Momentarily forgetting his annoyance, Deuce grinned and let her hug him, but Zora had other ideas in mind. She was actually trying to climb him. Yeah, forget two more drinks; she was wasted now. Grabbing her by the butt, he hoisted her up and Zora immediately wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms locked tightly around his neck.
“I want to go home now,” she said against his ear, like a little kid pleading to be carried up to bed. “It stinks in here. Can you take me home?”
“Yeah,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I’ll take you home.”
Zora shot upright, arms flailing, almost slamming Deuce in the side of the head as she did. Looking wildly around, her eyes finally came to rest on his face and her shoulders relaxed. She fell backward onto the bed again and exhaled.
“Oh,” she groaned. “I didn’t know where I was for a second.”
“You remember anything from last night?” he asked impassively.
Deuce hadn’t slept well. When he got Zora back to his room, he’d carefully undressed her while she babbled on, saying over and over: Deuce, I did not drink responsibly tonight, did I? No, I didn’t. I did not drink responsibly.
After pulling a t-shirt over her head and putting her under the covers, he fired up his laptop and read the piece in the Post-Gazette. It was a good article. Some might even say it was a triumph. It made Zora and Rashad’s BLM chapter and its work seem almost mainstream, but in a good way.
Rashad came across as level-headed and articulate, and Zora came across as what she was—a young woman in some ways mature beyond her years, with a clear and long vision for her future and that of the people she was working for. She didn’t even sound like someone Deuce would know, let alone someone who would be in his bed, sleeping off a bender in his t-shirt, so big on her it gaped at the neck.
After reading it (twice) he sat up for a few hours more, staring out at the snow-filled yard just outside his window. It was almost dawn before he could even think about sleep. When he got into bed next to Zora, she burrowed into his side and made a sound like a purr that made him smile. Her hair smelled smoky and coconutty. He brushed his cheeks against its coarseness and tried to drive from his mind the premonition that it might be the last time they would lay together like this.
Now, looking at him with still-sleepy eyes, Zora smiled. “I don’t remember a thing. Actually … scratch that. I remember some things.”
“The article.”
Zora beamed. “Yes! You saw it?”
Deuce nodded. “It’s going to be huge for you.”
“For me?” Zora sat up again. “For the chapter. For the movement. It’ll be one of the first times BLM gets written about as other than some radical, anti-American, subversive, group of racial separatists. Who cares about me?”
“I do,” he said.
Zora looked quizzical for a moment then cocked her head to one side. “Are you talking about the …?”
“The part where he referred to you as Rashad’s girlfriend, his partner. Yeah. That didn’t feel too good to read.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Everyone who knows me, who knows Shad, knows that’s not accurate. And you know I would have corrected it if …”
Deuce shook his head. “Don’t.”
“Babe …”
“It wasn’t just that. I read the whole thing, and y’know what? Reading how you talked about the movement, how he talked about it … I think I got it. For the first time, I got it.”
“Got what?” Zora asked. She looked fearful.
“Why it is you get so impatient with me. And with everyone who isn’t onboard.”
“I never said you weren’t onboard, Deuce. Just that I need your support. Or sometimes just your … presence.”
“I’m here, Zee. I’ve always been here with you. Even when you’re not here with me.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re on some next level shit … and I’m …”
“Don’t tell me you’re intimidated by a little press. You’ve been in the press practically your entire life.”
She was trying to lighten things up. Probably because she read in his eyes some hint of the conviction that had just struck him that morning like an iron mallet in the center of his chest—Zora Diallo was going places. Places that maybe he didn’t even yet understand. She looked right in that picture with Rashad Dixon because maybe it was right.
“I’m holding you back, maybe.”
“How?” Zora grabbed his arm. “What are you talking about? You’ve never stopped me from doing anything I needed to do. And you make it so easy for me to …”
“That’s not what you said last week, Zee. When I wasn’t at that rally …”
“Babe, I was trippin’. I just … we’d had that weird thing with that girl showing up at your room and I was feeling insecure … and of course I just like having you there. But if I knew you were having a big night as well, I never would’ve expected …”
She was babbling a mile a minute now, struggling to convince him that everything was cool. But it didn’t feel cool. It felt completely out of whack. His girl was looking to save Black bodies from bullets, and he was looking to discover the next Meshell Ndegeocello.
In the middle of one of her run-on sentences, her phone chimed and Zora looked around, annoyed, finally finding it on the desk where Deuce had placed it the night before. Looking at the screen, she did a double-take.
“I have no idea who this is, from a 212 area-code.”
“Go ahead,” Deuce said getting up from his spot on the bed. “Answer it.”
She did, having a conversation with someone that was surprisingly easy to read, even hearing only one side. When she hung up, she looked thunderstruck.
“That was a producer in New York. From CNN. They want to interview me and Shad. She said she already talked to him, and he’s into it, but wanted to have her ask me directly.”
Deuce nodded. He heard enough to know it was a reporter, but CNN?
“Damn,” he said, coming back to sit next to her.
She nodded dumbly.
“You can’t pass that up,” he said. “You have to do it.”
“I have to do it,” she agreed.
“When is it?”
“They want us to fly out tonight. We’d be on the morning show, the one with the governor’s brother …They’re going to have tickets at the airport waiting for us, and …”
Deuce kept his expression stoic though his stomach was in knots. He knew it would happen. But he was unprepared for just how quick it would be.
Last night, staring out at the snowy yard, he finally realized that it was only a matter of time before the competing demands of their respective lives pulled them apart. He just would never have believed it to be the very next day.
But he knew how these things worked. After CNN, everyone was going to jump on the bandwagon. They would be hearing from news outlets all over the country, looking to put their own unique spin on it. Who could resist the story that had been written in the Post-Gazette, of young lovers, out to change the world? And if they traveled the country, living the part, soon Rashad and Zora wouldn’t be able to resist it either. And it would become true once again.
“You’ve got a lot to do, then,” he forced himself to say. “If you leave tonight.”
“Yeah, but babe … what we were talking about before …”
“When you get back,” he said. “You should probably prepare, right? Do your talking points and all that?”
“Yeah, I should probably connect with Shad and come up with a game-plan.”
“Okay, so get dressed. I’ll walk you back to your dorm.”
Zora licked her lower lip and looked conflicted, but eventually nodded and got up from the bed. Deuce looked away while she dressed, and stood to do the same.
The walk back to her dorm was a silent one, both of them trudging through the snow, Zora holding on to his arm at points to maintain her balance. The steady pressure of her small hands seemed to p
enetrate the layers of his coat and the shirts beneath. He’d always liked the way she did that—held onto him, tight, like she didn’t want him to get away. She was a cool chick, and didn’t often let it all hang out there, but there was no mistaking the meaning of the way she held him when they were out: I am his, and he is mine. He didn’t often think about how good that felt, because he’d always been so busy holding on to her himself.
But perhaps, now, it was time to let go.
Chapter 16
“You’re making me nervous, Zora. Are you even listening to me?” The strain and impatience were clear in Rashad’s voice.
“Yes, I’m listening! But you’re making me nervous. We can’t rehearse everything we say, Shad. Or it’s going to come across as fake.”
“I’m not concerned about it being fake. I don’t doubt that you’ll mean every word you say, just that you’ll freeze up when asked a question and forget which words to say.”
“Great. Go ahead and put that out there,” Zora snapped.
They were in his apartment, and the clock was not Zora’s friend. Their flight was leaving in four hours, and she had hoped to get back to campus with enough time to have Deuce come over so they could talk. If that phone call hadn’t interrupted them, she knew he was about to break up with her. Maybe he didn’t even know it, but she heard it, the air of finality and resignation in his voice, the imminent separation.
When that stupid interview happened, she knew she should have had Rashad correct the reporter’s impression that they were together. And now, not only was it messing with her relationship, it was going to become national folklore. How the hell were they supposed to screw with that little fantasy? Especially now that it had become one of the hooks that would get BLM exactly the kind of positive national story they had been fruitlessly trying to orchestrate for months.
“Look. Are you packed already?” Rashad stood and paced his living room. “Because we ain’t gettin’ nowhere right now.”
“Exactly what I’ve been saying. Thank you.” Zora stood and grabbed her backpack.
Amira, sitting on the sofa, was watching the exchange between her and Rashad, almost ashen-faced. She had never heard them argue before. Probably because Zora and Rashad never had argued before, she realized. Never. How was that possible, in a two-year relationship?
She and Deuce seemed to be arguing all the time. Even before the newspaper piece came out, there had been fits-and-starts while they tried to figure each other out. But at no point had she been willing to throw in the towel. So why was he? She needed to talk to him, but this thing, this trip was standing in the way of that. She was surprised to resent the obligation, for that reason alone—it was standing in the way of her getting to Deuce, and working things out.
“Do you even want to do this?” Rashad demanded, as though he’d read her mind.
“Of course, I want to do it,” Zora spat, shrugging on her coat. “It’s what we’ve been working for, isn’t it?”
“Because …” He shook his head. “This is supposed to be a triumph. And you’re acting like it’s a fuckin’ chore.”
“Guys,” Amira said, standing, and holding up both her hands. “The energy in here is taking a turn for the worse, so let’s just remember what this is all about, okay?”
Zora exhaled through her nostrils. “I don’t know. Maybe you should do it, Amira. I mean …”
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Her?” Rashad said at the exact same time. “They didn’t ask for her. They want you.”
“They want the story you sold—of you and me like a social justice Bonnie and Clyde …”
“That’s a terrible analogy,” Amira laughed.
“Whatever! You know what I mean!” Zora screamed.
Both Amira and Rashad stood very still, exchanging looks, taken aback at her outburst.
“Amira,” Rashad said. “You want to give me and Zora a minute?”
Without another word, Amira disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, and Shad motioned for Zora to come closer. When she did, he pulled her into a hug. For a second, she resisted, but he held her fast.
“Breathe,” he said. “Just breathe.”
“Shad …”
“Breathe,” he insisted. He inhaled and Zora inhaled with him. Their chests pressed together as they exhaled in sync. Then he held her at arms’ length, looking into her eyes. Zora stared back and when he smiled, his eyes were warm and full of love, hers filled with tears.
“Is this what you want?” he asked her. “Because after this, maybe it gets bigger. Bigger than either of us.”
“I don’t know,” Zora admitted. “I mean, you know I’m committed …”
“I know,” Shad said nodding.
“… but I haven’t even decided what I want to do with my life yet, and it feels like a life is choosing me rather than the other way around, and …”
“I know,” he said again. Then he shrugged. “And sometimes that’s how it happens. I mean, until I lost someone, personally, I don’t know that I would have made this choice either. But eventually, I did choose. And you should too. You decide. And if you decide to get off this train right now, I support you one hundred percent. This is my life’s work now. It doesn’t have to be yours.”
“But the interview …”
“I’d go in there and handle it. Don’t worry about it.”
“You would handle it, wouldn’t you?” Zora said with a tiny smile. “I don’t doubt that for a second.”
“You know me, baby,” Shad said winking at her. “So go on back to the dorms and pack. Or don’t pack. I’ll swing by on the way to the airport, and you get in the car with me. Or not. But either way, we’ll be cool.”
“You wouldn’t hate me for bailing on you at the most critical of critical moments?”
Shad pulled her into a hug again, speaking into her hair. “What’d I tell you about that? I could never hate you, Zora. Never.”
Glancing at her phone, Zora checked the time. Shad said he would text when he was outside, and didn’t ask whether she was leaning one way or another. Because he was patient that way.
But if he was worried, he needn’t be. Because Zora was going. She had to.
It wasn’t just about her, and her career aspirations. Probably hundreds of thousands of people would be watching that CNN segment, and what they saw could shape the narrative for the movement for months to come. And even if that was an overstatement, it would certainly set the tone for the next few weeks, and give them time to regroup. So, of course she would go. She would go, and she would put on the performance of her life, being everything America needed her to be, so they could understand …
“Get over yourself, Zora,” she whispered.
The thing of it was, she was just a momentary symbol. There were others like her. Hundreds who could sit in her place, and who would. Amira for one. But for this moment in time, it was her and she would play her part.
And afterwards, she would come back and get her man.
She wasn’t quitting the movement, or the Black Caucus. It didn’t have to be as stark a choice as all that. But Deuce was right—she didn’t have to go so hard all the time. She was allowed to just be a twenty-year old college student once in a while. She could hang out with her boyfriend, sleep all day, play on his Wii, make love and just be … silly and aimless and … young. The way they had been during Winter Break. She would talk to him about his dreams, as much as she expected him to listen to her when she talked about hers. She would …
Her phone chimed, and Zora looked down at it. Shad was outside.
Standing and grabbing her overnight bag, she took a deep breath. One would have thought the interview was tonight, going by how nervous she was right now.
“Breathe, Zora,” she said as she opened the door. “Breathe.”
“Talking to yourself?”
Deuce was standing there. Her entire body sighed, and almost immediately her eyes filled, from gratitude. And with joy.
; “What’s the matter?” he held her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and kissed her quickly on the forehead. “You nervous?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I mean, yes. But … I’m just … I’m happy to see you.”
“Mia gave me your flight details,” he explained.
“Where were you all day?” she asked. “You didn’t call, or …”
“I figured you were busy preparing and I needed to give you that space.”
Zora shook her head emphatically. “No,” she said. “No space. I don’t need space. Not from you.”
Deuce smiled and took her keys from her, locking the door. It was only then that Zora realized he had a bag too. A medium-sized duffle, slung over his shoulder.
“I heard what you said this morning,” he said, handing her back her keys. “That sometimes you just need my presence. If that’s still true, when you do this interview, I want to be present.”
Zora got on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Yes, please.”
“You think your ex-boyfriend will mind me ridin’ with y’all to the airport?”
“I think he’ll welcome it,” Zora said. “Because he kind of knows … whether he admits it or not.”
“Knows what?” Deuce asked as they headed down the hall.
“How much I need you there.”
“You do?” He looked at her.
“I do.” She leaned into him and Deuce draped an arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer against his side.
“You know New York’s my town, right?”
“I do know that, yes.” Zora smiled, thinking how much calmer she felt already. Just having him near, and knowing he would be with her for one of the most important days of her life in social activism made her feel more centered.
Young, Rich & Black Page 17
