The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

by Junauda Petrus

  they lay hands on they own throat

  singin’ rock steady to the stars

  and it was church on clay and patience and

  they welcomed the stillness

  they was birthed from the mother of sweetness

  of honey and cinnamon and rose and rivers

  of sugarcane juice to drink

  the goddess crowned of horns

  don’t test her

  raven skin women of Hathor

  pleasure conjurers shaved heads and pretty smiles.

  they collect the wisdom in the heartache

  and accumulate secondhand books

  to waterfall they lives and they make queendom

  from the forgotten spaces we was banished to

  and laugh when the sun rise on they dynasty.

  MABEL

  THE SPRING AIR HAS BEEN PARTICULARLY WARM and all of the mountains of snow that had inhabited the city are slowly melting away from sidewalks, backyards, and tall trees. As we drive north, there is a chill, but you can still feel the warmth at the edges of life ready to take over. I’m next to Audre in the back seat, with Ursa in the front passenger seat, and Jazzy driving. We are heading to Lake Superior to hang out at a cabin, owned by a family friend, that our family used to come to every summer, but haven’t for a couple of years. Audre has never been to Lake Superior, and I can’t wait for her to see it. I remember when I was a kid, I used to think it was the ocean, and as usual I wonder what she will think of the freshwater sea, how it will compare to the sea in her heart.

  This is the first time we’ve all been together since the #Mabelforeverfreeafua protest, and I still don’t know how to thank them, though I’ve been trying. Turns out that the protest didn’t even need to go viral or make CNN. Turns out that Afua and me had a bodyguard, and she wasn’t a basic Kevin Costner white boy. My mom got the whole story. A woman—a Black woman—on the board of Life Wish, who’s also the CEO of some new tech company, heard about the protest. Turns out she went to law school with the woman who just got elected attorney general of New York—another Black woman. And now it looks like I’m going to get my wish. Kinda. We’ll see.

  When Mom explained all this, I remembered the dream—of teenage Queenie helping out the other kid. Of Bamba Rose’s words: “Life is hard for women, because we strong and the world ain’t wan’ to love us for it. From since I young, I see it.” So we look out for each other—old, young, whatever.

  “So tell me about myself, Mabel. Astrologically speaking, that is boo.” Jazzy interrupts my thoughts from the front seat, her face focused on the road ahead, while Ursa is next to her bumping her head to some trap music. I have an astrology book on my lap and several blankets wrapped around my thinning and always-cold body.

  “Well, I will do my best, ’cause I’m still learning.” I’m searching with my finger to find her birthdate. “Hmmm . . . So, Jazzy, your Sun is in Taurus, which you know already. Your Sun is, like, how you reflect out into the world and how people know you, and Taureans are very bold and beautiful,” I say.

  “Preach!” says Jazzy.

  “And confident in themselves . . . They are also an earth sign, so that makes them grounded and reliable. And Taurus is ruled by Venus, so that is also why you are very loving and dress cute all of the time,” I say, as my finger continues down the page to see the diagonal arrow symbol next to her Moon placing. “Umm . . . let me see. Moon in Sagittarius and Mercury in Gemini seems to make a lot of sense too, because you are very fun and adventurous as well as love to study a lot of stuff,” I say, and keep looking at my book and after months of studying astrology, I’m feeling strangely natural at understanding how to explain what the symbols and stuff mean.

  Jazzy giggles. “I don’t know what none of the astrology stuff means, but what you saying is on point. You got skills, Mabel.” She drives us past tall pine trees on either side of the road and encourages me to continue.

  “Well, also your Venus is in Aquarius so in matters of love, you are very . . . hmmm. How do I describe this . . .” I think for a second. “You need a sense of freedom and also for things to be deep. You love the world, and a love relationship for you has to be intriguing on more than just physical ways, since Aquarians fall in love with energy and intelligence,” I say, looking through my notes on Aquarius in my astrology notebook.

  Jazzy sneaks a quick look over at Ursa in the passenger seat, while Ursa gazes back at her with a look of love. She places her hand on Jazzy’s thigh.

  I’ve been sick and away from them most of the year, and seeing them together is really sweet. Ursa has never actually been with someone before, and Jazzy is making her smile in ways that I ain’t ever seen. I look over at Audre rocking a turquoise and blue headwrap and looking out the window through her thick glasses.

  “Audre, how are you doing?” My question seems to whisk her away from deep in thought, and she turns to me smiling.

  “Oh, yes, I good. I just enjoying listening to you all and watching at all of the trees and ting pass by, it real pretty. How are you feeling, Mabel? You need tea or anything?”

  I tell her that would be good. I used to cringe and feel stupid when Audre would first do things for me, but she helped me get over that and I’m grateful, because she has truly made the last several months not as bad.

  She adjusts my blankets to snuggle me in better. She digs into my bag with all my medicine and special food and pulls out a thermos of an herbal tea blend her and my mama came up with. One of my parents’ conditions of this trip is that all of the homies would promise to take care of me and call and text my parents about how I’m doing periodically. Audre, of course is my dreamo nurse, so she is the most natural of all of the homies at this. It took a lot of persuading for me to want to go. I feel like my body is unpredictable, and it’s hard to be sick, but now I’m glad I came.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was eager to show Audre the view of the lake, so we left everything in the car, and I hustled the homies to the big sliding glass doors that looked out at Lake Superior. Ursa opened the doors and helped me onto the patio with Audre at my back.

  “So wait, now. This is supposed to be a lake? I can’t believe it so big and wide,” Audre says, as we look off the balcony and at the horizon of Lake Superior that is blue with craters of snow at the edge of it. We meet eyes and I offer her a wing of my blanket. She snuggles in next to me.

  “I could look at this lake all day,” says Jazzy, with her chin hooked on Ursa’s shoulder and arms around her waist.

  After a few minutes of quiet on the patio, we head back into the house and take in the space we will be at for the next two days. This place is more like a really nice bougie house in the woods than a cabin. The place is cozy, painted in earth tones and filled with soft and sturdy furniture, colorful artwork and board games galore and DVDs and old-school VHS tapes. And there’s a Jacuzzi on the patio too.

  Ursa walks into the kitchen with me and sets a bag of groceries on the counter. She looks at me for a second and then puts her arm around me. I lean into her. It feels good to be here with her.

  “You my day one forever, Agnes Marie,” she says and gives me a tight squeeze. She releases me, leans back, and we look at each other in the eyes. “You my day one, Lil’ Puma,” I say and we hug it out again. I feel my skinny self against her much stronger body. It has been hard to be so sick and see my friends be so healthy and strong. Especially Ursa, I think, since we was homies growing up. “I know things have been different with me, and I haven’t really known how to talk about it,” I say and my face starts to tingle with tears. Ursa looks at me. Her face is so pretty. I’ve always thought she had the prettiest skin, and her eyes got that feeling of family. We say so much just looking at each other. Her eyes is crying too.

  “Mabel, I wish I knew how to be there for you. I tried and I just felt like I didn
’t have anything to give you. What could I say?”

  I understand. I didn’t know what it would feel like to be around her either. My body is not the same, and it can’t do things it used to do. I’ve missed playing ball with her and kicking it in Powderhorn Park or Black Eden, doing skits and dropping bars.

  “I was being weird too. It’s hard to know what to do, I guess. We all new to this terminal-illness life, I guess. But I ain’t gonna lie, I think I’m killing the game . . .” I start to giggle and Ursa, taking a second to get it, starts to laugh too. She puts her arm back around me and I feel less heavy. My body missed talking shit and laughing with my homie.

  * * *

  • • •

  After dinner, I sit on the patio alone bundled up with sweaters, scarves, and blankets. The cool air feels refreshing on my face. The sky on the water transforms before my eyes, giving colors to the sunset. Nothing else seemed more perfect to me. I swear there are pinks that I’ve never seen before, and I want them painted on my memory. Wild blues and several kinds of purples. Then the sun swallowed up the layers of gold it gave to the world, slid into hiding, and the sky started to quietly bling stars. I start to think of each star like they are an ancestor, wondering about what life and death felt like for them. Were they scared? Do they feel me wherever they are? I wonder who I will be when I’m gone. Or if I will be anything at all. I think of Afua too and wonder has he ever seen a sky like this and it hurts me that he might never.

  “Hot tub party, baby, baby! You got five minutes to get ready!” yells Jazzy, opening the screen door quickly, and closing it before I can protest.

  * * *

  • • •

  We all soak in the hot, bubbly cauldron in cobbled-together swimwear—sports bras, tank tops, boxers, and panties, our massive towels thrown to the side of the hot tub. It was like this crazy, magical moment. Hot chlorine water bubbling, while the cool air hovered around us. The sky is filling with thick clouds that are floating above us now. Jazzy bends over the side of the tub and grabs something out of her pants pocket.

  “Look at what I found in my dad’s weed stash,” she says, dangling a little bag with gummy animals inside. “He had a whole bunch, I know he ain’t gonna miss four little runaway magic bears! Y’all wanna eat one? No pressure, but I kinda was thinking it might be fun.”

  “Oooh, look at who’s being a bad girl. I have always appreciated this side of you,” says Ursa.

  “Well, I go back goody-goody tomorrow, so enjoy it while you can, boo. It’s a special occasion with our girl, Mabel, so I had to come through dripping. And Daddy smoke like a chimney. This is his contribution to the struggle,” Jazzy says.

  “What is it supposed to feel like?” I ask. I know my mama smokes with my auntie Niiki sometimes and they come out of her bedroom, giggling and inspired to cook gourmet foods. But I’ve never tried.

  “Do the edibles make you feel irie, like when you does smoke it?” Audre asks.

  “I’ve read that it is supposed to give you a body high a good and mellow feeling,” says Jazzy.

  “I’ve smoked once and I didn’t really feel anything. But I love candy . . .” Ursa grabs an orange gummy, and Jazzy grabs a blue gummy. My mom and dad have been giving me medicine with CBD in it that helps with my pain and anxiety, and this doesn’t seem that much different. I think about it for a second and then decide, YOLO over FOMO for once. I take a pink one out of the bag, and me and Audre share it and also a purple one.

  “I could get used to this bougie life. Real quick,” says Ursa with her head leaned back, looking at the stars peeking through the suddenly cloudy sky.

  “Steupse. This winter ting does last forever,” Audre says.

  “Dang! Is that snow? It’s the middle of April and snowing?” Jazzy asks the universe.

  “Why you sounding surprised? You from Minnesota, girl.” I close my eyes and feel the jets bubble down my body. I feel lighter, like I could float out of the water.

  “But I’m like sixty-eight percent sub-Saharan African according to my DNA, fam, so my blood ain’t used to this life,” she says, lighting an elegantly rolled joint.

  “Why is it always pretty, somehow?” Audre takes a hit, and we watch the sky fall slowly onto our heat. I use my hands to play in the bubbles. In a moment I get the joint and puff it. I cough the fuck out my lungs, and everybody start kiki-ing. I pass it to Ursa, and I start laughing too. After my lungs relax, I let my body jiggle in the hot water. I lean back and look at the sky and let the snow drop on me. It feels like a dreamo session. I look around at Ursa, Jazzy, and Audre, and they are so beautiful. I like feeling like I belong to them, like we are a crew. I’m happy I have friends who are good to me and have accepted me, even when I’m being sad and in my feels. I’ll miss them, wherever I go.

  We are all calm and quietly watching the lake and the falling snow.

  “Anybody else feel the bubbles on their coochie and kind of like it?” Jazzy make a silly face and laughs like a hyena. I bust out because I totally did feel it on my coochie too.

  “Y’all think that ting is working? I feel . . . different,” says Audre, smiling with her eyes closed.

  “What if, in the first hot tubs, people were paid to eat lentils and chickpeas and just sat in hot tubs, farting all day?” asks Ursa and then her and Jazzy bust out laughing really hard. I start laughing at their laughing. Audre’s head is leaned back, looking at the sky and catching snowflakes on her tongue, in her own world. I nudge her, and she looks at me and starts to giggle. She swims over to me. She leans her head on me as we laugh at Ursa and Jazzy taking the snow from the sides of the tub to throw at each other. We talk shit and laugh and play and splash in the hot tub for a while longer before we wrap up and go inside to put on our pajamas.

  “Who wanna twerk off to my bae’s song?” Jazzy says, as she brings out fresh Rice Krispie treats and puts on Janelle Monáe. Me and Ursa are sitting on the couch enthralled by the electric fireplace, and I’m still feeling high. Jazzy rolls up on Ursa and starts to pop her booty. She has on Winnie-the-Pooh PJs and Ursa’s in a fuzzy turquoise owl onesie with her hijab off and house slippers that look like the stolen feet of a cartoon grizzly bear. Ursa gets up and starts dancing with Jazzy, grooving all cute and sweet like. I feel like I’ve been laughing since we got here, but I ain’t wanna stop.

  Then Audre comes out the bathroom, her face shiny with coconut oil. She’s wearing a fuzzy long-sleeved lavender nightie and head scarf, looking cute like a sexy island granny. Jazzy grabs Audre into the dancing and challenges her to a twerk-off. Audre grabs the edge of her nighty and then starts moving her hips in circles while expertly shaking her booty. Then she puts her hands on her knees and starts to bend down and then pop her booty up and down, real smooth to all of our amazement. Like her island self. Watching her move like that, all free and comfortable in her own skin, makes me a little bit warmer than even the Jacuzzi left me feeling.

  She is beautiful and I love her. I mean like really, really love Audre. With all of me. I knew it for sure in that moment, and I could almost cry at how happy she makes me, just by her being her. She comes up to me bundled on the couch and extends her hand to help me up. I get up wobbly but with no hesitation. I start doing my little two-step and she takes me by the waist and starts to wind on me. As we dance close, I let myself fade into her. We dance and somehow I’m not feeling weak or sick at all. Maybe it is the power of Audre.

  After the dance party, Ursa and Jazzy say good night and head to the room they share. Audre and I stay in the living room, watching the fire and snuggling under blankets. I don’t know what it is about a fire or a body of water, but I can just look at them forever. I mean just stare and think and feel. Audre’s head is on my shoulder and my head is leaned on hers. My favorite thing to do is snuggle with her. I literally feel better when our bodies are near each other.

  “Audre came through with the dirty wine from out
of nowhere. Jazzy started salivating,” I say.

  “I’s a Trini. What yuh expect? I was born wining. I the one that is surprise at you! I ain’t know you had all them moves, nuh. Yuh tink I wasn’t watching at you?” she said, looking up at me and smiling.

  “What? You didn’t have faith that I could twerk that ass on you, Audre?” I say, pretending to be smooth.

  “Yes, yuh bamsee was shaking up, that’s for sure. You was looking like you was feeling it.”

  “Why do I feel like you are coming for my dance moves, low-key Audre?”

  “But wait, nuh, it you the one saying you is twerking. I ain’t know that was a twerk. I just saying you look like you was feeling it.” We laugh harder and the gap in her teeth is so pretty. I think I ponder that a couple of times an hour—how pretty her lips and mouth are. She snuggles in closer, and we watch the fire in an expectant, but kind of awkward silence. Expecting what I’m not sure.

  “How are you feeling, sweetie?” she asks, and I feel my heart want to open up. I feel brave when I’m with her. I think I’ve been asked “How are you feeling?” a jillion times since I was diagnosed. And 99.9999 percent of the time, I respond, “I’m fine.” Whether I feel sad or like I wanna barf or I can’t sleep or can’t stop thinking dark thoughts, I just say, “I’m fine.” The way Audre asks this time makes me feel like I want to tell her how I feel, for real.

  “Audre, I’m really afraid. I hate how it feels to be in my body and feel it change up on me, all the time.” In saying this to her, I feel less afraid. She reaches for my hand underneath the blankets, and I get more strength to tell her more. “Audre, I wonder about what it will be like to die, to be honest. I wonder what if I could be this ancestor and be there for people? Be in heaven with my grandparents and maybe even see Whitney and Prince? Or some other lifetime or star or multiverse like Afua talks about?” She listens to me and winces a little at my words. She leans up and looks at me directly in my eyes and I feel her all over me.