“Junior! Come here, Junior!”
Happy was on her bedroom floor searching for a small anxious dog. She was sure he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. He hid from her and wouldn’t eat until she left the room. She was belly down on her bedroom floor moving dusty shoe boxes scattered under her bed. Some with shoes, some with papers, and some with God knows what. Her hand searched around for the small pup. He hid to keep away from the crazy lady who yelled at him and who would often forget to feed him.
Junior shivered, watching Happy move around the room shouting.
“Wait! I gotcha!”
She stood like a quiet ninja waiting for her prey. In seconds, the heavy pant of the scared dog’s breath rushed Happy to the opposite side of her bed. Positioned next to her bed was a messy nightstand with books about how to be happy, fixing your life, and sleep aids. Lots of sleep aids…and unused condoms.
“Now I gotcha!” She scooped up the bewildered dog and rubbed the top of his small head. “Don’t scare mommy like that, Junior. You bad dog.”
Happy had forgotten about the dog again. She only remembered him after Lucian decided to finally worry about her not responding to his calls and texts. She was ignoring him to teach him a lesson. She knew he’d soon be at the door yelling at her for doing so.
She fed the dog and showered. With intent, she had also beautified herself. Her hair was put in a messy neat bun with a scarf adorned as a night time bow. Her face was shiny from exfoliation. Topped off with a new clean nightgown and robe by Donna Karen courtesy of Nordstrom’s Rack. Thanks to Dior, she smelled like fresh rainwater and exotic flowers. She had cooked his favorite: short ribs, white rice, and broccoli.
The apartment appeared clean. Her mess was tucked away in a closet. Junior’s bowl was full of food with a new bag of puppy chow next to it to emphasize her great mothering. The scene was set, and like a psychic on a full moon holding a scared dog, she heard his keys jangling and the cylinder unlock. She turned to greet him.
“What the fuck do you want, Lou?” She performed.
“What is going on, Happy? Why weren’t you responding to my text and calls? I thought something had happened to you.” He walked toward her.
“I’m fine. Go back home to Gail please. Junior and I are doing great without you.” She rolled her eyes at him.
“What the hell did I do now?” He gave a confused look.
“Don’t act like you care, Lou! You went missing a week ago. Didn’t call. Didn’t come check on me or this damn dog. I told you before, I’m tired of this side piece situation you got me in. I deserve better!” she yelled at him.
“Happy, what is the problem? You know I’ve been doing a lot of overtime to save up some money. I told you I was going to be busy.”
“You can be busy and still call.”
“And when I called, you didn’t answer,” he snapped.
Happy went silent. She dropped the pup and huffed, walking away from him to sit on the sofa facing her flat screen to avoid seeing his face. She could hear his loud sigh. This was a familiar scene. A reenactment of him reappearing and her being angry about it. And as she sat angry and in love, she knew as long as he had a key, she’d relive this again and again.
“I don’t have time to play these games with you.” He picked up the excited pup, wiggling and panting in his large hands.
“Yes Junior! You miss your daddy,” he said, while poking out his lips and still trying to avoid the dog’s attempts to lick his face.
“Now stop that. You know I don’t kiss dogs.” He put Junior down and went into the small kitchen. “Hmm.” He took in a whiff of the good eats. “You made my favorite.”
“I had a craving,” Happy said, trying to seem unbothered by Lucian.
“Yeah, you were craving me.” He walked to the back of the sofa, bent over, and kissed her on the neck.
Happy got up from the sofa. “I’m going to bed. Lock yourself out. Or better yet, leave my keys on the kitchen table and use the slam lock.”
Walking back over to the kitchen, he mumbled “I ain’t giving you shit.” He scooped some rice into a large bowl.
Happy laid in her bed pretending to be fast asleep. It was unknown to her how much time had passed. Lucian did not rush to join her. When he finally did, she stuck her butt out a little more so he could spoon her. In moments they were both nude. Bodies pressed and moaning, filling the air around them with, “I love you” and “I miss you, too.”
Junior jumped up on the sofa in the next room. His belly was now full, and he had a clean spot to lie in to rest.
***
Her Saturday morning consisted of summer showers and some thunder. Lucian was a memory she relished in for a while. His smell, his touch, and his sweet lips were on her mind when she opened her eyes to the peeling paint on her ceiling.
She had to keep busy. She had work to do and she couldn’t worry about Lucian or when she would see him again. She had to put aside her dreams of him finally leaving his wife. These thoughts would be a continuous hamster wheel in her head if she didn’t find something to do. She decided to start on her end-of-the-school-year report cards.
The ringing house phone didn’t move her from her work desk. She knew it was her mother. Her mother had been stalking her all morning, calling and texting her cell phone. Her alcoholic mother who had been on a mandatory leave from work for the past three months.
Happy stayed focused on completing her students’ report cards. When the ringing finally stopped, she exhaled. Her attention was back on her work. It wasn’t a motivating task. Just another thing with a due date that had to be done.
She gave most of her students satisfactory scores, including inspirational summaries for the next school year. Many of these students had wasted the year fighting, cutting school, and being a disruption in her English language class. Spending her days breaking up fights and kicking delinquents out of her classroom had eventually led her to become one of those teachers. Just there for a paycheck. Through the years, she had found it impossible to campaign for children who didn’t want to succeed. She had to be okay with the reality of their environment and moral codes. Her salary had made her comfortable enough to focus on only what she had emotional space for.
The phone rang again. Happy paused and took her hands off the keyboard.
“Answer her, Happy. Then she will stop bugging you,” she said out loud to herself.
Happy ran to her living room, the only room with a landline in her apartment.
“Hello,” she let said in a frustrated huff.
“What the hell are you doing?” Landry was drunk and belligerent at ten in the morning.
Her mother’s voice filled her with a sudden burst of anxiety.
“What took you so long to answer the damn phone? I’ve been calling all day!”
“Hi Landry. I just got home from the gym,” she lied.
“Oh, well… at least you’re trying to lose some of that weight,” her mother added.
“I’m really busy. I have to go. I have paperwork to do.” Happy tried to hurry her mother away from her ear.
“Don’t you rush me off the damn phone. I haven’t spoken to you in days. Why are you treating me like this?”
Happy could sense the drunk crying about to start. This was a routine for Landry every time Happy avoided her. Her mother was a bad drunk. The kind of drunk who would get angry and curse her daughter out for no reason. She would have strange men staying at the house. Scared as a child, Happy would lock her bedroom door and place a chair up against it for safety. The kind of drunk who would be too smashed to take her child to school or feed her dinner or bathe her. A bad, miserable drunk. And as soon as Happy was able to grow up and leave, she grabbed the opportunity. With a full scholarship, she graduated and moved out into a Howard University dorm. She never informed Landry of her escape plan. She packed what she could and left. For six years, Landry only engaged in phone conversations with her daughter with limited holiday visits to Brooklyn. Happy never asked her mother to visit her on campus and Landry never tried.
“Landry don’t cry. I will call you back. I have to finish these grading forms and email them to my principal before midnight,” she lied again.
“On a Saturday? Don’t treat me like a fucking idiot, Happy.”
“I’m not lying. I’m late with paperwork. My principal insists I email them today so he can check in on them before Monday, and he can put them in the system.”
Her lie flowed out her mouth like a calming river. Having a neglectful mother granted her that.
“Oh, okay. But call me as soon as you’re finished. I have something to tell you.”
“Okay I will.” Happy pressed the red phone symbol on her cordless phone and relaxed her body. She looked up to the ceiling in search of a higher power for some relief and went back into her room and sat at her desk. Her mind went blank. The previous ambition to finish her work a week early left her completely. She gave into the thought of binge watching TV and eating something “good.” Zoning out would feel much better than dealing with what she was feeling after that phone call.
She got up, went to the freezer and pulled out the pint of butter pecan ice cream then grabbed a spoon. She looked on her kitchen table and noticed the bag of onion rings she could eat later. She turned on her jail broken fire stick to search for something to make her forget about the truth. When she was born, her parents died, and she was adopted. She had a loving father who later died. She was left with the worst mother a girl named Happy could ever have. A tear slid down her right cheek. She wiped it and then scooped a spoonful of her ice cream, shoving it into her mouth. Junior hopped off the sofa to find refuge on Happy’s bed.
“Fuck you, stupid dog,” she roared across her living room.