I guess everyone assumed that you couldn’t make an extensive living from modeling. I didn’t want to argue about it myself, so I decided to make jokes.

“Well, I guess I could look to marry a female lawyer in a couple of years, and just handle the kids at the house.”

Geneva smiled at it, but my mother didn’t think it was funny. I could see her frowning at me over my shoulder.

“That sounds like a plan. So you already have your lawyer picked out?” Geneva joked back to me.

“Actually, I don’t think she’s passed the bar exam yet, but I’m pretty confident she will.”

Geneva shook her head and started laughing. I really didn’t care if she liked me one way or the other. I was just entertaining myself. I knew where I stood in life, and I had a couple of healthy nest eggs to fall back on.

“Terrance, help me to set the food out on the table,” my mother stated.

It was perfect timing to break up my sarcasm with her company. I knew that’s how my mother was reading it. So I stood up to help her bring the food to the table.

“I can help, too,” Geneva offered.

“No, you’re a guest, so you just relax,” my mother told her.

“Are you sure?”

“She’s sure,” I answered for her.

After setting the food on the table, we all sat and piled up our plates with my mother’s home-cooked meal, including buttered biscuits. In the middle of us eating and doing basic small talk, I looked Geneva in her face and asked her, “You got a man?”

She grinned and shook her head. My mother stared me down to see what my angle was. I guess my question was too blunt and out in the open to be taken seriously.

“Why not?” I asked. “I mean, you’re an attractive girl with your head on straight. There should be plenty of guys knocking on your door.”

Dinner wasn’t going the way my mother had intended.

She snapped, “Why would you ask her that? Do you have a woman? There should be plenty of women knocking down your door, too.”

Geneva answered, “Well, a lot of guys can knock, but that doesn’t mean you have to answer the door if it’s not the right one.”

I nodded to her. “That’s exactly how I feel about it. You know, you don’t answer your door, but in the meantime, you go knocking on a couple doors yourself when you need it. You know what I mean?”

Geneva smiled again.

My mother caught my drift and said, “I know one thing, all that damn knocking on doors don’t make no damn sense. That’s why we have so many young people with problems now. You learn to stay in your damn house with your husband or wife, and you leave them other doors alone.”

I didn’t know who my mother was to talk. I guess she was preaching from what she wanted and not from what she ever done. There was no husband or wife in our family, just door knocking, however discreetly. But I didn’t want to say anything to my mother about that in front of Geneva. I figured I’d allow her to voice her family values. Then again, my mother’s conservative views allowed me another opportunity to toy with her company.