Fifteen Years (23 page)

The part about intentionally coming over early was factual, but that was where the well of truth dried. Josiah had come early so he could spend time with them while he knew Patrice would be at work. They were a close-knit family, and he knew that the possibility was great that she’d pay a visit at some point this evening. Josiah didn’t need to be there when Patrice came. After yesterday’s events, he didn’t know how he would react to seeing her today. He didn’t know how he’d react to seeing her ever again.

Thomas pulled his most recent copy of
Forbes
from his face and removed his reading glasses. “What kind of a vacation is this that you’re on, son? Seems like you constantly have to complete something for those folks at your job.”

Josiah’s eyes darted to the clock again, and then he looked at the man he probably respected more than any other and continued his fabrication. “I know, right?” His attempt to make light of the subject was meager. “They act like they can’t function without me. I should have left my cell phone home; then I would have never been able to receive their badgering calls.”

Joanne walked up to him and gave him a tight squeeze. “Well, I guess that’s why you got that promotion.” She turned and looked at her husband. “Our boy is good at what he does, honey. Any old
body can’t fill his big shoes when he’s away from the office. It’s a compliment that they have to call him to do work even when he’s supposed to be on vacation.”

The pride in her voice must have been God’s designed punishment for Josiah due to his string of lies because instead of bringing him joy, Joanne’s praise just made him feel like a louse. He wanted to kick himself. “Well, I guess I need to be going.” He grabbed his keys. “When Sammy gets up from his nap, tell him I’ll see him later.”

“What do you want us to tell Patrice?”

Josiah spun around to face Thomas. Something about his foster father’s voice almost sounded cynical. Did he know something? “Huh? I mean, sir? I mean, what do you mean?”

Thomas laid his magazine to the side and scratched the salt-and-pepper hairs under his chin. “Well, I’m sure she’s gonna miss seeing you this afternoon just as much as Sam will. You said for us to tell Sam that you’d see him later. I just thought maybe you’d have something for us to tell Patrice too.”

Josiah was sweating so heavily now that he was afraid to raise his arms. He made a quick mental note not to wave good-bye as he made his exit. “Oh. Uh … tell Peaches I’ll see her later too. I’ll make sure to join you all for dinner tomorrow.”

“Patrice doesn’t come over on Wednesdays.” Joanne sounded sad, but it was a probability that Josiah was counting on it.

“She’ll come if we tell her that JT will be here.”

Josiah looked at Thomas again. Was he toying with him, or was it all in Josiah’s guilt-riddled mind?

“I really wish you’d rethink your decision to stay at a motel like you’re not family.” Joanne tugged Josiah’s arm, jolting back his attention. “It just doesn’t make sense when we have two whole empty guest rooms right here in our house.”

“Thanks, Ma, but I really do need total solace when I work. Here I’d be too distracted. Given the option, I’d rather hang with you all than sit at a computer working. I don’t need to have the luxury of choosing whether to work or not. Staying at the hotel takes away the option, and that’s what I need.” Josiah bent down and brushed his mouth against Joanne’s cheek. The lies had made his lips so dry that he feared his kiss would slash her face. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” The comment was directed to both of them, but he avoided Thomas’s eyes.

Josiah walked to his car on concrete legs. Remorse and shame had him feeling heavy burdened. He didn’t know how pathological liars did it on an everyday basis. Just the few intentional untruths he spat out today had him feeling spent, like he had just run a five-minute mile. His prayer mat would definitely get used tonight.

The ride back to Stone Mountain was quiet. Jubilant sounds of Fred Hammond’s latest CD blasted through his speakers, but Josiah was too immersed in his own thoughts to hear it. The peculiar tone of Thomas’s voice coupled with the look in his eyes had Josiah questioning himself all over again. Did his foster dad know something? Had Patrice talked to him? Josiah thought back to their childhood. Patrice had always been a Daddy’s girl, but he couldn’t imagine that she’d tell Thomas about the park. If she had, Thomas was a straight shooter. Josiah believed Thomas would have had no problem with confronting him with what he knew.

As soon as Josiah parked his car in the lot of the Hampton Inn, his phone, clipped to his hip in its case, began vibrating. He’d silenced the ringer earlier as he spent time with his family. Josiah checked the ID screen before pressing the button on his Bluetooth. He wasn’t expecting a call from his best friend, but he welcomed the distraction.

“Hey, Craig.”

“Aloha.”

Josiah opened the car door and stepped out. “What is it this time? You and Danielle watched a marathon
of Hawaii Five-O
reruns last night?”

Craig laughed. “No. But we did decide this afternoon that Hawaii is where we would go on our honeymoon.”

“I thought you were gonna catch a cruise.”

“We were, but we changed our minds after looking at some vacation brochures. Both of us have done a lot of traveling, and we’ve both been on cruises, but neither of us have ever been to Hawaii, so we thought we’d have our first experience there as man and wife.”

Josiah grinned while he closed his car door and activated the security system. “You sound kind of keyed up, bruh. You wouldn’t be getting excited about the wedding, would you?”

Laughter filled Josiah’s ears. Then Craig said, “I think I am. That visit to the florist started it all. But I think when we were looking through vacation brochures this afternoon, that really got me hyped.”

Grinning, Josiah remarked, “I should have known that the honeymoon was the part that got you going.”

Craig didn’t deny the obvious. “What can I say? I’m glad we’re doing it God’s way; staying celibate until we’re man and wife. But I ain’t gonna lie, man. We ain’t coming up for air until two … maybe three weeks after we say
Ido.”

“Two or three weeks?” Josiah leaned against the car and laughed out loud. “Dang, Craig. Are we even gonna see y’all at the reception?”

“Reception? Are you kidding me? The reception is for y’all. I couldn’t care less ’bout some chicken and rice. Reception?” he repeated the word like it was venomous. “Man, me and Dani ain’t
staying around to do jack. Not be toasted, not to be roasted, not even to feed each other some raggedy wedding cake. Bump all that. We’re taking our formal photos before the ceremony, so we’ll have pictures with the wedding party, the families, and the cake. When we recess out those church doors, we’re getting in the limo, and that’s the last y’all gonna see of us for a while. See ya!” he added in dramatic fashion.

Tears welled in Josiah’s eyes, distorting his vision as he walked toward the hotel entranceway. He could envision Craig throwing up a peace sign on that last part. When Josiah caught his breath, he charged, “Man, you ignorant. Poor Danielle. She doesn’t know what she’s getting into.”

“Oh, she knows,” Craig insisted. “I told her that she better be taking some yoga classes or some Pilates classes or something. That girl had betta be prepared ’cause the ‘on your mark’ and the ‘get ready’ done already passed. This white boy is gonna be set on ‘go.’ That’s all I’m saying.”

Josiah howled at Craig’s antics. “You need some serious prayer, boy.”

“Oh no, my brotha.
She’s
the one who’s gonna need prayer.”

“Man, get off my phone,” Josiah managed to say between fits of laughter. “I’m getting ready to walk inside, and I can’t be talking to you when I do. These people will think I’m crazy.

“Okay, let’s change the subject,” Craig suggested. “You can go inside, I’m done talking about Dani for now.”

“Don’t be lying to me,” Josiah cautioned as he tugged at the door and entered into the coolness of the hotel lobby.

“I’m not. I have a men’s meeting to get ready for, so I need to get to the real reason for my call anyway.”

Josiah waved at the honey blonde hotel clerk as he walked past the front counter. She was the same lady who had checked him in
upon arrival. Her appearance was kind of ghetto, but she was always professional and courteous.

“I hope I don’t lose you. I’m headed to the elevator,” he told Craig.

“Oh. Okay. I’ll make it quick. I just wanted you to know that Dani thinks Patrice is real cool.”

It was a good thing that Josiah was chatting using his Bluetooth. Had he been holding his cell phone in his hand, it would have crashed to the floor at that moment. “Patrice? You mean, Peaches? What… when … how does she know anything about Peaches?”

“She talked to her today. She said Peaches … Patrice called her.”

“She did? How? I mean, why? I mean, when?” Josiah’s heart rate had gone into overdrive. A thousand questions flooded his mind, but he only needed an immediate answer to one of them. “Why would Peaches call Danielle?” Josiah held his breath in anticipation of the answer.

“What’s wrong with you? Why you acting all stupid?” Craig drilled. “You’re the one who gave her the number. According to Dani, you told Patrice to call her. You told her that Saundra might be in need of a speech pathologist for Monica, so she called Dani to see if there was anything she could do to help.”

“Oh.” Josiah must have sounded as relieved as he felt. Something about his one-word reply appeared to pique his friend’s curiosity.

“What’s going on with you, JT? What did you think the phone call was about?”

“Huh?” He could hear his heart drumming in his ears. “Oh … nothing.” Josiah stepped onto the open elevator and used his elbow to press the button that would get him to the third floor. “I … I just didn’t expect her to contact Danielle so soon; that’s all.”

Craig released a peculiar grunt, but he let Josiah off the hook. “So what do you have planned for the rest of the day?” he asked. “Are you going to your parents’ house for dinner?”

Josiah stepped off the elevator and took long strides down the hall toward his room. All this stress was taking its toll on his bladder. He needed a bathroom break. “I’m just getting back to the hotel. I’d been at their house hanging out since around ten this morning.”

“Are you going back?”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Josiah fished his door key from his back pocket. He slid the card in the assigned slot, and when he saw the green light, he pushed the door open. “I was there for more than five hours. I can’t spend the whole day there.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t want to overstay my welcome.” Josiah hoped his answer would satisfy Craig.

“Overstay your welcome? There’s no such thing when you’ve been absent for as many years as you’ve been away. Did they give hints that they were ready for you to leave or something?”

Josiah could have lied, but he’d done enough of that for one day. “No, but I just thought it had been long enough.”

“Why are you even still at the hotel? Didn’t you tell me that you hoped to only have to be there for a day or two? Didn’t you say that once you found your family, and if they accepted you, you were going to stay with them to try and make up for as much lost time as possible?”

Sometimes Josiah wished he didn’t tell his friend every little thing. “It’s only been a couple of days, Craig. I think—”

“I can’t believe they didn’t make the offer,” Craig said. “As happy as you said that they were to see you, I would have thought that they would have just about insisted that you stay with them.”

Josiah sucked his teeth as he placed the card key on the night-stand
beside the bed. Why couldn’t Craig just let it go? Grabbing at the fresh set of linen that the maid had so neatly placed on his bed, Josiah tugged until the covers yielded. “It’s no big deal, Craig,” he said. “It’s not like I’m catching an early morning flight. I’ll see them again tomorrow.”

“You’re changing the covers on your bed, aren’t you?”

The grunt he’d made in the middle of his sentence had given Josiah away. “Yep. You never know who slept on these things, you never know what they did while sleeping on them, and you never know—”

“… how well they were laundered; yeah … I know,” Craig said.

Josiah could tell his friend was rolling his eyes, but he didn’t care. How could he be sure that whoever slept on the sheets before him didn’t vomit on them because of an alcohol or drug overdose? Who’s to say that some john and his prostitute hadn’t checked in the hotel under some fictitious name and soiled the bed linen with unspeakable ungodliness?

“Did you get to see Patrice today?”

Patrice.
It was the one name that had thrilled, yet tormented Josiah over the past twenty-four hours. “Why’d you ask me that?” The question spilled from his lips on their own accord.

Silence reigned for seconds that felt like minutes, and in that time, Josiah could only imagine what was going through Craig’s head. He wished he could reel his guilt-drenched inquiry back into his mouth, but it was much too late for that. He closed his eyes and prepared himself for the oncoming interrogation.

“Man, what
is wrong
with you?” Craig’s cross-examination had begun, and every word of it resonated with obvious annoyance. “Something’s going on, and you’re not telling me.”

“Now you’re talking crazy.” Josiah scrambled to find his carefree
voice, but lies that may have worked with the Smiths weren’t fooling the man who knew him better than any other.

“Stop patronizing me, JT. This is Craig, okay? This is your boy. Your spiritual brother, your frat brother … all that. You can’t front with me, man. Something’s up, and I know I’m right. That’s the second time today that you shifted into stupid when I brought up Patrice. What’s up with that? Are the two of you not getting along like you thought you would or something?”

He didn’t know the half of it. Josiah wanted to tell him that his getting along with Patrice was the least of his concerns. They got along just fine.
Unnaturally
fine would be a better narrative. Josiah yanked the last of the covers off the bed, slung them on the floor, and then sat on the edge of the bare mattress. With his Bluetooth still attached to his ear, he buried his face in his hands.