“Guess who drove up to see me.”
Zora said nothing.
“Jamal Turner.”
Still, she said nothing.
“Okay, so you don’t get it. Lemme explain it to you. I sent him a business plan a couple weeks ago. Y’know what you said about earning my father’s respect? I’ve been thinking about that, workin’ on it, y’know what I mean? So I wrote up this plan about this new label, how we’d use the college circuit to identify and groom new talent. Like real-deal talent. Labels don’t do that no more. They just crank out insta-stars through social media, sometimes folks who haven’t even been really tested with live audiences too much.
“So my plan would take us back to the basics. That’s how The Fugees started, doin’ college tours and shit like that. Anyway, Jamal read it, and liked it. And he came up here to talk to me about it. Just showed up out of nowhere. He acted like he had business in town, but who the fuck has music-related business in State College, Pennsylvania, right?”
Despite herself, Zora felt her interest pique a little. “Couldn’t he have just sent someone?” she asked; but grudgingly, because she wasn’t sure she wanted Deuce to know she was interested. “Like, isn’t he the head guy, of like, the whole company?”
“Yes! Exactly! That’s how I know it’s big. Because he came to talk to me when he could have sent someone or shit, he could’ve Facetimed me or something. But he came and said he wanted to take me out to dinner to talk about it.”
“But he’s also a good friend of your father’s so …”
“So you’re sayin’ you think he threw me a bone. Because I’m my father’s son.”
Zora shrugged. “No. I don’t know. Just that, he probably would have sent someone if you were just some kid who …”
Deuce’s face fell and he collapsed on her bed next to her, lying on his back and looking at the ceiling instead of at her. “He probably wouldn’t have even read the proposal if I was just some anonymous college kid. Yeah, I know that. But thanks for reminding me. My point is, he didn’t have to come, and he did. And he liked the plan. Anyway … we’re going to work on it together. And I’ll have a job with him this summer.”
But now he looked deflated, and Zora felt ashamed. She touched his knee.
“That’s great. I just … I wanted you at the rally, that’s all.”
Deuce exhaled heavily. “You wanted.”
“Yes! But only because you said you would come! So don’t blame me for being disappointed that you didn’t show. And didn’t text …. The room wasn’t even half full so it would have been nice to have the support.”
“How about you show me some support? I just told you that something I only dreamed about, something I never thought could happen, might happen. That I might get a chance to start this label from the ground up with …”
Zora sighed.
“Yeah, I know. This shit is boring to you. Meaningless. Shallow. And the only people who do important work, are you and those Hotep muthafuckas you hang out with. The rest of us are just … lost and shit.
“But this is what I want to do with my life. Music. So excuse me if I didn’t stop in the middle of my business conversation with the head of Scaife Enterprises to text my girlfriend that I couldn’t make it to her little rally when two hundred other muthafuckas would be there!”
“There weren’t two hundred,” Zora said evenly. “Barely even eighty. That’s the point. If there were only two people in the room, Deuce, I would want you to be one of them!”
“Oh, so I have to be your cheering section, but you don’t have to be mine? Why? Because my cause isn’t worthy enough? Y’know what …” He shoved himself up again and reached for his sweatshirt. “Fuck this shit. Because your ass ain’t never fuckin’ happy. Doesn’t matter what the hell I do!”
“And what do you do? Besides yuck it up with Kal and those ….”
“Shut up about Kal. He has nothing but good things to say about you.”
“And you have good things to say about my crew? Those ‘Hotep muthafuckas’ I think you called them?”
“It’s one thing to be Black and woke, Zora. It’s another thing to look down on other Black folks because their priorities are different than yours. And that’s what you do … you even look down on me …”
“I don’t look down on you. I just want … more for you.”
“I don’t need you to want anything for me. I know what I want for myself. And if it’s too different from what you want … if it’s not … noble enough, maybe we need to just call this shit a day and … go our separate ways.”
Zora felt her eyes fill. She said nothing, but stared at Deuce who was staring back just as hard at her. His eyes were red. She couldn’t tell whether it was from emotion or the drinking he’d been doing earlier.
“We’re fuckin’ twenty-years old, Zee. It’s not a crime to want to do something besides save the damn world. I bend over backwards to make your ass happy. I do shit I never fuckin’ did … never fuckin’ did for any chick. Just to make you happy. And you just … always want to be mad at some shit.”
Blinking repeatedly to stop the tears from falling, Zora stood and shook her head.
“Then don’t do it anymore,” she said going to the door and opening it. “Don’t bend over backwards, Deuce.”
“Zee …”
“G’night,” she said, holding the door wider.
“Zee …”
“Get out of my room.”
“No. Zee …”
“Get out of my room!”
Deuce reached over and shoved the door shut. “No,” he said, the quiet of his voice in contrast to her loudness. His eyes were filling too. He took a step toward her and she took one back. He extended a hand. “C’mere.”
Zora hesitated, her chest heaving from the effort it took not to cry.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, his throat bobbing. “I don’t want to go our separate ways. I don’t … I would never want that.”
Zora stood, frozen in place and then unexpectedly, Deuce came toward her, lifting her bodily and carrying her toward the bed. Placing her atop the covers, he pulled her underwear unceremoniously down over her hips and fell to his knees in front of her.
“Deuce,” she said weakly, her hand on his head.
“I don’t want to fight, baby …” he said. “I’m sorry. I just want … I want to make you feel good … okay? Let’s just …”
“But we have to …”
His tongue touched her, and the last word came out in a squeak: talk.
We need to talk.
That’s what she meant to say, but didn’t, because the sensation of Deuce’s mouth and tongue, and the hungry way he was going at her drove almost all coherent thought from her head. He pressed her thighs apart with his forearms and at the same time gripped her waist, holding her against the sheets while he tasted her.
When she cried out, it sounded like agony as much as it did pleasure, and the tears she had been holding at bay were released in a flood. While she lay there, tears streaming down the side of her face, Deuce undressed, and covered her body with his. Zora felt him fumbling for a moment, finding and putting on a condom, and then he was surging forward and pushing deep into her.
He filled her with the very first thrust, and she gripped his butt, pulling him closer still. She arched off the bed, pushing upward with every downward motion, feeling the muscles in his haunches tense and release. He seemed to want to bury his entire body inside her. Zora moved between total awareness of every tiny frisson of pleasure, and an almost dissociative state where she was watching them together rather than being present in her own body. Because the pleasure was at times too much.
Closing her eyes, she felt his face buried in her neck, heard him speaking words that were unintelligible, directly into her ear. Then in what seemed like a frenzy, he grabbed her chin and forced her head toward him, capturing her mouth and kissing her hard, demanding her attention. Dissociation was impossible then. She held on ti
ght, riding the waves to her second orgasm, and her body went limp beneath him. Deuce slowed, kissing her now perspiring forehead, his strokes slow and gentle until finally he, too, shuddered and was still.
Lifting a hand, Zora placed it on his damp cheek. Turning her head, she placed her lips against his neck, tasting his saltiness.
“I’m sorry, too,” she whispered.
Deuce put his arms beneath her and rolled over, carrying her with him so she was now lying atop his damp chest.
“It’s okay, baby,” he said, his voice already clogged with exhaustion. His arms tightened about her. “We’re good. It’s all good.”
But it wasn’t. She knew it, and suspected he did, too.
It wasn’t all good.
Chapter 15
The bass was pounding in his chest, and the room was an unpleasant mass of bodies, moist and warm from heavy coats and the recent snowfall outside. Deuce pushed his way toward the makeshift bar and grabbed one of the cups of beer that had been set down on the table, up for grabs for whomever got there first. The music was so loud that the lyrics were incomprehensible, and it was only by concentrating that he recognized the artist. It was Devin Parks.
Lately, he had been hitting his stride, and Deuce guessed that it would only be six to nine months before he was a bonafide star. That would be something to see. Deuce wondered who was working with him, and whether he was being cooperative. It would be a shame to see him mishandled, because he was one of the types of musicians that Deuce had talked to Zora about—a true artist. Too bad he had heartthrob appeal, because it was going to be difficult for his label to resist trying to turn him into a pop idol.
Leaning against a nearby wall, Deuce sighed and scanned the room. No sign of Zora. She’d promised to meet him here after her Black Caucus subcommittee meeting, but by his watch, that should have ended an hour ago. And still no sign of her. But it had become par for the course with them lately. Like ships passing in the proverbial night.
Ever since they fought about him missing her rally, they seemed to have agreed, silently, not to fight anymore. So, they didn’t. They just went their separate ways, pursuing their separate interests, with their separate friends; and coming together only when they were alone, or spending the night at each other’s place. That should have been the hallmark of a healthy relationship—pursuing independent lives—but something about it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like they were accommodating their differences, but avoiding them.
Nearby, Kal had some chick cornered, literally. She was at the edge of the room and Kaleem stood in front of her, leaning forward, his forearm braced on the wall above her head.
Deuce smirked. Ol’ girl didn’t stand a chance.
Kal laughed at something and when he shifted a little to the left, Deuce saw that his prey for the evening was Zora’s girl Mia.
Gulping down the last of the lukewarm beer in his cup, he headed in their direction.
“Hey,” he said, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the music. “Mia. What’s up?”
She looked away from Kal reluctantly and then smiled when she saw it was him.
“Oh hey!” she said.
“Know where Zee is at?” Deuce asked.
Mia shrugged. “Still at the meeting? I don’t know. A couple of them were talking about celebrating when I left, so …”
“Celebrating what?”
“The article finally came out. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran it. They thought it was only going to be local, but yeah … it got picked up elsewhere.”
Deuce narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“The one on BLM,” Mia explained. “Zora didn’t tell you? My girl’s a genuine regional superstar now.”
Rather that admit he didn’t know what she was talking about, Deuce nodded and shoved his way outside, finding and shrugging on his coat as he went. Once on the curb, he blew into his palms to warm them up and texted Zora, asking if she was still on her way.
Yup, she responded. Be there in five minutes.
I’m outside, he texted back. Look for me.
And sure enough, no more than a few minutes later, a familiar car pulled up and Zora hopped out, smiling, and waving at the driver as it pulled away. She was wearing a large knit hat that contained her massive hair, and a red, yellow, green and black scarf that looped several times around her neck and covered the lower part of her face. Making her way precariously in the snow, she leaned against him when they were finally face-to-face.
“My hands are freezing,” she sang. “Otherwise I would hug you.”
Instead, she got up on her toes and kissed him on the lips. She tasted of beer, and, unless Deuce was mistaken, weed as well. He didn’t kiss her back. But Zora didn’t seem to notice. She hopped up and down a little and nudged him in the direction of the party.
“Are we going in?”
Almost no one else was outside, because it was far too cold for folks to hang about on the porch the way they customarily might have done.
“You sure you want to?” he asked. “Seems like you already did some partying tonight.”
Zora laughed, oblivious to the light sarcasm. “Yeah, a few of us went back to Shad’s for a minute. Today was kind of a big day.”
“Yeah? Tell me about it.” Deuce shoved his hands deep into his pockets, thinking about the mysterious article that Mia had referred to.
“Out here?” Zora looked around. “How ‘bout we go in, see what’s up with this party and then talk about it later?”
“For a minute,” he capitulated.
“Remember, this party was your idea,” she said, again in the sing-song voice that meant she had probably taken a few more puffs on the spliff than he first guessed at.
Looping her arm through his, Zora walked with him up the path and they headed inside.
Whenever they entered a room together now, it was like a figurative parting of the Red Sea. People turned to stare at them, the unlikely couple. Deuce knew it was only partly a function of their being independently notorious for very different reasons. The other part was that people weren’t used to seeing him so comfortably coupled up. He went to lots of parties with lots of girls. Or used to.
But they were always in his orbit more than they were “with” him. With those girls, he walked into a room the way he always did; and it was they who hovered, angling and leaning their bodies toward his, making sure everyone knew that they were with him, but never daring to do anything so overt as hold his hand.
With Zora, it was different. He held her hand, always. Or she tucked herself under his arm and pulled it across her chest. They were unmistakably a couple and most often, he was the one doing the claiming; he was the one who was possessive of her.
“Whoa,” Zora said, taking a step back. The mild stench of the room hit them like a noxious cloud as soon as they walked in the door. “Yeah, this is going to be quick.”
But then she spotted Mia, in the middle of the crowd dancing with Kal and they both let out those high-pitched screams that girls greeted each other with when they were excited for reasons only known to them. Zora and Mia ran toward each other, hugging and dancing in the center of the floor while Kal and Deuce exchanged perplexed and amused looks.
Kal ambled over to him and without a word, pulled out his phone tapping its face and handing it to him.
“Check this out,” he said. “I guess this is what all the screaming is about.”
It was a page from the Post-Gazette, with the headline: ‘A Human Rights Issue.’ The piece seemed to be a lengthy one, so Deuce only caught a few phrases as he scrolled through: ‘local activist, Rashad Dixon, affectionately called Shad by his chapter co-chair and girlfriend Zora Diallo’ and ‘seemed politically and tactically in sync, often finishing each other’s sentences and looking to the other for confirmation of ideas expressed’ and ‘dynamic partnership that, if indicative of the caliber of their leadership, augers well for Black Lives Matter as a sustainable social justice movement.’
Bu
t if that weren’t enough, there were the pictures. Deuce magnified each one to get the full effect.
In the first, Rashad Dixon sat with his elbows on his knees, one hand stroking his bootleg Malcolm X goatee, looking pensively at Zora who was next to him, and gesturing, her mouth partly open as though the photographer had caught her mid-sentence. Her hair was resplendent, and her skin glowed. She was wearing lipstick, which she rarely did, and a black turtleneck sweater and black jeans. Her limbs were long, and graceful like those of a prima ballerina, one long leg crossed over the other. Sitting very close together, their knees almost touching, she and Rashad had the posture of two people accustomed to being in each other’s space, and comfortable with it.
In the second shot, clearly taken during a lull in the interview, Zora and Rashad were almost huddled, both of them leaning in to the other, their eyes fixed on each other’s faces. Zora was making a funny face, her small, cute nose wrinkled. Rashad was grinning at her, his teeth pulling in his lower lip as though to prevent himself from smiling any wider, or laughing. That shot was the one that made Deuce’s blood boil, for reasons he couldn’t even explain. They weren’t even touching, and yet they were the very picture of intimacy.
Handing Kal the phone he glanced out at the dance-floor where Zora was still lost in the music, holding both Mia’s hands, singing along to the lyrics. Just as he made up his mind to go get her, Deuce watched Zora and Mia stumble over toward the bar, both of them grabbing cups of the crappy, warm beer and tossing them back like they might shots of tequila.
Next to him, Kal laughed. “Mia is nice, don’t get me wrong, but I still feel some type of way ‘bout how you just moved in and …”
“You read the article?” Deuce asked.
Kal looked at him. “Who’s got time to read the news at a party, bruh? I just asked Mia what she was talkin’ ‘bout and she showed it to me. Your girl looks righteous in those pictures, though.”
His girl. Not according to the article.
After their drinks, Zora and Mia made their way back out onto the dance floor, spinning and twirling and bopping off-beat. Deuce, for a moment was too preoccupied with his irritation to see what he should have seen the moment she arrived. Zora had no business being at anyone’s party; a couple more drinks and she would be straight up wasted. Wading through the dancers, Deuce finally got to her and she looked up at him, genuine surprise, and delight in her eyes, as though she had no idea how he’d gotten there.
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