Page 85 of Free Agent
Grandma Jenny laughed. “If you were doing what you were supposed to do, a Sugar Mama wouldn’t be enticing,” she said. “You wouldn’t have to worry about me taking them from you.”
“Yeah, Tater,” Rori quipped, looking me dead in the face as her mouth twitched from the effort not to laugh.
Clearly, this was my payback for agreeing with Sierra the day before.
“Mamaaaa!” I called, looking around for my assistance. “Mama! They messing with me!”
A moment later she appeared from around the corner, laughing. “Y’all leave my baby alone.”
“Nobody messing with his big ass, he mad his lady friend finds me compelling,” Grandma Jenny shot back.
“Mama…” my mama warned. “Please don’t scare Tatum’s guest…”
Grandma Jenny sucked her teeth. “Y’all trying to put me back in the closet. I stayed there?—”
“Fifty some-odd years,” the rest of us chimed in, laughing. “And you ain’t going back!”
We’d heard this declaration many times over the last ten years.
It was nothing against my Grandpa Nelson. He was kind, funny, and they were famously the best of friends. The kind of couple you looked to as an example. But the fact was… Grandma Jenny was gay, and kept it under wraps until the day he died, almost a decade ago.
She kicked the closet door wide open at the funeral, introducing a woman we’d all known as her other best friend… as her woman.
Surprising everyone, yes, but shocking?
Not really.
But then they broke up, and my grandmother started wildin’ around the community, and was apparently whatever the lesbian senior citizen version of a fuckboy was called.
Now that was the shocker.
Very un-grandmotherly behavior.
But hey, she was the homie, so if it made her happy…
“As long as you keep it cool, we cool,” I told Grandma Jenny, tucking Rori close to me as she laughed, too.
Cool.
Maybe it won’t be that ba?—
“Now these girls tell me you was about to marry ol’ Hershey Chocolate from that team that whipped the Kings outta the championships?” she asked, and I felt Rori go stiff. “I know that ain’t his name, but that was one pretty Black man, so that’s what I called him.”
“I’m sure she don’t wanna talk about him, Mama,” my mama said, shaking her head. “She’s not here for that.”
Thank goodness, they’re beha?—
“Well good, ’cause I don’t wanna talk about that nigga either,” Grandma Jenny quipped. “I just wanted to say, I know he must’ve been real rotten if you couldn’t tough it out for them checks. I know he got more endorsements than Tater country ass.”
“Wait, now how the hell I catch a stray?” I asked, and got patted on the arm.
“Them people don’t want you in they commercials baby but we love you,” she said, brushing me off. “Anyway, they also tell me you got an app for pregnant women and babies, but ain’t got no kids!” Grandma Jenny spoke up and my eyes went wide.
“Granny, can you not?” I cut in, knowing this wasn’t a subject for her to poke at.
“What?” she asked. “I’m trying to help you out, make sure everything is on the up and up. If she can’t have no babies that’s fine, but you need to know, and I’m sure you been pussyfooting around it.”
“Stop,” I said sharply, looking at my mom and sister, wondering why the hell they weren’t saying anything to pull her back off the line of what was appropriate.