Courtship: A 'Snowflake' Novel

by Nia Forrester

  “But being married doesn’t make the difference between being financially able to take care of a kid or not,” she pointed out. “You said they did the right thing because they can’t take care of a kid.”

  “I don’t think I said anything about being financially able,” he said. “Even though that’s pretty damn important. There’s more than one way to take care of your family. Money’s only a part of it.”

  Her eyes were on fire now, and she was breathing hard out of her nose. It was obvious to him that they weren’t talking about Dee and Manny anymore. They were talking about them.

  “If they love each other, and love their baby, they’d find a way …”

  “You think all the people you see with kids they don’t take care of didn’t think that way once? That they’d ‘find a way’?”

  “So, you’re saying you think it’s fine that your brother …” She said the words ‘your brother’ with emphasis, “… forced …” more emphasis, “… my cousin to have an abortion she didn’t want?”

  “I’m saying that it’s a lot worse to bring a kid into the world when you’re not ready for them, can’t take care of them, and would do more harm to them than good.”

  Jada stood, picking up the refuse from her lunch and straightening her skirt. “Anyway,” she drawled. “I have to review for my chemistry quiz. Before lunch is over.”

  Ibrahim looked up at her.

  “You can review right here,” he said calmly. He indicated the textbook under her arm. “Isn’t that why you brought that?”

  “No. I’d rather go somewhere quiet. It’s too distracting out here.” She wasn’t looking at him.

  He stood, brushing off the back of his jeans, and as Jada turned to leave, held her wrist. Pulling her toward him, he waited until he felt no resistance and then tugged again. She stepped forward and into his arms.

  Ibrahim kissed her on the temple.

  “Okay,” he said. “Lemme walk you back over.”

  Literally crossing the street put her back on campus, but he walked her anyway, then they parted, Jada heading up the slight slope that would take her to the cafeteria, and Ibrahim down the block toward where he had parked his car.

  Sometimes Jada drove him just to the edge of crazy. Big or small, she forced every issue, wanted to hash it out in the moment, no matter how inopportune the time or place. And if he wasn’t with it, or didn’t agree with her, she pouted.

  Over the past few weeks, as their thing grew more solid, he learned not to give in to it. Because Lord knew he wanted to.

  But lately, now that her parents were allowing him further into their home—twice for Sunday dinner, and to spend some time sitting in their living room to watch television, or on the front porch with Jada—Ibrahim had been paying close attention to what they said and how they behaved and taking note. Mr. and Mrs. Green had been married for over thirty-five years, but from what Ibrahim could see of how they related to each other, the primary component was respect.

  Each deferred to the other on some things and assumed primary charge of others. And on the rare occasion his wife expressed an opinion or made a choice he didn’t agree with, Ibrahim watched Mr. Green purse his lips, as if restraining himself from overruling her. Sometimes, she did get overruled, but it was only apparent when maybe permission granted was later revoked, like the time Mrs. Green told Jada she could go with Ibrahim to an outdoor midnight movie marathon. And then later rescinded that approval.

  My Dad did that, Jada complained to Ibrahim bitterly. Probably during some late-night confab like they always have.

  But while Jada saw that as a drawback, he saw it differently. He liked the way Mr. Green exercised his leadership over his family’s moral choices, never openly undermining his wife, but choosing to quietly, respectfully and behind closed doors, rein things in when they were going in a direction that he wasn’t comfortable with.

  Jada wasn’t unlike her mother, though she would have argued that she was. Mrs. Green, too, was the more emotional between her and her husband, the more talkative, the less contemplative of the two. And Mr. Green didn’t try to stifle or squelch that. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it, often smiling while his wife held forth. But in his stillness and reserve, Ibrahim felt strength and purpose—his wife was the heart of their home, but he was decidedly the head. He knew it, and Mrs. Green did as well. Their family had a final arbiter, and her husband was it. It seemed to be an arrangement that suited them both.

  With that model, Ibrahim thought as he unlocked his car and got in, Jada would probably be the same kind of wife.

  ~~~

  “You should call your girl, man. This ain’t cool.”

  “She don’ wanna see me right now,” Manny said, eyes still on the television screen as Ibrahim shoved the bag with his and Klara’s dinner into the duffel he took to work.

  He cooked and brought her dinner a couple times a week now and she covered a night or two herself. On the nights they didn’t work together, and Ibrahim was instead working Redwood City, he ate whatever Raj brought.

  “She does, though,” Ibrahim said. “She does want to see you.”

  Manny looked up. “How you know? You seen her?”

  “Nah, but I saw Jada, and she was hot. Real mad about you and Dee.”

  Manny shook his head, looking at the screen again, restarting the level of the game.

  “Of course she mad. You know how they are. But I couldn’t do other than I did, man. There was no way me and Dee could handle a kid right now. As much as her ass out there partying, I don’t know one hundred percent if it’s even mine for real. Or why she would even want it even if it is mine.”

  “She did.”

  Manny looked at him again. This time, he put the game controller down altogether.

  “You know I love that girl, and it hurt me too, man. To take her over to that clinic and then see her come out all pale … and cryin’ …” He shook his head. “But I can’t take that pain away. And I couldn’t have done any different than I did.”

  “You didn’t do anything though,” Ibrahim said, pausing at the front door, before opening it. He shrugged. “It was all her. She’s the one who had to do it. You just had to wait in the car.”

  Manny sighed and scratched the back of his neck.

  “So … she mad or what? What’d Jada say?”

  Manny had only recently found out about Ibrahim and Jada, and even what he knew—or thought he did—was limited. For reasons he couldn’t even name, Ibrahim wasn’t eager to expose his and Jada’s thing to too much of his family’s scrutiny.

  “Just call Dee. Find out for yourself.”

  Grimacing, Manny tossed aside the game controller and stood, presumably to go make the phone call. Ibrahim left the house, making a mental note to never be quite as emotionally obtuse as his brother seemed to be.

  Outside, Samuel’s van was idling at the curb, and Ibrahim went toward the back to open it when Samuel opened the window on the front passenger side.

  “C’mon up front, young man!”

  Ibrahim did as instructed, and when he got in, glanced over his shoulder into the back. No one else was in the van.

  “What’s up? Where’s everybody?”

  “Them young girls ain’t worth a damn. All of ‘em called out today. And Klara … her sciatica actin’ up.”

  “Her what?”

  “She got a pinched nerve in her back. Can’t work while she got a flare-up. Can’t hardly walk.”

  Ibrahim thought of the slightly hunched-over unevenness of the elderly woman’s gait, and the way she sometimes rested one hand on her hip.

  “Is she gon’ come back, or …?”

  Samuel shrugged as he put the van into gear and pulled away. “Maybe. Maybe not. Too bad if she don’t. Even old as she is, she work twice as hard as most o’ y’all.”

  “What about tonight? Who’s gon’ work her floors?”

  “That’s all you, young man. Ain’t nobody else.”

  “There’s you,” I
brahim pointed out.

  “Nope. I gotta take them sites those Mexican girls was s’posed to do. Messed my whole night up with they bullshit.”

  “So you need to pay me extra.”

  Samuel looked at him. “How much extra you talkin’ ‘bout?”

  “Double. I want my pay and Klara’s too.”

  “How you figure …”

  “Unless you gon’ give me twice as much time to complete the site, I’m guessing you want it done just like she’s there, with no more than another hour or two tacked on. So … If I’m working almost twice as fast, I need twice the money.”

  Ibrahim could see Samuel’s shoulders slump.

  “Fine,” he said sourly. “Double.”

  They drove in silence for a while, except for the sound of oldies station playing on the radio, and Samuel humming along to the music. Oakland whizzed by until they were on the highway, charging toward Stanford where, to hear Raj tell it, exciting things were happening that would change the course of the country, and even the world.

  As they rumbled along the interstate, Ibrahim cracked the window open, feeling the cool night air stream inside and brush against his face. He thought about Dee, recovering from her pregnancy termination and wondered whether Manny had reached her on the phone. And then he thought about Jada who, based on her cousin’s experience was holding onto unspoken fears of her own. And finally, he thought about Klara.

  “Does she have a family?” he asked aloud.

  “Does who have a family?”

  “Klara.”

  “She’s got a son in the Service. A daughter-in-law, I think. I don’t know if she got grandkids. But her husband’s been dead ‘bout ten years. Bastard up and died and ain’t left her nothin’.

  “Drank hisself to death, and all she had when he was gone was a piddlin’ little partial pension from the city and twenty-five grand from his life insurance. Who the hell only got twenty-five thousand on they life insurance? That couldn’t carry that woman more than a year if she tried.”

  “What did she do before he died?” Ibrahim asked.

  “She was a housewife. I guess we s’posed to call them homemakers now. She made that bastard a home and he died and almost left her homeless.” Samuel gave a mirthless laugh.

  Ibrahim thought of Klara’s smiling blue eyes, and the evenings she heaped his plate full of food, more than she put on her own.

  If she never recovered from her back problems, how was she going to live? This woman, who argued in favor of paying taxes might not even have enough of a paycheck to meet her basic needs. He wished he could believe, as she seemed to, that the government took care of people like her, but he knew better.

  “But she must get his social security or something, right? Her husband’s …”

  “Man, I don’t know.” Samuel sounded weary of the subject. “You ‘bout to be her social worker or somethin’? I expect she make do. With this job and what little he left her, I expect she make do.”

  ~~~

  He took a much briefer dinner break, mindful of the promise he made to Samuel to finish all the floors Klara would have done, but with only a slight increase in time. And though it was nine-forty, much later than he had ever called before, he dialed Jada’s number while eating out of his container of reheated rice and chicken.

  When Mr. Green answered, sounding none too pleased, Ibrahim hastily swallowed his mouthful and cleared his throat.

  “I apologize for calling so late, sir,” he said. “But there was something I needed to tell Jada before tomorrow. We had plans I’ll unfortunately have to change, and I didn’t want her waiting for me unnecessa…”

  “Alright, just be quick about it. As it is, she should already be in bed.”

  Before Ibrahim could thank him, he heard the ‘thunk’ of the phone being put down.

  Moments later, Jada was on the line. Her ‘hello’ was a petulant one.

  “You still mad?” Ibrahim asked her.

  “I’m not mad,” she said. “I wasn’t.”

  “Then what are you?”

  There was a long pause, but he waited through it. He wanted to give her a chance to examine her feelings and think about her response.

  “I guess … I guess I’m disappointed. Because it felt like if that was you and me … And I know you say it wouldn’t be us, but even you saying that feels like you’re saying we … I don’t know.” She trailed off then sighed, giving up. “I don’t know why I’m mad.”

  “Can I tell you why I think you’re mad?” he offered.

  Jada sighed. “Okay. Tell me.”

  “I think you see what’s happening with Dee and Manny and you see it’s real serious. Like real relationship stuff. Life and death stuff.

  “And I think because of that, it feels more real than anything you and me got going on. We don’t have sex, we just kiss sometimes and hold hands like we’re thirteen. So it feels like it’s … a game or something. Not real.”

  Ibrahim waited through the long pause, knowing she was thinking over what she’d heard.

  “Yes.” Jada finally spoke. “Exactly.”

  “Well, don’t feel like that, okay? You and me? This isn’t a game. This is very real.”

  Jada said nothing. In the background, Ibrahim heard her father’s voice, reminding her of the time.

  “Jada?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice had grown softer.

  “This is real,” Ibrahim said again. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, her voice barely audible. Then, moments later, “Ibrahim? My father …”

  “I know. You should go. G’night.”

  They hung up and Ibrahim leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath and then hastily eating the rest of his evening meal.

  32

  Then

  “Who is this again?”

  Jada clutched Ibrahim’s hand tightly as they rounded the corner and headed down a narrow side-street. It was so tight, he hadn’t even been able to park down there. If he had, and another car happened by, they would had scratched his for sure.

  “Co-worker,” he explained. “She’s been sick.”

  “Must be a pretty close co-worker for you to feel like you need to visit her when she’s sick.”

  Jada thought about the girl on the beach. The one with the flawless golden skin.

  “Kind of. She’s good people.”

  Holding in her sigh, Jada allowed him to lead her toward a seven-foot high wooden gate, which he tested, then pushed open. Once it gave and they stepped inside, Jada almost gasped. On the other side of the ugly, partly rotten wooden gate was a small garden. It bloomed in resplendent colors, with tomatoes and herbs, cabbages and cucumbers. It was like stumbling across an oasis in the middle of a slum.

  Maybe that wasn’t fair. The neighborhood wasn’t a slum, but it was certainly working-class, and almost devoid of greenery. And yet, someone had taken the time and care to create this.

  “Wow,” Jada said. She released Ibrahim’s hand, pausing to look at the vegetables while he went up to a door that was protected by the standard wrought-iron gate.

  He found and rang the bell, then they waited. When nothing happened, he rang once more, then used his car keys to knock on the gate, making a clanging noise that would have gotten the attention of anyone who might be inside, even if they were determined to ignore the doorbell.

  “Who is this?” she asked, now a third time. “Your co-worker, I mean.”

  Just as Ibrahim was about to respond, the door behind the gate opened. A woman was standing there, wearing a worn pink housedress, slippers and a weary expression. Then she seemed to bring Ibrahim into focus and her face transformed.

  “Ibrahim!” she said.

  She had a strong accent, so she pronounced it elongating the ‘Eee’ at the beginning even more than the average person might.

  Fumbling, with what looked like eagerness, she reached to her side and produced a key to unlock the iron gate. No sooner had she swung it open than she reached
out and up, like a grandmother, reaching out to embrace a favored grandchild.

  Ibrahim allowed himself to be hugged, and even stooping a little so she could get her arms around him and reaching around to lightly pat the old lady on her back.

  Jada looked on.

  What the …?

  ~~~

  Klara offered them coffee and then something called szarlotka, both of which Ibrahim refused, chiding her repeatedly to sit down. But she never stopped moving, even though each movement seemed to cause her to wince. And she never stopped smiling either, fluttering around Ibrahim, patting his face as if she couldn’t believe he was really there.

  “You keep moving around,” he told her. “So you must be planning to come back to work soon.”

  “I move around because if I stop, I die,” Klara said.

  Jada watched as Ibrahim’s face fell.

  “Don’t say that.”

  Klara shrugged. “Everyone dies. But I am not ready. I am not ready to come back to work either. Maybe one more week.”

  Ibrahim nodded. “You will come back though?”

  Klara beamed, her bright blue eyes becoming almost invisible among her wrinkles and between her puffy eyes. As happy as she seemed to be in Ibrahim’s company, she didn’t look well.

  “I think he misses me,” Klara said, addressing Jada.

  Jada smiled and nodded. “I think he does.”

  Ibrahim shook his head. “I miss the liver and onions,” he said. “It’s been three weeks and I’m gettin’ sick of my own cooking.”

  Klara laughed. “Even if I don’t work, I make you liver and onions. You come to dinner, you bring your lovely girl …” She nodded in Jada’s direction. “And I make you liver and onions.”

  “Maybe. But if I do that you might get it in your head you don’t have to come back,” Ibrahim said. “And I don’t want that.”

  He stood, pulling something out of his back pocket and putting it on Klara’s coffee table. It was an envelope.