Fifteen Years (18 page)

What was wrong with him?

After only a few quick strokes of his fingers, Josiah heard a much-needed voice on the other end of the line.

“What’s happenin’, blood?” Craig’s words were muffled.

“Grow up, Craig.” Josiah sighed and shook his head. “And why do you sound like that? You had a dentist appointment or something? Sounds like you’ve got cotton stuffed in your mouth.”

“Try roast beef,” Craig corrected between munches. “Dani cooked a mean pot roast yesterday, and I went to her house after church to help her eat it. She packed a Tupperware dish of it for me to take home, and I sliced some up to make myself a roast beef sandwich. Want some?”

The offer made Josiah’s stomach growl once more. “No thanks, man. I’m headed to lunch myself in just a few. Just wanted to fill you in on everything.”

“Well, it’s about time. I got your text yesterday that you were at your folks’ house. So you found both of them alive and well?”

“Very much alive and well.” Josiah could hear the smile in his own voice. “But I found more than I was looking for. Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down?”

“Yeah. Lunchroom was too noisy. I’m sitting in my car catching
some peace and quiet while I eat. Why? What happened? What did you find?”

Looking at the clock on the nightstand, Josiah knew he needed to get a move on if he were going to be ready by the time Patrice got there. “Let me give you the abbreviated version.”

For the next several minutes, he filled Craig in on all that had transpired since he walked into Sunday morning service. Craig must have been spellbound by the details. All the chewing sounds had silenced, and he didn’t offer one word until it was apparent that Josiah was at the end of his spiel.

“Man, that’s dynamite!” Craig finally exclaimed.

Josiah laughed. “First you use the phrase
what’s happenin’, blood
, and now you’re saying
dynamite.
Man, what era are you living in on this Monday afternoon?”

“Sorry. Dani and I watched a
Good Times
marathon last night while I was at her place. I’ve got J.J. on the brain. Actually, I have Thelma on the brain, but that’s a different story.”

Craig rolled his eyes. “I’m losing you, Craig. Get back on subject here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, man. I’m back. So after all these years, your sister and brother are still living in Atlanta.”

Josiah nodded, and at the same time said, “Yeah. I mean, Peaches left for a while to go to college, but she came back. Sammy never stopped living with Mom and Dad. They actually adopted him so he wouldn’t get taken away like I did.”

“What about any of your other foster siblings? Did you see any of them?”

“Nah. But Peaches and Sammy were the only two that I spent any length of time with in the Smiths’ home. We shared a lot of years together.”

“Ah, man. That’s great JT.” Craig sounded genuinely happy
for him. “So when you reunited with Sammy and Peaches, was it just like with Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Did it feel like all the years were erased, and you were back with your siblings and picking up just where you left off?”

Josiah opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it back again. If he said what would easily roll off his tongue, that would make two blatant lies in two days that he’d told. He shot a glance at the old prayer rug beside his bed. “Yeah. It felt just like old times, Craig. Nothing had changed except our ages.” God would probably punish him for that one too, but Josiah just wasn’t ready to admit what he was feeling for Patrice. He wasn’t even sure what it was that he was feeling.

“Well, I’m glad everything is working out.” Craig’s voice broke Josiah from his deep thoughts. “I’ll be sure to tell Dani so that she can tell Bishop Lumpkin. He’ll be glad to know it too. Are you still gonna stay the whole week?”

“Yeah. We still have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Is there a chance you’ll be in Atlanta longer than a week?”

Josiah scratched his head. He hadn’t given it much thought. “It’s possible, I guess. A lot depends on how much bonding we can do this week. I know my parents are going to want me to hang around; especially if they find out I have more days that I can use. We’ll see.”

“I think you should take all the time you need,” Craig said. “As long as you’re back here by wedding rehearsal night, you’re good.”

“That’s seven months away, stupid,” Josiah said, laughing. “I’ll be back long before then.”

“All jokes aside though, man. I know how much this meant to you, and I know how much you need to make this connection. Don’t rush it, JT. Fifteen years is a long time, and you can’t make it up in seven days. Take some time and really renew your family
ties. Maybe get to know them all on a different level. Not just like you knew them when you were a little boy, but let the man in you get to know them for who they are today. Are you gonna spend time with them today?”

Josiah was still pondering that
let the man in you get to know them for who they are today
remark, but it seemed like the perfect segue to answer Craig’s current question. “I’m joining Peaches for lunch in the next half hour. We’re having a picnic in one of the parks out at Stone Mountain.”

“Picnic in the park?” Craig released a short laugh. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d call that a romantic date.”

“Yeah, right.” Josiah felt the color draining from his skin. He was glad that this conversation wasn’t a face-to-face one.

“Well, when you think about it, it
could be.”
Craig just didn’t know when to quit. “I mean, she was just your foster sister. What’s that, really? A foster sister is like having your actual sister’s best friend come and sleep over at your house on a regular basis. She’s not a blood relative or anything. If you did want to—”

“I don’t.” If Josiah’s retort was a set of teeth, Craig would be missing a body part.

“Dang, man; it was a joke. I said
if
you wanted to.”

“And I said I don’t.” Despite the adequate air-conditioning, sweat was beginning to collect on Josiah’s brow. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Anyway, I’ll call you again later. I gotta get dressed, and I’m already running behind time.”

After a quiet second, Craig said, “Yeah. I gotta run too. My lunch break is winding down, and I’ve got to prepare for my next class.”

Josiah was already beginning to regret his earlier snap, but he chose not to address it. Before he disconnected the call, he made sure his next words weren’t nearly as harsh. “All right, you do that. I’ll talk to you later. Tell Danielle I said hello.”

THE RIDE TO Stone Mountain Park was relatively short in distance, but it took Josiah and Patrice nearly forty minutes to get there. Patrice insisted on taking the scenic route, and between telling him how much she loved his car, Patrice showed Josiah all of the things that had changed in the fifteen years that he’d been away from metropolitan Atlanta.

She seemed particularly excited to show him a subdivision called Shelton Heights. The houses there were beautiful, but according to Patrice, there was a legend surrounding the community, and bizarre things had been known to happen to many of the people who lived there. Josiah laughed, but he had to admit that the stories she shared with him seemed too much like true to life to be coincidental.

He sped past the community as quickly as he could. No sense in taking chances. His life had been difficult enough as it was.

When they finally arrived at the mountain, Josiah navigated his car into the parking area located on Studdard Road and quickly unfastened his seatbelt. Only two other cars were parked in the single row of spaces. With many of the area residents at work or at school, the park Patrice had chosen was completely vacant. It seemed that most people who were at Stone Mountain Park at this time of day were there to exercise on the walking trail that encircled the whole base of Stone Mountain itself.

“You’re such a gentleman, JT,” Patrice said as he held the passenger door open for her to climb out.

Josiah shrugged as he tried to look at anything except Patrice’s flawless legs that had clearly been shaven and moisturized recently The overhead sun seemed to glisten off of her polished skin. “I had a good teacher,” he said as he opened the trunk to grab the picnic basket. “I remember the day that Daddy taught the art of door-opening to me and that other kid that was living with us at the time.” He squinted as he tried to remember the older boy’s name. He’d only lived with them for a few weeks before being turned over to a relative who lived somewhere out west.

“Which other boy?” Patrice asked. “With as many children as came through that house, you’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“I know.” He slammed the trunk and motioned for Patrice to lead the way. “I can’t remember his name, but he lied a lot.”

Patrice grunted. “You’re gonna have to narrow it down some more.”

Josiah watched the sway of her hips as she moved in front of him. He blinked twice and turned his head so that he looked at nearby bushes, hoping to spot something more interesting than Patrice’s hourglass figure. “He was kinda short,” Josiah said. “He used to always claim that he knew superstars.”

“Lionel Washington,” Patrice said.

Josiah laughed. “Yeah, that’s him.
Lying
Washington … that should have been his nickname. Remember how he used to say his daddy was in show business, and he had met all these stars and stuff?”

“Yeah.” Patrice pointed toward a park bench in the distance and continued talking. “He told me that Grover Washington was his grandfather.”

“He told me that Denzel Washington was his uncle.”

Patrice giggled and slapped her knee. “So Grover Washington is Denzel Washington’s daddy, and why doesn’t the rest of the world not know this?”

“Yeah, right. If Grover were still alive today, he’d only be ten or so years older than Denzel. He wouldn’t even be old enough to be Denzel’s dad. Like I said, Lionel was a liar.”

As they passed other perfectly good benches to get to the one Patrice had pointed toward, she said, “Well, you know, I guess I can’t blame him too much. For the most part, all of our real families were screwed up. So you can’t fault him for creating a fictitious one.”

When she put it like that, Josiah had to agree. He remembered many times that he wondered what his life would have been like if he’d been born in another Tucker family. Maybe it would have been cool to grow up as Chris Tucker’s brother.

“Let’s sit here,” Patrice suggested.

The spacious picnic area was completely empty, and Josiah had just placed the basket on a table that she’d stopped beside, but watched as she spread a blanket out on the grass alongside it. He’d seen the blanket as she carried it, but just assumed that she was going to drape it over the table. He was wrong.

“What are you doing?”

She looked at him like his question was a dumb one. “Making a comfortable place for us to sit.”

Josiah watched as she removed her sandals and sat Indian style before reaching out her arms to receive the basket that he now held in his hand. He delivered it to her, and then carefully sat down, leaving plenty of space between them. He reached in the pocket of his shorts and retrieved a personal-sized bottle of sanitizer.

“You wash your hands a lot.”

Josiah looked at her. “What?”

Pointing at the small clear bottle in his hand, she repeated, “You wash your hands a lot. I noticed that yesterday.”

Josiah was embarrassed. It wasn’t a tendency that he didn’t know he had; it was just one that he hoped people didn’t notice. “Yeah. Habit. Comes from having a drug addicted mother who left vomit, urine, and used needles lying around on any given day. I had to sterilize everything before I touched it, and I could never risk walking around with bare feet. One prick from a discarded needle buried in the carpet could be fatal.”

“Wow.” She gave him an empathetic look, and then reached in the basket and pulled out a pack of Germ-X brand wipes and held it up so that he could see it. “Not a habit for me,” she explained, “but I take them with me whenever I’m going to be handling food and stuff.”

Josiah smiled his approval.

Patrice pointed at his athletic shoes. “There are no needles out here. Take off your shoes. The feel of this blanket is to die for.”

Josiah hadn’t planned on removing his shoes, but he complied, untying one shoe at a time. “So this is what you do on Mondays?” he asked. “Just kind of take it easy?”

“Not really. Mondays are a day away from school, but it’s really not a day without work. Aside from housework, I also tutor Sam. He’s made progress since I started working with him a few months ago, but he’s got a long way to go.”

“That’s good that you work with him like that.” Josiah removed his socks. Patrice was right. The blanket felt like silk beneath his feet. He watched while she laid out a spread of chips and salsa, turkey sandwiches on wheat bread, sliced apples, and mixed nuts. She handed him a bottle of chilled water, and then took one out for herself. Josiah tried to pull his eyes away from her neck while she swallowed several gulps of liquid, but he couldn’t. Even when she stopped drinking and looked at him, he couldn’t turn away.