Easter was in three days and Celestine had been planning this thing since February.
Not the church kind of Easter.
Not the basket-and-bonnet kind either.
Celestine Woodard was sixty-two years old — wait, she’d corrected everybody twice already — fifty.
Fifty and fine and fully in her right mind when she sent out those custom invitations on light creamy postcards that read:
Adults Only. 21 and up. Leave your children, your judgment, and your good shoes at home.
Forty-three RSVPs. Zero regrets.
The property sat on two and a half acres out in Davidson County — big open backyard, old oak trees a wraparound porch that creaked like it was brand new.
Celestine had string lights running from every post.
A DJ she found through her youngest niece was already set up near the outhouse, playing something slow and bass-heavy that you felt in your chest before you heard it with your ears.
The coolers were packed.
The grill was going.
And scattered across that whole wide yard tucked in the grass, around trees and the above the ground roots, hidden underneath flower pots and lawn chairs and the old decorative wagon wheel near the fence.
Where there were at least a hundred or more plastic Easter eggs out there.
Most of them had a crisp twenty inside.
A few maybe two or three held fifties.
One had a blue Benjamin.
Some cracked open to a little airplane bottle of Hennessy.
And then there were the others.
The ones that made the guest holler when they found them — filled with edible candy shaped in private parts that would’ve made the pastor faint.
And somewhere out in all that green grass, one golden egg sat waiting.
Four hundred dollars in cash.
“Y’all got ten minutes to get yourselves situated,” Celestine announced from the porch, red cup already in hand, silk pajama set the color of rose gold.
Her edges were laid and her energy was entirely too much to say she was somebody’s grandmother.
Celestine: “Then I’m blowing this whistle and it’s every grown person for themselves. I don’t care if you’re my blood. You find that gold egg, it’s yours.”
They scattered out like an uncontrollable wild fire.
Her niece Renee was already walking the perimeter in her satin two-piece, scanning the grass with the focus on money.
Her nephew Darius had teamed up with his homeboy Marcus, which Celestine had already decided was cheating but couldn’t technically prove.
Her best friend Loretta was standing near the oak trees looking unbothered, sipping from a flask she had brought herself, saying she was “letting the eggs come to her.”
Celestine blew the whistle.
The chaos was immediate and gorgeous.
She and the others watched from the porch laughing so hard they started commenting like it was a sports event.
“Renee don’t you dare take that egg from your her, I saw her down reach first and she’s on a scooter—” and “Darius if you and Marcus don’t have to tackle each other for eggs I will put y’all ass out”.
While Marvin Gaye was playing out from the speakers and the whole yard smelled like smoked barbecue meat and something sweet in the air.
It was exactly what she had wanted and built.
She almost didn’t notice him.
He came in from the side, past the old wooden fence.
Tall. Young. Easy-moving. Wearing grey sweats and fresh white sneakers like he just come from somewhere casual and walk into all of this.
He stopped at the edge of the yard and just… took it in.
Watched a woman in a lavender pajama set dive into a bush showing her thong for a plastic egg.
Watched two men argue over something that was in the grass that turned out to be a candy wrapper.
Watched the whole thing, laughing, slightly unhinged of Celestine’s Adult pajama Easter Egg Hunt.
Then he picked up an egg sitting right there near the fence post, cracked it open, found a Hennessy mini inside, and shrugged like well alright then.
She studied him.
Somewhere between thirty-five and forty, she guessed.
Strong jaw. Laugh lines.
“I’m Celestine,” she said.
“Isaiah,” he said, and put out his hand.
She shook it. “You want something to eat?”
“I could.”
She looked back at the yard — her people hollering, laughing, then back at Isaiah.
“Come on then.”
The kitchen was cool and smelled like brown sugar pecan candy.
Foil pans covered every inch of counter space.
Two and three layer cakes sat on the table.
A Bluetooth speaker on the windowsill had Keith Sweat on low.
Celestine moved through the space easy, pulling lids, checking temperatures.
Isaiah followed her lead, rolling up his sleeves.
“You do this every year?” he asked, lifting a foil pan of mac and cheese.
“Third year,” she said. “First two years I had the little ones here and it was sweet but — “ she shook her head — “this is better.
Everybody grown, everybody accountable for themselves. Nobody crying over a egg.”
He laughed.
“How many people you think are out there?”
“Thirty or Forty-something.
My family is large and they do not believe in RSVP deadlines.”
She pulled open the oven to check the honey-glazed ham inside.
She leaned in to check it, and Isaiah stepped a little closer behind her to look over her shoulder.
“That’s ready,” he said, near enough that she could feel the words.
Celestine straightened up slow.
The kitchen was not a large kitchen.
He was not a small man.
She turned around and he was right there.
“You always stand this close to somebody else’s grandma?” she said, one eyebrow up.
Isaiah smiled.
“Only when she looks like you,” he said.
Celestine felt the warmth move through her chest like the oven had followed her across the room.
“Mm,” she said, quietly to herself. And then “You making it hotter in here.”
Isaiah didn’t say anything back.
He just smiled and reached past her for the oven mitts.