And then I turned and to walk away from him, but he held my arm.
I thought—and honestly, I kind of hoped—he was going to make one last-ditch effort to stop me.
But he didn’t. He extended a hand, and when I looked down, I saw that he was just giving me back my tether.
Tianna walked just ahead of me next to Jah, their heads close together as they talked. I couldn’t hear them, because we were in a crowd of more than two dozen people, clustered together and heading back in the direction of City Hall.
When Kai had turned and walked off in another direction, I watched him until he was out of sight, my heart clenching when I realized that he wasn’t going to turn around to look at me. He was so certain, that he hadn’t even spared me a backward glance. My throat and chest tightened further, in a way that felt vastly out of proportion with what was actually happening. I mean, he was a virtual stranger. A guy I had spoken to for a few hours, superficially bonding over a semi-shared experience, and nothing more.
But what I felt was loss. Not of something we had—we hadn’t had anything yet. It was the ‘yet’ that was the killing part though; the sense that there should be more, and I was blowing it.
“Tianna!” I called.
She heard me. I could tell from the way her shoulders tensed a little. I increased my pace, so I was closer. My armpits felt clammy and my feet ached. My head did as well, probably from mild dehydration. I hadn’t eaten, nor had anything to drink since Kai and I were at that diner.
“Tianna!” I called out again and this time she turned, grudgingly.
She slowed a little so that I was able to catch up to her, and Jah pulled ahead a few paces.
“What?” she asked.
“Where are we going, exactly?”
“To City Hall! Isn’t that what we said?”
“Okay, but what’s the …?”
“If you ask me one more time about a damn plan, Lila … I mean … this is what shit is like, okay? We ride the wave where it takes us. There ain’t no damn plan!”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said, shaking my head.
“The hell does that mean?”
“It means, the lack of a plan is the plan. You’re entertaining, maybe even inviting the idea that things go left once we’re down there.”
“And so what?”
“So what? Then that’s not riding the wave, Tianna, that’s directing it.”
She rolled her eyes. “You shoulda left with ol’ boy then, Lila. Because you want to hear the truth? I don’t give a damn if a few things get broke. That’s not my mission, but I literally do not give a shit. But if you do …”
“I don’t know if I do either! I just don’t like to get …”
“Call your daddy, then, Lila. Call daddy and have him come pick you up. But honestly, I don’t know what you’re worried about because even if you did loot every damn store down there tonight, he would still come when you called. Still be there to pick you up, and pick up the pieces.”
I stopped walking and looked at her. She looked back at me.
But she didn’t stop walking.
Chapter Seven
Kai
Sometimes I have a way of letting my imagination run away with me. That’s what it had to have been. At least, that’s what I was thinking while I made my way, sticky, smelly, tired and feeling like a dumb-ass, back toward my apartment building.
All it was, was that I saw a pretty girl, a literal damsel in distress and told myself that it was kismet when I later saw her again. I spent a day that should have been spent in solidarity with my boy, Lamar, following her around until finally she revealed herself to be on a march of folly.
Now, my only hope was that when I entered my apartment building, someone would be there who could let me into my unit. And maybe, just maybe I would find that my wallet had been sitting there all along, on my coffee table, safe and sound.
After a shower, I would call my pops and offer him a wordless assurance that though the city was about to explode into chaos after dark, his son at least had gotten his Black ass home. And maybe I would even call Brittainy and hold off on the breakup speech because one, we were never even really together, and two, it was useful to have a girl to talk to who would serve as inspiration for a later bout of self-relieving. Except … there was no way I was going to be anywhere in the vicinity of the mood to talk to Brittainy. Not after today spent with a very different kind of girl altogether.
After the walk through the heavy humidity, I got to my apartment and found the outer door locked, and of course—because it was just that kind of day—no one was manning the reception area. I stood there for almost fifteen minutes before someone happened to come out of the elevators and head toward the mailboxes. As bad luck would have it, it was a middle-aged white woman I didn’t know, someone in the demographic least likely to let in a young, Black man she didn’t know.
I waved, I motioned, I did everything but jump up and down but all I got was her glancing in my direction before turning away. Just as she was about to board the elevator with her mail and head back up to the safety of her apartment, she seemed to have another thought and turned to head in the opposite direction, toward the rear left of the reception area where she knocked on the office door.
Pointing me out to someone inside, she finally went back to the elevators, pushed the button, waited then went on her merry way. It took five more minutes for someone to surface from the back office and when they did, I saw that it was Rufi, the grad student who manned the front nights and weekends. Seeing me, his face brightened, and he rushed over to open the door, pulling up his face mask as he approached. I did the same.
“Hey!” he greeted me, looking me up and down. “What happened? Locked out?”
“Yeah, man,” I told him. “And I am hoping to God you can let me in. Because I just had a day that …”
Rufi laughed. “Looks like it. Were you out there? With the protesters?”
“Yeah. It was … intense.”
“I was out earlier as well,” Rufi said, surprising me. “And then it got a little hot, in more ways than one, so I figured it was time for me to come home.”
“Didn’t want to take one for the team?” I asked, laughing, and feeling sweet relief at the cool air of the lobby.
“I did my part,” Rufi said, shaking his head. “And tomorrow, I’ll be out there again. But as for what I think might happen tonight? Well … how is it they say? ‘A man’s got to know his limitations,’ right?”
“True dat,” I said. “So, you gon’ be able to let me into my apartment or is that something the building manager …?”
“No, no. I can do it. You wait here.”
I heaved a deep sigh as Rufi disappeared into the back, leaning against the reception desk and beginning to anticipate the shower I was going to have.
And that’s when the text came in. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out, fully expecting that it would be Lamar, finally responding, and probably just getting out of lockup or having suffered some other minor calamity in what felt like an all-around calamitous day.
But it wasn’t Lamar.
It was Lila.
I waited in the lobby for her, sitting on the edge of one of the chairs in the guest waiting area, my leg nervously bouncing up and down. Rufi had gone back into the office when I told him I was waiting for a friend, telling me to holler when I was ready for him to let me up and into my apartment.
It took another twenty minutes for Lila get there, and when she did, she looked exhausted and wilted, standing just outside the lobby doors, peering in with those heavy-lidded eyes, looking dejected, sweaty, and even so, hella-cute.
I opened the door for her and she looked up at me, her shoulders lifting and falling in a deep sigh.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It’s cool. Lemme get …” I turned and went to summon Rufi who came back out, all smiles as usual, pushing the elevator button and standing aside for Lila and me to board first.
Lila nodded, and her eyes filled with tears. She turned abruptly away and Rufi glanced at me, worried that he had said the wrong thing. I shook my head to let him know it wasn’t his fault and none of us spoke again until we were standing in front of my apartment and he turned the key letting me and Lila in.
“Thanks, man,” I said. “I lost my wallet today or I would …”
“No, no. It’s not necessary,” Rufi said, frowning. “It’s my job. Take care. And … of your friend too.”
When I shut the door, Lila was just standing there in my small foyer, her backpack still on, arms at her side like she didn’t know what else to do. Putting a hand gently on her shoulder I spun her around and saw that the tears that had begun in the elevator were streaming down her face, and leaving streaks, through a little dust, and soot that had settled on her skin throughout the day.
As soon as I touched her, her silent tears became loud sobs, and I pulled her against me in a hug.
Turned out what I thought earlier was right. She was definitely the girl whose tears I would move heaven and earth to stop.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“I … I know it is,” she said, over hiccups. “I … I don’t even know why I’m … cry … crying.”
And then she cried more, and harder. And I held her against my sweaty chest, waiting it out, until she was able to make herself stop.
I peeled her backpack off her and let it drop on the floor near my front door and led her further into the apartment. Then we looked at each other. Lila turned away only to look at the view. One side of my apartment had large windows almost down to the floor, through which there was a great view of Billy Penn atop City Hall.
“I love this city,” she said.
And then she started crying again, but this time softly.
“Hey,” I said going to her, and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you go in and take a shower? Wash this day off you. I’ve got like a dozen frozen pizzas, so I’ll throw one in the oven so you can eat when you get out. And then … we can talk, or you can call you dad, or …”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d love a shower.”
It was a scramble to find a clean towel, and an extra washrag but I did, handing both to Lila just before she disappeared behind my bathroom door. I listened, wondering whether she would engage the lock. I didn’t plan to go in of course, but it felt important that she not lock the door, that she trust me even though it would make perfect sense that she not. At least not completely.
She didn’t engage the lock, and I was surprised to be both happy that she hadn’t and annoyed with her. Tianna was right. She didn’t know me from a can of paint.
How the hell hadn’t she locked the damn door?
I busied myself with getting out a pizza, putting it in the oven and then calling my pops.
We talked, faux-casually for a few minutes and he didn’t ask me if I had gone out to join the protests. But I told him. I don’t know why, since that was definitely not our usual modus operandi.
“You did?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it’s gon’ get ugly tonight.”
“Well then I’m glad you went home,” he said.
“And what if I hadn’t?” I asked him. “What if … what if I was out there? What if I contributed to … you know … making things …”
“Then, Kai, I would think you were acting according to whatever your conscience allowed.”
“And you wouldn’t be mad?” I challenged.
“Oh, I would definitely be mad,” he said. “But some decisions, as you become man, aren’t mine to make.”
I smiled. “A’ight, well, I’ma get something to eat, and get clean,” I said.
“Okay, you do that. Call again tomorrow. Talk to your mother.”
“And Taylor?” I said, before he hung up. “How’s she …?”
There was a long pause, and then a sigh.
“I think she could use a conversation with her big brother.”
“Okay,” I said, my voice hoarse.
I took the pizza out of the oven just as I heard the bathroom door open. And then Lila was standing there, my towel wrapped around her, looking much larger than it felt when it was around me. She really was tiny. Her arms and legs slender and gamine. Her hair looked like the heaviest thing about her.
“I feel weird putting on my sweaty, dirty clothes,” she said. “D’you have anything I could borrow? A t-shirt, and maybe sweatpants?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, realizing that I was staring.
I found her a t-shirt and boxer shorts that had a drawstring in the front, so Lila disappeared into the bathroom again for a few moments, emerging looking much more composed, her hair pulled up into a large bun at the top of her head.
“The pizza’s ready,” I told her. “You want to get started without me, that’s fine. I wanna jump in and wash some of this stink off, too.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll just grab some plates and stuff and wait for you.”
I showered as thoroughly as I could as quickly as I could, the whole time wondering whether she might pull a disappearing act on me. Stupid, and probably close to impossible given that the city was still basically in lockdown mode; but I didn’t want to take any chances. When I turned off the water and heard movement in the kitchen, I was relieved and moved a little more deliberately, grabbing all the crap off my bathroom floor that I hadn’t thought to grab before I let her use it, and wiping the edges of the sink and bathroom mirror which was spattered with toothpaste slobber.
Stashing everything into the hamper in my bedroom, I changed into basketball shorts and a t-shirt and went out to join Lila.
She had moved the pizza into the living room, and with it a couple bottles of water from the fridge, and a beer. I guessed the beer was for me. She even put paper towels under smaller plates for us and cut the pizza into slices. Sitting with her legs folded beneath her in front of my coffee table, she looked up as I entered and put two slices of pizza on our plates.
“Wasn’t that like the best shower you ever had in your life?” she asked.
“Close to it,” I said.
Lila laughed. “I feel stupid now for crying. I don’t know why …”
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “It’s okay.”
I sat on the floor like she did, just across the coffee table and was reaching for my slice of pizza when she took my hand.
“You want to say grace first?” she asked.
“Oh. Yeah …”
Lila smiled. And I knew she knew that that hadn’t been my intention. She closed her eyes and so I did the same.
She didn’t just thank God for the food. She thanked him for the day, for the lessons, for the chance to use our voices in a cry for justice. I legit felt a lump in my throat by the time she was done, and almost forgot to release her hand.
“I called my dad while you were in the shower,” she said.
“I did the same,” I told her.
“What’d you say to yours?” she asked
“Told him I was out protesting.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. It just seemed like … he would want to know. That that was something about me, I would want him to know. Not guess at, but know.”
Lila nodded. “That’s cool.”
“What’d you tell your dad?”
“That I was safe, that I didn’t think it would make sense for him to come get me tonight because it’s crazy down here. And that I would be staying with a friend.” She looked up from her pizza after saying that last part. “Is that okay? Me staying here?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
We ate in almost complete silence, and when we were done laughed when we realized that we were both still hungry. So I put in another pizza, and while that one cooked, Lila and I sat together on my sofa and I turned on the television. Outside, it was ful
l dark now, and the city had lit up, the dome of City Hall glowing in the distance.
CNN and other news networks were covering protests all around the country, and replaying images of resistance from coast to coast, and now, even around the globe. When an image of protestors in London, and then Germany flashed across the screen, Lila closed the distance between us, and leaned against me. First just her body pressed into my side, and then her head against my shoulder.
I sat there, almost rigid and not wanting to move in case I scared her off until suddenly she remembered our pizza and leapt up to get it. Only then did I exhale.
Lila and I watched television all night. There was no re-run of previous images because there were new developments every hour. We were still awake around eleven p.m. when the news hit, of store windows being broken, and shops being looted in Center City. We saw the very same blocks where earlier people had walked dogs and jogged as though the world hadn’t changed one iota. Shards of glass lay on sidewalks, and expensive boutiques, once impermeable to the majority of people, lay open and bare. Now, their world too, had changed. I felt a small but definite sense of satisfaction.
“She … sometimes she bullies me a little bit,” Lila said out of nowhere. Her voice was hoarse, and small.
“Who?” I asked, though I knew, of course.
“Tianna.”
I said nothing.
The apartment was dark except for the television because Lila and I scarcely moved except to get things from the kitchen and hadn’t bothered turning on the lights as it got darker. The blinds were drawn open, so we had only the glow of city lights as illumination and the flickering of the television.
“I don’t know why I let her. I think it’s because she’s so … sure. Y’know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“She seems to know herself so well. Who she is, what she wants to be, what she wants to say. Sometimes it’s easier to give in to that, than to figure things out for yourself.”
“I get it,” I said.
“Do you?” Lila turned a little so she was no longer leaning against me, so we could look each other in the eye.
Resistance: A Love Story (The Shorts Book 9) Page 7
