“My aunt Nancy and uncle Bruce are the best. Uncle Bruce has worked for Omaha Steaks for over fifty years, so be prepared to talk meat.”
I give Leo a thumbs-up. “And Aunt Nancy?”
“She and my mom have been docents at a museum not far from my house since I graduated high school. And their dedication to their book club is going on forty years strong.” Yikes. If there are two things I know very little about, it’s steaks and fine art. But I can talk books.
“And your cousins are Karl, Steve, Jake and . . .” I knew the last one when Leo had me memorizing the West family tree the other night, but pregnancy brain is real.
“Tommy.”
“A grown-ass man still goes by Tommy?”
“He’s the baby of the family, three years younger than me, and he continues to milk his family position. He didn’t move out of Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bruce’s house until he was thirty-two!” I don’t remind Leo that Fitzroy has more or less been living in my house for a handful of years. Dad leaves with just enough days to spare before he has to start paying California taxes. “And seriously, don’t call him Tom or Thomas, he hates it,” Leo warns. Note to self, how not to get off on the wrong foot with Tom. I mean Tommy.
“And they’re all married, right?”
“Yeah, except Karl. But I think he’s hiding a girlfriend or boyfriend or something from the family, trying to sniff out the right timing for a big reveal. He’s been a serial bachelor his whole life. I think he’s waiting to see how it all goes down with my pregnant Black beauty in the land of the bland before he makes his move.”
“Let the record show that YOU called Omaha the land of the bland, not me.” Seems my speculations about Omaha are not that far off the mark. “So, what kind of Black girl do you think your family’s expecting? Or really your mom, if I’m being honest, because I’m sure she wasn’t expecting one at all.”
Leo rolls his lower lip out at my question and stares at me in contemplation. It’s kind of the same face he’s been giving me lately when I’m too tired for sex and he’s begging me to throw a leg. I always do, because there are many, many things in life to regret, but having sex with Leo is never one of them. That said, the facial similarity is slightly disturbing since we’re talking about his mom.
“Well, I think she hopes you are a woman, not a girl. She knows you run a tony private school in Pasadena. And, of course, she thinks you’re smart because you chose me.”
“That’s it?” I doubt.
“All of that, and I’ve told my whole family you’re a knockout. That may be the real reason all my cousins are showing up for dinner tonight.” Good Lord, I adore this man; he knows exactly how to appeal to my vain side.
“I’m talking more along the lines of what type of Black girl do you think your mom’s expecting you’re bringing home. Banjee girl who’s hip-hop street and always lit up at a party? Or maybe more Black power with her hair in a natural and sporting Ghanaian patterns even though she’s from Glendale. She’s appalled by the White centrist culture and believes every Becky with the good hair is out to steal her man.”
“If we have a daughter, we can’t name her Becky. That’s the name of my middle school girlfriend who broke up with me in the cafeteria in seventh grade. It was brutal.” Becky, was that a joke, or does Leo actually think a name like Becky would be in the running for my child?
“Am I going to meet her, too?” I riff back, enjoying Leo sharing imperfect nuggets of his childhood.
“Nah, she lives in Toledo. My parents have seen pictures of you, Nina. They know your hair is braided and you prefer department store to dashiki. What else you got?”
“I hope they don’t think I’m Black Barbie who seamlessly blends in and works hard to shake off everything about her culture other than her color. I know, because I work at Royal-Hawkins, there are plenty of people who think I’m that type of Black woman, including my kid at this exact moment. But Black Barbie rubs me raw.” From the way Leo’s now looking at me, I suspect Black Barbie is not too far from the narrative he’s spun to his parents. “So that leaves us with gold digger. She’s working hard to get on the train of the great White way by boosting her credit score.”
“Yep, definitely that one. They think you want to hitch your star to a guy with a boatload of law school loans and high auto insurance ’cause he has a lead foot.” Leo laughs, mimicking flooring a gas pedal.
I shake my finger no and inform Leo, “The gold digger runs the show.”
“Well, if you would agree to move in with me like I’ve brought up several times, you could run the show without having to be a gold digger, fine by me. But since the only thing I can get you to do is fly over the Rockies for a few days, then, verdict’s still out on just what kind of Black woman you are.” Leo yawns out the last sentence. “The last two nights tying up cases before vacation has me shot. Mind if I take a snooze while you get some work done?” Leo asks, closing his eyes before I can answer. Letting Leo sleep will allow me to review Royal-Hawkins’s midyear financials as well as get me out of yet another conversation about cohabitation.
“Go ahead.” I smile at Leo and watch him conk out in seconds with his neck cocked at that awkward airplane angle. Even asleep, his excitement at coming home with his baby in tow and with the woman attached to the embryo is palpable under the plane’s recirculating air. I know he’s thrilled to introduce his girlfriend to the four male cousins he’s been in competition with his whole life. In fact, I’d be willing to bet they’ve committed to memory what I look like—statuesque, curvy in all the right places, and a stacked rack compliments of pregnancy—but I doubt one of them remembers I’m a head of school. It’s all part of the never-ending male battle of whose honey is hotter.
Leo has convinced himself differences of race, family structure, and left coast liberal values versus heartland ideals won’t register with his parents. He’s claimed, more than once, that his mother is over-the-moon happy that, finally at forty-five, he’s dating someone age appropriate with potential to go the distance. I don’t buy it at all. Since we purchased our tickets, I’ve been digging at Leo to engage in deeper discussion concerning his family’s speculations about me. According to Leo, simply being off your parents’ auto insurance makes you eligible marriage material with the Wests.
Though Leo may not have given our relationship’s impact on his family a whole lot of thought, Marisol and I gave it plenty of air time at the Clean Slate Palisades Village, deconstructing Leo’s tidbit that only his father would be at the airport to pick us up. That was all I needed to hear from Leo to know his mother was skipping over the middleman and sending a clear message to me that Mother West is not putting out the efforts and charms for a woman she’s hoping is a passing fetish. Marisol’s take on the whole thing was maybe the woman has a life.
“Please put away all laptops and place your tray tables and seats in their upright position. We should be landing in Omaha in about twenty minutes,” announces the same flight attendant who demanded we shut down our electronics for takeoff.