Wife and Girlfriend

Chapter 15

Otanyi

I. Am. Shook.

Sitting around our family dining room table with the extension piece inserted, I placed my hand underneath my Gran Gran's green and white casserole dish as it was passed to me.  It contained my mother's butter beans and oxtails, a recipe favored for the weekend that she had started prepping mid-week and slow-cooked to perfection. 

My father was eyeing our dinner guest suspiciously.  This was one for the record books, truly.

Hunter couldn't have been oblivious to the awkwardness of it all. However, he still tried to engage my dad in a discussion about an upcoming cricket exhibition match being played in the Bank of America Center.  Now, my sixty-something-year-old father spent nearly all his free time playing the sport and had childhood aspirations of becoming the next Garfield Sobers, or rather Sir Garfield Sobers, arguably one of the greatest athletes to play the sport from the 1950s to the 1970s.  He was my dad's idol, and his father, our grandfather, revered the name Sobers and treated cricket like a religion.  And Hunter was surprisingly quite knowledgeable about the topic.

I felt like I could throw up at any minute or soil myself right here in my seat, which was across from Hunter, because even though my mother had insisted that the employer and employee sit beside one another, my father had sensed 'a fly in the ointment' and stealthily directed that we sit separately. 

"If you pinch me again, I'll break your fingers," I hissed at Milli as I caught one of her fingers and set about pushing it into an unnatural overextension.  She gasped, and my mother's glare signaled us both to return to our corners.  The seating arrangement rarely changed in our household, except on the rare occasion that we had a guest for a meal.

Our father would avoid socializing at home because it was his sanctuary.  "Deal with the world outside and then come home to your peace,' was a saying he was fond of.

"So, Solaris is a type of magazine?" my dad asked as he pushed his food around his plate. Which was strange because he loved my mother's oxtails, so he should've been into his second helping by now.

Hunter looked over at me, and I caught his eyes briefly before looking at my dad. 

He wasn't looking at either of us, so it wasn't entirely clear who the question had been for, and I started to answer.

"No, him," Dad said, clarifying that he'd wanted a reply from Hunter instead.

"Yes, it's one of the fastest-growing publications in the country.  We've been operational for over five years and cover an extensive range of news stories," Hunter finished.

"And Otanyi works for you as an assistant?" my mother chimed in.  Ever the consummate host, she wanted everyone to feel welcomed at her table as she pushed a plate of ground provisions into Hunter's hands. 

When he hovered with the serving spoon over the yellow yam, I coughed to catch his attention and motioned with a pursing of my lips towards the white yam, which was sweet.

"Ah yeah, yes, she's my executive assistant," he tried smiling at both of my parents even though they sat at opposite sides of the table.

"Fastest growing in the country, yuh say? And how many employees yuh have?"  I could hear my dad's patois coming out as I felt Milli grab my thigh underneath the table.  Anger, annoyance, or extreme happiness were the only times we'd hear my dad unknowingly start speaking like a Jamaican.

"We're around six hundred, not including the off-sites and freelancers," Hunter replied, having no idea about the field of landmines he was about to walk through.