EXCERPT, If These Walls Could Talk

Camille closed her eyes and savored the taste of sweet

potato pie.  Reuben's sister Brenda added coconut to

hers, something many people disliked but Camille

loved.    She looked forward to the holidays every year to get some of this pie.  Forget about her diet and the six pounds she'd managed to lose so far.  She'd definitely have seconds.  And she'd ask to bring a piece home.

Every Thanksgiving the Curry family always gathered to have dessert at Brenda's apartment in a high-rise on Sedgwick Avenue.  Camille, Reuben, and the kids had eaten with her father and stepmother in Inwood, and Reuben's brother ate with his girlfriend's family.  Besides with about a dozen members of the Curry family, no one had an apartment large enough to accommodate all of them for a sit-down dinner.  Dessert was easier to handle; people just brought their plate to the cough or a chair, or even the floor.

"So when do you guys leave for Orlando?" Brenda asked.

"Tuesday.  We'll be back Saturday."

Brenda made a clucking sound with her tongue.  "You guys are making it hard for the rest of us.  All the kids are saying they want to go to Disney World like Mitchell and Shayla."

"We're going to Wet 'n Wild and Sea World too, aren't we, Mom?" Mitchell bragged.

Camille poked his upper arm and whispered, "Shh!"  To Brenda she said confidently, "You'll get there."

Saul, Reuben's older brother, spoke up. "Yeah, well, if Aunt Mary had left me some ducats I'd be able to take my kids to Disney, too.  If I had any kids."

Camille bit her lower lip.  She'd been waiting for that.  Reuben's siblings were all so jealous that Aunt Mary remembered him in her will and not them, although none of them had done a damn thing for her.

"And take a cruise, and get me a new car to boot," Saul continued.  "You guys gonna be drivin' a new Caddy soon, I guess."

Camille knew she should let Reuben answer that, but she couldn't help responding.  "We didn't get that much."  Of course, all three of Reuben's siblings knew exactly how much they'd received, courtesy of their mother, Ginny, who was Aunt Mary's younger sister.

"And we didn't buy a car," Reuben said calmly.  "Actually, we bought a house."

His announcement met with a few seconds of complete silence.  Reuben's other sister, Arnelle, broke the quiet.  "A house?" she asked incredulously.

"Where?" Brenda demanded.

"In Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania," Reuben replied.

"Toby what?"

"Tobyhanna.  It's near the Pocono Mountains, about a hundred miles from here."

"Y'all relocating?" Saul asked.  "You must be crazy, givin' up that good job at the supermarket.  You got security, man."

"Actually, they have supermarkets in Pennsylvania, too, Saul," Reuben said with a smile, "but both Camille and I are keeping our jobs, at least for the time being.  We're going to commute to work."

Ginny spoke for the first time.  "All the way to New York?  Won't that be exhausting for you?"

Camille leaned back in her chair unhappily, determined not to say another word.  Her in-laws reacted to their news exactly how she predicted they would.  No congratulations, no that's wonderfuls, no you go, guys, nothing but pointing out all the negatives.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for you," Ginny said, "but I can't help being a little concerned.  How will you two manage to drive a hundred miles each way, every day?"

"I'm not sure we'll drive in, Mom, at least not every day.  They have a commuter bus that runs regularly until they get the train going."

"Well, if you drive, you'd better hope that car holds up," Saul said.

"The Malibu will be fine.  It's only two years old."

"So when are you guys moving?" Arnelle asked.

"In the spring."

"Why so long?  Surely it doesn't take that long for all the paperwork to get processed."

"The house won't be ready until then."

"What'd you guys do," Brenda asked, "buy one of those real old fixer-uppers that needs a lot of work?"  The pleased look on her face suggested she liked the idea of them living in an antiquated dump.

Camille gritted her teeth.  She wanted to slap that smug smile off her sister-in-law's face.

It delighted her that Reuben remained so calm.  "No, Brenda," he said.  "It's in a development where all the houses are brand new.  It has to be built from the ground up."

"You mean it's a new house?"

Camille grinned at Brenda's obvious flustered state and forgot her vow to not speak.  "Brand-spanking, never-been-lived-in-before new," she said proudly.

"How much you pay for it?" Saul demanded to know.

"Saul, don't be tryin' to get in our business," Reuben warned.

"I just wanna know how y'all can afford a brand-new house.  What is it, some kinda low-income housing project or something?"

Camille gasped audibly.  This was the last straw.  A project?  How dare Saul say such a thing!

"Of course it's not a project," she snapped.  "It's a beautiful two-story house, right on the lake, with a fireplace and a two-car garage and a bathroom inside the master bedroom with both a big shower and a sculpted Jacuzzi tub.  And plenty of grass.  How many projects do you see have features like that?"

"Take it easy, Camille," Saul said.  "I was just asking."

"Yeah, in the most insulting way you could.  Who the hell moves two states away to live in the projects?"  She glared at her brother-in-law.

                                                                                *****

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