I Wish I Had a Red Dress Read Online Free PDF Page B

there to blend in. It was there to celebrate.
    Before she started working here, she was known primarily for her elaborately structured hairstyles, her equally elaborate fingernails, and her lack of tolerance for any form of fantasy, subterfuge, or pretension. She saw a movie once where a major character was described as being “brutally honest” and from that point on that is how she was thought of and conducted herself. It can be exhausting, but I’m convinced she’s on a lifelong path to seek the truth and what kind of mentor would I be to discourage such a quest.
    “When Sonny was still livin’ at home, Patrice went to watch the game with him at his mama house one time.”
    Tomika rolled her eyes and I understood why. Patrice O’Neal was one of our regulars and Sonny Lattimore was her man and the father of her son, Sylvester, Jr., known as Lil’ Sonny . Handsome and heartless, the five Lattimore brothers—Junior, Sonny, T. J., Maleek, and Jarvis—were as mean as they were good-looking. Tall and slender without being skinny, they looked like Chuck Berry in his prime. They had high cheekbones and deep, dark eyes that turned to flat pools of poison if you crossed them. The oldest four had fathered half a dozen children by as many women. Jarvis, the youngest, was only fifteen, and still childless as far as anyone knew.
    “I’m sure it was an unforgettable afternoon,” I said.
    “Awful!” Tomika gave a sympathetic shudder at the memory of her friend’s ordeal. “They started arguin’ right after the first down. They were drunk before the halftime show. By the end of the third quarter, one of ’em was threatenin’ to go out to the car and get his gun, and just before the two-minute warnin’, another one pushed Sheila into the refrigerator ’cause she was too slow bringin’ him a beer.”
    Sheila was their only sister. They regarded her as their personalservant, and their mother, usually drunk and always hostile, did nothing to disabuse them of that notion. The youngest of Sheila’s two sons was widely rumored to be her oldest brother’s child, but she always denied it. Even when you didn’t ask her.
    “It don’t make no sense.” Tomika was indignant. “Don’t no women even care about the Super Bowl. They only watchin’ it ’cause they tryin’ to get next to some guy who watchin’ it, or they already did that, and now he think part of the deal is you gotta be bringin’ beer and slingin’ nachos while him and his boys watch it.”
    I remember trying to figure out a football game Mitch was watching on TV one Saturday afternoon years ago and suddenly realizing that the whole thing was still as confusing to me as the first contest my father tried to explain when I was about ten years old. I figured that was enough effort to understand a game I didn’t even want to play, excused myself and never looked back. Life is short and football is not required.
    “We ought to have an anti-Super Bowl party,” Tomika said. “Let them have the day to themselves, period. Then, if they want to beat on somebody, at least it’ll be a fair fight.”
    I looked at her. “That’s a great idea.”
    “What?”
    “What you just said. An anti-Super Bowl party.”
    She looked confused. “For real?”
    “We could do it right here.”
    A look of confusion flickered across her face. “But we’re not open on Sunday.”
    Having a great idea is one thing. Making it real is something else altogether. The social worker in me lives for these moments.
    “We can be open anytime we want,” I reminded her. “We voted on it, remember?” I’m big on participatory democracy. We vote on everything around here.
    Tee was still a little skeptical, but I had piqued her interest. “I guess we could do somethin ’ , ” she said slowly. “Otherwise, I’ma have to hear everybody complainin’ all week about how they hated watchin’ it and which one of these fools hit somebody.”
    “We can get whatever we need tomorrow,” I