They thought she was a kooky slut with no impulse control.

By the time her sisters returned, the space was spotless. And Ezra had whipped up a delicious menu of shrimp purloo, Gullah red rice, and fried corn cake, ending with peaches-and-cream pie.

And she knew, without them explicitly saying so, that her sisters were impressed. She could tell by the way they’d stopped being so judgy and they could talk only about the food.

Not that I care, Ricki reminded herself.

“Frankly, I’m shocked,” said Regina, tapping a napkin to the corner of her mouth. “Given Ricki’s track record in the kitchen, I was expecting a variety pack of cereal boxes for dinner. Ezra, you’re a keeper.”

“Down-home delicious,” gushed Rae.

“What’s this vegetable I’m tasting?” asked Rashida, spooning the thick, rich soup.

“Okra,” said Ezra, visibly proud of his hastily prepared but delicious dinner. “My mom taught me how to cook. She was originally from Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. You know, real Low Country Gullah folk put okra in everything down there.”

Rashida didn’t know anything about Low Country Gullah folk, so she offered a mild “Ah, yes” and continued to inhale the soup.

“Well, it’s so tasty,” said Rae. “You’re quite the cook, Ezra.”

“Oh, I’ve had these recipes for like a hundred years,” he said with a smile. “I’ve had time to perfect them.”

“There’s no healthy way to eat like this,” said Regina, reaching for a piece of pie.

“My sister only eats dishes recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow,” said Ricki, relieved that Ezra had taken over. Her sisters’ presence not only was triggering but was taking up valuable time with Ezra—time that was disappearing. She felt nauseous every time she thought of it. Thank God Ezra had picked up their side of the conversation.

Such a luxury, she thought, having someone who fills in your gaps when you’re depleted.

“Sometimes food serves purely as a comfort,” Ezra pointed out. “Not just sustenance.”

Regina cocked a brow in his direction. “Wait till you turn forty, kid. It’s all fun and games until metabolism plays in your face.”

Rashida had had enough of this surface-level chitchat. “So, Ezra, tell us about yourself. Where’d you grow up? Where’d you go to school? What do you do?”

“Can we skip the interview?” Ricki turned toward her. “Isn’t it enough that he whipped up a five-star dinner for you in, like, five seconds?”

Ricki sounded and felt like a petulant teenager, and she knew it.

“It’s all right, Ricki,” he said mildly, squeezing her knee under the table. As always, he was cool as a breeze. “You can ask me anything. I’m from South Carolina. A little town called Fallon County—it doesn’t exist anymore, though. My parents and my sister were all sharecroppers.”

The sisters eyed each other.

“Sharecroppers?” Rae said, bristling. “That sounds so Jim Crow. Is sharecropping even legal anymore?”

“Girl, who knows what goes on in the sticks,” said Rashida.

“No, I meant farmers. They are… were… farmers.”

Not good. This always happened to Ezra when he was with Ricki: his guard came down and he told the truth.

“Ohhh,” cooed Regina, perking up. “Well! Farming can be extremely profitable. And Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell have brilliant agricultural science degrees. My high school boyfriend was from an old pistachio-farming family in California and went to Harvard. Girls, remember Darryl Remsen?”

“He was so fine,” recalled Rae. “Peaked too soon, though. Somebody told me he got starter locs and left his churchy wife of twenty-five years for a masturbation consultant he met on OnlyFans.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” snapped Regina. “Anyway. All the top farming families know each other. Surely you’ve heard of the Remsens?”

“Well, my family wasn’t really like that. I come from a humble background,” said Ezra, pouring himself more wine and then filling up all the Wilde sisters’ mismatched glasses. “And they’re no longer with us.”

“Your whole family is dead?” whispered Rashida.

“Covid?” gasped Regina.

“Not to pry, but what funeral home did you use?” wondered Rae.

“Every time I think y’all have reached apex horrible, you raise the bar,” said Ricki, protective of Ezra.

“It’s all right; your sisters don’t mean any harm,” said Ezra amiably, even though Ricki’s sisters demonstrably meant harm. Ezra, who was so starved for a family of his own, who missed his sister, Minnie, every day of the world, couldn’t bring himself to be anything but kind to them. “Rashida, can I offer you more fried cakes?”

“Absolutely not. I need to stop eating; we have our cousin Brandy’s wedding in four months. Ricki, did you get your invitation?”