Blackout

by Dhonielle Clayton

  “Damn,” I grumble.

  Kareem glances down at our hands and releases his, clearing his throat.

  “Um . . . there’s another bathroom at that big library on Fifth,” Kareem offers.

  “You think it’s still open?”

  “They wouldn’t shut down the library. That’s, like, against the law or something.”

  “Okay. Let’s try it.”

  “Wait, hold up,” he says, pointing to a sandwich board sign posted up on the corner that says Free Ice Cream with arrows. A grin spreads across his face.

  “Kareem, no . . .”

  But it’s too late. He races down the block and disappears into a packed shop. I wait outside, leaning against a street sign. Even with the sun gone, it hasn’t cooled down a bit and there’s about a million people out roaming the streets. I’m surprised we haven’t all fainted.

  Look, can you just trust me? For once?

  I can’t get his words out of my head. What made him say that? Why didn’t he think I trusted him before? And after everything that’s happened, didn’t he ultimately prove that I was right not to?

  “Here we go!” Kareem emerges with two cups. “Cake batter ice cream with graham crackers and strawberries for the old lady. Happy, uh, early birthday?”

  “Wow. Thanks,” I gush. “You remembered.”

  “Of course.”

  We speed walk east down Forty-Second Street, past the stores, the restaurants, and Bryant Park. By the time we make it to the New York Public Library, my ice cream is nearly a milkshake.

  “Hey, let’s finish this before it melts . . . then go in to use the bathroom,” I say.

  “Aight,” Kareem agrees.

  We sit on the concrete front stairs, in between the giant lion statues, looking down at the passing traffic on Fifth Avenue. Seems like the only lights working in the city are from cars, trucks, and taxis.

  “Shouldn’t we eat something first? Like a real lunch or dinner?” I laugh, popping the plastic top off my cup. “G-Ma would kill us knowing we out here having dessert before veggies.”

  “What I keep saying? This is history, might as well have our dessert first,” he says, digging his spoon in. “Mmm! Even half melted, it’s fire!”

  I slip the spoon out of my mouth, enjoying the icy coolness and the perfect combination of ice cream toppings we came up with together one summer. I wonder if he’s had this with Imani. Really, I wonder about all the things they do together that we used to.

  “My dad’s getting married.”

  Stunned, I nearly drop my spoon.

  “What? Really?”

  “Yeah,” Kareem sighs, shaking his head but smiling. “He’s having one of them destination weddings in January. Asked me to be his best man. Surprised your mom didn’t tell you. I know her and my mom talked.”

  Mom’s been pretty good about following the No Kareem rule, but this is definitely some hot tea she should’ve spilled!

  “How’s your mom taking it?” I ask.

  “She’s . . . mad. Or, she was mad. Then upset. She wouldn’t speak to him at graduation. I get it, though.”

  “And . . . how do you feel?”

  He rubs the back of his neck with a sniff. “I mean, at first, guess I just thought . . . you move out, get a new battery in ya back, and put all that new energy into the wrong person. I just wish he tried, like for real tried, with Mom. Not just for her, but for me and the twins. I told him that . . . ’cause what I got to lose, right? Ain’t like he can throw me out the house he don’t live in.”

  “Whoa,” I reply. Kareem’s the last person to say exactly what’s on his mind. “What did he say?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Said something like, ‘People grow apart, people change. And you can’t fight change. Fighting someone who’s changing is a fight with yourself. You can only accept them and choose to love them anyway. And if you can’t do that, you have to let them go, for your own well-being.’ I guess I get that. Anyways, we talk now. Like, talk like we bros. He gives me all this advice about . . . stuff. His girl’s pretty dope. They travel, taking cheesy-ass photos, working out together . . . they seem like best friends. I’m happy for dude. Kinda wish we were like this sooner. Like, four years ago when he left.”

  Kareem laughs. And it’s good to see him so . . . happy. He and his dad haven’t been close since middle school when the fighting started. I try to ignore the gnawing at my stomach, the resentment. I should have been there for him while all this was going on. Not Imani. Which makes me wonder . . . why wasn’t I there?

  “Did you mean what you said earlier?” I ask. “That you think . . . I broke up with you?”

  Kareem slowly takes the spoon out his mouth.

  “Ain’t that what you did?” he mumbles. “You pretty much left me a Dear John letter in my text.”

  “I guess . . . well, never mind.”

  He arches an eyebrow. “Nah, say it.”

  “I thought you . . . broke up with me.”

  “What?” he spits. “How? I didn’t even say nothing.”

  “That’s just it, you didn’t say nothing. You just left me on read.’’

  “So why didn’t you say something?”

  “’Cause!” I stab my ice cream. “You went to that party. Without telling me.”

  “Yo, I’d been waiting forever for someone to put me on. I thought you’d understand.”

  I shake my head. “You were just looking for a way out. You always wanted to go to all those parties.”

  “Yeah! ’Cause I like music! Ain’t my fault you don’t do crowds.”

  “And I told you how I felt about that girl.”

  “And I told you, you had nothing to worry about. I’m with you! I mean . . . was.”

  I take a deep breath. The sting of that “was” hits me right in the throat.

  He stands up and starts pacing on a step below.

  “Did you even read that trash message?” he went on. “Was me going to that party worth all that fire you breathed? That was my first paid DJ gig! I thought you’d be happy for me. Especially when we always did whatever you wanted. Instead, you called me a fucking liar and cheater when I never ever cheated on you or lied! I only made her my girl after you dumped me!”

  “For the last time, I didn’t dump you!”

  “You stopped talking to me! What’d you expect me to do?”

  “You could’ve walked your ass down the block, knocked on my door like you’ve done a million times since we were kids, and talked to me. That was your job as my boyfriend!”

  He stops in front of me and leans forward, digging into my skull with his eyes.

  “Tammi, my only job was to love you. You telling me I didn’t do that? You talking about jobs, what was your job supposed to be?”

  My heart hiccups into my throat. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t want to talk about love or anything else. It’s over! There is no him and me, no we, just him . . . and her.

  “We . . . we should get going,” I say. “You have that party tonight, right?”

  Kareem opens his mouth just as a homeless man sprints up the stairs, passing us. We watch him rush to one of the library doors and yank at it. Locked.

  “Shit,” we say in unison.

  “Now what do we do?” I groan. “I’m not peeing in a damn alley!”

  Kareem purses his lips before his eyes trail down to my feet. “Ughhhh! You and these damn laces!”

  I follow his glare. So used to them being undone in some way, I didn’t even notice.

  He kneels down, fingers working fast over the laces.

  “Why you even buy sneakers if you can’t ever tie them right?” He sucks his teeth with a huff. “Man, what you been doing all these months without me? Probably falling over yourself—surprise you ain’t break your damn arm yet.”

  He finishes tying my left shoe and moves to my right. I flex my foot and instantly, my ankle feels snug, secure, and safe. For maybe the first time in months
.

  “Thank you,” I say, my voice soft.

  He freezes, as if the words triggered something inside him. Slowly, he thaws, shoulders relax, hands gently move from my laces to behind my right calf, eyes focused on my shoe. Then, he leans his forehead on my bare shin and breathes in.

  I stare at the top of his head, heart pounding. Aching to move, to run from his touch, but desperate to stay in the dark with him like this . . . forever.

  He turns his head, letting his cheek rest against my leg.

  “What happened to us?” he whispers.

  And for the first time, I’m not entirely sure.

  All the Great Love Stories . . . and Dust

  Dhonielle Clayton

  New York Public Library, 8:03 p.m.

  SOME STORIES ARE better told in the dark. Not just the scary ones where someone gets chased through the woods. Or the whodunits where a bunch of suspects are trapped in a house. But even love stories can glow when the lights go out.1

  I sneak past the Astor Hall doors in the library. A stream of people flood the street, their faces full of panic probably about the coming sunset and how dark the city will be soon. But I can’t wait to see it. Two people sit beside one of the building’s stone lions, and I can’t stop watching them. When I was a little girl, Gran would take me here and we’d greet each one, and she’d whisper that the pair of lions—Patience and Fortitude—protected all the library books from harm. I’d stare up at my smug grandmother, always asking her why anyone would want to hurt books, and she’d wink, then remind me that the stories we tell can be dangerous.

  The boy leans in front of a girl who looks about my age, her braids as thick as the ones I took out last week and her skin about my shade of brown. I wonder if she has freckles like me. She gazes at the boy strangely as if she has a question to ask him, a question like the one I’m carrying around inside me.

  Makes me wonder if there’s already a love story between the two of them. Or space for one. And if one day, I could have that too.

  “Hurry up before we get caught.” My best friend, Tristán, waves me forward into the Children’s Center.

  I run behind him as they start to manually close the outer doors and finish closing the library early due to the blackout. The metal screech echoes.

  We tiptoe into the darkening room.

  “Lana, just say you lost—I’m not trying to sleep here and definitely not missing Twig’s party for our bet.” Tristán thumps my arm. “I told him I’d emcee,” he says in his signature podcast radio voice. “Can’t let my boy down.”

  “It could be like From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but like the library edition,” I tease. “A slumber party.”

  “What?”

  He doesn’t remember how many sleepovers we used to have. How he’s been a snorer and sleep talker since kindergarten. “We read it in the fourth grade. Mr. Ahmed assigned it.”

  “I don’t have the kind of memory you do.”

  I wave my latest scrapbook journal at him. “If you self-reflected more and actually documented things, maybe you would.”

  “Or if I’d been born with genius-level memory like you, elefantita.” He tries to touch the retro elephant-print scarf I have tied around my pin curls. Sweat soaks the edges of it and I fiddle with the bobby pins holding it in place. I can feel my bangs start to puff; the perfect victory roll headed for disaster. This retro look isn’t going to make it until the party. Bad idea. July ruins outfits. I smooth the front of my romper. But I need everything to go perfectly tonight. It has to.

  I suck my teeth and pretend to hate how he’s called me a tiny elephant our whole lives—all because of my legendary memory that teachers and librarians could never shut up about. It was always a new elephant something with every birthday or Christmas. My room is filled with them. Small reminders of him everywhere, making sure I could never forget. “Do they really have good memories?”

  “What?”

  “Elephants.”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “Who is everyone?”

  “You’re acting funny.”

  I kick at him. “Your face looks funny.”

  “The ladies don’t complain.” He pushes my leg out of the way. “Too scrawny! Don’t even try it.”

  I sideswipe him as we investigate the room. He turns on his flashlight app. The glow of it makes his dark skin perfect. We are giants weaving through all the tiny chairs and tiny tables. The scent of the heat wave creeps inside, mingling with the library smells of paper and ink and dust and glue. Almost like everything is sweating, if that’s possible. “I’m not done yet,” I say, ducking down another aisle of books.

  “Pay up. I win. Let’s call it. We need to get to Brooklyn. Twig’s waiting.” He glares over the bookshelf at me, triumph tucking itself into the corner of his mouth. “You took too long.”

  “The party doesn’t start until like ten anyways. We’ve got plenty time.” I run my fingers over the tiny book spines. “You’re trying to run down the clock. You’re scared.” I stare back at him even though he can’t fully see me.

  “The clock is done, yo. We went to three bookstores and now we’re here about to get stuck in the library, and you still haven’t picked anything.” He chases behind me. “And you’ve been too quiet.”2

  “I guess you can’t hear me talking to you right now.” I round the corner and cut off his path, reaching up to shove his shoulder. He’s so much bigger than me. Last summer he was looking directly into my face, his deep brown eyes always full of challenge, and now he’s a whole foot taller.

  “You know what I mean,” he says.

  “I don’t . . . so enlighten me.”

  He circles me. “Something’s up. Spit it out.”

  “You’re paranoid.” I turn away from him.

  My phone lights up.

  Another text from my other best friend, Grace. She’s asking me if I’ve told him the thing.

  I can’t. The words are all jumbled up inside me.

  “Is this because you’re leaving? Everything will be here when you get back.”3 He pulls a few more books off the shelves, sets his phone upright so the light beams down on them, and thumbs through the pages. “I’m supposed to help you and your dads move you into your fancy-ass Columbia dorms before I bounce to Binghamton. Relax! I can feel you tripping.”

  “I’m not,” I lie. “Stop distracting me. You’re a cheater.”

  “Fine, ask for a redo. I know you want to. I’m ready for all the whining. Blame the blackout, Lana.”

  “Shut up. You’re already getting all butthurt. You’re just scared I’ll win.”

  “I usually do.”

  “Let you tell it,” I spit back. “Stay lying.”

  “You ever get tired of trying to beat me?”

  This is the game between us. Always a bet about who can do whatever thing the best.

  At six, when his family moved into the brownstone next door, he knocked on my door and said, “Bet I can ride my bike faster than you can.”

  Not hello or hi or even hola. Not We’re your new neighbors or We just moved here from Miami. Nope. He just handed me the tres leches cake his mother made and challenged me.

  At eleven, he almost drowned at the Kosciuszko Pool after saying he could hold his breath the longest.

  At fourteen, he could watch the scariest horror movies ever made back-to-back but would lie about having to sleep with the lights on.

  And today, at eighteen, it’s this: What’s the best book ever written?

  But whenever he loses, he twists the whole thing to make himself the winner. That’s really his favorite part. There’s always a story that lingers long after the bet.

  Tristán lives for the shit-talk.

  I clutch my scrapbook journal tight to my chest. The pages threatening to expose themselves, the fragile rubber band barely holding it all together.

  “Stop trying to cheat.” I hold my phone up, the light beam washing over thousands of tiny
spines, as I move to the back of the room. I try to focus. I try not to let him get into my head. I try not to get distracted by everything I promised myself I’d tell him today.

  “We gotta get back to Brooklyn. Twig’s been sending me mad texts.” He flashes his phone screen at me. There is a flurry of notifications, some from Twig and some from different girls sending heart and smiley face emojis. “He keeps saying I’m not there for him anymore.”

  Tristán’s dad moved him and his sister to the Bronx at the beginning of the summer. After Mami died last year, they couldn’t keep up with the bodegas and needed to be closer to his aunties and grandma so they could help with little Paloma. Now, we meet here. Halfway between Bed-Stuy and Mott Haven. But everyone in the old neighborhood misses him. He’s the type that leaves behind a gaping hole.

  “You still have my mic at your house?” he asks.

  “Yes, for the hundredth time.” His podcast equipment is still tucked under my bed where he left it. “But a bet’s a bet.”

  He flashes his phone light over the murals ringing the room, colorful images of New York City brought to life with bright wallpaper.

  “You really going to pick a kiddie book?” He pulls back his locs into a ponytail. “That’s your idea of the best book ever written?”

  “Children’s books are the reason you even like to read.” I scan the shelves for Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe, or maybe I’ll grab Honey, I Love by Eloise Greenfield or The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton. I was made for this challenge. Papa is a famous author, his books on politics and race relations sit in every bookstore window, and Dad is a therapist who uses books to unlock people’s struggles. Plus, Gran used to read to me on summer nights like this one. We’d curl up in the nook of my bedroom window with my younger brother, Langston, and in between the page turns, she’d complain about the city noises and how much she missed her little library in Haiti from when she was a child.

  My last name shouldn’t be Beauvais. It should probably be Livre or Mots or something that translates to books or words or story.