by Kennedy Ryan
I had to leave my own house. The one I played eighty-two grueling games a year to buy, I had to vacate. It made sense. I travel so much I wouldn’t have been there most of the time, and staying in the house was supposed to give Simone some sense of stability, but then I requested the trade to San Diego. Even though we were estranged, Bridget moved to San Diego because Simone wanted to be close to me, and I wanted that, too. Yeah, she’s experienced a lot of upheaval at our hands.
“Well neither of us have dated anyone since you left the house,” Bridget offers.
Anger puckers the smooth surface of my composure.
“No, you did all your dating before our marriage was over,” I say, clipping the words.
As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. Not because it’s not true, but because it’s uncalled for. It’s true, but it’s not why we’re here.
“That’s actually not helpful, Mr. Ross,” Dr. Packer says, the reproach mild, but definitely present in her voice.
“I know. Yeah.” I run my hand over my face. “Sorry.”
“As I was saying,” Bridget says pointedly, “neither of us have dated, and I don’t have any prospects right now. Do you, Kenan?”
My memory immediately transports me to that party a week ago. In an instant, I was addicted to the taste of Lotus, more than my mouth could have imagined. Addicted to her sharp sense of humor and the glow that had nothing to do with make-up. The mystery in her eyes that had nothing to do with games. I wanted her lips again as soon as she pulled away.
“Kenan?” Bridget asks, her tone strident. “Is there someone?”
Lotus has told me in no uncertain terms that we’re not happening. But I also felt her response to me. I’m not giving up on her. “No, I’m not seeing anyone.”
I hate that flare in Bridget’s eyes at my admission, some mixture of satisfaction and misguided hope.
“We’ll have to be very careful when either of you develop romantic attachments,” Dr. Packer says, making a note before looking up at us. “We’ll have to take that slowly and one step at a time as a family.”
She tosses her pen down, sits back in the chair, and links her hands over her waist.
“You may not be married,” she says. “but you’re still a family. You have to be, for her. It’s the most crucial relationship in her life. You’re not man and wife, but you are still mother and father to Simone. You have to figure out how to be that in this new space because she needs it.”
Considering all Dr. Packer has said, it’s probably good that Lotus and I keep it simple, if we become anything at all. If her situation is anywhere near as complex as mine, a relationship is the last thing we need.
I can tell myself that a million times, but I can’t forget how we locked in that kiss—how the world tipped to the side with every tilt of our heads and stroke of our tongues. There’s a recognition, an awareness that has crackled between us from the moment we met. So I’ll be careful with how I pursue Lotus for Simone’s sake, but I can’t convince myself we shouldn’t see where this goes.
5
Lotus
“Join me next week when we explore staying cool in the summer’s hottest fashions,” I say into the mic. “Till then, it’s ya girl Lo. Don’t forget, the world might try to get you down, but you gotta glow up.”
I pull the headphones off and push the mic away from my mouth, releasing a weary breath. I’m often tempted to stop the fashion podcast I started last year, gLO Up, but it’s becoming so popular. I’m gaining new followers every week. I have sponsors now, not only for the podcast, but paid partnerships for Instagram. I’m an “influencer.” Who knew?
My position with JPL has catapulted my efforts. I’m not under the illusion that all of this would have happened so quickly if I didn’t work with one of fashion’s darlings.
My first official position with JPL Maison was “intern.” Unofficially, glorified grunt. That worked while I was getting my associates at FIT. Now, with my degree, I’ve been promoted to Assistant Design Coordinator. Unofficially, whatever JP needs. One day, I’m selecting fabrics for him to consider as he’s designing, the next I’m organizing pattern-makers. I could be sketching, pressing, steaming, draping. Hell, I’m not above getting in there with the seamstresses and sewing buttons, embroidering, and doing whatever needs to be done. I’m learning fashion from the ground up and at every level. It’s the best education I could ask for under the tutelage of a genius.
My eyes drift to the Singer sewing machine in the corner of my bedroom. A gift from MiMi. It blurs through my tears. I don’t know how other people grieve, but processing the loss of my great-grandmother will take a lifetime. I can’t think of her without aching. She left me so much, though. Not the tiny house Iris and I inherited in the bayou where I spent much of my childhood. Not even the sewing machine she used to teach me how to create an almost invisible seam. Not even the black magic I’m not always sure I completely understand or believe. Those aren’t the greatest gifts she left me.
“In the next life, I’ll live as a spirit,” she’d told me solemnly. “And God will require my soul, but my heart—that I’ll leave to you, ma petite.”
The words poured ice down my spine. I couldn’t imagine this world, this life without MiMi’s guidance, and it’s as hard as I thought it would be.
I can’t explain it to Iris or anyone else. They’d have me committed, but I knew the moment MiMi left time and entered eternity. That was how she talked about life. She said most of our existence is before we are born and after we die—that time is a drop in the bucket. The walls of time fall long enough for us to enter this world and then to leave. And after we leave, forever begins.
I know the moment MiMi’s forever began.
I was rushing to class, climbing the subway steps to the street, when I felt a prick in my chest like a scalpel making a tiny incision. And then I felt so full, I had to stop right there, morning commuters rushing past me impatiently on the subway stairs like water dumped into the river of the city. Warmth and peace and pain made themselves at home between the slats of my ribs, nestled in the flesh of my heart.
And as it had so often in ways I couldn’t explain, the sky, my soothsayer, spoke to me.
Look up.
On a gorgeous autumn day, I Iooked up and saw a fire rainbow. So rare most people go their entire lives never seeing one—arcs of color blurred, set on fire by the sun and streaking through the clouds.
A rainbow is the bridge from Heaven to Earth.
And this one was on fire.
“MiMi,” I’d whispered. I’d known.
And when my cell rang, when Iris called, jarring me from that sacred spot at the top of the subway steps, I knew MiMi was gone.
“Girl, I need a NeNe Leeks GIF for this conversation,” Yari says from the next room, pulling me to the present.
Though the voice that answers is low and less distinct than Yari’s, it’s female. I shuffle on bare feet toward the living room. We share a fourth-floor walk-up in Bushwick. It’s a gorgeous old brownstone renovated into four apartments. Yari and I are on the top floor. My steps come to an abrupt halt when a smell invades my senses.
The smell of burning hair.
“Hey, mami,” Yari says, smiling at me through a cloud of smoke.
Yari’s mother owns a salon in Queens where you can get one of the best Dominican blowouts in the city. As a side hustle, Yari does blowouts here in the apartment from time to time, but she’s never used the pressing comb resting innocuously in a small portable stove on the table beside her.
“You’re using . . .” I take a deep breath and try again. “I’ve never seen you use a pressing comb.”
“I know, right?” Yari picks up the iron comb by its wooden handle and drags it through her client’s hair. “Usually just the blow-dryer, but Ms. Diva here wanted it extra straight and to last a long time. Even brought her own comb.”
The client in question smiles at me from under a fall of newly-straight, smoking hair. I try to
smile back, but my mouth won’t curve. My heartbeat hammers my breastbone, a painful thrumming that shortens my breath. Sweat dampens my palms and under my arms. My body won’t pretend—won’t cooperate in my charade. A primal scream scratches the sides of my throat, begging to be let loose. I’m afraid I can’t contain it for another second, so I turn. I run. Yari calls my name, her voice laced with concern and confusion, but I can’t stop. Can’t explain. I run past my bed, into my closet, slamming the door, blocking out the world beyond and trapping the smoke and the smell on the other side.
The walk-in closet is a decent size, considering how small the bedroom is. I turn on the light and my gaze clings to the closet wall. There’s an oak tree sketched from corner to corner, its branches stretching, limbs drooping, leaves dangling. I race to it, curling my body into a tight ball around the penciled trunk, taking shelter in its charcoal shadow.
And I wait.
Wait for my heart to slow.
Wait for my breaths to even out.
Wait for the roar of blood in my ears to quiet.
I wait for the room to stop spinning.
I don’t know how long I’m there. Long enough for Yari to poke her head in and ask if I’m okay.
“Yeah,” I manage to say without croaking. I pull myself up until my back is against the wall, against the tree I drew there. “Sorry. I felt sick. Something I ate.”
There’s a pause, uncertainty in the look she gives me.
“You sure, Lo?” she asks. “You ran out of there like—”
“Like I was gonna be sick,” I conclude for her, forcing a laugh. “Your client probably didn’t want vomit at her feet.”
“But you’re—”
“I had sushi today. Maybe it was bad or something.”
“We were gonna go grab some oxtails from that place on Flatbush,” she says tentatively. “You wanna come?”
We’re never tentative with each other, and I wish I could tell her the truth, tell her everything, but I wouldn’t know where to start my story, and it feels like there is no end.
“You go on. I still feel a little queasy,” I say, willing myself to sound normal. “And I need to edit the podcast anyway.”
“You sure? Because I could—”
“Ri, I’m good.” I need her to leave. “See you when you get back.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.” She still doesn’t sound sure.
“Have fun.”
After a few seconds, long seconds where I silently beg her to leave me alone, I hear the steps carrying her back out to the living room. I release a long, calming breath once the front door closes. I flip onto my back, link my hands behind my head, and fix my eyes on the tree. The longer I watch it, the calmer I become. I watch until my body goes silent and still. I watch until the serenity of the room feels like loneliness. And then I call the only person who knows how it all started, even though I’ve never told her it’s not over.
“Hey, Lo,” my cousin Iris says from the other end of the line. “What’s up, girl?”
I’m silent for a second, letting the voice I’ve known all my life wash over me. Familiar. Family.
“Lo?” Iris asks again. “You okay?”
“I don’t know, Bo,” I whisper, abbreviating her childhood nickname Gumbo.
“What’s going on?”
“You remember that day?” I ask, my voice hushing over the secret. “The day it happened?”
For a moment, I’m afraid I’ll have to explain—that I’ll have to say something awkward, something awful to trigger the memory I cannot escape, but she answers. She knows.
“Yeah,” she replies softly. “I remember.”
“It . . . I thought I had this shit under control, you know?” One tear at a time rolls from the corners of my eyes and singes the skin on my cheeks. “But it’s like . . . you remember that big hole in MiMi’s kitchen?”
“Yeah. She patched that hole all the time,” Iris says with a short, rough laugh.
“And nothing ever helped.” I bounce the laugh back to my cousin. “She kept patching it up, and every time it rained, water would leak through that ceiling.”
“Yeah.” Iris’s laughter fades, leaving questions and maybe some answers. “Are you leaking, Lo?”
I bite my bottom lip until it hurts, and I love it. It’s a hurt I can control. I can turn it on. I can turn it off. If I bite hard enough, I’ll see the marks of my teeth. I prefer that to the pain that spreads over my body when I least expect it. That’s a pain I can’t stop—can’t control. And it’s invisible. Untraceable, but lately, it’s hurting me just the same.
I can’t see it. I can’t find it. I can’t fix it.
“Maybe I am.” I sit up, pressing my back to the wall, to my tree, and rest my elbows on my knees. “Lately I’ve been feeling . . . I don’t know. Empty.”
“Empty how?”
“Well you know I’m not one of those people who has trouble with sex,” I say, managing a chuckle.
“I’m aware, yeah,” Iris says, a grin in her voice.
“I always put sex in this box. Sex was to make me feel good, and that was totally fine. I didn’t want any strings. I didn’t want any emotions. I didn’t want . . .” I hesitate over the word waiting on my tongue.
“Intimacy,” I whisper. “I didn’t want that. Didn’t need it.”
“And now?” Iris asks.
“It’s not enough.” I shake my head, shocked at the words I’m saying. “It’s not enough anymore, and it feels meaningless. It’s not enough, but I can’t afford to feel anything other than that. There’s this part of me that says it’s dangerous to really share yourself with someone. Look at my mother.”
Even saying her name makes me want to curl up again under the tree at my back.
“Look what she did for a bad man,” I continue. “She was putty for him. Look at your mom. How she chose the wrong men over and over—how she gave herself to them for all the wrong reasons.”
“Look at me?” Iris asks. “Am I another cautionary tale?”
I don’t answer, but in some ways, she is. I don’t want to hurt Iris, but before she found her husband, August, she chose badly, and that man hurt her. He trapped her. He kept her, and by the time she escaped, it was almost too late.
“We all make mistakes,” Iris finally replies when I don’t.
“Is that what you call what Mama did?” I ask, a serrated edge to my voice. “I’m here feeling this, living this because of her ‘mistake’? No, thank you.”
“So what are you gonna do about it?”
“I’ve sworn off dick.”
Iris chokes on the other end. “We’ll see how long that lasts,” she says. “What about that photographer you brought to the Christmas party?”
“Chase?” I suck my teeth. “Just a fuckboi.”
I don’t want to tell her I cried the last time Chase and I had sex. There are limits to what I can expose.
“You haven’t met anyone?” Iris asks. “Gorgeous girl like you in New York living the glamorous life. Surely there’s a guy.”
Glamorous? At this moment, my life is restricted to this closet, and in the life beyond that door, I haven’t met many guys worth my time. Definitely not many guys who’d put up with the train wreck I am right now. Except . . . maybe . . .
“There’s a guy. Maybe,” I admit reluctantly, unwilling to tell Iris it’s Kenan. She’s been encouraging me to consider him since that day in the hospital. “But I think he could be the worst option of all because he seems too good to be true. That usually means they are.”
“But you like him,” Iris says, a smile re-entering her tone.
“Yeah, I like him,” I admit. “But I won’t trust him.”
“Well, trust has to be earned. I’m living proof. August took his time getting me to trust him. Proving I could. Maybe if you give this guy some time, time to watch him, to know him, maybe he’s the real deal.”
“Maybe. He asked if we can keep it simple and get to know each other over the su
mmer.”
“Well you can decide to give him a chance, or not, but . . .” Iris draws and exhales a breath quickly. “But either way you need to talk to someone.”
“Huh?” I sit up straighter. “I don’t need to talk to anyone.”
“So you think you’re better than me?”
“What? Course, not, Bo.”
“Well didn’t you tell me I needed to talk to someone? When I was struggling with my past, isn’t that what you told me?”
Damn, I did tell her that. Advice is so much easier to follow when you’re giving it to someone else.
“I’ll think about it.”
“And what about Mr. Too Good To Be True?” Iris asks, her voice lighter. “You gonna think about him, too?”
I grin and chastise my heart for skipping a beat at the thought of Kenan Ross. “Not if I can help it.”
6
Kenan
“You’re going soft, Glad.”
No one in the NBA could get away with that lie, but considering my sister plays in the WNBA, she can.
“Oh, yeah?” I ask adjusting my earpiece and stripping off my sweat-drenched shorts and shirt. “I’ve been up since four-thirty and worked out for the last two hours. You?”
Kenya’s sleep-rusty chuckle comes from the other end of the line, and if I know my sister, she’s laughing from the depths of her down comforter.
“Shiiiiiit,” she says. “You know I’m still in bed, but I scored thirty points last night so I should be excused.”
“I saw your highlights on ESPN.” I lean against the counter, the marble cool against my naked skin while I navigate the apps on my phone. “Not bad for a girl.”
Only I could get away with that taunt. Anyone else would be flat on his ass in seconds. My sister is one of the WNBA’s most promising athletes, and could hold her own with most of the guys I play against.
