#and my brother and i explained afterward how our high school english teacher introduced us to the film and the fact that it's good

[fictionadventurer]

🎄

[backtomylakearearootsstory]

S1E15

The kids are still in Santa Monica with Faye and Clarissa. Ian, Malachi, QJ, and Darius were laughing at a movie while the Aundrea and Alexis went to a nearby sports store to look at tennis shorts.

“You play tennis” Alexis asked Aundrea as she picked up a tank top.

“Oh yea, dads side of the family were all athletes, it’s in my blood. I’m actually trying out for the bball team at school”

“My mom played basketball, I’m more of a volleyball and tennis kind of chick. Darius plays soccer, he’s in a little league team back in Long Beach”

While they were chatting away, Deja was at home cooking dinner. She was preparing a pasta with shredded chicken and shrimp, a salad, rolls, and a cake. She also threw in a caramel pie for extra dessert. Quincy grilled some wings. She should be grading essays however there was no time for it today. Yvonne was helping her with by making homemeade beverages. One for the adults which had alcohol in it and the other one centered around sherbet and sprite. 

“This is been a busy weekend for you, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, exhausting, can you start mixing the ingredients in the pie for me after you finish with that?” 

“Sure, where’d you get this recipe for this caramel pie?”

“Pinterest”

“I figured” Yvonne said laughing, “It sounds like a dessert that’ll have me running to the gym, or at least it should”

“So what you think about Faye so far?” 

“I like her, wish my Zach would have met her Friday evening, but he will be here tonight, I’ll make sure of it. Phil’s bringing him” 

“Mom coming tonight?”

“Yeah, she said she is”

The conversation continued and including discussion about jobs and family, when Azalea called. 

“Put her on speaker”

“Hey”

“Hey, you slaving away in the kitchen?”

“I guess you could say that”

“I’m at the pool with the Dominic”

“How’s Gabriel?”

“Alot better, I know I didn’t get to spend much time with our cousin but he keeps me busy. Well both of the boys do. My daughter is the only one who didn’t inherit any issues of blood”

“Y’all have fun out there”

After hanging up, Azalea grabbed a wine cooler out of her purse that she had hidden in her purse when someone next to her asked “long day?” 

Hours later when they returned to the house it was dinner time. Helen was there when Faye walked in. The sisters and their husbands as well as their children were all in attendence when Helen walked in. Zach reached his hand out to Ian for a handshake prior to Faye introducing her daughters”

“Hi” Faye said to Helen who stood for a moment speechless. She stared for a while before they embraced. 

“Mom, wants me to tell you that she’s sorry about what happened”

Helen stated that she never blamed Clarisse while holding back tears. 

While eating dinner Deja asked if Faye had ever got to experience aunt Anna’s peach cobbler?

“Yeah, she usually made it on Sunday. She smothered alot of food growing up. She didn’t really fry things, but that cobbler always came in handy after eating smothered steak”

“Yeah, it was normally aunt Bessie that fried chicken, she did that until her health started to decline. Uncle Pete was a hell of a cook too, he started to cook more often to keep the tradition going afterwards. He made a good gumbo too” 

“I haven’t had gumbo in a while, It’s probably been three years since I’ve been down there. Gumbo is hard to find out here that doesn’t include tomato paste!”

[Faye was not immune to Louisiana, she spent the first ten years of her life down there and she would go down every other year to visit her Aunt Lorraine and her Uncles. They normally went late June to early July. Her kids were also aware of the family that they have back in Louisiana.]

“You ever watch the cooking channel and you see a cook making a roux so thick that it looks like a paste?” Yvonne laughed as she poured a cup of the alcoholic concoction.

“What’s a roux” Darius asked

Faye explained that it was the base that makes up a gumbo and that it was the result flour and grease heated at a high temperature until it was dark brown. 

After getting up to meet the other youth in another room, Helen began to ask Faye how Clarisse was doing. She said it had been years since she had seen her and that their relationship had been kind of strained every sense. 

“She’s good, thank you”

The conversation was paused when the doorbell rang, Clarissa two daughters walked in. “Hey, you made it!” 

“Those are your two?” 

“Yes ma’am, that’s my oldest Brandi, she just started driving and my youngest Amina”

“This is your cousin”

After a hug, they went to the kitchen to fix their food and met the rest of the kids on the porch.

[conversation continues]

“I never blamed her for what happened, Lucinda was out of control. I think she favored her sons over us anyway. They got away with far more than we did. Of course, once your uncle Mark was born she decided to get the help should desperately needed. We spend the bulk of our lives dodging her temper and frankly the only reason you mother was spared is because she was smart enough to run off. I was simply collateral damage.”[doorbell rings Brandi and Amina arrive]

“What do you think was the cause of her drinking?”

“She never wanted to be in the marriage that she was in. The marriage was forced upon her young, and I think she always resented us.”

As the night progressed and the gathering came to a closure and company left, bedtime came around. QJ, Malachi, and Aundrea slept in their own rooms while Faye’s children slept on the air mattress in the den. After the adults had gone off to bed, Aundrea being unable to sleep started to read “Alias Grace” and begin writing the draft to her book report. “At least now I’m getting somewhere” she said as she began brain storming and answering questions on the handout. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about school. She wasn’t so much as nonchalant, she just was not in love with it like her brother. While she was writing Malachi and Ian were exchanging Skype information and email to keep contact.  They talked about the movie they had seen for a bit before wrapping it up. 

It was about midnight before they went to bed, hence the difficulty waking up for school. 

Faye and her children were already up.

“Thank you so much for the visit, we enjoyed it”

“We were glad to have you”

“We’ll have to get together in a couple of weeks, maybe have you all come out to Long Beach”

“I’d like that”

After the kids all shook hands and embraced, they hugged the adults and headed out the door. After watching Faye and the kids leave they headed out for school.  

At school Aundrea signed up for Basketball tryouts prior to heading to social studies class.  On the way she ran into Brianna who asked her how her weekend was. 

“I wanted an extra day. We had cousins from Long Beach come in for the weekend. Last night I finally started writing my draft for the report. I’m gonna have my mom proofread it. She’s a high school English teacher”

In class, the teacher announced that they would be watching a video and taking notes. “Pay close attention, there will be a quiz next class” 

Concurrently, Quincy was watching TV when he got a phone call from a school. He signed up with the school system to be a sub for some time until he got his full time job. The call was from a middle school saying that they would need a sub Friday. 

“Yes, I can make it. 7:50 am? I’ll see you there.”

While this was not Quincy’s long term goal, he was glad to be out of the house and feeling like he would be of use somewhere to someone. 

At approximately 10:00 am, he got a phone call from QJs school saying he had been in a fight during recess, upon arriving to the school, he asked what was going on?

[Quincy(Orange) QJ (sky blue) school administrator (Pink) school bully mother (green) Ezra (light blue)]

After Quincy left and QJ had to hear a mouthful from the principal regarding his fathers “bigoted” ways he returned to class. He asked if Ezra was alright and said, he’d see him in detention.

In detention while scrubbing the cafeteria floor QJ mumbles “two days of this shit!”

“Thanks” Ezra said in a soft spoken manner. 

“Don’t mention it. Kind of sucks that we’re punished for it while his fat ass is sitting in a classroom somewhere. Anyway man, you’re my friend, we may have our fights but I hate that you have to face this every time you walk up here. You don’t deserve that.”

around 5:00 pm when detention was over Quincy arrived to pick up his son. 

“Well that’s my ride, are you gonna be okay?”

“yeah”

“Okay I’ll see you at school tomorrow”

after a brief pause he said. 

“get in the truck, my dad can drop you off”

On the ride home Quincy said “son, you did the right thing. I’ve always instilled it in you to fight for yourself and for others you see are  being wronged. You went about the situation correctly. Spitting in someone’s face is one of the most vile and disrespectful things one can do.”

“Dad, my principal was not happy with you after you left. He said you were setting and I quote “a terrible example” for me with your bigoted manners way of thinking and he said that it was no wonder that I was so aggressive”

Quincy responded by saying that he stood by everything that he said and would say nothing different if confronted again. He knew that Ezra was one of the nicest kids one would encounter.

 “Ezra, you don’t have a mean bone in your body”. “Look, I am from the south where we whip ass or got our asses whipped. Y’all didn’t grow up in that. When I was in school, they didn’t suspend kids over this. I grew up, kids handled it themselves and were friends by the end of the week. Let them hash it out! But because they’ve taken that right away, now you have kids bringing weapons because they are being told that they can’t use their hands. It’s okay for a boy to go piss in the girls bathroom because he feels more like a girl than a boy but it’s not okay for two boys to settle their dispute the old fashioned way. This is a  part of the pipeline to prison system. This is just an attempt to begin it early. The main target being young black boys, condemn them early, then their in juvenile hall by the age 11. Don’t let them get you to that manner, but don’t ever feel bad about using self defense when you need to.”

TO BE CONTINUED WITH EPISODE 16