"So," Tyrell Walker greeted his younger sister at the front door, "are you pregnant?"
Sydney took a step back in shock before she entered her parents' home for Sunday dinner. She'd arrived back from Los Angeles just a few days prior and it was her first appearance at her family's home since she missed out on Christmas. "Um, no."
"You're all glowing and whatever it is you chicks do to yourselves," Tyrell did a glance over at his sister. Standing over six feet tall with a muscular build, shaved head and neatly trimmed goatee, he was a club promoter who owned a few of San Francisco's trendiest bars and nightclubs. "You sure there's not a baby in there?"
"Why are you so concerned with my body?" Sydney removed her coat and hung it on the wall. She did a quick glance at herself in the living room wall mirror; maybe her choice of tight jeans and a thick sweater was not the best one. If she didn't look pregnant, she certainly looked like she gained a pound or two. She knew it was a lie. All the sex she had with Dean made her lose weight.
"Just wondering. I haven't seen you around and you've been acting kinda funny since you came back from Jane's wedding." Tyrell followed her to the den. "Just wondering if there's something you're not telling the family."
"Nosey, nosey, nosey." Sydney playfully chided.
"Big brother will always protect the little sister, even if she doesn't want it," he added, "mom's in the kitchen. I'm going to join Dad and Robbie for the game."
"Oh, are the Kings playing?" She hopefully asked.
Tyrell narrowed his eyes and scrunched his nose. His sister was never one into sports and suddenly she was inquiring about a team. "Yeah, they're playing against the Bulls now."
"The Bulls, the Bulls…" Sydney tried to remember where they were from. She then remembered how Dean had an autographed poster of Michael Jordan in his play room. Basketball. The Sacramento Kings. "Okay, got it."
Tyrell glanced back at his sister. "Are you sure you're not pregnant? I heard women get that amnesia when they get knocked up."
Sydney was amazed at how chauvinistic her brother could be when he was around her. "How on earth did Karen agree to marry you?"
"That's not a question you ask," Tyrell winked and Sydney shuddered. The last thing she needed to think about was her brother having any type of sex.
Sydney briefly said hello to her dad and other brother before she made her way to the kitchen to help her mother. Sitting at the kitchen table, Nancy Walker perused over a magazine as her reading glasses hung on the bridge of her nose. A woman of average height and build, Nancy was a quiet sophisticate that Sydney often tried in vain to emulate. While other women bragged about their designer shoes and purses, Nancy wore her finest pearls. When other relatives showed up to family functions, driving the latest fancy car, Nancy talked about how much her Roth account has grown.
She was exemplary, and Sydney felt the quiet pressure from others in the family to follow her mother's lead. It were a pair of shoes, Sydney concluded after some time, she would never fill.
"These reality stars are taking over," Nancy shook her head as she turned a page, "I remember there was a time when you bought a magazine and you saw an actual star; an actual celebrity on it. Nowadays, you go to the checkout line and you see these unknowns from some stupid show, talking about how their life has changed, drama with this person, beef with that person, and all the while you're just thinking, 'Who in the hell are you?'" She finally looked up and gave her only daughter a hug. "There's my baby girl! How are you doing, honey?"
"I'm doing great, Mommy!" Sydney hugged her mother back. Nancy was a fan of big, bear hugs; not the flimsy kind that was equivalent to a pat on the back. "How are you, Mommy?"
"I'm doing well, baby girl." Nancy walked over to the kitchen stove and checked the cabbage. "So what's new with you?"
This was the part Sydney wanted to scream and shout to the heavens about Dean. Her Christmas with Dean was far too short. She missed the feel of his arms wrapped around her and how safe she felt within them. It felt like he took a hold of her heart and tightly squeezed it, for fear it was going to break if he let it go. She never wanted him to let it go.
After their disastrous fight the night before, however, she wasn't sure if mentioning Dean was even a good idea. "Nothing, really."
Nancy shot Sydney a look that was a disbelieving side eye mixed in with a bit of 'Girl, who are you fooling?' twinkle. "So what's his name?"
"I swear…first Tyrell asking me if I'm knocked up, now you." Sydney caught her mother's smile and raised eyebrows. "I'm not pregnant."
"But there is somebody, though." Nancy walked back over to the kitchen table and sat down near her daughter. She rested her head on a palm and smiled. "So am I going have to beat it out of you?"
"I'm not sure if he's worth mentioning now."
"Ooh, this sounds juicy." Nancy's eyes twinkled.
Sydney sighed. Her mother had a soft way of being manipulative that was actually charming. "It's a long story."
"I'm sure it's not," Nancy replied in a sing-song voice, "but if you say it is…"
"I met this guy when I went to Jane's wedding. We were snowed in together. He was the friend I flew down to see recently."
"Well, I figured it was a guy," Nancy took a sip of her tea, "a rich one, at that."
"You're starting to sound a lot like Sarah."
"Sarah's a smart woman," Nancy replied.
"Anyway," Sydney felt ganged up and Sarah wasn't even there, "the story goes I allegedly was the one that broke up him and his sometime girlfriend."
"Sometime girlfriend?" Nancy slowly said the phrase and looked up at the ceiling as she tried to decipher the choice of words. "What does that mean? I don't know what that means."
"It means they weren't together in the traditional sense," Sydney felt uncomfortable explaining the term. It was akin to having the sex talk when she was a teenager.
"Oh," Nancy pulled back, "they were friends with benefits?"
Sydney's mouth fell open as she wondered how her mother would've known about that. She then remembered how her mother kept up with all things pop culture, even if it was stuff she didn't understand or didn't even want to know. "Yes."
"So, you were the other woman but not really?" She asked.
"I guess you can say that. They weren't together when we got together."
"Well then, you weren't the other woman; you were just lucky and she sounds butthurt." Nancy smiled and Sydney appreciated her mother's honesty. "But there's more to this story, isn't there?"
"He's still in contact with her. He says they're just friends and friendly but I don't know. She's made it pretty clear to me she'll be around whether I like it or not." Sydney wondered if she should show her mother the gossip pictures from the other night.
"Well, if he's made it clear that you're with him and he's faithful to you, she's just going have to deal," Nancy shrugged, "I don't see the issue here. I do have to be honest, Syd. You are in a long-distance relationship with someone and that is hard within itself. There needs to be a lot of trust and communication. It's easy to get offended and think something else happened when it probably didn't." She got up to check on the pot roast. "It has to go both ways."
Sydney immediately felt smaller than a period at the end of a sentence. Dean didn't have to call her to let her know where he was or what he was doing. He could've just let her find out via the blogs and let her come to terms with what she saw. She needed to make it up to him somehow and some way. "You're right, Mommy."
"Case in point…" Nancy turned down the fire on the stove. "Did you know what I saw this morning? That one skanky Housewife I don't like! Gosh, what was her name? Yeah, Renee! Ooh, she works my good nerve!" Despite her abomination for other reality stars, Nancy was a diehard fan of the Real Housewives, no matter the city. "Anyway, she had some handsome young man carrying her drunk tail out of some club the other night!" Nancy shook her head. "Can you believe it?"
Just when Sydney found the courage to tell her mother the reveal about her and Dean, she was curb-stomped back into a harsh reality. Her boyfriend was famous and he had an almost-famous ex. It was a bitter taste. "Unfortunately, I can believe it."
"That hussy…always gotta stick her claws into somebody. She's always creating drama and starting some mess. I bet you anything if she tried that mess with the Atlanta Housewives, and they'll send her Crispy Crunch tail back to where she belongs."
"Crispy Crunch?" Sydney asked.
"It's a candy bar," Nancy explained and sat back down at the table. She was well traveled and been to thirty states and many cities worldwide. "So tell me about your boyfriend. What does he do?"
"You already know about him," Sydney put a grin on her face, "he saves hoes."
"He what?"
"That Housewife that you saw the other day?" Sydney braced herself for her mother's reaction. She was sure her mother was going to beat the disappointment into her. "Dean was the one carrying her."
"Oh," Nancy pursed her lips and twisted them, "well, I guess we have to show Crispy Crunch how the San Francisco girls do it." She then leaned forward and made eye contact with her daughter. "You know you can strangle someone with a pearl necklace if you practice it right."
Sydney's mouth gaped open and a laugh shouted out. "How would you know about that, Mommy?"
"Before I became a lady, baby girl…" Nancy sipped her tea and reminisced, softly shaking her head. "…before I became a lady…"