Under the Bali Moon

by Grace Octavia

  After watching too many music videos on BET, Zena told Zola that it was time to get ready for bed and ordered her little sister to go take a shower. Once Zola finished complaining about the shower and begged to watch more videos, Zena scolded her as if she was the mother, and Zola stomped out of the living room toward the bathroom.

  “I don’t hear the water,” Zena hollered after a while, and then the sound of the water in the shower finally started. She reminded herself to bust into the bathroom in a few minutes to make sure Zola was really in the shower and not just looking at the water—her mother always did that.

  Zena got up to turn off the television and there was a faint, soft knock at the front door.

  On instinct, Zena looked around the room for her father’s baseball bat, but then reminded herself that she was no longer in the projects and that bat was still in New York.

  “Who is it?” Zena demanded forcefully, trying to make her voice sound louder, gruffer in case there was a dangerous criminal at the door.

  “Adan.”

  An alarm sounded in Zena’s heart. She was quickly frantic. Why was Adan at her front door? He’d been past her house. He’d walked her home on some nights when she’d been at his house until it was too dark for her to walk home alone. But he’d never rung the front door. He’d certainly never been inside. Did he want to come inside? Everything around Zena seemed to be in complete disarray. Messy. Too messy. Zola’s stupid Oreo crumbs on the secondhand couch. Their dirty sneakers lined up beside the front door. Her mother’s work clothes on the chair. Zena looked into the dining room. They didn’t even have a set in there yet. No chairs. No table. Just a bright light and an empty room.

  “Zena?” Adan called from outside as if he sensed that he’d been forgotten.

  “Yes.”

  “You going to open the door?”

  Zena exhaled and walked to the entrance, where she forced a casual smile before opening the door only a few inches.

  Adan was standing on the steps with his hands in his pockets. He looked confused. Maybe sad.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Why?” Zena said.

  “Because you weren’t at the skating rink. I figured something was wrong.” Adan tried to peek into the house, but Zena shifted her head to block him.

  “Oh, that,” Zena said vaguely. “I forgot.”

  “Forgot? But you seemed so excited.”

  “I was but, you know how it is. I just got busy.”

  “Oh.” Adan’s face went from maybe confused and maybe sad to definitely hurt.

  Zena’s heart sank. She hated her world for making her say what she’d said. She didn’t want to hurt Adan. She was saying what she was saying because she wanted him to like her. Well, she didn’t want him to not like her because her family was struggling and her mother wasn’t a nurse and had to work overtime and she had to take care of her baby sister.

  “Adan—”

  “Zena—”

  The two teenagers said each other’s names at the same time as they tried to stumble out their feelings.

  “You first,” Adan said.

  “No, you first,” Zena countered.

  “I’ll just say this,” Adan started with his voice cracking from its usual cool. “It’s fine if you don’t want to hang out and, like, be friends. I know school is starting soon and you’ll make other friends. Okay? I know that. But I want to be your friend. I like you and I want to be your friend.” He looked into Zena’s eyes. “I really like you.”

  “Like, I like you, too,” Zena blurted out clumsily.

  The words were innocent enough, but the intentions had deep meaning behind them. What the two of them knew was their relationship had strengthened and left so much heightened emotional residue that they both laughed to lighten the moment.

  “Hey, can I come in for a little while?” Adan asked.

  “In here?”

  “Yes. Into your house.”

  “Ohh.” Zena looked over her shoulder as if maybe there was a circus breaking out in the living room behind her. She turned back to Adan. “You sure?” she asked him.

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “Look, Adan. We don’t have anything. I don’t have a Nintendo like you do. Our television is on the floor,” Zena said.

  “That’s fine,” Adan answered in his cool tone. “I’m not here to play Nintendo or watch television. I’m here to see you.”

  “Ohh,” Zena repeated. She stepped back and let Adan in. He kept her company and left right before her mother was to be home from work. That became their nightly ritual when her mother worked doubles. They swore Zola to secrecy and bribed her with Twix candy bars.

  Zena was sure all of this would change when school started and all of the best friends Adan had, who frequently stopped by the house, got his attention before her. While she hadn’t met any of the girls in the neighborhood, she imagined they’d all be prettier than her and have nicer bikes and already know all of the lyrics to the popular songs Adan played incessantly.

  None of Zena’s fears came to pass. Adan was also in the first-period history class where Zena sat beside Malak. One day when the teacher was absent and the substitute was late, the bored students started playing Twenty Questions, and Adan was selected first to sit in the hot seat in the center of the classroom. The girls led the questioning, asking if Adan was a virgin—he was and he admitted it—and soon Malak, who’d started the game for this very reason, asked if Adan had a girlfriend.

  “Yes. I think so,” Adan revealed, and the heartbreak from the girls in the room was palpable.

  Malak pushed further: “Does she go to this school?” Adan nodded. “Is she in this classroom?” Adan nodded. “Is she wearing a red sweatshirt?” Adan nodded. All eyes moved to the only girl in that classroom who was wearing a red sweatshirt—the new girl. Zena.

  * * *

  When hungover and weary Zena could no longer ignore the sun rising outside her bedroom window, she decided to force herself out of bed. She suffered through her shower and pampering routine and stumbled through her condo trying not to remember Adan’s face when he admitted that he liked her that night at her house.

  When Zena finally made it out her front door and to her car, she decided she needed to make a stop before heading into the office, so she called Malak to inform her of her extended late arrival. While Malak sounded surprised, Zena could also hear in her voice enthusiasm at the idea of her boss being out of the office a little while longer.

  “Everything okay?” Malak asked with concern about the issues they’d confronted the night before laced in her tone.

  “I’m fine,” Zena said with forced brightness before adding rather dutifully, “Just email Judge Jones’s assistant to let him know I won’t make our appointment. I’ll stop by the courthouse a little later, and I hope to catch him if he has time. And make sure those files from the new Patel case are entered into the system. I’ll need them when I get in.”

  Zena could hear the sarcasm in Malak’s voice when she replied, “I’ve already entered those files, and I’ll send the email right away.” Malak paused before adding, “Zena, I’m here if you want to talk about—”

  “That will be all,” Zena said, cutting Malak off as if she was a stranger trying to find her place in some tragedy she didn’t understand. She hung up and exhaled through her mouth before jumping in her car to head to her mother’s house.

  * * *

  Lisa Shaw still lived in the same little brick house in West End, Atlanta, she’d found refuge in after her divorce and escape from New York. After years of haggling with the West Coast landlord she’d never seen, Lisa purchased the modest property and was so proud of her achievement she went about the work of turning the little abode into an oasis in an enclave that was decent when she’d moved in with her family
but declined through years of home owner flight, Section 8 hustles, weak property flips and foreclosures during the recession. But, Lisa, just happy to have her own land, held firm and refused to leave, even when Zena offered to purchase her mother a more lofty condo in town.

  When Zena pulled into the driveway outside her mother’s ranch house, she scanned the well-kept front garden packed with blooming perennials like the bog lily, the yellow flag iris and cannas. In the middle of the yard was a freshly painted white swinging garden bench Lisa forbade Zena and Zola or anyone else from ever sitting on. “That thing is just for show,” Lisa said ten years ago when she had two day laborers she’d picked up in front of the Home Depot come and install it. “Got me a garden and a swing,” Lisa said, standing beside Zena and Zola that afternoon when the work was done. “Can you imagine that? A girl from 40 Projects? Got her own garden and swing!” She laughed and repeated her instructions: no one could ever sit on that swing.

  Zena was about to use her old key to unlock the front door, but it was already swinging open. Standing there was Lisa with her right hand on the knob and a lit cigarette in her left hand.

  “Babygirl, your ears must be itching,” Lisa said. She craned her neck over the threshold and looked past Zena toward the street, scanning the right and left side of the sidewalk. As usual, she was wearing one of the dozen dashikis Zena and Zola had gotten her for Kwanzaa. Her long gray dreadlocks were up in a bun, and her glasses were set low on her nose. While she was fifty-three and had endured what most would call a hard life, Lisa’s appearance belied that fact. Beneath the gray dreadlocks, thick spectacles and frumpy house dress, she hadn’t aged a day since they’d gotten off the bus in Atlanta.

  “Itching? Why do you say that?” Instinctively, Zena turned and looked out at the street with her mother.

  “I had a little visitor a few minutes ago,” Lisa answered mysteriously as she backed up from the door to let Zena into the house.

  “Zola? So she told you?” Zena charged, ready to argue her points against everything she’d come to her mother’s house to discuss. Beginning her plea, she led her mother into the kitchen beside the front door, where most discussions occurred.

  “No. Not Zola.” Lisa laughed in a way that left a clue for Zena.

  “Who?”

  “You know.” Lisa took a seat at the kitchen table beside Zena and put out her cigarette. While she’d stood firm in most of her fights with Zena about her smoking, reminding her firstborn that she was grown and Zena could not control smoking or anything else about her, she seemed like she was in no mood to have that fight again.

  “Who was it, Mommy?” Zena pushed, though it was clear she’d read right into the clue.

  “You know,” Lisa repeated more firmly and enticingly.

  Zena rushed to the bay window above the kitchen table and peered through the half-open blinds, careful not to reveal her position. “What? Why was he here? When was he here?” she asked, struggling to look up the street as if she could actually see anything five houses down where Roy Douglass, Adan and Alton’s father, now lived alone after Mrs. Pam had died of breast cancer New Years Day.

  “The usual,” Lisa said. “Pretending he was here to check on me, but really trying to get news about you. You know these Southern men—so charming and a little manipulative.” Lisa laughed. “He looked good. I don’t see how you missed him. I swear he left just a few minutes before I saw you pull into the driveway.”

  Some tall teenage boy came into view, walking in the street in front of the house, and Zena thought for a second maybe it was Adan, so she jumped back, afraid her cover was blown, but then the baggy pants and basketball jersey proved otherwise.

  “Asked about me? You didn’t tell him anything. Right?” Zena looked back at Lisa.

  “Don’t start worrying. Lord! I told him the usual—I don’t know anything. You don’t tell me anything. Wasn’t hard to say since it’s the truth.” Lisa’s gaze cut to Zena.

  “Mommy, don’t go there.” Zena plopped back into her seat like a teenager. She felt exhausted by everything—her mother’s comment, Zola and the wedding, the idea of Adan lurking outside. What did he want anyway? Why was he always visiting her mother? She looked back at the window. She didn’t feel like herself. She knew she didn’t look like herself. She remembered being in the courtroom just twenty-four hours earlier. She was winning. She was what she wanted to be. Who she wanted to be. But now she was back at home in that little house and arguing with her mother.

  “Don’t go where? Ain’t nowhere for me to go. I’m just an aging old lady, sitting at home and minding my business. You and your little teenage love are the ones who came knocking on my door,” Lisa retorted.

  “Fine. I didn’t come here to talk about that man anyway,” Zena said snidely. “I don’t care what he wants or why he was here.”

  “You sure don’t sound like it. I thought you’d be over Adan by now, but I guess I also know that’s impossible.” Lisa grinned.

  “First, we broke up in freaking college and I’m completely over him. Second, you know I’ve asked you not to say his name.”

  “Adan!” Lisa slapped her own lips playfully to punish herself for the intentional slip.

  Zena ignored her comical routine and went on with her list: “And third, I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! And finally, like I said, that’s not why I came here to talk to you.”

  “Well then why did you come to bless me with your presence, Ms. Zena Nefertiti Shaw?” Lisa joked.

  “It’s Zola. Did she tell you what she’s planning to do?”

  “What—you mean the wedding?”

  “Yes. About eloping. So, she did tell you? You told her she couldn’t do it, right?”

  “No. Why would I do that?” Lisa asked.

  “Because, it’s crazy.” Zena stared at her mother. Behind Lisa on the wall was a framed print of one of her many Gordon Parks pictures that were in the center of most walls throughout the house. This one was of a black girl standing before a whites-only water fountain. All through Zena’s childhood, the picture inspired her to become a lawyer and fight injustices. “And because she’s supposed to be studying for the Bar, so she can be an attorney,” Zena went on. “And because you’re her mother and you should be at her wedding.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about that. She can do whatever she wants to do. She’s twenty-five. I keep telling ya’ll that. I’ve lived my life. You can’t live for me. Got to live for yourself,” Lisa said with too much Zen.

  “That’s ridiculous. Who doesn’t want to see their daughter get married?”

  “Who said anything about not wanting to see it? All I’m saying is that Zola is young and she’s a free spirit. You know that,” Lisa said. “I want her to have whatever she wants. Besides, I get it. I’m single and I don’t have the best track record with marriage. Your father is up in New York doing God knows what, and then with Pam just passing from breast cancer four months ago, I see why Alton isn’t trying to put his father through a wedding right now. Maybe it’s best they elope. They’re happy. Let them have some fun. We can always throw them a reception later.”

  “But what about her life? Her career? She could be making a huge mistake. You know the Bar Exam is in like eight weeks! She’s talking about waiting to take it next year.”

  “She should be talking about not taking it at all,” Lisa said.

  “Why would you say that? After all she’s done?”

  “That’s your dream, Zena. Not Zola’s.” Lisa stood to pour herself the last remaining cup of coffee from her electronic carafe.

  “It’s her dream, too. She finished law school and now she’s set for the Bar. She’s going to be an attorney.” Zena looked at her mother sipping her coffee and grinning at her. “What? If she’s not a lawyer, what will she be? What could she be?”

  “Who the he
ll knows. Maybe Alton’s wife?” Lisa laughed.

  “I can’t deal with you right now!” Zena stood and reached for her purse.

  “Oh, you’re going to run off now that I don’t agree with everything you’re saying?” Lisa said.

  “I’m not running. I’m just frustrated. It’s like in the last twenty-four hours all of this crazy stuff is happening. And I came here hoping you’d talk some sense into Zola, but it’s like, as usual, you’re on her side.”

  “I’m on no one’s side. I just want peace. And I’m hoping to make you see Zola’s side.”

  “Zola’s side?” Zena laughed sarcastically. “Let me see—Zola’s side includes eloping to Bali when the Exam is right around the corner. Zola’s side includes getting married just when she’s about to begin her career. I know all about Zola’s side, Mommy. I thought you’d see my side just this once.”

  Four eyes rolled, and Zena whisked out of the house in a way that was too common for her mother to be moved. Before Zena was in her car, Lisa had lit a new cigarette and was searching the kitchen table for the television remote. Maury Povich would be on in twenty minutes.

  Zena made an aggressive right turn out of her mother’s driveway—a turn away from Adan’s old house. Her thoughts concocted a scenario where Adan was standing in his parents’ front yard waiting for her to drive by. What did he want to say? Why had he asked about her? She gripped the head of the steering wheel and looked out the rearview window. The car slowed as she searched, deciding where he wasn’t, which cars weren’t his, which shadows in the bushes couldn’t be his. Her emotions bullied her into forcing all thoughts of him away, so she resolved to snap herself back to “normal,” but before she could refocus a glance to the driver’s side door, her thoughts took her back—way back—to a memory that had taken place in that very location she was passing—the corner of Sassafras Street and Blue Stone Road.