Though underdressed in black bike shorts and a white T-shirt that clung to her, she entered with only a little hesitation upon seeing her own reflection in the glass door. Her brown arms were firm and shoulders squared and solid from her weight-lifting routine. A toned long body paired with her soft full features searing with life and color from exertion gave her nothing to be displeased about. Plus, with a bike worth as much as a used car chained out front, the staff would know she could afford the check.
Once she was through the door the air conditioner restored her faith in this world. She held up a single finger to the host without smiling to indicate how many would be dining and was escorted to a seat immediately. The café was just as she expected, nearly empty on a Saturday during peak lunch hours. An attractive waitress appeared wearing a black apron down to her ankles and blue button-up shirt tucked into her waistband.
“Would you like to start with some water?”
Rowina looked up and nodded with feigned desperation that earned her a small smile in return. The waitress returned with water and a basket of bread with a saucer of olive oil and seasoning.
“I’ll give you a minute to decide, hon.”
Rowina was finally alone to drink and drink and drink after pulling the unsolicited lemon from the glass. When the water was more than half gone, she had the wherewithal to notice she was not as alone as she thought.
A woman sat facing Rowina only two tables away and stared directly at her. Rowina couldn’t be sure how long the woman had been staring or for what reason. After a brief panic, Rowina looked away, as is customary when making accidental eye contact. She looked back to make sure the woman too had looked away, but no, she stared on. The panic returned hotter than ever. What did she see? Rowina couldn’t help but rub a hand along the back of her head, having just cut her hair short around the sides for the first time since college. She glanced down at her shirt, which had been drying well, no sweat stains. Then she checked her own reflection quickly in the window. From what she could see, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Another wave of panic hit, as if the woman could see into Rowina’s wallet and accounts and see every late payment and overdue bill and was judging her unworthy, a fraud and a fool. But that was impossible. There was no evidence on the surface to indicate anything problematic unless the woman was a racist or a psychopath. In that case, Rowina decided to stare back. The woman didn’t waver at all under the new scrutiny. Rowina saw her strapless dress and lightly tanned skin, dark eyes and hair that fell in gentle coils past her shoulders. She would’ve been beautiful if she weren’t so invasive, Rowina thought. A motion near the kitchen distracted Rowina’s gaze just enough to see the staff fumbling with an order. When she returned to the woman she was gone, or so Rowina thought before realizing the woman was on her feet and walking toward Rowina’s table.
Well, this was it, whatever it was Rowina couldn’t be sure, but she mentally prepared herself for the worst, a physical assault perhaps, a verbal scolding. Maybe the woman mistook her for a mistress and planned to have it out. Rowina smiled briefly at the thought of being yanked on and cursed at by a beautiful woman in the name of a forgettable husband. She might let it go on longer than necessary. The two could laugh about it and maybe Rowina would get an apology meal out of the whole ordeal. That thought didn’t last long when Rowina detected subtle nerves in the woman, how she pressed her palms against her thighs to smooth wrinkles that weren’t there or wipe away anxiety moisture. What did she have to be worried about? That made Rowina worry even more. Was that what women did before they reached into a designer handbag and pulled out a gun to kill their partner’s lover? Was that what they did when they wanted to know the time? Rowina thought she had women figured out but now wondered if she knew women at all. Then it was too late because the woman stood over Rowina, and the moment had arrived for the end of her life or something short of it.
“Excuse me, but I think I know you,” the woman said.
She smelled of vanilla, and Rowina lost the edges of the room for a second. There was no anger in that voice, just low soothing notes of uncertainty and something else, maybe hope.
Rowina shook her head and her hand returned to the back of her neck when the woman laughed unexpectedly and profoundly. It was an unmistakable laugh, familiar in its absurdity, like a tiny sprite gasping for dear life. Rowina knew that laugh like she knew a stone dropped in water.
“Mani?”
“I haven’t heard that name in years. I became the whole Amani to everyone in the end.”
She glanced at the chair across from Rowina for permission to sit. Rowina nodded and leaned forward on her elbows, astonished. There she stood. Perfect.
“You look … so … I didn’t recognize you until the laugh. There it is.”
Amani took a deep breath to quiet the giggles. The waitress returned with Amani’s place setting and water glass.
“Can I get you two any appetizers?”
Rowina already shook her head no in response to the unnecessary, exorbitantly priced, and inadequately portioned “appetizers” the café probably had to offer, while Amani replied in the affirmative.
“Definitely. Let’s start with the salmon rolls? Right, Ro? And the mixed greens. The tuna tartare is pretty good. We can share all that.”
“Sure.”
Rowina stared at the menu, eyes flitting from one price to another so quickly from the spike of adrenaline that she didn’t see the waitress disappear. When she looked up she found Amani staring at her intently. She could feel the slump in her back, so she straightened immediately. She had a balance on one credit card to cover the sum so far, but might have to run the risk of a declined transaction if the orders progressed any further. Amani couldn’t know any of that, especially if she sat upright and kept her eyes focused on the present and not the past. But what did the dead know? How far could she reach into her soul, her mind? Rowina shook her head. She was being silly. They don’t come back for that, to know things about us and shame us with private information. Amani of all people would never know any of that if Rowina held herself together. She could just say no. When the food arrives, I’ll say no thank you, she thought. She could say she’d had a seafood aversion lately. That would be convincing. Rowina considered all of this with Amani’s dark eyes leveled on her as if she could pull the thoughts out and lay them on the table like a deck of cards.
“It’s good to see you, Ro. It’s been forever.”
“It has. I … I … you’ve been gone awhile.”
“I’ve been gone?”
That laugh again.
“Where did I go? I never left the state before the end. You! You went everywhere.”
Rowina smiled. This wouldn’t be so bad, this visit. She could handle this just fine, not like the other, her mother’s visit.
“I did some traveling. Lived abroad for a stint on different fellowships.”
Amani nodded and sipped her water. Then ran her fingers along the condensation.
“You were the smart one,” Amani said, not looking up from the table.
Her voice became low, pensive and weighty. Rowina traveled after graduate school to residencies. Eventually the fellowships ran out, but the wanderlust remained, fueling a wildfire of debt she had yet to extinguish.
“I know who you married, at least,” Rowina said. “Everyone knows who you married.”
Rowina laughed, expecting to hear that thrilling chuckle from Amani, but no sound emerged.
“Not everyone.”
“Please. The waitress knows who you married, Mani. Even if they don’t know you.”
The last of those words moved Amani back in her chair a little. Rowina didn’t mean to sound hurtful, but she had hurt Amani. The way her cheeks drew in and her bottom lip shifted from side to side, almost comical, like a baseball player about to spit, but here she was, a woman who once had everything, mildly offended because she wasn’t as famous as her spouse. Well, Rowina knew better than that. When Amani was hurt, it was bette
r to duck out of the way of whatever she did next. Crying was the least of anyone’s worries. Rowina would know, having been the cause of some pain she hadn’t thought about in years.
Amani had lived abroad until age eight, when she arrived at Rowina’s elementary school. Her father was French and met her mother in a central African country while on service duty. When her mother died of a degenerative disease, Amani traveled alone with her father. She showed up in Rowina’s class with the wrong accent, the wrong hairstyle, the wrong parent. Rowina knew what it was like to have a dead mother and how well-intentioned fathers sometimes didn’t think through an outfit carefully. Amani fit in just right with Rowina. In grade school they were inseparable. When two smart girls with imaginations cling to each other, only fools try to pull them apart. Together they pretended to be lions and hunters, taking turns at being prey or predator, gnawing at each other’s limbs and judging the flavor. “Sweet. This lion must eat a lot of cereal,” or “This one is no good, too much broccoli.” Their games evolved as they pretended to be each other’s mother, seeing as they both had none. Clumsily offering care to one another as any imaginary mother would, spooning soda into each other’s mouths as medicine or baking beautiful birthday cakes made of air and dreams. Eventually they pretended to be each other’s sister, then wife or husband. Rowina put a hand on her hip and scolded Amani for not appreciating all her hard work, maintaining their invisible home and taking care of their stuffed-animal babies. Amani would take fake sips from a brown bottle stolen from the trash, then laugh and laugh, then hug Rowina tightly in mock apology. Then the roles would switch. Rowina would get to be a lazy husband and Amani the overworked wife.
Not long after that, Rowina’s own mother visited her.
It took her too long. Her mother waited wherever the dead wait. Rowina had forgotten her, forgotten her eyelashes and chin hairs and smell of astringent and lotion. Her long fingers and braided hair, none of it seemed like a part of Rowina. They were fragments that belonged in photographs. Rowina had a mouthful of pancake when her mother entered from the backyard kicking her sandals off by the door. Rowina screamed. Her father came running out of the bathroom. Once he realized his dead wife had come to see Rowina and not him, he had to leave. “It’ll be fine, Roro. I’ll be back soon.”
He left. He left her with a dead woman rummaging through the kitchen for a spoon to stir sugar into some coffee.
Rowina screamed at the door, more angry than terrified at being abandoned, but when the scream broke away from overuse, they were still there together.
A month later, Rowina invented the witching game for her and Amani to play at school. They sat together on the blue and yellow reading carpet, tearing construction paper into tiny pieces and throwing them into a circle for spells to make them grown-ups or airplanes, anything that could fly away. A loud girl with a pink spring-loaded umbrella pulled at Amani’s shoulder, then aimed the umbrella and hit Amani in the cheek just under her eye socket. The girl bent over in laughter as Amani’s tears started immediately. Rowina didn’t have a chance to react before Amani leapt into the air and snatched at the girl’s head, scratching deeply and yanking that stupid umbrella away and bashing her until the teacher came and lifted Amani up like a melon, a wailing melon with a fistful of another child’s hair and tears and mucus running down its face. While hovering under the teacher’s arm, Amani saw Rowina with her little hand deep in the pile of torn paper, then she stopped wailing. Their eyes met, wide and curious, believing they had made the moment happen.
As they got older, the boys tugged, but it wasn’t until the boys had something more substantial to offer than their bodies that Amani bothered to look up.
The waitress brought the appetizers, enough for five people by Rowina’s estimation. Amani wasn’t as famous as her husband, but their fame didn’t really matter at all in Rowina’s circles. She did know it mattered to Amani, and that was all that counted. As a gesture of goodwill and apology, Rowina reached for a salmon roll instead of refusing the plates altogether as she’d planned. She would pay this small price this one time.
“Did you save the world yet?” Amani asked, not eating, just watching Rowina.
That was confirmation enough that Amani had something on her mind, and Rowina wasn’t going to leave that café without having those thoughts come down like boulders.
“Mani, what’s your problem?”
“What are you talking about? I was just curious. Your accounts are private, or they were last I checked, so I was wondering what you were up to.”
“Oh. You’re in love with me.”
“Shut up!”
Amani choked a little on her water and laughed as Rowina had intended.
“You’re the same, you know that?” Amani continued.
“Smart, hot, super cool?”
“And kind of an asshole.”
“I heard and, so I won’t argue with any of that.”
Rowina’s phone alerted, but she silenced it without looking as Amani began to eat. So, all the dead can eat. Rowina was thankful for that, otherwise she might be obligated to pay for all of the appetizers. Another question more urgent than the last surfaced. Rowina opened her mouth to speak but quickly denied herself.
“You can ask me anything. That’s sort of why I’m here.”
“Are your credit cards working?”
Amani smiled and nodded.
“Everything works. Cards. Cash. Heart. Lungs.”
“So, what’s it like?” Rowina asked.
“What?”
“Money!”
“Oh! It’s never as much as you expect, I guess.”
“That sounds right.”
The waitress returned ready to take the full order, but Rowina leaned away from her as if asked to participate in a medical experiment.
“I probably have plenty, and it’s getting a little late.”
Amani slid her hand across the table as if to reach for Rowina but came just short of actually taking her hand.
“We can finish lunch, can’t we?”
The words were too sincere for Rowina to bear. She would agree to anything when Amani spoke like that, as if there were no other people in the room, as if begging weren’t beneath either of them when it came to each other. Rowina could only nod and eye the menu, still lurking on the edge of the table, with suspicion and scorn.
“Club sandwich for me,” Amani said with such a confident shift in timbre that Rowina thought she’d been duped.
“Same.”
The waitress smiled, scooped up their menus, and left them alone again. Amani looked at Rowina, not saying anything, eyelids low and a smirk on the edge of exploding as if she’d won something. Rowina’s skin had cooled too much in the air-conditioning; now she felt underdressed as goose bumps rose on her forearms.
“No, I haven’t, by the way,” Rowina said. “The world still needs saving.”
“I’m sure. Who are the villains now, other than me and the whores of capitalism?”
“Ha ha ha,” Rowina deadpanned.
“Seriously, Rowina. There’s a crisis for someone every day. I worry about you, you know.”
“Me? We’ve got widespread domestic terrorism, government complicity and abuse, income inequality like never seen in the history of mankind, and you know what happens to people who say something about it? Dead. We’re in a fucking dark age, a war, and you’re worried about me?”
“Yes, you! I didn’t know about the protesters, but it is okay. It’s okay, you know, to have someone worry about you.”
Amani spoke to Rowina as if she were aware of her tendency toward theatrics, as if Rowina’s proclamations were well rehearsed, performed, and a proper audience reaction was all she really wanted. Rowina considered all of the reactions she should’ve gotten, the ones she was ready for, the denials, the apathy, the smug disregard for class distinctions, for a safer retort about all people being spiritual beings because it is necessary for the privileged to not worry about the safety of the di
sadvantaged, which makes the privileged think they’re safe when they rightly suspect otherwise. Rowina knew what to say to those people, the ones who wanted to live above the trees where screams are buried in the wind. Coward. Blind. Weak. Selfish. Amani, however, was none of those.
As children, they were different but similar. Rowina was being raised by a single father, but she had aunties aplenty. She went to school washed and styled and ironed. Among the poor kids she looked pristine. Among the rich kids she looked loved. When Amani showed up to elementary school, motherless, her hair a frizzy cloud, and towing a backpack on wheels, she was teased mercilessly for half a day, no evidence of love to protect her. During the second snack time, a boy pulled her hair hard enough to draw a tear. She squeezed a pack of peanut-butter crackers in her fist and told him in French to eat a dead man’s foot. The boy stopped as if his throat had been slit. She said it again, a flurry of vowels and consonants, another cut. She said it again faster, and another wound opened in his heart. The boy wailed like he’d been cursed. Rowina was in awe. The teacher came over to Amani, who stood quietly, innocently, nearly crying too, and maybe to the teacher her wet eyes shone like empathy instead of condemnation. The teacher took the boy out to the restroom to calm him down. Rowina immediately sat next to Amani without saying anything at all and could feel the heat of anger still rising from her little arms. The two of them opened their crackers and began to eat. She wasn’t teased again, at least not by that class. Years later, Rowina asked what was said to that boy, and Amani confessed she’d never heard anyone say eat a dead man’s foot before or after that day; the words just came out of her. The two of them laughed and laughed.
“I’m surprised you’re not married,” Amani continued at the café. “Are you close, perhaps?”
“Are you flirting with me, Mani?”
Rowina leaned forward and Amani’s involuntary intake of breath betrayed the truth.
“You never did play fair,” Amani replied, suddenly fascinated with the texture of her napkin.
“I always played as if I could win.”
How to Wrestle a Girl Page 8
