The Dawn of Nia

by Lauren Cherelle

“To end the harassment.”

  “Have you sent this to Caroline?”

  “No, that’s your job. I’m not doing more than what I’ve already done,” she says and then hangs up on me.

  When I return to my seat, Tasha says, “What’s going on?” She’s still offended by the Deidra/K.D. incident so I shake my head as if nothing significant happened. Ebony hands over my purse and I put my phone away.

  For the next thirty minutes, blood and gore flash before my eyes but my mind is elsewhere. Deidra has turned my phone into a weapon. The video is the ammunition I need to kill the Carter’s Will contest, and I want to know why she sent it. Nothing will allow me to believe she’s holding her ground only because I asked. She could have nipped this situation in the bud without my assistance weeks ago. While I’m pleased that Pat’s wishes will be upheld, the delivery of this video will thrust me into hostile Carter territory.

  17

  Yesterday, I called the Carter’s lawyer to inform him that he doesn’t have a case. Now— less than twenty-four hours since I emailed the digital evidence— Kayla’s at my front door, ringing the doorbell nonstop. No surprise, the Carters have sent their “do-girl” for an explanation about the video.

  I leave the peephole and tell Jacoby, “Do not answer the door.”

  When I return to my space on the couch, I prop my feet on his legs again and we attempt to watch the latest episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But Kayla’s rings progress to knocks, which progress to profanity and kicks at the door.

  “There’s a brick in the car!” she says.

  Jacoby and I exchange glances. “She’s lying,” he states.

  I throw the blanket from my lap and step to the window to see whether Kayla will call her own bluff. She closes the trunk of her car and marches to my living room window with a red brick in hand. I run and open the front door as she crosses from the walkway into the grass. “Have you lost your God-given mind?” I yell.

  She drops the brick in the grass as I approach her. “No, you have! We can’t fight against Pat on video. Why did you do that?”

  “Don’t ask the obvious.”

  “Is everything okay?” asks my neighbor.

  I didn’t notice the elderly woman before. “Everything’s fine,” I say, keeping my eyes on Kayla. I refuse to stand outside and let her make more of a scene. “Go inside.”

  Kayla marches her way to the foyer. I close the front door behind her, leaving my hand on the doorknob since she won’t be inside long. She turns her back to Jacoby and says, “Why do you want someone who never gave a damn about Pat to have everything that should go to us?”

  I considered the ramifications of my actions prior to forwarding the video. Deidra definitely isn’t fond of Pat. I, however, didn’t allow my ignorance about the nature of their relationship to undercut the underlying question: What did Pat want?

  “I’m not surprised your materialistic ass can’t see beyond the money,” I say. “This is about principle.”

  “Principle! Really? So is that why you’re fucking Deidra?”

  I blink hard and nearly stop breathing, gripping the doorknob to keep myself steady.

  “She finally picked up the phone and called Mama back,” Kayla says. “Deidra said ‘someone personally asked me to clear the confusion surrounding Pat’s Will.’ When Mama asked ‘who’ Deidra said ‘Nia.’ Mama asked ‘how the hell do you know Nia’ and she said ‘we were kind of dating.’ And you know my Mama has damn-near perfect recall.”

  I have to say something to redeem myself. “The sex was unrivaled, but I wouldn’t call that dating.”

  The last syllable is barely out of my mouth when Kayla lunges at me. Her additional three inches and ten pounds slam me into the door. I grip her wrists to defend myself as Jacoby grabs her arms. “Get the hell off me!” she says and swings around to push him away.

  Kayla crosses her arms and takes deep breaths to regulate her temper as she paces the floor. Jacoby sits on the arm of the loveseat, ready to spring forth in my defense at any moment. Seconds later, she faces me and says, “You nasty bitch. I’m so done with you.”

  “Please! Don’t get it twisted; the last fuck with you was a mistake. You were done with months ago. And this doesn’t have shit to do with me. This is about you and your greedy-ass family.”

  “We’re greedy? I told you Pat had a daughter and you went out and found her. And I bet you knew about the Will before I came over here and told you about it. You had some nerve stepping into our meeting with the lawyer trying to stop us from going to court when you were on the sidelines trying to get your hands on everything we were fighting for! I guess you were going to fuck your way to the golden egg.”

  I lean against the door to consider my position. I’m in the middle of two relatives who have accused me of playing both sides of the fence. And according to both of them, I’m malicious and devious— downright evil. “Kayla, I spent three years of my life with you. Do you really think I would do that? The thing with Deidra…” I don’t know how to explain it. “It just happened. The Will is a completely different turn of events. Don’t stand here like you didn’t know I would stand up for Pat. You know me.”

  She shakes her head in disagreement. “The person I know wouldn’t go behind my back and sleep with my cousin.”

  “So she’s your cousin now?”

  Kayla rolls her eyes. “You and that sneaky bitch have opened a can of worms you’ll both regret. But Deidra is feeling the wrath right now. That’s why she’s running her ass back to Virginia to be with her husband.”

  “Husband?” Jacoby asks and looks at me. “Damn, she’s mar—”

  “Jacoby!” I say.

  When I initially pressed Kayla for details about Deidra, she didn’t have much to tell. Was she holding back that day she dropped by, or is she lying to me now? Whichever the case, Kayla realizes a bomb was dropped on me thanks to Jacoby. I want to slap the look of satisfaction from her smug face.

  “Well, well, well,” Kayla says with a mischievous grin. “His dick tasted real good, didn’t it?”

  I muster every ounce of self-control I have left to keep my hands from wringing her neck. Lord help me I pray. I’m sweating now— my palms and underarms moist with anger.

  My thoughts drift to the rage I exposed to Deidra. I close my eyes and rub my forehead, questioning why I’m giving Kayla the honor of a hands-free Nia. I feel foolish for sparing Kayla, but I can’t meet her expectation of an emotional outburst.

  I tell myself that I won’t lash out. I can do this. I will act my age. I’m better than Kayla. Then I repeat it again. This moment of reflection helps maintain my composure. I open my eyes and walk away from her.

  I sit on the couch and rewind the SVU episode to the segment Jacoby and I missed. “You can leave now,” I say, flicking my wrist and refusing to look in her direction. “I got what I wanted.”

  I sit back and press play.

  18

  ONE THING I LEARNED about Kayla, not too long after we started dating, is that she doesn’t believe in empty threats. I can only imagine what she’s said or done to Deidra in the past seventy-two hours. I know Kayla can be vicious from personal experience.

  During month six of our relationship, I made the mistake of flirting with a woman after having one too many cocktails while at the club with our friends. I didn’t learn until after the fact that Kayla managed to steal the woman’s wallet during our flirty exchange. The next day, she located an ex-communicated, criminal cousin and bartered the woman’s identity for a $1,200 designer purse. Kayla flaunted that purse for three weeks— a friendly reminder about the repercussions of disrespecting her around friends. Week four, she threw the purse in the trash.

  With that in mind, I feel bad for Deidra because I’m partially responsible for any conflict she might experience with Kayla. I express my concern in a brief text message: You deserve an apology. Can we meet somewhere?

  After several messages, Deidra agrees to meet the day afte
r Thanksgiving during my lunch break at a coffee shop not too far from where we first met.

  “You drink coffee?” I ask when she enters the shop.

  “Sometimes,” she says while avoiding my face. She rests her hands in her jacket pockets and looks away.

  “Let’s order something. My dime.”

  Once we’re comfortably sitting in our seats, at a small round table in the rear of the establishment, after we’ve taken a few sips of our orders, I ask whether Kayla has interfered in her affairs.

  “She tracked down my sister and told her I’m sitting on thousands of dollars. Now Juanita has waged World War Three.” She stares out the window, still not looking at me. “You saw my sister. She’s twenty-seven on her good days. Most days she’s thirteen. I wanted to be there for my nieces and nephew, but I can’t go back right now. And I can’t handle another night in Mississippi.”

  “Are you going to get your own place?”

  “No. I may go back to Virginia.”

  I wondered whether Kayla was honest about the move and spouse. I want confirmation, but I don’t feel right directly asking Deidra her marital status. I try a different angle. “You just moved here seven months ago. Why would you leave?”

  “I don’t have the resources to make this home.”

  “You mean money? Let’s be honest, you have access to plenty of that.”

  She frowns and stares in my eyes for the first time since arriving. “I don’t have shit. I don’t want Pat’s money or anything else that belonged to her. I’m not touching the estate.”

  “Then why’d you even agree to be part of the legal stuff?”

  “For one reason only,” she says, holding up a single digit. “She asked me to.”

  “So you’re gonna ignore it all?”

  “That’s this beneficiary’s prerogative.”

  Her words remind me that Pat is a huge sore spot so I shift the conversation. I take a sip of my hazelnut latté and brace myself for a heated response to the following: “Are you going back to live with your husband?”

  She gives me a hardcore once-over; her eyebrow cocks in an eye half-closed kind of way. “Who told you that I’m married?”

  “Take a wild guess.”

  She lets out a disgusted sigh. “Soon to be ex–husband. I have no desire to be with him.”

  “Then why the move?”

  She stares into the heart of the shop. “When I left the marriage, I left everything behind. I came here with a purse and suitcase… I can go to Virginia and get back on my feet,” she says just above a whisper.

  Deidra seems unconvinced of her own words. There’s a pressing motive caged behind her eyes, but I’m not in a position to demand complete honesty. So, I move on to something I’ve wondered about for weeks. “Can I ask you something?”

  She nods.

  “Do you really not remember seeing me or Jacoby at the funeral? Didn’t you see my name in the obituary?”

  “No one called me the day Pat died. I didn’t know about her death or the funeral until her lawyer followed through on his professional obligation. No one in that family cared enough to include me in any way. I didn’t care who was there because no one cared about me. So why would I read the obituary? Why would I purposely look for my exclusion? For me, it’s not about remembering. I don’t want to remember…” She exhales. “Anyway, I tried to be the bigger person by going to the funeral, even if that meant being late and disregarded. And I tried to be the bigger person when I got involved with the Will. But I didn’t move to Memphis for the bullshit. And you’ve had a firm hand in it.”

  “If I’m so bad, why are you here?”

  She turns to the window. “The second time I came to your house, I felt like you were up to something. I told myself it was just the chase; that obscurity was part of the game we were playing. I ignored my intuition because the chase was fun until you fooled me, until I let you fool me. Pat’s folks hit a dead-end road. There’s nothing they can do about the estate. But you have the upper hand and that doesn’t sit right with me. You haven’t earned that position.” Her eyes turn to mine. “There’s something about you that makes me lenient. I need to write you off, but I can’t stay mad enough to do it.”

  We sit still, listening to the steps of patrons and the hum of an espresso machine. Her words keep rolling in my head. I still feel bad for mishandling our interactions. I hate that she feels deceived. I hate that she feels like I used her body as a means to an end. She didn’t say that aloud, but I heard it in her words. I would feel that way if it were me.

  I also feel bad about Deidra doing as I asked and reaping the consequences. The least I can do is offer a place of refuge. After all, I know what it’s like to walk away from a relationship, choosing to leave with nothing. She hasn’t shut me out of her world, so there’s room for compromise. “I truly apologize for what I did to make you feel that way. It was never my intention to take advantage of you in any way. You are more than welcome to stay with me for a few days until you figure things out. My place is familiar… or at least my bed is,” I say to lighten the cheerless mood.

  She taps her fingernails against her herbal tea. “Thanks. How about Saturday?”

  19

  THE FIRST DAY, Deidra arrives with a large suitcase and two poorly taped boxes. I grab a box and park her belongings at the foot of the bed in my guestroom as she retrieves the second one. Then I search the kitchen drawers for my spare key.

  On day two, I walk into an empty condo without a word from Deidra.

  On days three and four, still no word from her.

  The fifth day, she shows up after dark with a duffel bag. “I promise the contents are not illegal,” she says.

  The next evening, I come home to a surprise Italian dinner. “You’re letting me stay for free. The least I can do is make you something to eat after work.”

  Seven must be my lucky number because the sex is unbelievably refreshing. Deidra cradles my hips in her arms, burying her face between my legs, sending me to new dimensions. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she whispers and leaves my bed for the guest bedroom. I assume she left my room as to not wear out her welcome.

  The next morning, I go downstairs not really surprised to find that I’m at home by myself. Around noon Deidra texts: In Mississippi with pops. I guess there’s a post-sex rule that says ‘be considerate.’

  The ninth day, I come home after an exhausting day of work to see two suitcases in the foyer. “My plane leaves at nine-forty,” Deidra informs me.

  Her footsteps were so soft I didn’t hear her walk into the living room. Nine-forty is shy of three hours away and she’s ready to go. She places her purse on the ottoman and sits on the couch.

  The overhead light and TV are off. The lamp in the far corner barely illuminates her face. I place my purse on the couch and sit next to her. “When did you decide to leave?”

  “This morning. If you wouldn’t mind taking me to the airport, I’d appreciate it.”

  Naturally, I shake my head in agreement. Beyond the reflexive response, a part of me wants to say no. This is the hopeful part of me that now adores her company and smile, the same part of me that has always welcomed her legs around my waist. So why would I chauffeur her to the airport?

  I exhale as another part of me— the part that sometimes longs for attention and companionship, the part I suppress— unearths itself and settles in my chest. I want to kill the feeling. It feels like clinginess. But I can’t slow the pace of my thoughts.

  Has Deidra really affected me emotionally? Is this fear? Did I fear she would eventually leave me high and dry, having to start at ground zero? Why would I even think I should be with her? Do I really feel vested?

  I need answers. “Why are you leaving?”

  “There’s nothing good for me here,” she says— a second-rate response.

  “We had a good thing… or could have had one.” The words feel strange in my mouth, but I can’t ignore what’s right in front of me. I can’t ignore
that I want more time with her. I want to know and see what can happen. I’m finally honest with both of us— hours before her scheduled departure. I can’t identify what’s stirring inside of me. But I’m disappointed that she’s choosing the salvation of Virginia.

  I look away, unsure whether it’s safe to let her backstage, noticing the boarding pass sticking out of her purse. I take a deep breath and release my genuine self, a last ditch effort to keep her here. “Deidra… I have feelings for you. But I know I can’t ask you to stay.”

  She drops her face in the palms of her hands. “Oh my God… That’s bullshit.”

  “Is there something wrong with what I said?”

  “Yes! First of all, you don’t know me. And please don’t let my current predicament influence you. I’m not a charity case. And let’s get something straight: I’m not here to atone for Pat.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I won’t ease your loss or entertain you with an explanation of why she didn’t claim me until she was on her goddamn deathbed.”

  I’m too emotionally vulnerable to feed into her resentment. “I smell bullshit, but it ain’t coming from this direction. I’m damn near bearing my soul to you. I won’t renege on my feelings just because you won’t accept them. And I damn for sure won’t let you deny having feelings for me.”

  I know Deidra came back into my home only because I offered, only because she needed a place to temporarily stay. But, she had a choice— just as she chose to be intimate with me the other night. I haven’t been around her long, but I’ve been around her enough to know the only real influence she holds is the power of choice. And every kiss, touch, and moan said that she didn’t doubt choosing me.

  “I’m going to lie down,” I say, walking away. “You’re welcome to stay, if you choose. If not, let me know when you’re ready to go.”

  I get in bed and stare at the rotating ceiling fan. I can’t move. I can only blink. The exchange with Deidra numbed me, physically and emotionally. All I can do is think.