Courtship: A 'Snowflake' Novel

by Nia Forrester

  In the car, headed back to the house, neither of them speaks. They remain silent once they get there and are unpacking the groceries.

  When they’re done, Ibrahim leans against the kitchen counter and looks her over. He is wearing just a simple white shirt, dark jeans, and runners. In his case, age really is nothing but a number. She can still see the young man he was when they first met.

  “Let’s go out,” he says. “Go have lunch somewhere.”

  The suggestion is a surprise, especially since the tiff they just had was about money, or kind of about money.

  But Jada nods anyway.

  Outside, when she heads toward the car, Ibrahim briefly touches her hand.

  “We’ll walk,” he says.

  She hesitates, only because it is warm, and if they walk a long way, she’ll have to wash and twist her hair again, a several hours’ long enterprise because her hair is so long, and so thick.

  She is forty-six, so it occasionally enters Jada’s mind that she might be due to think about shorter hair, but Ibrahim loves it long.

  “It isn’t far,” he says, reading her hesitation.

  They walk next to each other, their arms occasionally brushing, but they don’t hold hands. Jada wants to reach out and grasp his, but doesn’t, because she isn’t sure what this excursion is about.

  The neighborhood, as they walk through it looks different to her. She knew it was changing, of course, but she most often sees those differences from the inside of her moving car. And when she isn’t in the car, she is getting out of it, only to head toward a very specific location—grocery store, bank, post office.

  Those fly-bys don’t give her the opportunity to truly see what she is seeing now. That there are trendier cars. Fewer young men in undershirts and sagging jeans. Fewer teenage girls posing at the corners, waiting for one of those young men to show them a little attention.

  Now there are people jogging, walking dogs, planting flowers. There are some holdouts, older Black and Latin couples whose children have long moved away, mixed in among the younger set, new homeowners—mostly white—who are undaunted by the label “transitioning neighborhood” and have chosen this place to set down their roots.

  When she and Ibrahim bought their house here, the neighborhood wasn’t exactly a “bad” one, but it wasn’t good either. She wasn’t sure about it as a place to live, but he was.

  These are our folks, he said with confidence. We understand them. We’ll be okay here.

  It was probably more accurate to say that they were his folks. He was California born and bred, while her family was from South Carolina. Her parents had been on the West Coast for decades by the time she and Ibrahim met, but still considered themselves newcomers and southerners, and had lived cautiously, carefully in a much more family-friendly neighborhood than the one that Ibrahim chose for his new family. Jada had grown up sheltered like a South Carolinian girl. Ibrahim had opened a door, in more ways than one, to a new life.

  They are walking only for ten minutes when they happen upon the sidewalk café. The outdoor seating is shaded with grey umbrellas. The small clapboard building, painted dove-white also has a grey awning. It reads ‘Free Range’.

  Jada looks at her husband, a question on her lips that she doesn’t have time to speak aloud before a blonde girl with frizzy hair rushes up to them.

  “You’re back!” she says, looking at Ibrahim.

  “I am.” He puts a hand at Jada’s waist. “This is my wife, Jada,” he says. “Jada, this is Thea. She owns the place with her partner, Martin.”

  “Good to meet you, Mrs. Carter. Mr. Carter—Ibrahim—is one of my best customers. Came in our first week, and I see him at least a couple times a week since.”

  Jada smiles uncertainly and takes Thea’s proffered hand.

  “Are you two having lunch?” She indicates the open tables.

  “Yes. Thank you. But inside, if you have room,” Ibrahim says.

  “Of course.”

  They follow Thea into the cool interior and are given a seat at the window. The inside is charming, with rustic wood floors, rough-hewn furniture and a glass-front display case with baked goods, and open barrels of grains, and loaves of bread in paper bags, like one might see in an old-style general store.

  Thea hands them menus, printed on stock the color of a brown paper bag, and with the same texture. There are only about a dozen selections.

  “Thank you,” Jada tells her before she glides away.

  She isn’t sure why Ibrahim would bring her here. She knows about Free Range, of course, because it made a splashy entrance to the neighborhood, displacing a corner store owned by a smiling old Mexican couple, the Ortegas. When the Ortegas began planning for their move back to Mexico, as Jada recalled it, they were happy. They had saved enough to build a house in a small village close to where Mrs. Ortega had grown up, and with the sale of the building would have enough to live out their years comfortably without working. But the rumor around the neighborhood, stoked by fear and resentment of any newcomers was that the Ortega family had been forced out by higher taxes.

  It wasn’t true, but the spirit of the rumor seemed valid enough, and Free Range became a lightning rod for a short while until some of the neighborhood’s newer residents were slowly seduced by its homey and welcoming façade.

  Jada had never been inside before, though she knew Ibrahim occasionally came here. She didn’t know he came often enough for the proprietor to call him by his first name.

  “So, this is where you were this morning,” she says, not looking up from the menu. She isn’t seeing or absorbing anything on it.

  “This is where I was,” he confirms. “This is where I am most of those mornings, when you wake up and don’t find me next to you.”

  At that, Jada lifts her head, worriedly searching his expression.

  “What is it you’re trying to tell me, Ibrahim?” she asks.

  “That this is where I go,” he says simply. He leans in, and indicates a young man behind the counter, talking to a customer. “That’s Martin. Thea’s partner.”

  Jada nods, still not sure where he is heading with all this.

  “He’s not here as much as Thea, so I wind up talking to her mostly. Which suits me fine. Because he’s a poser. Rich kid who’s living out some anti-capitalist liberation fantasy while still making a lot of money.”

  One corner of Jada’s mouth lifts in a half-smile. Ibrahim, and his discerning mind.

  “Thea is more real, I think. But conflicted. See that girl over there?”

  He points out a short, stocky young woman with a head shaved almost clean on one side, and a shock of spiky dark hair on the other. “She’s also Martin’s partner. They’re poly.”

  “Poly?”

  “Polyamorous. Non-monogamous. Thea told me that this morning when I was here, eating my spinach omelet and drinking a cup of tea. And we talked about God, and religion. She doesn’t believe in either. I told her I only believe in the Most Holy, but not in religion.”

  “Ibrahim, I don’t …” Jada put down her menu. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. What is this all about?”

  “I got home this morning.” He is speaking slowly. “And you looked at me with doubt. My wife looked at me and didn’t know for a moment that she is my everything. And she wondered whether there might be someone, somewhere … something that made me stray from her.”

  Jada blinked back the sudden tears.

  “And I can’t have that. Ibrahim shakes his head. “So, I want you to know where I go, what I do when I’m there and who I talk to. Because I want you to understand that there is no part of me, no part of my life that I will ever deny you access to if you ask.”

  Ibrahim reaches for her hand, holding one of hers in both of his.

  “I can’t lie, baby,” he says, lowering his voice. He sighs. “I’m up against the ropes right now. I don’t know. Maybe we both are. But we’re not down for the count. Not yet.”

  3

>   Then

  The strange, sweet yet pungent smoke was weed. Jada knew that much. Not that she had ever consciously smelled it before. But it was one of those weirdly identifiable odors, like the rotting corpse of a dead animal—you knew what it was immediately, without even knowing how you knew.

  “You alright?” Dee momentarily turned away from her friend, a guy in a blue football jersey whose name Jada had missed when they were introduced.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” She tried to make her voice sound airy and casual, but honestly, she was having a lousy time.

  This is a real ‘hood party, Jada, Dee had warned her. Ain’t no nice prep school boys over there where we gon’ be at.

  So, Jada wasn’t about to admit that she thought she was prepared but hadn’t been. She hadn’t given much thought to what a “hood party” entailed. All she knew was that she was restless, and her parents’ temporary inattention about where she and Dee might be going seemed too rare an opportunity to pass up.

  The overpowering scent of weed was only part of it. The entire set-up at the party was weird. They were at a house, except no one seemed to live in the house. When they walked through it to get to the backyard where most people were gathered, they passed by the living room which was sparse. There were only two mismatched sofas and a large-screen television, around which a bunch of guys were watching a boxing match, some of them with girls perched on their knees.

  Then they went through the kitchen, but that, too, was barely furnished. And when Jada dodged by a few people to get to the bathroom, she noticed two bedrooms with doors ajar. People were inside, sitting or sprawled on bare mattresses on the floor, and the remains of takeout meals were scattered around. There were no personal effects of any kind in view—no pictures on the walls, no items of clothing hanging on doorknobs, nothing to indicate that anyone had an interest in taking care of the place, or making it look even somewhat presentable.

  She wondered whether they were all trespassing in an abandoned building, but when she asked Dee, her cousin had laughed at her like it was the dumbest question she had ever heard. Jada didn’t know what was funny.

  Once they got to the backyard, Dee’s eyes searched the crowd for a few moments until finally she seemed to resign herself to something and fell into conversation with the football jersey guy. He nodded when Jada was introduced and handed her a red Dixie cup, then left to get himself another. But just as Jada was about to taste the contents of the cup, Dee had snatched it out of her hand and poured the contents into her own.

  From the smell of it, it was malt liquor. She didn’t mind Dee taking it, because she had tried it once, and hated it right away. But she took the empty cup back from her cousin anyway, because almost everyone else was holding one and she didn’t really have anything else to do except that—hold the cup, sway to the music, pretend to be having a good time.

  “We can leave in a minute,” Dee told her. “I thought … oh shit.”

  Then she turned abruptly away again and resumed her conversation with the Raiders jersey guy.

  Looking around, trying to find the cause of Dee’s alarm, Jada spotted him right away.

  Immanuel Carter had just emerged from the house. Stepping out into the backyard, he surveyed the scene in much the way Dee and Jada had earlier.

  Immanuel, or “Manny” as Dee called him, was her cousin’s boyfriend. And although, to hear Dee tell it, he was “a dog, a straight up and down dog” they had one of those relationships that were both committed and not committed at the same time. It was like they were stars in a dramatic play, where the main cast of characters was comprised of just the two of them and other people rotated on- and offstage, never being elevated from their role as temporary bit-players with fleeting appearances.

  The trouble usually started when the bit-players forgot themselves and tried to take one of the starring roles. Recently, there had been “some bitch from over by Fruitvale” who tried to take Dee’s spot, and when Manny didn’t correct her quickly enough, Dee retaliated. So now they were broken up, though Jada had no confidence that things would stay that way for very long.

  “Don’t look at him!” Dee hissed when Jada’s eyes lingered in Manny’s vicinity.

  But Jada wasn’t looking at him.

  She was looking at the guy next to him.

  His brother, for sure, or some other close relative. Though Immanuel had the kind of devious handsomeness that would always get him lots of female attention, his maybe-brother had a smoldering, pensive and to Jada’s eye, much more interesting look.

  Heavy-lidded, intelligent, almost watchful eyes, and an ease of motion that contrasted with Manny’s boastful, bouncy gait. Both were dark in complexion, but unlike Jada’s cool darkness, their skin seemed lit with a golden-brown light, making their cheekbones, chins, and square jaws more noticeable.

  While Manny’s expression was open and approachable, the other guy’s was closed and difficult to read. And Manny had shorn his hair close, while his maybe-brother had cornrows.

  Jada hated cornrows on guys. Her father always spoke of that style on men with disdain, calling it “field-hand hair.” That feeling of derision had rubbed off on her, because involuntarily, the phrase rang in her head whenever she saw it: field-hand hair.

  Young men who wear their hair like that? It speaks to their life prospects, her father said. In other words, they have none.

  She felt none of that derision now though.

  “Who is that?” Jada said into Dee’s ear. “The guy with Manny.”

  “I told you, stop looking over there!” Dee snapped.

  Jada forced herself to turn away, but not without one last look at the smooth, silky blackness of Manny’s companion’s heavy eyebrows, the full lips, slightly darker than the rest of his complexion. Something in her stomach fluttered a little when she looked at those lips.

  It didn’t take long for Manny to spot Dee and come toward them. He didn’t seem to see anyone but Dee, and didn’t even acknowledge Raiders jersey guy before he said a few words to her and pulled her away to talk.

  “Be back in a short, Prophet,” he said over his shoulder.

  And Jada was left standing there, alone except for Raiders guy and … Prophet? Was that what Manny had called him?

  Sneaking a look in his direction, she realized he was looking at her as well. He held out a hand.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Ibrahim.”

  Ibrahim.

  She smiled.

  His voice was like Manny’s as well. Jada was sure now, that he was his brother. Younger by a few years though, probably about her age.

  “I’m Jada,” she said, taking the hand. It was warm, rough.

  She was surprised by how calm she sounded when inside, her stomach was roiling with excitement, like something she had been waiting for, without knowing she had been waiting for it, was finally happening. And she wasn’t even sure what that something was.

  She held his hand and shook it. And smiled yet again because shaking hands seemed like a strangely formal greeting for someone who, from the moment she saw him, felt very familiar.

  ~~~

  “How’d you wind up at this party?”

  They were sitting on the curb outside, between two parallel-parked cars. They were close together because the space between bumpers was less than three feet. Prophet’s legs were stretched out in front of him, and Jada did the same, noticing how much farther his legs went than hers, and the size of his feet.

  She felt dwarfed next to him, but pleasantly so, like if he turned and wrapped her in his arms, she would disappear altogether.

  “I’m just escaping a paper for AP English,” she said semi-honestly.

  Really, she was escaping boredom in general. Whenever she was with Dee, something exciting seemed to happen.

  “What’s the paper about?”

  “Black radicalism from the early sixties through late seventies,” Jada said.

  Prophet nodded. “Because of Huey?” he said.

&n
bsp; “Yes. Because of Huey.”

  Just a month earlier, in Lower Bottoms, Huey P. Newton had been shot dead on the street, only minutes away from what had once been the headquarters of the Black Panther Party. And although it took less than a week for a young man to be arrested and charged, people were still talking about it. They especially couldn’t seem to get over one tragic detail—that the motive for the killing was supposedly a drug deal gone bad.

  The idea, that a lion of the latter day Black civil rights movement had died trying to buy crack cocaine on the very same streets where he once worked to develop nutrition and healthcare programs for poor Black citizens of Oakland had been heartbreaking to hear, and folks were still reeling. Even Jada’s father, as conservative a man as they came, had for two weeks after news of Huey’s murder, sometimes spontaneously stopped in the middle of doing something and shook his head slowly, sadly, and in recurrent disbelief.

  “You think he was a ‘radical’?” Prophet asked.

  Jada shrugged. “That’s how people talk about him, so …”

  “Is that how you plan to talk about him in your English paper?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, realizing she hadn’t really given it that much thought.

  “I guess that’s how they’d see it though, huh? Young, Black men and women working together for the good of their community. That’s ‘radical’ to them. But then for him to get shot doing a dope deal? They probably feel like now the world makes sense again.”

  She didn’t ask who he meant by “they” and “them.”

  “I never thought about it that way,” she admitted. “I was going to write about how it’s kind of weird when you think about it. How, like … his destiny was tied to those streets. That he’d die there, in the same place where he spent so much of his life trying to make things better … Anyway … it’s just weird.”

  He was watching and listening so intently that she stopped and shook her head, embarrassed at having run on like that.

  “Anyhow, that’s what my English paper is about.” She let her gaze drop to the street, still feeling his eyes on her.