Diamond Life

by Aliya S. King

  “You done?” Manny asked, wheeling in an empty dessert tray.

  “I’m beyond done,” said Lily. “I need sleep.”

  “Forgot to tell you earlier. You got something.”

  Manny went into the office and came back out with a huge bouquet of lilies in a square silver container.

  “Whoa,” said Lily, taking the vase out of Manny’s hand and leaning in to smell them.

  “What’s up with all the flowers? You’ve been turning tricks behind the bar or something?”

  “Whatever, Manny,” Lily said. She set down the vase and looked for a card.

  “Well?”

  Lily frowned.

  “No card.”

  “Whoever it is knows you love lilies.”

  She pulled one lily out of the vase and clipped the stem. She walked over to the mirror over the sink and tucked it into her bun.

  The flower thing had started years ago. She couldn’t even remember exactly when or why. But she never felt completely dressed for the day if she didn’t have a flower tucked into her hair. The idea of being adorned by something alive made her feel special.

  “They’re from me,” Manny said, walking closer to Lily.

  Lily backed up.

  “Down, boy.”

  Manny reached out in Lily’s direction.

  “You’re not going to say thank you?”

  Lily slapped Manny’s hands away and grabbed her bag. She slipped into her heels and put her flats in the bag.

  “I’m coming home with you,” said Manny.

  “Sorry. I have a date.”

  “With who? Your cat?”

  Lily put her bag on her shoulder and picked up her vase.

  “I’ll have you know that my cat is quite the companion.”

  “I know exactly what kind of companion you need,” Manny leered.

  “You really need help,” said Lily, walking out of the break room.

  “No, you need help,” yelled Manny. “And believe me, I could help you.”

  Lily turned around to see Manny with his hands in the air, pumping his pelvis in her direction. She shuddered and walked out of the restaurant and onto the street. As she walked to the subway, Lily counted all the couples arm in arm enjoying a Valentine’s Day date night. The women looked so carefree and happy, some with their heads on their dates’ shoulders.

  On the L train, Lily dozed off and dreamt of walking hand in hand with Jake, her head on his shoulder. She woke up just in time to see the doors opening for her stop. She grabbed her bag and dashed off the train just as the doors were closing.

  When she got closer to her apartment, she slowed down. The teenagers were out. Lily quickly went to the back of her building and used the service elevator.

  Safely inside her apartment, Lily changed into sweats and a T-shirt and curled up on the sofa with her cat, a tabby she called Cat. She pressed the power button on the remote and let the sounds of a sitcom laugh track fill her tiny apartment.

  The edges of the rope dug deep into Ras’s wrists. He grimaced, trying to keep his hands still so that the fabric didn’t cut him anymore. He looked over to his left; the rope attached to the headboard was tinged with blood. If it weren’t for what was happening at the bottom half of the bed, all of his attention would have been focused on the pain in his arms. As it were, there were more pressing matters for Ras to attend to.

  He tried desperately to catch his breath as his legs were pushed further and further apart. A pillow was slipped under him and he felt that familiar pull began to grow. The closer he came to coming, the more he strained against the ropes, which made him yelp in frustration.

  She climbed on top of him and quieted him by kissing his lips. She sat up and began to bounce up and down on top of him, staring straight into his eyes and whispering obscenities. Ras felt his stomach clench and his head began to spin. He couldn’t hold back any longer, and he felt a low, guttural groan escape his lips.

  “Let it out, Ras,” she whispered. “Let it out . . .”

  Ras shut his eyes tight and jerked against the ropes, trying desperately to lift his body higher. Finally, he gave in, collapsing on his back and remaining still as the orgasm ripped through his body, forcing him to scream out loud.

  Immediately after, Ras didn’t move. He felt her untie him and then carefully roll the condom off as she always did and wrap it in tissue. He kept his eyes closed until he heard her go into the bathroom and begin running the shower. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and kicked aside the dildos and other sex toys on the floor. Ras’s stomach retched. As soon as it was over, he was always disgusted by the things she wanted him to do to her. And the things he wanted her to do to him. He pulled on his jeans and went into her kitchen shirtless and barefoot. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator as his cell phone began to ring. He slid his phone out of his back pocket and pressed TALK.

  “My love,” he said. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. Tired. How are you? Are you getting a lot done?”

  Ras looked out of the window to a well-landscaped backyard. A gardener was clipping bushes that dotted the perimeter of a heated swimming pool.

  “It’s going well. But I miss you. How’s Reina?”

  “She’s good. Talk to her.”

  Before Ras could protest, he could hear his wife encouraging his daughter to speak into the phone. The little girl did nothing but laugh. Ras told her he loved her and kissed her through the phone.

  “She just blew the phone a kiss,” Josephine said.

  “I’ll be kissing you both in person very soon.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  Ras heard someone clearing their throat behind him and he turned around. Cleo stood in the doorway, wearing his shirt, which was completely unbuttoned. She put a finger to her lips and smiled.

  “I have to go, Josephine. I’ll call you when I’m done at the studio.”

  Ras hung up quickly and turned his back to Cleo.

  “How come you can’t look at me?”

  “What are you talking about . . .” Ras said, brushing past Cleo and going back to the bedroom. Cleo followed him.

  “You’re always weird afterward . . . am I gross to you or something?”

  “I need my shirt back.”

  “No,” Cleo said quickly. “I’m keeping it. I want a souvenir. I might never see you again.”

  “Whatever,” Ras said. He pulled on his undershirt and looked for his shoes.

  “When are you going to just leave her?”

  Ras stopped tying his shoelace and snapped his head up to look at Cleo.

  “What did you just say?”

  “You heard me. I said, when are you going to do the right thing and leave your wife?”

  “Don’t say anything about my wife,” Ras said.

  “If you really loved her, you’d let her go so she could find someone she deserves.”

  Ras tugged on his shoelace so hard that he snapped the string in half. Annoyed, he ripped the laces out and threw them in the trash.

  “I’m not going to tell you again. Do not talk about my wife.”

  “What did she say about me showing up to the restaurant? Was she upset?”

  Ras left the bedroom, with Cleo on his heels.

  “How could you come back to me after that?” Cleo asked.

  Ras ran a hand over his hair and sat down on the living room couch. It was an excellent question. And he would have paid very good money for an answer. Cleo climbed onto the sofa next to Ras and pulled her knees up underneath her body.

  “Maybe you really do love me?”

  “That’s definitely not it.”

  Cleo smiled.

  “So, then, what is it?”

  Ras went inside his head and thought about a song he had been working on the night before. It was 99 percent finished. And the singer who wanted to use it begged him to just let it go and turn it over. But he could not do it. He kept tinkering
with it. Layering one instrument and then another over the beat. Then he’d erase the changes and try again. There was a singular sound, somewhere in the universe, that was perfect for that song. One snatch of music that would complete the whole process. If it took him months, he would not let go until then. Whenever he was stressed out about anything, he felt his surroundings slip away as he played the song over and over in his mind, trying out the different sounds he had stored on his brain’s hard drive.

  When he opened his eyes, Cleo was still on the sofa staring at him.

  “I need to go,” he said, standing up.

  “You’re a horrible husband,” Cleo said.

  “I do the best I can.”

  “Is this what you call doing the best you can? You leave here and say you will never see me again. And two weeks later, I’ve got you hog-tied and squealing like a pig. When are you going to realize that you should just be with me?”

  “If I was ever going to realize something like that, don’t you think I would have by now?”

  “You’re holding on to Josephine because you feel sorry for her.”

  Ras stepped to Cleo and put a finger in her face.

  “Don’t let her name come out of your mouth again.”

  “Is she happy with the new baby?” Cleo asked. “Is she a good mother?”

  “Do you have any idea what I would do to you if you went anywhere near my daughter?”

  Cleo rubbed her hands down her belly.

  “Your wife and I have something in common with the whole infertility thing. But I would find a way to give you a baby. Don’t you think we’d make a beautiful baby, Ras?”

  Ras wanted to run out of Cleo’s apartment at breakneck speed. But his feet remained rooted to the floor. It was always this way when he came here. Ever since she popped up in Jamaica, his resolve had been shattered. He would fly up to go to the studio or take a meeting with an artist. And no matter how hard he fought against it, he would find himself driving to her home in Jersey. A house she’d purchased with the funds she earned from a book that almost ended his marriage. The sheer insanity of it all dumbfounded him.

  “You don’t have to marry me,” said Cleo. “But we should have a baby. You can have two families. One here in the States. And one in Jamaica with Josephine. What’s the big deal? Aren’t you related to Bob Marley? Josephine could be your Rita Marley. And turn a blind eye while you populate the world with your seed.”

  “I’m going now,” Ras said, walking to the front door. At the door, Ras turned to face Cleo. He looked at her, but he saw his wife standing on their front porch with the baby on her hip, staring at the water, her hair blowing softly in the night breeze. No one had ever believed in him besides Josephine. And no one—not even his parents—had truly loved him like she had. Why couldn’t he do right by her?

  “I’m not doing this anymore,” Ras said. His voice cracked at the end.

  “Oh jeez, here we go again. Ras, just go. Don’t give me this spiel.”

  “You’re right. Josephine can do better. And maybe one day we will break up. And she will find someone else. But that doesn’t matter. I will never, ever want to do anything but screw you. And you know what? I think you deserve better too.”

  For the first time since they met, Ras could tell that Cleo was speechless. She sputtered and her lips moved, but she didn’t speak.

  “Whatever this is that we’ve been doing?” Ras said. “It’s not going anywhere good. The only thing we can try to do now is end this civilly.”

  “You can’t just walk away from me, Ras.”

  “We can walk away from each other.”

  “I’ve kept all your secrets. Did you forget that?”

  “Cleo, you wrote a book about every dude you had sex with. And you put me in it. How is that keeping my secrets?”

  “I know stuff about you that you don’t even know about yourself,” Cleo said defiantly. “And I’m still very close to Alex . . . Maybe she could help me write a sequel.”

  “So what is this? You’re going to blackmail me into keeping you as my side piece?”

  Ras laughed, although he thought it was more sad than funny. He walked over to Cleo and stroked her chin with his thumb. Cleo closed her eyes and leaned in for a kiss. Ras moved away.

  “You take care of yourself,” said Ras.

  Cleo grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her.

  “Wait,” she whispered. “If you’re really leaving forever . . .” She dropped to her knees and began to unzip Ras’s jeans. Before she could do anything further, Ras leaned down and grabbed her hands. He pushed her away and shook his head.

  “No, Cleo.”

  And before she could say anything else, he was gone.

  Z always stayed behind after class was dismissed. His professor, Dr. James, had a PhD in African American history from Harvard. How he ended up teaching African American Literature 101 in a continuing education program never came up. But Z could tell from the first day of class that Dr. James had seen some shit behind those wire-rimmed glasses. And once, when Z had stayed behind to talk about Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land, Dr. James got animated and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He pulled them back down quickly. But Z still saw the ancient track mark scars.

  On Mondays and Wednesdays, from seven-thirty to nine, Z stuffed himself into the wooden desk-chair combos in Scott Hall. He was amazed that he was often recognized but rarely approached. A few girls had giggled walking past him on campus. But for the most part, he went to class undisturbed. He wasn’t officially matriculated and had not declared a major.

  Z was just trying on a new skin to see what it felt like. School was one of those things that other people did. People who didn’t smoke crack apparently paid people for the privilege of being told what to read and then be tested on it. And then, after a few years of that, they got a piece of paper that said they read a lot of books and did all their homework.

  “You need to get your hands on a copy of Howard Street,” Dr. James said. “I’ve been trying to get it back in print so I can make it required reading.”

  “It’s something like Manchild?” Z asked.

  “Yes. But more chilling.”

  “It seems . . .” Z often struggled to find a non-slang word to get his point out. “It seems crazy that people could live these lives and then write books about them. They used ghostwriters or something?”

  “Did you use a ghostwriter to write any of your songs?”

  “Hell, no,” Z said.

  “You do the same exact thing that Claude Brown and Nathan Heard did. They showed off the world—as they saw it—for people to experience.”

  “Yeah, but they wrote books. I just wrote and memorized some rhymes.”

  “Although it’s not a popular opinion in my field,” Dr. James said, “I’ve always thought rapping was actually harder than writing a book. You’ve got five minutes, sometimes less, to get your story across and make me feel it. When done right, it can be more insightful than a book.”

  Z nodded.

  “There’s a song my son loves by one of the members of Wu-Tang,” Dr. James said, closing his eyes to think. “A very poignant song about growing up poor . . .”

  “‘All That I Got Is You,’” Z answered quickly.

  Z knew the song forward and backward. He was on his first promo tour, crisscrossing the country in a dilapidated tour bus with no bathroom. Jake was there and Beth too. They listened to “All That I Got Is You” on repeat from New York to Columbus, Ohio. Jake and Z argued for hours on which Jackson 5 sample RZA used.

  “So what’s so special about that song?” Z asked. He knew it had peeled back a layer on him that he wanted scabbed over forever. But he couldn’t imagine Dr. James’s son, half-white and living in upper-crust Bergen County, relating to the lyrics.

  “My son loves Wu-Tang. He’s very disappointed that he wasn’t born poor.”

  Z laughed.

  “But there’s a verse on that song,” Dr. James said. “It’s m
ore powerful than some memoirs . . .” Dr. James began to recite the lyrics. His nasally, upper-class accent made Ghostface’s lyrics sound more like poetry. It was weird for Z to hear them in plain English, with no Shaolin twang or hand gestures to illustrate.

  Seven o’clock, plucking roaches out the cereal box

  Some shared the same spoon, watching Saturday cartoons

  Sugar water was our thing, every meal was no-frill

  In the summer, free lunch held us down like steel

  Z nodded. “Whole song was hot,” he said.

  “I believe it can be harder to do that,” said Dr. James, “than to just get your story on the page start to finish.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Don’t take my word for it, try it yourself.”

  Z looked up.

  “Write a book?”

  “You’ve probably told me only ten percent of your story,” Dr. James said.

  “One percent,” Z said.

  “Exactly. And I know you have a powerful story to tell. Think about getting it down.”

  “And then what?” Z asked. “You’ll end up using it in this class as required reading?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. James. “I would leap at the chance.”

  Every single day for three weeks, Z woke up at six a.m., when the baby started crying. Instead of nudging his wife, who was usually in a Tylenol PM–induced coma, he slipped into the nursery himself, scooped up the baby, and soothed her. They would pad down to the kitchen, the house still and quiet. Baby Kipenzi would sit in her high chair, throwing back a bottle of milk. Z would sit at the island in the center of their expansive kitchen with a legal pad and a pencil.

  There was a deep indentation on the side of his right pointer finger, where his pencil pressed while he was writing. First it bruised. But now a thick callous was developing. Z wrote more in three weeks than he had in his entire life, including every song he recorded. Throughout the day, whether he was at home or in the studio, he would sit at the island and write while the boys were at school and the baby was with the nanny.

  “So what’s all this scribbling you’ve been doing?” Beth asked one morning.