Courtship: A 'Snowflake' Novel

by Nia Forrester

  Jada told him that her curfew was midnight, but he figured it was better to err on the side of the conservative this first time he came to formally take her out. He had no doubt that whatever hour he got Jada back home, her father would be there, checking the clock.

  “You kids have a good time,” Mr. Green finally said. He turned away a little one shoulder pointing in the direction of the kitchen, indicating without words that his inspection was concluded and that they were free to go.

  “Thank you, sir. You both have a good afternoon.”

  As they were leaving, Jada reached for her pocketbook with one hand, and with the other, she reached for Ibrahim’s hand. He saw her parents take note of the gesture and tightened his hand about hers as they turned to go.

  Outside, he let Jada into the car before getting in himself, feeling eyes on him from inside the house, though he didn’t dare turn around to look. He could feel his blood pressure gradually return to normal, and the pace of his heart slowed when finally, he and Jada were pulling away from the curb.

  They didn’t speak. About a mile into the drive to the movie theater, Ibrahim reached out to took Jada’s hand in his, just as she had done inside the house. This time though, he interlaced their fingers, and put their joined hands to rest lightly on her thigh.

  At the theater, after they stood in line to buy their tickets and were about to file into the screening room, Jada tugged on his hand, leading him to the concession stand. Ibrahim had been hoping she wouldn’t but was prepared for it.

  After the movie, he wanted to take her for ice cream, because that had become kind of their thing, and then wander around the mall. Maybe they would have something to eat in the food court. But if she had candy and popcorn, some of the rest of that plan might suffer.

  “A movie’s not the same without salty, buttery popcorn,” she said as they joined the queue.

  “If you think that’s butter, you’re killing yourself,” he said dryly.

  “You mean kidding myself?” Jada laughed.

  “No, killing yourself. That crap they’re squirting is definitely not real butter It’s probably just yellow, salted lard or some crap like that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I forgot. You’re Mister Healthy Eater nowadays.”

  He had been, actually.

  With Raj’s help, he had found some work-arounds, ways to eat healthy even with the limited offerings in his neighborhood. Mostly it meant just getting everything fresh—vegetables, meat, fruit—and cooking whatever he wanted himself, rather than getting frozen or prepared foods. For the first time in years, his family’s kitchen was being used for more than a place to light up a spliff or pour milk for endless bowls of cereal.

  His brothers and father so far hadn’t liked his most of his attempts at cooking, because he was following recipes for Indian food. But the last few times he cooked, he’d roasted a whole chicken and cooked wild rice and they acted like he’d walked on water.

  “Separate bags of popcorn,” Ibrahim told Jada now.

  “No,” she added a little whine to her voice that was impossible to resist. “It’s more fun when we share.”

  He grinned down at her and shook his head. To look back up at him, she had to let her head fall all the way back, so his eyes fell naturally to the curve of her neck. He wanted to kiss her there and was contemplating doing just that when someone slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Prophet! That you, cuz?”

  He recognized the voice immediately and turned to face his homeboy, Korbel. Korbel used to be a runner with him, both of them being schooled in the game around the same time. But while he hadn’t moved up, mostly because of his time in GDJ, word on the street was that Korbel had. And quickly.

  The only way that rapid ascent happened, Ibrahim knew, was if you proved yourself out in the streets, got into some real shit. The kind that involved crying mothers and girlfriends, and coffins draped with blood-red bandanas.

  “I thought you was still inside, cuz!”

  Korbel, who was holding a little boy on his shoulders, who was dressed identically to him, leaned in and Ibrahim held him in a tight embrace, making it impossible for Korbel to throw out any of the signs Ibrahim knew were coming.

  “Nah. Been out for a minute,” Ibrahim said, shifting his body a little so that Jada was behind, rather than next to him.

  “You look good! How I ain’ seen you over there by the spot?”

  “Tryna lay low for a short. You know.”

  Korbel nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. I hear that. But you need to c’mon through sometime.”

  Ibrahim had been over at the spot. The first night he was out, for the party. And he had tried not to be there since. He didn’t know why Korbel hadn’t been there that night, nor heard about it, but he could guess. If what he suspected was true about Korbel’s promotion, he had probably been off somewhere laying low himself for a while.

  Just over his shoulder, Ibrahim sensed that Jada had stepped further away from him as the line advanced.

  “Your brother ‘round here somewhere?” Korbel asked.

  Everyone was used to seeing him out with Manny, like frick-and-frack they used to be. But no more.

  “Nah. Just me,” Ibrahim said, now that he was sure Jada couldn’t hear him.

  He knew that even if Korbel later saw him with Jada, he wouldn’t even feel lied to. Girls weren’t that important. Saying he was alone just meant no one else from the set was around.

  “When you ready to get back into some things, come find me,” Korbel said. “We big-time now. Mad cabbage out there up for grabs.”

  Ibrahim nodded. “I’ll find you,” he lied.

  Korbel embraced him again, and Ibrahim watched as he left before turning around just in time to see Jada about to pay for a large popcorn and soda.

  “I got it,” he said, stepping in quickly. “This all you want?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. But you got the tickets, so I don’t mind …”

  “Nah,” Ibrahim said firmly. “I got it.”

  He pulled out his wallet and peeled off a twenty, handing it to the cashier.

  Only when they’d gotten their snacks and were heading into the movie did Jada ask him.

  “Why didn’t you introduce me to your friend?”

  Ibrahim paused, holding the door for her so she could enter the screening room ahead of him. His eyes adjusted to the gloom.

  “That’s … He’s not somebody you need to know,” Ibrahim said.

  “Why?” Jada asked.

  “Jada. You know why,” he said.

  They walked together to a spot near the middle of the amphitheater, and Ibrahim again paused to let her go first when they found a good row. It was empty, save a couple at the far end. They stopped somewhere in the center and sat.

  “Are you ever going to … tell me about all that?” Jada took the popcorn from him and held it in her lap while he got situated next to her with the oversize cup of soda.

  “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “I don’t think so.”

  She sighed, and then they were both silent for a little while. Onscreen, a cartoon hot dog was dancing with cartoon Twizzlers.

  “Do you … have kids?”

  Ibrahim laughed at the unexpectedness of the question. He supposed it wasn’t so strange that she should ask. Lots of his friends did. And she had just seen Korbel with his son.

  “No,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I don’t have kids.”

  Jada nodded, satisfied. “Okay,” she said.

  The lights fell, the screen brightened. And the previews began.

  22

  Now

  “Will you stay?” Asha asks. “Will you and Pop stay the night?”

  Jada looks up from changing her grandson. Anwar is barely awake, his chubby hands opening and closing, clutching at nothing. As soon as his diaper is secure and she puts him in his crib, he will drift off, exhausted from the hours of noise, and smells and hubbub at the festival.

  “I’m fi
ne with staying if he is. Ask him.”

  Asha nods and smiles. “I will.”

  Jada knows that if Asha asks, they are likely to stay.

  Ibrahim has warmed to their daughter-in-law, though he was skeptical in the beginning. Then Jada reminded him how young they had been when they got married.

  And ours was not even a shotgun wedding, either, she had teased.

  Although Asha was pregnant when she and Kal made things official, Jada sensed that even if she hadn’t been, it was only a matter of time before he would get married. Kaleem would not have admitted it, or maybe he didn’t even realize it, but in all the years that his father was away, he was almost unknowable, even to her, his mother. And Ibrahim getting out when he did, around the time Kal met Asha seemed ordained, because it was then that her son seemed to truly bloom and allow someone—Jada included—behind the hard shell of his self-sufficiency and laser-like focus.

  The running, she always believed, was a proxy for the closeness Kaleem was unable to have with his father. And like his father, it was part of him now, inextricable from everything else that made him who he was.

  “Should we let him sleep now?” Jada asks her daughter-in-law as Anwar’s eyes finally flutter and remain shut. “He might be up late tonight if we do.”

  Asha shrugs. “It’s fine. Kal gets up and sits with him when he does. They play a little until he falls right back asleep.”

  Smiling, Jada imagines the scene, of Kal getting up and holding his son, carrying him around the house, or lying on the sofa, Anwar on his chest.

  It is incredible to believe. Here she is, a grandmother and not yet even fifty. But she is grateful to be still young enough to truly enjoy the best parts of Anwar’s babyhood, old enough to no longer wish she had another baby of her own.

  “How’re you doing with the training hours and all that?” Jada asks as Asha lifts Anwar and moves him to the center of the bed. She puts him on his back and rests two pillows on either side of him.

  “Fine. I’m used to it. The hours and all that aren’t that big a deal anymore. The only part that’s nerve-wracking is imagining everything that could go wrong.”

  Jada laughs. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Him pulling a muscle, getting hit by a car … I don’t know.”

  Jada loves this about Asha, her tendency to worry about Kaleem. Her worry is so constant it seems to obviate the need for Jada’s. And though it’s obvious that Asha only worries because she cannot quite believe her good fortune—a home, a husband who loves her, a beautiful new baby—Jada loves her for it. She is a caretaker by nature, and only fate would see her married to Kaleem, someone who for most of his life convinced himself he needed no one to take care of him.

  Asha keeps house and takes care of what she calls her “boys.” She rarely allows Kaleem to cook, to clean, or do anything at all domestically. And she announces it when she is about to do just about anything that involves spending money. Not quite asking for permission, but still, asking for permission.

  Ibrahim had, even when they were dating, taken care of all things financial. Even when Jada knew it was a strain. But he didn’t want her to share any measure of the burden of paying for things. He was only ever angry or frustrated back then when he feared he could not provide. That ethos, she is sure, is the same one that Kal uses to guide his family. From what she’s seen, there is nothing Asha suggests that Kal can bring himself to say no to.

  Ibrahim was the same when they were dating, and when they were just married, before Kal was born. It was romantic. She had always been taken care of, so to have Ibrahim step in and say that forever after, he would still take care of her seemed natural. But now she sees that it created a pattern that she had to later unlearn. And it is that unlearning that causes problems with her husband now.

  Even now that he is unable to take care of them—or because he is unable—he struggles with the fact that she can.

  “Y’all want to go out for dinner? Before you drive back?”

  Kal has stuck his head into the bedroom, and Asha shushes him with a finger over her lips, indicating Anwar asleep on the bed.

  “They’re staying the night,” Asha tells him.

  “Oh. Cool. Pops know that?” Kal asks, his voice lower this time.

  “No, but he’ll be fine with it.”

  “We can still go out.”

  “The baby just went down,” Jada points out.

  “We take him everywhere we go, Ma. It’s fine. He does okay in restaurants.”

  “Let’s not waste the money,” she says, thinking of Ibrahim’s likely anxiety when, at a restaurant, the check arrives. “I’ll cook.”

  Kal shrugs. “A’ight. Bet. Lemme let Pops know.”

  When he is gone again, Asha goes to lie on her side on the bed next to Anwar. Jada takes a seat in a rocking chair in one corner of the room, setting aside the blanket that was resting on its arm.

  “Did you ever think about having more than just Kal?” Asha asks, reaching out and smoothing Anwar’s curls back from his forehead.

  “I did.” Jada allows herself to rock a little in the chair, even though it makes her feel a little more grandmotherly than is consistent with her self-image. “I would have liked three.”

  “Why didn’t you? If that’s not too personal.”

  Jada waves a hand. “No, it’s fine. Ibrahim was worried. That we wouldn’t be able to give them all the things he wanted to give them as a father.”

  At that, Asha’s eyes and face drop a little.

  “Do you want more?” Jada asks her.

  She nods. “But …” She shrugs. “Kal has the same concerns I guess.”

  “He’s his father’s son.”

  “I know,” Asha’s voice is thoughtful. She twirls a loc around her finger and stares down at the coverlet. “And I even get where he’s coming from. But I keep telling him, we don’t need to be rich. I could be happy living just like this, for the rest of our lives …”

  “But with more babies,” Jada says, “It might not be just like this. It might be harder.”

  She can scarcely believe she’s making the same arguments that were used against her all those years ago.

  Asha nods. “Yes. With more babies it would be harder. But … at least one more. I would settle for one.”

  Jada smiles at her, this girl with the sweet manners and golden eyes isn’t what she imagined for Kaleem. She had put her money on him finding a brash assertive woman who would keep him in line. A mouthy sister. Basically, she thought he would marry a younger version of herself. Isn’t that what every mother secretly imagines? That their son will find a very similar but, in some ways better version of her to make his life with?

  But Asha does keep him in line in her own gentle, coaxing way. No, but that isn’t right either. She doesn’t keep him in line. She makes him want to stay in line, want to be better. For her.

  “If that’s what you want, Asha,” she says. “What you really want? Then I have no doubt Kaleem will make sure you get it.”

  ~~~

  “Can’t do it,” Kaleem says, just as Jada is about to dice the onions. “I know you said you would cook, but I can’t let you do it.”

  “I don’t mind. How often do I get to cook for my son anymore?”

  “I know. But I feel like you and Pops should be relaxin’. Take a walk ‘round the neighborhood or something. Me and Ash will take care of making dinner.”

  “You and Ash?” Jada rolls her eyes. “You sure she won’t be the one doing all the work?”

  “I swear.” Kal laughs. “I know how to cook, too, y’know.”

  “I know. I taught you.”

  “You taught me some,” he emphasized. “Now I take things to a whole different level.”

  “You do, huh? Okay, fine. You cook. And show me some of this whole different level you got going on.” She hands him the knife she was holding.

  His hands are large. He is large. He towers over her by almost a foot. Sometimes it is difficu
lt to believe that this tall, strong, handsome man came from her.

  Sometimes, though she has long passed the point of active yearning, she still wishes that she had more. Asha’s questions have aroused the memory in her, of what that felt like—watching her son grow, loving him so much it felt like a twist of her heart, and wondering wistfully what a daughter of hers and Ibrahim’s would have looked like.

  She is still thinking about that when eventually, Ibrahim is persuaded that they should go get some fresh air while Kal cooks, and Asha naps with Anwar.

  They walk down the block heading west, their hands brushing as they walk. Ibrahim suddenly takes hers and she tenses, then relaxes.

  Earlier today, when they were walking to the café, she had wished for him to hold her hand and he hadn’t. Now, she almost resents that he has.

  “Why didn’t we have more kids?”

  Ibrahim misses a step, then he gives a short laugh.

  “Does everybody have babies on the brain today?”

  “Why? Who else …? Did Asha talk to you, too?”

  “Asha? No. Kaleem. He says she wants more. And he wants to as well. I can tell he does.”

  “And you. Why didn’t you want them? When I was begging you to grow our family, you were so … rigid. You never even considered it.”

  “I did consider it. And it wasn’t the right move for us.”

  “Why? Because you were … building a business empire?”

  She is surprised by how bitter, how sardonic she sounds. And by how easily the rawness of her emotions then, come back to her now. It is a stupid fight to start, and one that she knows full well has no resolution. Not so many years after the fact, and so many years after either of them can reasonably do anything about it.

  “I wish I was building an empire.” Ibrahim drops her hand. “Instead I was just barely making sure I could keep my wife and the kid I did have, fed and clothed and with a roof over their heads.”

  “I worked too. We would have made do.”

  “Made do?” Ibrahim stops walking now. He turns to look at her. “Since when have you ever known how to do that? Is that how you grew up? Making do? When I met you, you were in private school. You wore forty-dollar penny loafers, you …” He breaks off and runs a hand over his head.