Fort Lupton (20 page)

“
I’m joking,” Tanesha
said. “I don’t do any of that crap.”

“
Not consciously.” Delphie
gave her a knowing nod and Tanesha laughed.

Delphie took the tea. Tanesha took down
another pot from the cabinet and filled it with warm water. Delphie
got her green tea from the cabinet. They waited while the water
heated.

“
I know the tea is
designed to mute my fairy powers,” Tanesha said.

Delphie nodded.

“
I just like it,” Tanesha
said. “Mom does too.”

“
She does,” Delphie said
with a nod. “As much as I like your company, Tanesha, I’m
wondering . . .”

“
Why I’m here?” Tanesha
asked.

“
Don’t you have school?”
Delphie asked.

“
We had a test this
morning,” Tanesha said. “I’m off until the afternoon
session.”

Delphie nodded.

“
I came because I wondered
if you knew who Jabari’s mother is,” Tanesha said.

“
You?”

“
Not his spiritual
mother,” Tanesha said. “His biological mother.”

Delphie’ nodded and gave Tanesha one of her
annoying blank faces.

“
Oh no, you don’t,”
Tanesha said. “You don’t get to go all ‘crazy hippie lady’ on
me!”

“
Crazy hippie lady?”
Delphie laughed.

“
You know, ‘I gots my cats
and my green tea and . . .’” Tanesha started to
laugh. “You know you do it.”

“
Mystic,” Delphie said. “I
prefer ‘mystic’ over ‘crazy hippie lady.’”

“
Shoe fits,” Tanesha
said.

Delphie laughed. She held out her arms and
hugged Tanesha.

“
What was that for?”
Tanesha asked.

“
You,” Delphie
said.

“
Are you going to answer
my question?” Tanesha asked. “You know, I can sic my girlfriends on
you.”

Delphie burst out laughing. Tanesha
chuckled. Delphie poured hot water into her cup. She poured out the
water that was warming Tanesha’s pot and filled it with hot water
and tea. When she finished, she carried their tea to the table.
Tanesha took a seat across from Delphie. She waited until Delphie
had settled and taken a drink of her tea.

“
You’re not going to tell
me?” Tanesha asked.

“
I already did,” Delphie
said.

“
You
said . . .” Tanesha said. She sighed, and shifted to
a tactic that worked with her grandmother. “Tell me again. I must
have missed it.”

“
You are Jabari’s mother,”
Delphie said.

“
You’re saying I’m
Jabari’s biological mother,” Tanesha said. “No. I’m sorry, Delphie.
I really am, but no matter how much I wish it was true, that’s just
not true.”

“
You’ve tested your DNA
with Jabari’s?” Delphie asked.

Tanesha mouth opened and closed a few times
before she scowled. She took a breath and opened her mouth.

“
You never ran out of
money when you were at Howard?” Delphie asked.

“
I had a full
scholarship,” Tanesha said.

“
That’s not an answer,”
Delphie said. “Someone paid for your mother’s bill at the swanky
psychiatric hospital where she went for rehab. We both know it
wasn’t her mother or that awful Alvin.”

Tanesha blushed and cleared her throat.

“
What hospital bill?”
Tanesha asked.

“
The one after she tried
to kill herself with drugs,” Delphie said. “I know it was you
because you’re the one who called me and Dionne and Maresol. You’re
the one who made sure we helped your mother. In fact, all of those
journals and drawings are because you insisted she start drawing
again. You saved her life.”

Tanesha gave a slight nod.

“
How’d you pay off that
bill?” Delphie asked.

“
I . . .”
Tanesha said. “But . . .”

“
What did Jeraine tell
you?” Delphie asked.

“
About Annette?” Tanesha
asked.

“
About breaking it off
with her,” Delphie said.

“
Um, he said he called and
she told him she was pregnant,” Tanesha said.

“
She wasn’t,” Delphie
said.

“
But . . .”
Tanesha said.

“
She got all that money
for such a long time,” Delphie said. “Jeraine probably knew at some
point, but he didn’t remember or didn’t care, as long as he didn’t
have to deal with her.”

Tanesha scowled. Delphie drank her tea and
waited for Tanesha to think it through. Tanesha gasped.

“
The reality show,”
Tanesha said.

“
She needed a baby for the
reality show,” Delphie said.

“
But . . .”

“
How does she do
everything?” Delphie asked. “How did she steal Jabari?”

“
Paid some desperate folks
a lot of money,” Tanesha said. “Dr. Bumpy says they didn’t realize
what they were doing until it was too late.”

“
She snooped around and
found the fertility clinic where you donated eggs,” Delphie
said.

“
But
how . . .?”

“
Doesn’t Jeraine have a
song about how the woman he loves won’t take his money?” Delphie
asked.

“
Sure,
but . . .” Tanesha started.

“
You know those women, the
ones stalking Jeraine? They’ve been tracking you too,” Delphie cut
her off. “It wouldn’t have been too hard to call around to the
clinics and look for a dark-skinned, college-educated, smart, thin
woman. You’re quite beautiful.”

“
Could be anyone,” Tanesha
said.

“
It wasn’t,” Delphie
said.

Mortified, Tanesha cleared her throat and
looked away.

“
But . . .”

“
Oh, come on,” Delphie
said as if Tanesha had asked the question out loud. “She might not
have screwed Jeraine, but certainly he was giving away his sperm to
any woman who wanted it.”

“
She paid someone
for . . .”

“
Condom without
spermicide,” Delphie said. “Think of it. Is there a better
‘screw-you’ than to have IVF with your eggs and Jeraine’s
sperm?”

“
But . . .”

“
Why do you keep saying
that word?” Delphie said.

“
It’s just crazy,” Tanesha
said in a low voice. “Crazy.”

“
Look at who you’re
talking about,” Delphie said.

“
Why didn’t you say
something?” Tanesha asked.

“
Why didn’t you ask?”
Delphie asked.

“
Hmp,” Tanesha
sniffed.

“
He’s younger than the
brother he grew up with,” Delphie said. “If you ask the boy, he’ll
remember her being pregnant with Jabari.”

Tanesha closed her mouth rather than say
“But” again.

“
Fin must have guessed,”
Delphie said.

“
He says he’s no oracle,”
Tanesha said. “He believes you are special, one of a
kind.”

“
Nice when a handsome man
thinks you’re special.” Delphie smiled.

“
A prince, no less,”
Tanesha said.

Delphie laughed. They drank their tea in
silence for a while.

“
What do we do?” Tanesha
asked.

“
Run another test,”
Delphie said. “Bumpy can do it for you, or Dionne, if that’s better
for you. In fact, why don’t I go with you? They’ll do the test, and
I can drop it off.”

“
You can what?”

“
I just realized that
Maresol needs my help,” Delphie said. “Dionne’s too.”

“
Not Mom’s?” Tanesha
asked.

“
That’s where we’re
going,” Delphie said. “You have to test Jabari, too.”

“
I thought you didn’t get
brain waves about people close to you,” Tanesha said.

“
I don’t,” Delphie said.
“I’m reading you. You love your mother, and your mother loves
Maresol,and Maresol needs my help.”

“
But . . .?”

“
There’s that word again,”
Delphie said.

“
Do I tell Jer?” Tanesha
asked with a wry smile.

“
You can,” Delphie said.
“It won’t make a difference. The crazy one in this equation already
knows.”

“
Oh, right.” Tanesha
nodded.

“
Call Schmidty, though,”
Delphie said.

“
Why?”

“
You’re due for another
round of stupid,” Delphie said.

“
With Annette?”

Delphie nodded.

“
Shit,” Tanesha
said.

“
We should go now,”
Delphie said.

To Tanesha’s surprise, Delphie jumped to her
feet and walked out of the room.

“
Just leave that,” Delphie
called. “Come on! We have to go.”

Tanesha hopped up and jogged to catch
up.

~~~~~~~~

Friday morning — 11:45 a.m.

“
Marlowe!” an
employee-owner yelled over the intercom from his post on an
excavator. “You’d better get out here.”

Jacob crawled out from under the desk in the
jobsite manager’s trailer, where he’d been hooking up the site
computer. He managed to hit his head on the edge of the table as he
got up. He grabbed his head.

“
Can you finish this up?”
Jacob asked DeShawn.

“
We’ve got this,” Jason
said.

Jacob smiled. The team of Jason, DeShawn,
and Pete had been formed to replace Rodney when he was out with
Yvonne. They’d done such a great job that they were each offered
their own individual site. They’d refused. They preferred to work
together as a team, and they were a great team.

“
Thanks,” Jacob
said.

He patted Pete on the back as he came into
the trailer carrying an inkjet printer. Jacob stopped at the door.
DeShawn gave him a walkie-talkie with a clip-on microphone. Jacob
nodded his thanks and put the walkie-talkie in his back pocket.

“
Oh the
phones . . .” Jacob started. DeShawn clipped the
walkie-talkie microphone into Jacob’s front pocket.

“
We won’t have them until
end of day tomorrow,” Jason said. “Our cell phones are on every
employee’s speed dial.”

“
Owner,” Deshawn
corrected. “Every owner’s speed dial.”

“
The intercom’s working.”
Jason nodded to the box.

“
Good.” Jacob nodded and
left the trailer.

“
Jake!” a man yelled. He
pointed to the jobsite entrance.

Jacob scanned the entrance to the jobsite
and saw Valerie’s Mustang driving toward the site. He scowled at
the four paparazzi on motorcycles trailing behind her.

“
Jake!” yelled one of the
women from the sign team.

“
Go ahead,” Jacob said
into the walkie-talkie microphone.

“
What about the photogs?”
the man on the excavator said via walkie-talkie.

“
Chase them out of here,”
Jacob said.

“
Done,” the man
said.

The woman from the sign team opened the
chain link gate, and Valerie drove in. The paparazzi came onto the
site and were immediately escorted off by the excavator.

“
You must have been
expecting me,” Valerie said.

She swung out of her ancient Mustang
carrying an equally ancient yellow hard hat. Jacob’s scowl
deepened. He knew her breezy beauty this morning was a direct
result of spending the last few hours at Sandy’s salon. She’d
planned for the paparazzi.

“
How are you, brother
dear?” Valerie asked.

She kissed his cheek and laughed.

“
Well say something,” she
said.

“
So, you’re here,” Jacob
said.

Valerie laughed. She punched his shoulder
and he laughed.

“
When’s it get here?”
Valerie asked.

“
What?” Jacob
asked.

“
The house!” Valerie said.
“When’s it . . .”

They heard the low rumble of a large truck.
They turned toward Colorado Boulevard. A truck pulled an enormous,
ornate house across the I-70 bridge. The sign team leader whistled
to her people and waved toward the street. The young men and women
ran out into the street to direct traffic. Valerie beamed.

“
What?” Jacob
asked.

“
It’s very beautiful,”
Valerie said. “You’re sure about this?”

“
It’s done.” Jacob glanced
at Valerie and looked back at the house. “The Marlowe School
purchased the home and property from me.”

“
I purchased the home and
property from you,” Valerie said.

“
You in the guise of the
head of the Marlowe School,” Jacob said. “The school holds the
mortgage and made the down payment.”

“
I am the president of the
Marlowe School,” Valerie said. “And the person who made it
profitable.”

Jacob looked away so that Valerie wouldn’t
see his grin.

“
I got a steal,” Valerie
said.

“
On labor, too,” Jacob
said.

“
I’m
brilliant
.” Valerie
grinned.