Page 26 of The Love Audit
I turned to see Eric and Bubba, who I recognized from dinner the previous night, entering The Mill. They were accompanied by two other men I didn’t recognize.
“Take my money?” I raised an eyebrow at David.
“On Wednesdays, while the women are away, the men will play.” Bubba hooked an arm around my neck as David led us toward a room in the back of The Mill.
“Five-card stud,” David finished, opening the door to reveal a lavishly decorated gambling room. It had a poker table, a largehumidor full of cigars, and a fully stocked bar. There was even a velvet painting of dogs playing poker on the wall. The scene was so absurdly perfect, I almost laughed out loud.
“So what do you say?” David grinned. “You joining us?”
“Deal me in,” I replied, feeling the stress of the morning begin to lift as I pulled out a chair. This was exactly the kind of distraction I needed.
CHAPTER NINE
Jasmine
Thank you so much for inviting me to join you,” I said to Eleanor after I handed her a tray of small sandwiches. “You really do this every week?”
“For years,” Jeannie chimed in. “I love my family, but this is the high point of my week.”
“Mine, too,” a woman named Michaela said and there were murmurs of agreement around the table.
“You see”—Minnie, David’s aunt, gestured with a sandwich—“there’s a lot of silly advice about how to be a good wife—”
“Minnie!” Eleanor interjected.
“I’m old, and I said what I said.” She raised an eyebrow at Eleanor, who responded by shaking her head and chuckling. “If you want to be the best wife you can be”—she turned to me—“you start by taking care of yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and you know behind every great man—”
“—is an even greater woman,” the table erupted in a chorus before dissolving into laughter.
“Happy wife, happy life,” a man at the next table interjected and smiled at his wife.
“You know that’s right,” she agreed before they returned to their lunch.
“People try to tell you that women shouldn’t put themselves first, but, honey, if I wasn’t always on point, I wouldn’t have raised four kids and gotten my doctorate, and Carver would have never developed that psoriasis drug without the best research assistant money couldn’t buy.” She chuckled.
“You helped your husband develop a medication without getting paid or getting credit?” I scoffed.
Minnie pursed her lips and looked around in disbelief, before turning to me again and rolling her eyes.
“Eleanor, where did you find this child?” The other women at the table smirked and raised their eyebrows, but no one answered her. My face began to heat with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” I quickly stammered. “I know that history is littered with women who’ve had their accomplishments stolen or overshadowed by their male counterparts: Ada Lovelace, Vera Rubin, Rosalind Franklin—”
“Not one Black name,” someone murmured.
“Katherine Johnson, Ada Harris, Marie Van Britton Brown,” I added with a raised eyebrow before returning my attention to Minnie. “I’m just surprised that—”
“Listen.” Minnie put her hand over mine, silencing me. “I like you, so let me put you on game.” She dropped her voiceconspiratorially and raised an eyebrow. The entire table grew silent. “My husband didn’t marry me just for the chemistry we had in the bedroom.”
The table erupted in squeals of laughter.
“Okay, Minnie. That’s enough.” Eleanor smiled.
“What? Every woman at this table is accomplished in her own right. We support our husbands because we love them and we can. We don’t do it because of some antiquated notion of what a woman’s role is supposed to be.”
“But don’t you want recognition for your work?”
“Well, what makes you think we don’t have it?” Kitanya asked. “I have my masters of Library and Information Sciences, taught library sciences at universities all over the country, won countless awards…”
