by Issa Rae
Kim, Jennifer, and Cherie were dancing in a group on the dance floor, so I joined them. But Taipei was missing.
“Where’s Taipei?” I asked Kim.
“She’s on the phone in her room. I think she’s breaking up with her girlfriend.”
Girlfriend? I remembered Ashley mentioning that Taipei’s phone was constantly blowing up but neglected to put two and two together. She had been cheating on her girlfriend with Jordan this entire time. I looked around the party with actual purpose this time. Jordan was on the dance floor having a good time, dancing with girls here and there, but for the most part, he was by himself.
I didn’t have the besties-before-testes, sisters-before-misters values and morals that I hold so strongly to today. Instead, I slowly and nonchalantly started to two-step drift toward him, my butt poked out, until I made contact. He smiled and we began freak-dancing. As we freak-danced to countless songs, the rest of the party disappeared. It was like the school dance scene where Tony and Maria first meet in West Side Story, except set to the rapper Luke’s soundtrack. As we danced face-to-face, he whisper-yelled a question in my ear.
“Do you want to go outside?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
My heart raced. What were we going to talk about? Had he appreciated my seductive grinding so much that he wanted to break up with Taipei? It would be a first but it was within reason, as Jordan wasn’t the best dancer either. Ashley poked fun at how offbeat his pelvic thrusting was, but I didn’t care; if anything, that endeared him to me even more.
He held my hand and led me outside. We were so close and I was so nervous, I don’t even recall what kind of small talk we made. I do remember him leaning in to kiss me, and me kissing him back. It was my first kiss, much less my first tongue kiss, but I was ready and it was magical. I felt like the nerdy heroine in my own romantic comedy. I got the guy!
After minutes of making out, we went back inside to the party. My face glowing with excitement, I couldn’t wait to break the news to Ashley. As I made my way back to the dance, behind Jordan, I was stopped by Michael, the head of the program. His demeanor was serious as he pulled me to the side in his slim-fitted, tiny suit. I stood guiltily as he mustered a friendly, guidance-counselor smile.
“Be discreet with your actions,” he started.
“What do you—”
“Hhhhh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh!!!” He held his long index finger up and repeated, “Be discreet with your actions. Keep your business private.” He then dismissed me. I was embarrassed, but still on a high from my first kiss. I told Ashley everything and she cracked up.
“Did he really ‘hhhh-tuh-tuh-tuh’ you?”
Other than Ashley, I kept my exchange with Jordan discreet from the other girls.
The next day, on the bus ride home, I sat with Cherie, sharing her Walkman and sneaking backward glances as Jordan and Taipei made out in the back. Why couldn’t they be discreet? I wasn’t mad or hurt, only relieved that Taipei didn’t find out about me and Jordan. Once the magic of my first kiss faded away, I realized how stupid of me it was to kiss him in front of everyone, outside or not.
Months later, Ashley and I went to catch a matinee at Magic Johnson Theatres at the Crenshaw Mall. As we were making our way out, we saw Jordan and Taipei coming in. As Jordan stood by the door, avoiding my eye contact, Taipei came over and said, “Hi.” My stomach clenched as I wondered whether or not he had told her about our kiss. She directed most of the conversation to Ashley and then gave me a snide smile as she walked away. It could have been my imagination, but I sensed that she knew and wasn’t threatened. I may have had him once, but she had him all the time.
* * *
I wish I could say I had learned my lesson, but my exhibitionism didn’t stop there. Years later, when I revisited my first love in Dakar, Senegal, to stay with my father’s side of the family, my careless PDA almost got me in serious trouble. One night I convinced my older cousins to accompany me to the club where I first met my first boyfriend, Moise. Club Niani had become super popular since the time we went the year before. Now it was a tourist hub, full of teens. Still, none of that mattered to me. I was excited to be reunited with Moise (more on him in “Halfrican”) and his friends. We had been corresponding via email for a year now and I was so happy they’d be joining us.
He arrived, dressed in his best American gear. We danced for an hour as my cousins sat down, bored, clearly doing me a favor. The club was getting packed, sweaty, and hot. He asked if I wanted to go get some air outside. I got a bout of déjà vu and thought about Jordan asking me the same question years earlier. We walked up the steep flight of stairs that led to the club’s exit. I looked around for my cousins. Not wanting them to follow me, I’d told them I was going to get some air outside really quickly. After Moise spoke to the bouncer in Wolof, ensuring we’d be able to get back inside, we left the club. It was so much quieter outside. We found an even more isolated spot and started kissing. Surely, this was a step up from kissing outside in front of a glass-doored ballroom.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Just as I started getting teenage bold, playfully grabbing his butt, a military Jeep rolled up, honked, and shone its lights on us. Surprised and frightened, I quickly dropped my hands. Moise placed his hands in front of me, attempting to shield me from what he surmised would occur. Both soldiers exited the Jeep with urgency, long rifles strapped to their backs.
“Lan le?” Moise tried to ask in Wolof, a sign of informality. The police weren’t having that. They spoke in French.
“Qu’est-ce que vous faites?” they asked.
“On parle. Il faisait chaud en bas.”
“Vous faisiez plus que parler, viens avec nous.” The soldier demanded that we go with him. Moise shook his head. I spoke up in my worst French accent.
“Monsieur . . . qu’est-ce qu’on a fait? Je ne viens pas d’ici. Je suis Americaine.”
“Madame, vous s’embrasser en public. Nous faisons pas ça ici. Donc, je vais vous amener en prison.”
“Prison?!” I shrieked.
Moise tried again. “On savait pas, s’il vous plait.”
The soldier stood there and waited. Moise nodded. Panic in my eyes, I told him I couldn’t go to jail. Not only did my cousins not know where I was, but this trip already didn’t have the same ease as last year’s trip because my mother had joined us. My sense was that she had come to spy on me, having heard about Moise last year from one of my aunts. I had to sneakily plan club excursions to see him since he couldn’t come by the house, as I didn’t want her to embarrass me by asking him multiple questions or banning me from seeing him. Going to jail would not only reveal that I had gone to see him, but it would also infuriate and humiliate her and my family.
Moise reassured me in French. “They’re not going to take us to jail. They just want money. I have some. Just pretend like you’re giving me some money, too.”
I nodded, furious but relieved. They were harassing us. Stupid corrupt-ass military. Moise turned back to the soldiers and gave them at least forty dollars.
“C’est tous qu’on à.” He insisted that was all we had.
The main soldier nodded his head. “C’est bon, vas y.”
He signaled for us to go back inside. We thanked him and went back in the club. Moise apologized, pissed off and embarrassed. I started laughing. It was my first taste of corruption and I was astonished that it could affect me personally. I rejoined my cousins, as if nothing had happened, resolving that my intimate moments were best left private.
African Dad
ME: Hey, Dad! Are you free Sunday? We want to take you out to dinner.
I pressed “send” and placed my phone on my cubicle desk beside me, prepared to wait a lengthy while for a response. It was eleven o’clock in the morning; he was busy making his hospital rounds.
I went back to my assigned task of making calls to compan
ies we had partnered with in years past, gauging their interest in active charitable giving the next year. Employed by the March of Dimes for six months now, I was feeling adjusted but anxious. My boss valued me and my promotion potential was fairly certain. However, my web series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, was gaining traction, and I was feeling claustrophobic as my window of opportunity to pursue my passion full-time was closing.
Scrolling the ten-page, double-sided list of Citibank branches, I saw that I had completed only ten calls so far and they were all hesitant to commit. I hated this part of the job. How persistent could I be when my heart wasn’t into it? We were working for a great cause, helping babies—but those babies didn’t need me, specifically, in their corner.
My phone flashed. That was fast.
DAD: Ok! What for?
I smiled and shook my head. My dad barely remembered his own birthday, so this wasn’t a surprise.
ME: For Father’s Day! :-)
DAD: Oh! Lucky me. Can I bring my new wife? She wears blue wigs and has long colorful nails.
I held my phone in my hand closely and reread the message. I was amused, at first. What a strange joke! As far as I knew, my dad was still in a relationship with a woman I hated. He was very well aware of my ill feelings, so why would he joke about that? I knew he couldn’t have married her ass, so that wasn’t my worry.
My younger brother would know. He had been living with my father since his senior year of high school and always had the inside scoop, when he cared enough to pay attention.
“Hello.” His voice was deep with a grogginess that should have been reserved for the early morning, as opposed to the early afternoon.
“Hey, is Dad high? I just sent him a text about Father’s Day plans and he asked if he could bring his new blue-haired wife.”
My brother’s voice woke up. “Dude! I meant to tell you—Dad, like, had a conversation with me and basically said he’s getting old and needs someone to take care of him. He told me he met someone and . . . I think he got married to this new lady.”
I couldn’t find my breath. What the entire hell? How had my dad gotten married a) without his family present and b) without so much as mentioning it to all of us? While on the one hand I tried to be offended, on the other hand, I was grateful that he had apparently moved on from the horrible woman who had caused my family so much pain and anger.
“Does Mom know?” I managed.
“I doubt it.”
What would she think? Had he told her?
Welcome to my enigma. I have no idea what’s going on with my dad emotionally and I’ve always been curious. Sometimes frustratingly so. I have no doubt where his head is when it comes to our family’s material needs. He’s a master provider, a champion in that role. Despite occasionally protesting about something being “too expensive,” he has always been more than willing to give his kids everything they need to succeed and then some. But of all the men I’ve known, my father is the most lovingly distant. He’s affectionate in his own way. I’ve found myself staring at the “Love, Dad” sign-off in the various “You need to pay these parking tickets” notes left for me at his house or at the end of the automatic “I’m alive!” email notifications his boat system sends us when he’s at sea. Yet I’ve never heard the words “I love you” come out of his mouth. Never hearing those words uttered to my mother or my siblings probably affected me in some way before, but only in writing about it now does it hit home. The truth is that I’ve long wanted more of a relationship with my father, though this wasn’t always the case.
* * *
I initially blamed my mother for the end of my parents’ relationship. During my junior year of high school, on an otherwise unmemorable day, they gathered me, my little brother, and my little sister in my dad’s cramped home office and blindsided us with the news.
“Your dad and I have decided to get a divorce.”
My mouth opened and I pulled my eyebrows down into a worried frown. The three of us sat shocked. My parents’ lives as I knew them flashed before my eyes. I had never seen them so much as fight. They had just celebrated a twenty-year anniversary during one of our summers in Maryland. I remember my mother standing before a small crowd of family and friends in our living room, holding a plastic glass of sparkling apple cider, braggadociously telling the story of how my dad noticed her for the first time:
“. . . I was at a party with friends and we were all in line for the food, and I remember he saw me and turned to his friend and starting speaking Wolof. I didn’t know much Wolof, but I could make out some words. And all I heard was, ‘somethingsomethingsomething bakhna!’ ” The Senegalese invitees laughed as my mother explained to the non-Wolof speakers that bakhna means “good.” My dad laughed and exclaimed sheepishly, “I was talking about the food!” More laughter.
This was my parents’ relationship as I knew it. Now, they stood before us, their somber faces staring at ours. I wished they were calling us to berate us for being lazy children. Not for this. Divorce never seemed like an option for us, for them. I stared at them both, blankly, unable to understand.
“Why?” we all asked in some variation. My younger brother started crying, incredulous.
“Cultural differences,” my mother told us, tearing up. I looked to my father, who nodded in agreement, sadness in his eyes. Why weren’t they comforting each other? Then they hit us with the gut punch.
“Your dad will be moving out of the house.”
More tears. What the hell were they doing to us? They reiterated the same mantra that all decent divorcees tell their kids: “This has nothing to do with you. This doesn’t change how much we love you. We are still your parents.” But my dad looked so sad. All I could think about was how he’d be all by himself. I had always known my father to spend a lot of time in solitude, reading, working, fishing. But I also assumed that he found comfort in coming home to his wife and his kids at the end of the day. Who would he come home to now?
For nearly six years of my life, I used to be my dad’s favorite girl. I was the only girl, but I translated this term of endearment to mean “favorite child,” which led me to have very high self-esteem. He’d come home from work and my older brother, Malick, would come into my room ominously and say, “Dad wants you.” Because of his tone, my trip to my father’s room would be marked with fear. But then I’d see his warm, smiling face and realize my brother was just being a jealous jerk. At ten, he was too big to do the special task that would help my dad unwind after a long day.
“Can you walk on my back?” he’d ask as he lay down on his stomach and, on occasion, fell asleep. And I would, pretending his back was a mountainous excursion that needed precise balance. At the end of his makeshift massage, he’d affectionately send me on my way, saying, “That’s why you’re my favorite girl!”
Then, two weeks before my sixth birthday, my little sister, Elize, was born and my title was stripped from me. I looked at her, sleeping peacefully and prettily in her crib, and asked, “Dad, am I still your favorite girl?”
He laughed, “Of course you are. You’re Favorite Girl Number One and she’s Favorite Girl Number Two.”
I was old enough to recognize that there could be only one real favorite. I would share my title with NO ONE!
No sooner than a week after the divorce announcement, my dad moved to a nice luxury apartment with a fancy fountain and a large amusement park-ish pool about fifteen minutes away from us. His favorite place in Los Angeles was Marina del Rey, where all the yachts were docked and where he frequently met up with his fishing club. Twice a month, the club would set sail on a large fishing boat and try their luck. My dad’s proudest catch was a fifty-pound halibut that he and his club members wrestled with for hours.
His new apartment was conveniently two minutes away from the 90 freeway, which was a five-minute straight shot right to the marina. We had just started to get used to
having my dad under the same roof as us, as he used to commute from California, where he had opened a practice, to our home in Maryland, and after just four years together, we were no longer a solid family unit. During my elementary school years, when people asked me why my dad didn’t live with me, I proudly told them the truth. Now, if they ever asked, they would get the answer they expected—divorce—and I hated that. So I didn’t tell any of my friends for years. I wasn’t so much ashamed as just saddened and protective. It was my family and it was our business, and I didn’t want people knowing about any of the dents in our familial unit because my family’s bond, in addition to our large size, was always an inexplicable source of pride for me.
My younger siblings and I never really discussed it either. We felt the void of our father’s absence and harbored an unspoken resentment against my mother for not trying hard enough to stay with him. Or at least, I did. I was aware that my mother was also going through menopause at the time of the divorce, but at seventeen I didn’t fully comprehend the extra layer it added to her emotional state. I remember her crying a lot, and I remember attributing her crying to the hormonal issues she had warned us about prior. But I never actually took the time to consider that she was hurting deeply. In my mind, she had ended the relationship: she was feeling bad about it, as she should. I wasn’t a soothing shoulder for her to cry on and now, with hindsight, I get regret pangs when I think of how I wasn’t there for her in those initial stages.
In one instance, my brother, sister, and I came home from school to find that she was still at work. After a couple of hours passed, we grew hungry, and I called and asked her what we’d be having for dinner.
“There’s lots of food in the fridge—fix something!”
“Ugh. Fine,” I obliged, with much brattitude. The three of us decided we’d cook up some hamburgers. We made a whole big, messy activity of it. When my mother came home that evening, exhausted from the day, she barely stepped foot into the kitchen before we jokingly boasted, “We made our own hamburgers!”
