Deja was pretty well as far as the cookbook went, she knew that it would be mostly deserts, she loved watching her aunts make them as a little girl and once she began taking on an active role, she knew that she wanted to keep it in the family. In fact, she often would make the deserts for family dinner back in California.
While Deja and Yvonne were on the phone, Malachi was sitting in the den drinking a cup of orange juice watching the game show network when Yvonne let him know that his mother would be over around 11:30 to pick him and his siblings up. She hung up the phone and joined him in watching Family Feud when he thanked her for having them over.
“Aww sweetheart, it was no problem, y’all are good kids.” After the show went off, Malachi began to pack while Yvonne washed a load of clothes; after he packed, he grabbed his bag and began reading a journal entry. Around 11:15 am (roughly an hour after the show went off), Deja arrived, and picked up the kids. She brought their swimwear from home and had Zach go get dressed for the pool. While the kids were playing, Deja was reading a southern living magazine. Malachi and Aundrea were sitting at the edge of the pool while Quincy found Ezra at the pool tossing a ball. Deja flipped between her brainstorming list for a rough draft for the first chapter of her book, after a couple of hours she decided to put the books down and watch the kids for a while. While she was watching her kids, a woman sat on the side of her and began making small talk. The woman had a caramel complexion with a curly hair texture. She was what some would call a redbone. She introduced herself, her name being Melissa.
While Melissa and Deja were talking, Yvonne was meeting with her client. He was a Caucasian male, about 6’1 with black hair he wore a light blue polo and a pair of khaki pants, and is a retired veteran trying to integrate back into the general society. The client introduced himself as Ethan.
After the meeting was over, Yvonne met Anita for a drink.
As their drinks arrived, they decided to order food as well. While conversing over their meals, they decided to hit up a shopping center. Anita asked what the latest news was with Deja.
“Well, she’s almost done w/ the cookbook. If she wasn’t at the pool, I would’ve invited her to come with us; she could probably use some retail therapy.”
Back at the pool, Malachi had stepped out for a break; he went and asked his mom for money to get a soda. He sat down when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Malachi?”
He looks up and sees a familiar face. “Remember me?”
“Of course I do Juan. You have no idea how happy I am to see you again”
After an embrace, Malachi asked him when he moved back
“Never really left. I moved not far from where I was living, but you remember the problems that I was having in school. I ended up finishing school close to where my grandparents lived. I thought that was you in my math class, but I didn’t want to look stupid so I didn’t say anything”
“So how’s the family?”
“My mom is good, dad got another job. Yours?”
“Dad retired from the service, Mom is still teaching and she’s in the process of writing a book, brother is in the 3rd grade, my sister is still the most active one, and I’m still kind of the bookworm that you remember.”
Later on, they returned to the pool for a game of basketball. They stayed at the pool until approximately 4:00 pm when Juan said, “I’ll see you at school Monday”. The kids rode home with Deja when she said
“Junior, if it’s okay with your father, you can go to the sleep over”
“Sweet!” QJ responded.
Aundrea later asked whom her mom was talking to at the pool. “Well, she just came and sat down next to me, she asked me what I was working on, turns out that she’s from New Orleans. She has four children, two of them around you and Malachi’s age and one around Quincy’s age. She seems like a nice lady”
Deja then changed the subject and asked Malachi whom that guy was he was talking to. “Oh that’s Juan! I haven’t seen him since the 3rd grade. Just found out that we are in the same math class.”
At home, QJ got the approval from his father to go to the sleepover, but he insisted on meeting the friend and the parents first.
“Aww dad, do you have to?”
“You wanna go son?”
“Yes sir”
“Okay then, yes I do”
Quincy then announced that they would be going eat somewhere. “Zach, you come too. I talked w/ your dad. Y’all go get washed up”.
While they were at dinner. Yvonne and Phil decided to go to a black heritage gallery and then dinner.
“Now that our youngest is in high school, I feel like we can spend more time with each other.” Phil said.
Yvonne figured that Deja was probably wondering where she was.
“No, I talked with Quincy, they’re going out to dinner so I figured we’d do the same after we leave here, besides, you need an evening off work. You spend more time at your job than you do at home, all while you are at home!”
“I know. I know. I’m so used to working, that I don’t even know how to enjoy a day off. It’s got me all over the place”
Phil chuckled and assured her that an evening off would not kill her. He then told her of a great deal that he closed with a client. “I figured we’d celebrate when the commission kicks in, maybe take a drive to San Francisco or Las Vegas.”
They ended their date around midnight when they decided to pick up Zach. They thanked Deja and Quincy before leaving. Aundrea and Deja were up watching a series on Netflix while Quincy had gone to bed. Malachi was in his room with his black light on while QJ was playing a video game. Aundrea and Deja were watching TV on the couch when Deja turned the TV off and started asking Aundrea what was going on with her.
Deja then showed her the cookbook that she was working on and began telling her stories about how she started baking and which occasions her aunts would make certain deserts. Each recipe had some sort of significance to it. Some deserts went better with certain meals. At this point, Deja was just glad that her daughter had shown some interest in this, regardless of the reason. It was about 1:30 before they went to bed. “We got church in the morning, but I’ll take more about these recipes later. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be having this conversation with your kids.”
TO BE CONTINUED WITH EPISODE 11.
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