"So, how did you and my mom meet?" Huelene asked. She was seated in one of the couches in Huey's living room.
Huey went and sat down in his signature chair. He made sure to get comfortable before answering Huelene's question.
"It all started when I had just moved from Chicago to Maryland," Huey started.
My parents had recently passed away, so my brother Riley and I went to live with my grandfather, Robert Jebediah Freeman, as our next guardian.
We started out in Chicago, where we were both born and raised. But there was often gang violence in our neighborhood, and my younger brother Riley was a subject to that.
In our family, and in our neighborhood in general, black men never lived above the age of 18. Their parents had to bury their own child.
My grandfather did not want anything to happen to us, so he relocated us to Maryland, where such things would never happen. We essentially lived in the suburbs, which removed us from our natural environment. I didn't want to go, as much as I hated what had happened in Chicago.
But I didn't have a choice but to adjust to my circumstances. Instead of being with black people, I was surrounded by wealthy, arrogant white folks.
The house we lived in was a considerable improvement over our previous residence in Chicago. I never saw myself living in a house like that at the moment. It was lovely, spacious, and had a relaxing atmosphere.
The only things I didn't like about the neighborhood were the Mayor of Woodcrest, our obnoxious white smug neighbors, the food, and a racist black man who worked in every profession imaginable.
I recall attempting to assassinate the Mayor when he first arrived to our house since I had never trusted a white man before. When he asked us to his Garden Party, I stood up on stage in front of everyone and told them the truth. They were unhappy with me, of course, because white people dislike hearing the truth from their own made-up little lie.
"I'm not trying to rush you, but can you get to when you and my mom met?" Huelene inquired causing Huey to sigh. He knew he was taking a long time with the beginning.
"Don't rush me, I'm trying to explain to you what happened from the beginning," Huey said shushing Huelene.
So at the Garden Party, my Grandad had met our neighbor Tom and his wife Sarah.
They were kind people, but they were a pain in the neck. I admired Tom's achievements in politics and as a lawyer as a black man. He managed to set the benchmark despite the fact that he was surrounded by whites.
He didn't always win arguments, but he was good at what he did, and his only flaw was the color of his skin. In those days, as in today's society, it was difficult for black males to succeed.
On the other hand, I disliked Sarah. I didn't lose any respect for Tom because he was married to a white woman; however, I did lose some respect for him since he was married to a woman who didn't appreciate him and was only with him for the money and the opportunity to have biracial children.
Tom, on the other hand, was naive when it came to seeing through such nonsense. It was so clear that even Sarah's family noticed it. Tom, on the other hand, was a pushover who couldn't bring himself to say no.
And the word around the neighborhood, Sarah, was for the streets. They claimed she slept with any male who gave her the proper attention, which they defined as being harsh, cocky, and a little abusive. When I say proper attention, I don't mean being polite to her and respecting her.
Except for being a mother to Jazmine, she had never worked a day in her life. That was the one thingI was astounded that she never brought her filthy work into Jazmine's life. She kept it a closely guarded secret, and she never wanted to have a negative impact on Jazmine.
When it came to Tom, though, she simply lacked regard for him. When Tom had clients who had clearly done something wrong and needed to be locked up, she would flirt and have sex with them behind his back. I could never take away from her: her ability to raise a wonderful child.
When they mentioned that they had a daughter the same age as me, they suggested that they schedule play dates because we were neighbors.
I didn't like the plan right away since I didn't want to be friends with anyone in that fake ass community. Like all the other little girls at the Garden Party, I assumed their daughter would be a rich, spoiled, and mean white girl.
It was this one white girl who I despised because she always appeared to be attempting to be black. She spoke in slang, spoke the N-word casually, jumped girls, and had a thirst for gang life, which I thought was weird given that she lived in the suburbs.
"You might know her as your Aunt Cindy," Huey said.
"Yeah, I met her, she's a very interesting woman," Huelene said fully understanding where Huey was coming from. She agreed that she didn't like her Aunt Cindy's way of talking and acting around people.
When she first heard her say the N-word she wanted to slap the fuck out of her.
But when I first saw your mother, we were all sat at separate tables with our family members while Ed Wuncler spoke to his audience. I noticed her seated between her parents, her gaze fixed on him as he spoke. I have to admit, she was stunning. There was nothing about her appearance that I hadn't expected.
Her hair type and facial traits alone revealed that she was truly biracial. She possessed traits from both of her parents. Her hair color was the one thing that stood out the most. Almost all of the children had blond, brown, or black hair, except for her, who had strawberry blond hair.
I didn't want to come out as some kind of black person who had never seen a beautiful mix person before, but that's exactly how it felt. She was stunning!
I had been staring at her for so long that she had turned her gaze towards me. I had a feeling she sensed my gaze on her. I don't blame her; I've had similar feelings, and it's strange to have someone staring at you from across the room.
I knew I should have averted my gaze, but I couldn't. Her brilliant green eyes had lulled me into a trance I couldn't resist. I never expected to stare at a girl for so long. She was simply stunning. And I realize it's corny for a little boy my age to be thinking anything like that.
From across the room, she did nothing but smile and wave. Even though I wanted to look back at her, I had surprised myself by waving back at her and averting my gaze away from her.
That was the first time I had seen her!
When she and her family decided to come over to our house as a welcome to the neighborhood, I finally met her. She stood in a formal posture next to her parents and smiled warmly.
Her mother had brought peach cobbler so we could all eat it. I politely declined because that was an unusual combination of foods. I had no idea that the stereotype regarding white people's cooking was true.
My little brother Riley, on the other hand, was the only one who spoke out about Sarah's food. He said everything about her peach cobbler that was negative in the book. As they had their little back and forths, my grandfather and brother both embarrassed me in front of Jazmine and her family.
Riley was whooped in front of everyone by my Grandfather, which was even more embarrassing. Tom, Sarah, and Jazmine were all staring at us uneasily. I just knew they'd have something to say about it when they left our house that night.
My Grandad had purposefully placed peach cobbler on my brother's plate when we all sat at the table so that he would eat it. Riley sat in front of Sarah, and it was awkward between them because Sarah knew Riley didn't like what she had brought.
He had unfortunately placed some on my, Tom's, and even Jazmine's plates. I'm curious as to why he didn't include any on his plate. Everyone else was eating their dinner, but I was consciously avoiding Sarah's peach cobbler. It was remained on my plate after I'd finished everything else except the meat, and I didn't want to offend Sarah or get in trouble by my Grandad.
I cast a glance across the table at Jazmine, who, like me, had failed to finish her peach cobbler or consume any of the meat on her plate. She began to muck around with her food, mixing her meat and peach cobbler together, which I found disgusting. I honestly believed she was going to eat it. Instead, she had her meat cover up her peach cobbler, which no one seemed to notice but me.
Tom shifted his gaze to Jazmine and her plate. "Jazmine, are you finished already?" Tom inquired in a babyish tone, which I found unusual. "Yes!" Jazmine answered . My Grandfather noted, "She didn't finish her pork." "Oh, while you were fixing everyone else's plates, I forgot to mention that my daughter is vegan," Tom recently added.
"Then why didn't you mention that?" my Grandfather, irritated, inquired. He despised it when his meats became stale. "Mr. Freeman, I apologize for not saying anything, but will it be okay if I just throw it away? I don't want you or your family to be responsible for saving my germs," Jazmine inquired respectfully. "Of course you can, Cutie Pie!" my Grandad replied, his voice in the sweetest tone I'd ever heard.
"Thank you!" Jazmine said this as she rose from her seat, her plate in hand. She walked over to our trash can and emptied the rest of the stuff from her plate. You are an astute young lady!
"Huey go save your pork from your plate," my Grandad whispered to me. I found this as a great time to throw away Sarah's peach cobbler.
"Mr. Freeman, where might your bathroom be at?" Jazmine nicely asked. "It's down the hall the to your left, the second door," he politely answered once again. Weird!
"Thank you!" she said once again as she made her way to the bathroom.
I had to meet to her. I couldn't hold back my urges anymore. I just had a need to want to get to know her. After a couple of minutes, I decided to go down the hall where she went so I can accidentally bump into her.
She had encountered me in a few steps when I saw her coming out of the bathroom. When we collided, she had regained her attention. She apologized, "Oh my God, I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention." "It's all right!" nonchalantly, I shrugged off.
"I don't believe we had the chance of meeting, I'm Jazmine's Dubois," she said extending her hand out for me to shake.
"I'm Huey Freeman," I said taking her hand and shaking it.
"I apologize, I intended to introduce myself at the Garden Party but my friends and parents kept dragging me all over the place to talk to everybody," Jazmine apologized once again.
"It's alright, we weren't stressing about it," I answered honestly.
"Are you sure, I saw you looking at me during Mayor Wuncler's speech," she teasingly said. I widen my eyes because I didn't think she would remember. "You were looking at me as if you had seen a ghost," she said laughing.
I felt embarrassed by her observation and I frowned upon her. I didn't like being laughed at.
"Well no, I just happened to be looking around the room to observe everybody," I said trying to cover it up.
"Right, you weren't being slick," she said still laughing.
"Just like you weren't being slick when you threw away your mom's peach cobbler and my Grandad's pork," I said calling her out as she looked at me, perplexed.
"Wait you noticed that?" she said shocked.
"Yes, it's not like you were good at hiding it," I said as she started to tear up for some reason. Wait, is she about to cry?
"Please don't tell my mother, I don't want her to think I don't like her dessert. She had worked so hard to prepare it and your brother had already made her feel bad about its appearance," she said pleading as she was still crying.
I was also looking at her perplexed because I didn't expect her to cry over something like this. The situation was not that serious for her to be crying about.
"You don't have to worry, I'm not gonna tell on you," I assured her. "Really?" she said wiping away her tears. "Thank you so much!" she said reaching out to hug me.
The fuck!
"I promise I'll repay you back someday," she assured me which I thought was unnecessary.
"Yeah, okay," I awkwardly spoke.
She grabbed one of her hands with both of her hands, "I hope we can be good friends Huey. Let me know if you ever want to hang out, my number is right in the phone book and I'm across the street," she said with hope in her tone.
"I'll keep that in mind," I told her as she smiled.
"I will admit, when I first met Jazmine, it was the most unexpected conversation and encounter I ever had with a girl. Normally, I would have avoided Jazmine to the best of my advantages, but for some odd reason, I didn't have that type of feeling for her. I actually wanted to get to know her more," I truthfully spoke.
"Aww, that's so cute!" Huelene said smiling.
"Please continue!" she spoke.
Thank you for reading!