A Rich Man's Baby. Daaimah S. Poole

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      We met up for dinner at the crowded steak house. I saw other people from my graduation still in their caps and gowns. I took mine off after seeing how silly they looked in theirs. We all sat down at a big round table set for our party of five and began looking over our menus.

      “Why did you cut your hair?” my dad asked.

      “I think my hair makes me look professional. You don’t like it, Daddy?”

      “No, women need hair. It looks short, like a boy’s.”

      “I think it looks good. She is going to have to be taken seriously at work,” my mother said. She patted her silver and black wavy hair. She had an asymmetrical bob with a part to the side. It looked beautiful up against her midnight skin. I looked just like her, a few shades lighter, petite, with bright brown eyes.

      “Retirement is two years away, huh, Mrs. Matthew?” Terrance asked, changing the subject from my hair.

      “Yeah, Mom, what are you going to do?” I asked.

      She had been in the education field for thirty-plus years. She was a principal at the Rosemont Elementary School.

      “I don’t know yet. But the first year I’m going to rest; then I don’t know. I may even go play golf with your father.”

      “Who picked a steak house?” Camille asked as she scooted up closer to the table and looked over the menu in disgust.

      “Your father did.”

      “Daddy, you know I’m a vegetarian,” she exclaimed.

      “This is not about you, Camille. This dinner is for your sister,” my father said sternly. Camille was twenty-eight and acted like she was sixteen at times.

      “Right, I forgot nobody cares about me,” she said as she closed the menu.

      “Are you staying over?” I asked my mother.

      “No, we’re riding back to Philly tonight. Your daddy is still being cheap. He doesn’t want to waste the money on a hotel room.”

      “I’m not being cheap. It is only a two-hour ride, and I have patients in the morning.”

      My mother gave us a look like “don’t believe him.” We ordered our dinner and the waiter brought us our food promptly. I wasn’t really hungry, but I ordered a steak to eat in Camille’s face as she munched on a garden salad. We were silly like that. We annoyed each other at times but still had sisterly love. She was older and always complained because I was the baby and got whatever I wanted.

      “When do you start working, Dionne?” my father asked halfway through our meal.

      “I take review classes for the next few weeks, then the bar at the end of July, and I start working in September. I already accepted a position in the public defender’s office at home.”

      “Where are you going to live?”

      “I’m moving in with Terrance.”

      My parents looked at each other, and Camille smirked at me like “ha-ha.”

      “Daddy, it makes sense. He is not there half the month, and it is close to my job.”

      “I don’t know about that whole living together stuff,” my father said, wiping his mouth and staring at Terrance.

      It was very uncomfortable. My father was chewing fast and taking bites and just shaking his head. Terrance, unaffected, pulled out a box. He passed it across the table. I opened the brown box. It was a black leather Louis Vuitton briefcase.

      “Very nice,” my mother said, as I showcased my briefcase on the table.

      My father was not impressed and still gave Terrance a silent, evil stare.

      “Thank you,” I said as I set it down next to me.

      After dinner, I said good-bye to my mother and sister while my father whispered something to Terrance in his ear.

      “What was my father saying?” I asked as we walked down the street toward Terrance’s Infinti X35 SUV.

      “Nothing.”

      “You sure?”

      “Yes, I’m sure. He just told me to call him,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me. Our waiter came running out of the restaurant and said, “Miss, your box.”

      “Thank you so very much,” I said as I looked over at Terrance. I knew he was going to say something.

      “How do you leave a thousand-dollar briefcase on the table?”

      “I don’t know. You know I am forgetful at times.”

      Terrance was so disciplined and so was I at times. He wrote down his goal, wrote a plan of action, and got it done. He was quiet and reserved. I’m sure that was from growing up in a house with four women. He had three sisters, Tasha, Tamika, and Torey, and his mother, Felicia. Yes, his mother gave all her children first names beginning with T after their father, Tony. Terrance’s sisters all talked fast in these funny little Brooklyn accents. The first time they met me, they said, “Oh no, Terrance, СКАЧАТЬ