L. Banks: My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

Carlah was waiting for her on the front steps of her apartment building holding a FedEx box when Jefferson dropped her off. The sly smile on her best girlfriend's Face made Odelia smile, despite her Foul mood.

"Yo, my sister, my sister—you finally broke free!" Carlah laughed and rushed up to Odelia to hug her the moment Jefferson's car pulled away. "Dayum. I know the brother put a rock on your hand, and I can appreciate being in a love jones with a fine man like that, but ya gotta come up for air, baby."

"It wasn't like that," Odelia said laughing.

"Oh, pullease," Carlah fussed, grabbing Odelia's hand and hold­ing it up to the sunlight. "The man puts two cold karats on you, practically locks you away in y'all's apartments for two weeks, and you want me to believe he slept on the couch?" Carlah thrust the FedEx box at Odelia. "Give up the tapes. Details. Is he worth mar­rying, doing the till-death-do-you-part thing?"

"He's worth marrying," Odelia said, shaking her head and chuckling as she snatched the box from her friend, but refusing to say more.

"Hot-damn, I knew it. I'm too jealous, but it's all good. Tomor­row, we turn our tassels, throw our hats, and then you go out in white."

The statement ran through Odelia like ice water—the part about going out in white. Rather than focus on that as a possibility, she tore open the box and stood very still.

"What is it?" Carlah peered over the edge of the box as Odelia carefully extracted white fabric wrapped in plastic.

She would know her father's scrawl anywhere, and as soon as she saw white and not feathers, she knew he'd finally given his blessing. As gingerly as possible, she pulled the dress out and held it to her body, while Carlah snatched away the box and rooted within it for a note that didn't exist.

"Whoa . . . ," Carlah said, amazed. "Your dai sent your mom's dress?"

"Yeah," Odelia whispered, gazing at the dress. The fabric sud­denly became blurry as she smoothed the plastic-ensconced gown against her body. "Something really crazy had to go down."

"Girl," Carlah said, slinging an arm over her shoulder. "You're so paranoid. Just put it upstairs, we go eat, and go get ourselves beauti­ful for tomorrow. What could go wrong?"

Odelia simply nodded and took out her keys, too afraid to hazard a guess.

"Oh, shit!" Hugh hollered, and kicked his tire. "Brand-new truck jacked, right before graduation? Man, how am I gonna tell my people about this?"

Jefferson kept trying his cell phone that oddly didn't work.

"A black cat runs outta nowhere, I swerve, and now my beautiful candy red baby has no Front end? Look at her, man! I shoulda run over that Freaking thing and made it road pizza!"

True enough; the Front of Hugh's new ride was Folded in on itself like an accordion, radiator smoking.

"We're lucky to be alive, man. Let's Focus on that. Your cell phone working? I can't get reception."

Hugh sighed and flipped open his cellular. "Damn. I can't get none either."

"All right, so we walk till we can find a store or something, and then call For a tow."

"Are you crazy?" Carlah screamed, making all heads in the salon turn in unison. "My hair is green! I'm graduating tomorrow! I'm in a wedding! My maid-of-honor dress is sky blue! This won't work!" Odelia flung the dryer hood back and stood up. Her girlfriend, who was normally a sandy almond brunette, looked like a punk rocker. "They can fix it; they can fix it," she said, rushing over to Carlah to try to console her as shrieks gave way to sobs. Oh, Lord, it was starting.

"Tell me again why we are sitting in the back of a police car? I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this, man," Hugh said quietly.

"Because you decided to go up to a house, against my warning, and the old lady in there thought it was about to be a home inva­sion," Jefferson replied evenly while he stared out the window.

"My hair is now hideous, doo-doo brown," Carlah said picking at her salad, her eyes puffy "With my complexion, dog poop brown does not work."

Odelia hadn't touched her meal; all she could do was look at Car-lah's once gorgeous tresses that were now redyed to a garish color that made her very pale cafe au lait skin seem cadaverous. The green­ish tinge beneath the layered-on color was still very noticeable in the light. "It'll be all right, sweetie," Odelia said, guilt lacerating her. "It just has to—"

"I'm suing them. I promise you. Feel the texture of it; they turned it into straw with overprocessing." New tears filled Carlah's eyes and fell into her salad.

Odelia handed Carlah a tissue and grasped her hand. "As soon as I can get ahold of Jeff, we'll figure out what you have to do to sue them, all right."

"I don't feel good," Carlah said. "I need to go lie down."

"Okay, okay, we can do that," Odelia said quickly, and tried to hail a very slow-coming waitress.

But before Odelia could get their server's attention, Carlah was out of her chair, screaming. All heads turned in the restaurant, and several waiters rushed over. To everyone's horror, beneath the top lettuce leaves, fat, black beetles had begun to emerge from Carlah's plate. Odelia almost fell over her chair in the scramble to get away from the toxic table. Her girlfriend dry-heaved and then lost her lunch in the middle of an aisle. Nearby patrons shrieked and stood. Odelia crossed herself and ran to her friend's side, hurrying her from the establishment so she could get air, ignoring the apologies and the commotion that ensued behind them. When a crow flew by and crapped on Carlah's head, Odelia just hustled her shrieking girlfriend to the car.

It was all she could do to get Carlah settled down enough to drive her back to campus. Once she and Carlah's sorority sister, Gwen, had gotten Carlah to lie down with a cold wet compress over her face, Odelia headed for the Red Roof Inn, where her people were holed up. The only way she'd been able to get Carlah to let go of her hand was to promise to call the media and get Jefferson to make both the offending salon and the filthy restaurant his first legal cases.

During the entire short drive to the motel, Odelia could feel rage strangling her. By the time she made it to the lobby, she could barely speak into the house phone.

"Aunt Effie," she demanded, "where's—"

"Hi, baby! Congratulations! We all so proud, and just—"

"Where's Daddy? What room are y'all in?"

"Room three twenty-five, honey. C'mon up. We got plenty of food."

"Momma, they only let us go because we had student ID and they drove down the road to check out our story and found our crashed car—which had all the tags, license, insurance, and registration straight, like we'd said. Put Uncle Rupert on the phone!"

"Baby, now you watch your tone, especially when you call your uncles' and them's room. He ain't in here, and we ain't exactly on speaking terms, neither. Don't start no mess you can't finish. So you tread light, Son."

"Tread light? Tread light, Momma! I thought I was playing it safe by moving all my wedding and graduation stuff to my boy's apartment—but noooo. Here I'm about to graduate and get married in less than twenty-four hours and a black cat crossed my path, I've been in a car accident with my best man, we've been arrested, he can't find the ring, and I'm now standing in his apartment that's been flooded by a toilet that was in the one above us, and my suit is ruined!"

"Now that's what family's For, suga'. I know you can borrow a suit from one of your uncles, if need be," his mother soothed. "And—"

"I'm not wearing nothing from them. Do I sound like I'm crazy, Momma? In the middle of a hoodoo war, wearing their clothes would be like putting a bull's-eye on my forehead!"

"Well. . . perhaps you have a point, Son." His mother sighed into the receiver.