“I’ll marry you!” yelled Aunt Daisy.

“You’re already married, Daisy, to some old man who’s barely alive. Langston, I’m not going to marry you, okay?”

“Okay, I get it. Well, at least, are you available the week after next? I’ve scheduled another donation dinner. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you ten percent on what you bring in. No. Fifteen percent. No. Twenty-five percent, and that’s my final offer.”

“No, Langston! No!”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t love you.”

“What’s love got to do with it?” My mother stood up and blurted out.

“Everything, that’s what, Momma,” I said as the whole room grew still. “Here I am, I’ve got one man I wanted to marry who’s already married. Another man wanting to marry me that I don’t want to marry. Then, there’s another man who’s divorced and doesn’t want to get re-married. And I’m doing all this for what, love? Love? No. This has nothing to do with love. Marriage in this family never has anything to do with love. Momma, you’re always telling me that love is overrated, right?”

“It is,” she said stubbornly.

“No, Momma, it’s not. Love is underrated in this family.”

“Listen here, young lady—”

“No, Momma, don’t you think it’s time you listened for once? Now, sit down.”

To my amazement, after a few moments, she slowly rested in her seat. The whole room again broke out in cheers.

“Stop cheering! We’ve all been brainwashed by some stupid rule to think that love doesn’t matter, that only marriage does. And that it’s a woman’s sole duty in life to rush to the altar and find somebody. Just to be married. Just to be accepted. Just to be admitted into some social club full of a bunch of women who don’t want to be married to the men they’re married to.”

“Amen!” screamed Aunt Daisy.

“Amen,” I softly replied. “I spent the last three weeks running all around the country so I could show off something so that you all would think I’d won. But the truth is, no matter who or what would have walked through that door at nine o’ clock, I would have lost. Because that person wouldn’t have been able to give me the most important thing. And that thing is love.”

Again, the whole room erupted in cheers.

“Stop cheering,” I said calmly.

I turned to Sheree, who was seated at her table with eyes full of tears, and tenderly offered, “Sheree, if you really love whatever his name is, then you should marry him. But if you’re doing it to avoid some mythological make-believe Moore family curse, then you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”