Holidaze (25 page)

“Wait a minute, girl. I got all dressed up and came here with flowers and shit, ready to dance with you all night, and you’re leaving?”

“I’m sorry, Rah. But you said you weren’t coming and I’ve got to get home. I’ve got business to tend to.”

“Business with Jeremy?”

“No. With my ancestors,” I say. Rah looks at me and then across the room at Misty. Now he gets the picture, and I’m glad. The last thing I need is another fight on my conscience. I don’t know exactly what Mama’s got planned, but whatever it is, I know I’m going to need my mind to be as clear as possible to deal with it.

“Do you need some help?” I thought he’d never ask.

“I could use a distraction for KJ.” Rah looks across the room and catches KJ and Misty groping each other like they’re in a motel room all alone. I catch Mickey looking at them, envious of their public display of affection. She and Nigel have lost that lustful feeling. KJ continues holding on to Misty’s backside like it’s going to leave if he lets go of it. Whatever spell Misty has him under is making me and everyone else sick to our stomachs.

“I got you.” Rah walks over to KJ and steps right into his face. “When’s our rematch?” Perfect. Talking about KJ’s humiliating loss to Rah will surely keep him preoccupied while I take care of my nemesis.

I walk over to the scene, noticing that the plastic cup in Misty’s hand is still full of punch. Good. It’ll be easy to get her to drink the potion if she hasn’t taken a sip yet. After all of that groping on the dance floor I’m sure she’ll be thirsty.

“I wish I had some single dollar bills on me,” I say, catching Misty’s attention. KJ and Rah are staring each other down.

“And I’d gladly take all of your money,” Misty says, smiling at me like she’s won some shit. Her blue eyes are shining bright tonight. Let’s see what they look like after she wakes up tomorrow morning. When Misty turns around to check on her date, I quickly pour the potion into her drink. She then downs the drink before returning to the dance floor without KJ, who’s now in a heated debate with Rah. I catch Rah’s eye to signal I’m out. My job here is done. The sooner I get back to Mama’s, the sooner this nightmare will be over.

I pull up to Mama’s house and notice that my mom hasn’t made it yet. My uncle Bryan looks like he’s headed to his night gig at the public access radio station and needs a ride.

“What’s up with you, little Jayd? You look nice,” he says, sitting on the front porch. As I make my way up the driveway I realize how tired I am.

“Nothing much. I’m just sick of going through shit, you know what I mean?” I step up next to him, ready to go inside.

“Going through what, Jayd? You’re not going through shit. As far as I can tell, it’s all in your head and you control that, if nothing else. You ain’t gotta go through shit you don’t want to. Most of us don’t have that luxury, niecey,” Bryan says, playfully punching me in the leg. He hasn’t called me that since I was a little girl. His new girlfriend is making him soft. I like it.

“When did you become so wise?” I ask, smacking him on the back of the head.

“Always been. You just didn’t know, shawty,” he says, getting up to meet his girlfriend at the curb. I guess he doesn’t need a ride after all, not that I would be of much help tonight. I open the front door and head to the back, ready for my date with destiny.

“Hey, Mama,” I say, entering her bedroom.

“Hey, baby. How did it go?” Mama asks, lighting nine white candles and giving the room a warm feel.

“Perfectly.”

“Good. Now we just have to wait for your mother to get here.” Since we have some time to kill I decide to ask Mama about her past in the African village. There’s so much I don’t know about my grandmother.

“Mr. Adewale used to live somewhere called Oyotunji. Ever heard of it?” I ask. I plop down on my bed, ready for the scoop.

“Yes. I lived there briefly before I met your grandfather. Strange place,” she says, putting the matches down on the shrine.

“What happened?”

“A lot.” Mama shakes her head from side to side at the apparently stressful memory. “But I learned a lot about people’s character while I was there.”

“Maybe I should move there for a little while. I might know how to deal with Misty better.”

“Oh girl, Misty’s little mess is nothing compared to the women there. I once had this lady invite me to stay in her home. Now mind you, her family and friends had stayed with me before and I always hosted them to the best of my abilities. But this heffa changed her mind after I had already extended my trip to stay with her, and she said it was because Legba told her to do so. Jayd, there’s genuine purpose and then there’s everything else. Character dictates how a devotee behaves with orisha, and some people use the orisha as a way to excuse things they want or don’t want to do. If this were really the case with this lady, she would’ve asked Baba Legba before she offered me to stay in her home, not after. That’s just plain rudeness and cowardice.”

“But maybe she didn’t have a bad feeling until after she invited you to stay.” Mama looks at me sideways. I guess she already thought about that.

“Or maybe she wanted to appear hospitable while others were looking and then blame her actual intent on Legba, who’ll take the blame, but not without repercussion. Me showing my ass in the end wasn’t good either, but again it’s all call and response, action and reaction, and she was an elder. She should’ve known better, just like Esmeralda. Knowing when and how to ask the question is part of the wisdom in divination, Jayd. Anything else is a mockery of the system’s power.”

“Is she telling the story of how one of her wives in Oyotunji didn’t let her stay at the house after she already invited her?” my mom asks, walking in the door and surprising us both. She came straight from work and looks nice in her office attire, pantyhose and all. I miss watching my mom get ready for work. “Mama, you’ve got to let it go.”

“Almost wife—and it was just plain rude, period.” I haven’t had a chance to talk to her in-depth about her life in the same village where Mr. Adewale grew up. It’s weird to think of Mama having a life before she was married to Daddy. It’s even stranger to think of her as being anyone’s third wife. Mama’s got diva written all over her. I don’t know exactly what went down between her and the dude she almost married, but I know it’s a juicy story and well worth the wait.

“Whatever. All I know is that it was ages ago. Don’t you know holding on to the past can you make sick?” My mom makes herself comfortable on the edge of my twin bed, kicking her shoes off.

“Yes, I do,” Mama says, glaring at her eldest child. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” They both look at me, and seem remorseful that I’m suffering. But I know with the two of them on my side I’ll be okay. I just hope this works.

“So we’re really going to do this? Go back and change what happened?”

“Yes, Jayd, we are. Are you ready? Misty should be next door at Esmeralda’s by now, and we don’t have any time to lose. The potion will wear off soon if we don’t get moving.” I shake my head, not sure what I’m agreeing to, or if I’m truly ready.

“Lynn Marie, hand me the book and then make the veve for our baba.” My mom picks up the heavy antique binding with our lineage’s history in it and passes it to her mother.

“I used to love drawing this cross,” my mom says, taking the cornmeal off the dresser and pouring it on the floor next to the family shrine.

“For us, Legba’s veve is an apotropaic symbol, Jayd, one that wards off evil and opens the road for clarity and focus so we can pick the right way to go. When you see this symbol in your dreams or in this reality, pay close attention.” Mama can be cryptic sometimes. All of this information is too much on a sistah’s mind if I’m supposed to be falling asleep.

“Oh Jayd, stop bitching,” my mom says aloud. I hate when she reads my mind and then scolds me aloud for thinking what I think. What the hell kind of fate is this? “I can still hear you, little girl.”

“What’s the point of me having thoughts if my mind is under constant supervision?” I ask.

“Enough, girls. We have work to do.” Mama begins pouring the libation to the ancestors, chanting a song I’ve never heard before. I slowly give in to the melodic drumbeat coming from Mama’s hand movements. The pulsation of the heavy thumps course through my body like a cold chill, like when I dreamt of Misty taking my sight.

“At least now we know how and when Esmeralda and Misty took your powers. And we also know that Misty is the mule, not her mom, which is beneficial to us.”

“How is it beneficial that I have to go to school with my mortal enemy, who also happens to live around the corner from me?”

“It’s always in our benefit to have our enemies close and accessible, and Misty just so happens to be both.”

“Not to mention stupid,” my mom says, chewing on her gum fast, like it’s going to jump out of her mouth if she slows down. “The girl’s elevator’s not going all the way to the top floor, if you know what I mean.”

“Lynn Marie, that’s enough,” Mama says, slamming the spirit book closed. Her eldest daughter works Mama’s nerves like no one else can. It’s funny to see them together. Jay’s mother is never around. The older my mother gets the more she favors Mama, and that’s definitely a compliment. “You don’t talk bad about other people’s children. I know I taught you better than that.”

“I do when they’re trying to kill my baby. That girl is deaf, dumb, and stupid as far as I’m concerned, and Jayd needs to know it, just like that.” Mama rolls her jade eyes at my mom, who promptly mirrors Mama’s movements. “Jayd, you need to kick this girl’s ass in both the spiritual realm and the physical. There are times to play nice and then there are times to fight dirty. This is a time to fight, Jayd.”

“I already did that and it got me put on lockdown for a week.”

“I think what your mother is trying to say is that there’s a difference between choosing to let your powers go—like some stupid people do—and having them taken from you unwillingly,” Mama says, causing my mother to sigh. I know she gets tired of Mama rubbing that fact of life in her face. I’m sure now my mom thinks it would’ve been easier to keep up with her lessons than hear this shit almost every time she and Mama talk.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to call people’s children stupid,” my mom says, rising from her cozy position on the corner of my bed and pacing around the room. Mama always brings out the teenager in my mom.

“Other people’s children. I can call my own children whatever the hell I want to, especially when I’m telling the truth.” Mama smiles at my mom, who’s now completely frustrated with our conversation. This is the longest she’s stayed at Mama’s house in a while without it being a family holiday, like this past Christmas. I’m sure she’d rather be celebrating Valentine’s Day weekend with her boo, like everyone else in love.

“Okay you two, back to your corners.” I always play referee between the two of them. Mama says it’s part of my destiny and not to complain, because I chose to be in this moment before I was born. I wish I could choose to be out of it just as easily.

“Okay, ladies, we have work to do and it starts with Jayd falling asleep and you sticking with her, Lynn Marie. Here,” Mama says, handing us each objects from the tiered shrine next to her bed. “Now that we have asked Legba to open the road we can get to work. We’ll need all of our ancestors to help us out of this mess,” Mama says, leading the way out of the house and to the back. The spirit room is where it all goes down.

When we get to the backyard, we hear loud chanting and drumming coming from next door. Lexi begins to howl at the sound of Esmeralda’s voice. I guess they figured out Misty’s been slipped a magic micky.

“We can do better than that,” Mama says, continuing her steps to the backhouse where the spirit room is housed. We can smell the cigarette smoke coming from the adjacent garage where my uncles chill. How they stay in that dark-ass, musty space doing nothing all day with the door down is beyond me.

“Mama, I’ve never seen you so competitive before,” my mom says, walking into the small house and looking around like it’s the first time she’s been back here. We each remove our shoes at the threshold. Mama closes the door behind her before placing the objects on the table. I instinctively go to the small shrine at the back of the room to place my objects down while my mom gets reacquainted with the energy in this space.

“No, Jayd. Set them here on the table. You too, little Lynn.” Mama directs us both to wash our hands and get ready to get down. “Lynn Marie, hand me that bata drum behind you. Jayd, lie down on the floor in front of the shrine. We don’t have any time to waste. They’re already there waiting for us.”

“Where, Mama?” I ask, a little scared of where she’s sending us.

“In the past. That’s what we’re going to use Misty’s dreams for. The sooner we get there the sooner we can return. Lynn Marie, you need to open with a song to Legba so he can help you guide our child in the right direction. Once you’re asleep I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Esu ma se mi o,” my mother sings, beginning our opening chant. I’m glad she’s praying for less confusion, because I don’t know what the hell is going on.

“Remember, Jayd. Birth and death are the only two things that cannot be negotiated. Everything else in between is malleable. Focus on everything you wrote down that you want to change and get to it, girl. You have a lot of work to do.” I begin to drift off with the sound of my mother’s voice carrying me along.