A Phoenix First Must Burn

by A Phoenix First Must Burn (retail) (epub)

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Jayleen,” Akilah says. “Or maybe you didn’t, because you’re all ready to step in with some Old Lady Protect Squad crap. I’m gonna see what the hype is about and then show all of you”—Akilah jabs Jayleen in the chest firmly—“that I’m better for the money.”

  Jayleen presses their lips together for a moment, and Akilah almost dares them to say whatever else is on their mind. Jayleen turns to the intercom and presses three of the apartment buttons at once; the door clicks. “Fine. Just . . .”

  Akilah pushes the door open and turns to look over her shoulder. Jayleen is hovering, but they’re not moving to follow Akilah upstairs. “Just what?”

  “Don’t go rushing her, okay? Have some patience.”

  Akilah has been in Auntie’s apartment once or twice before, but always with Jayleen. Nothing has changed since last time. It’s an old woman’s apartment, with overly embroidered flower patterns on the couch and armchairs, slightly yellowed and crackling wallpaper, a dated dark-wood coffee table. Akilah remembers using the bathroom there once and finding one of those crocheted doll-dress toilet roll covers on the back of the toilet. There are herbs drying on the windows that might be the same ones Akilah saw here last time. The orange near-setting sun comes through the window, hitting the shimmering line of a pair of spiderwebs in the corner.

  Aside from the webs, the apartment is clean when Akilah steps into it. It smells strongly of incense, frankincense or myrrh—Akilah doesn’t know the difference between the two. All she knows is they both remind her of annoyingly long church sermons. The TV is on, and a daytime court show is playing. It bothers Akilah that the door is open, because it means either that Auntie ignored the buzzer but opened, or that Jayleen called her.

  “Just give me a minute, honey, I’m just finishing these dishes.” Auntie comes out of the kitchen, wiping her hands with a dishrag. She looks Akilah up and down, not dropping her smile. “You’ve gotten bigger since last I saw you.” Akilah hasn’t gotten bigger since she hit five foot three at fifteen, and that was two years ago. Old people seem to think that’s the highest compliment they can offer. You’ve grown.

  “How much to fix up my head?”

  Auntie strolls up to her and holds up a hand to touch her hair. Akilah’s hair is pulled back into one thick puff. The amount Auntie quotes is twice what Akilah charges, but before Akilah can say anything, Auntie cuts her off. “We both know you don’t need me to do your hair, but it’s still time and labor . . .”

  Then Auntie tugs, just enough to make Akilah wince.

  It’s a month ago, in Akilah’s living room. The room smells like the rice and beans Jayleen has on the stove. Jayleen stays near the room entrance. Akilah doubts it’s more comfortable there; Jayleen probably doesn’t want to get involved in Akilah and Sonia’s argument.

  For a beat, Akilah is lost: Had she been here a second ago? Had it smelled like rice and beans or incense? Had it been dark outside or had the sun still been shining bright? She remembered this moment—until suddenly it isn’t a memory, and her brain snaps back into this present.

  She remembers what the argument was about and gets back to it. “I don’t have to finish your head, you know that, right?” Akilah walks around the chair so that she’s in front of Sonia, cell phone in her hand, frowning.

  Sonia’s mouth is dropped, and Akilah must screw her face into a frown so she doesn’t laugh. The expression probably isn’t any better. “I already paid half up front, and I’m not paying the rest just because Tiana called you—”

  From the corner of Akilah’s eye, she sees Jayleen’s eyes narrow suspiciously. No, no, that’s a distraction from what she wants, and she isn’t trying to get into that. “This isn’t about Tiana, and it doesn’t matter why—”

  “What does Tiana want?” Jayleen interjects.

  Akilah doesn’t wave Jayleen off, but only because she doesn’t want to fight with them. She wants to ignore the question. She clenches her cell phone tightly. She knows Jayleen’s not going to grab it, or look at it, but Akilah knows the last text message she sent, the last one she read from Tiana, and the last phone call, and it makes her fingers curl even tighter.

  The sun is back, glinting off the webs in the window. Akilah blinks, squints, readjusting to the living room. Not her living room, but Auntie’s, with its old-lady furniture and church smell. Readjusting to Auntie looking at her, waiting for Akilah’s response.

  “What in the hell . . . ?”

  If Auntie notices what happened, she doesn’t respond. “You can pay half today, half later. I know where you and Jayleen hang out. I’m not worried about you shorting me.”

  Akilah is off-kilter, and for a moment thinks of backing out. She doesn’t need to give Auntie money for anything. She could take her friends out for dinner with that money, instead of trying to prove to herself that Auntie isn’t shit. She thinks about the flash she just experienced and wonders if that’s not the right move.

  But it irks Akilah to watch her clients go back to Auntie. There is no way that Akilah’s braids are lesser, or her attitude so annoying . . . No way that the witch’s thin fingers and slow movements are worth it.

  She sucks her teeth and pulls out her wallet.

  Auntie takes the money delicately, folding it up and putting it in her jeans. She gestures with her head toward a folding chair propped against the couch. “Why don’t you take that seat, Akilah, honey, while I go get my product.” She turns and starts walking toward the back of the apartment. “You’re not tender-headed, now, are you?

  Auntie stands up while doing hair, with Akilah in the seat. So she can keep watching her shows, she explains. She takes her time starting, running her hands through Akilah’s hair as she decides how to tackle it. Akilah reluctantly admits that this process feels nice, when Auntie parts her hair into sections with a rattail comb, the air from the fan hitting Akilah’s scalp. When Auntie starts applying grease to the parts, it’s a strange sensation for Akilah to not lift her arms to try to do it herself.

  “What kind of grease is that?” Akilah wants to twist around and look at the jar. Before she gets a chance, Auntie pauses and passes it over. It’s in a small Tupperware. “Oh. It’s some homemade stuff.”

  “I mix all my products myself,” Auntie answers casually. “Sometimes from scratch, sometimes with store products as a base. It’s better, I think. Lets people know I care.”

  Akilah sniffs at the Tupperware to hide the fact that she makes a face. She tries to parse the smells. At first, it’s just hair grease, but then other scents follow. Not quite floral, but a bouquet nonetheless—seven, eight smells at once that Akilah wants to differentiate between, like potpourri and dried orange slices and suddenly cinnamon, and then there’s another tug from Auntie and—

  She’s eight years old and Akilah’s nostrils are filled with the smell of a hot comb, all too close to her head. She eyes the tool with all the distrust that it’s owed as it heats on the stove, the metal surrounded by blue and orange flame. Her head, she knows, is “prepped” for it, sprayed with heat protection after a wash. Still . . . prep does not make this pleasant. Prep still means that hot, hot metal is going to touch her hair.

  “Come on, Lala, up.” Her mama pats the kitchen stool, and Akilah obliges. She sits as still as possible, but still, at eight, it’s hard. Eight-year-old energy and a hot comb don’t make for best friends.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Mama test the hot comb’s temperature and hiss. “There we are. Okay now—” Akilah’s older brother comes dashing into the kitchen. He’s eighteen, and too old, Akilah thinks, to run around the way he does. “Jamal,” Mama hisses again, although this time not from the heat.

  Akilah does, though, yelping as her hand rushes up to feel the new burn along her edges. Her eyes start to blur with tears as the tender skin stings. She sniffles, and Mama curses as she puts down the co
mb.

  “Imma need you to put the brakes on in my kitchen. Making me burn your sister’s head—”

  Akilah frowns deeply in Jamal’s direction. He’s blurry, but she can see he barely reacts, having already stopped running. He certainly doesn’t look at Akilah. “I need some money.”

  “You need some sense.”

  “Just forty bucks,” Jamal counters.

  “I don’t have it.” Mama says it in a way that means “I’m not giving it to you,” and even at eight, Akilah understands that.

  Jamal’s eyes light up something fierce and angry, with an expression that Akilah always thought looked too much like an adult on him. “What do you mean, Ma? I need it.”

  “You don’t need—”

  “Yeah, I do!” he yells, and he slams his hand against the washer so hard that Akilah jumps in place.

  She didn’t understand why Mama did this. Didn’t just give Jamal what he wanted when he acted like this. Now he’s gonna yell and slam things, and Mama will join in, and maybe she’ll give him the forty dollars eventually, or maybe she doesn’t, and he leaves the house in a huff again. Either way, if Mama just did it, they didn’t have to do this, he wouldn’t run in all ready to fight about it, and maybe Akilah’s forehead wouldn’t—

  “Ow!” Akilah winces.

  Auntie stops braiding; when had she started? “Something wrong, honey?”

  Akilah reaches a hand to her forehead, confused by the lack of heat, but she realizes there’s no burn there either. It’s been a long time since she last used a hot comb, and even longer since she used one with Jamal in the house. For a second, she’d been burned fresh, her mama and Jamal’s voices loud and sharp in her ears, as her feet dangled on that stool . . .

  But her feet touch the floor now, and all Auntie is doing is braiding. Akilah doesn’t even recall handing back the grease, but that, too, is gone. She glances back to look at Auntie. “What did you do?” This time, her voice sounds strange to her ears—too old, compared to how she’d sounded before, too low. This time, it takes a moment for her sense of the past to catch up and click into place with the present, to comprehend that this is how she’s supposed to sound.

  Auntie blinks, keeping her expression placid-pleasant. Akilah hisses as Auntie uses a large clip to keep some of her hair to the side. It’s too tight, but Auntie adjusts it as soon as Akilah squirms. Akilah spies a spider on the web in the window, slowly making its way across the glimmer of spider silk. “What you paid me to do. Fixing your head. Now stay still.”

  This time, when Auntie tugs, Akilah has a sneaking suspicion about what comes next, but doesn’t have enough time to react—and if she did, how would she stop? There’s no stopping the sudden snapping back in time, not when—

  “What?” Akilah’s a few years back now, and her brother is in front of her and her mother again. They’re outside the building, and it’s strange—Akilah’s a teenager, bigger than when she was eight in front of the hot comb, but Jamal’s the same size he was back then. Still larger than her, still larger than her mom, and still ready to pop off at a moment’s notice.

  Akilah knows what this fight is about immediately, even if the details haven’t caught up yet. It’s always about his wallet. Always about filling it. So what matters aside from the amount?

  “I said chill, Lala,” Jamal snaps. “And stay out of this. This is between me and Mom.”

  No, it’s not, because Akilah was supposed to have a calm day with her mama, getting those slender cornrows that her mother had perfected post–hair straightening. Just them and Akilah’s homegirls on the steps, watching people move past. Instead, Jamal’s shown his ass again, and Tiana and Mama are cringing, and Akilah’s tired of watching it happen. She wants to go back to a few minutes ago, when her mother was redoing a part, and Akilah could feel her hands along her scalp.

  But Jamal is still Jamal, and she isn’t about to fight him. She does the only thing she can. “How much you need?”

  Jamal blinks, his tirade halted in its tracks. “Lala, what are you talking about?”

  “I’ve got money,” Akilah explains stubbornly, even before her mother opens her mouth to argue. “What do you need today? Twenty? Forty?” She whips around to her backpack, digging in to find her wallet. She’d been saving to go out this weekend, all her allowance for the past couple of weeks and a little extra from fixing a classmate’s braids when the ends came loose.

  She shoves cash in his hands, nearly everything she’d put aside. “Take it,” she tells him. She hopes he’ll pretend to be gallant, to have a chip on his shoulder about taking money from her, but she knows him better than to expect it. He glances between her and Mama and Tiana—Tiana who watches, memorizes every action and twitch and word—before shoving the cash into his pockets.

  It’s like sun breaking through clouds, because he suddenly smiles. It’s like the morning that you wake up and you realize your braids have finally loosened up, that the headache is gone, except that just comes from the way Mama’s shoulders unclench as Jamal suddenly wants to remember they’re family.

  But Akilah solved it.

  Now Akilah’s getting whiplash, struggling to remember the year. How her legs aren’t as spindly anymore, and they don’t shake under her while she wonders if she handed over enough for Jamal to relax. Her hair is halfway finished now, and when she reaches up a hand to check on it, she could have sworn Mama was further along . . .

  No, not Mama. Auntie. The witch.

  Akilah jumps up from the chair now. “Don’t touch me!” she snaps. Auntie flinches at Akilah’s volume, but recovers quickly, crossing her hands in front of her as if waiting for a child to stop having a conniption. And maybe she is, because all at once Akilah is seventeen, eight, sixteen, and fourteen, and it’s all dizzying, it’s all too much. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me, but I know—”

  “Now, maybe I’m just old,” Auntie starts, and Akilah cringes despite her rage, because she knows how this speech sounds. Witch or no, it always sounds the same. “Maybe I’m out of touch, but I don’t get you, Akilah.”

  “There’s nothing to get between you and me,” Akilah assures her, gesturing. Her gaze shoots to the side at the slightest movement; a small spider crawls on the end table. Two spiders. Akilah takes a step toward the door. She doesn’t know magic, but she knows normal, and this ain’t it.

  Akilah shouldn’t suddenly feel like Auntie is as tall as Jamal, as short as Mama. Her scalp shouldn’t ache as if divided into three different styles all at once, her forehead shouldn’t sting like a burn.

  “Oh?” Auntie questions. “When you first started braiding around here, I was glad.” Akilah snorts. “I’m getting up there in age, and I don’t need to be fixing everybody’s head all up. And Jayleen doesn’t braid unless they see my arthritis acting up.” Akilah didn’t know Jayleen could braid.

  Akilah’s head shouldn’t, couldn’t be jerked back then, as if Auntie’s hands and combs were still separating knots and curly chaos, but—

  —No, that’s wrong. Jayleen has offered to braid her hair, a few months ago. Akilah’s in tears. Jayleen’s hand is on her back, rubbing small comforting circles as Akilah hiccups and sniffs. She isn’t cute right now, but Jayleen touches her like she is. Jayleen offers to braid her hair as if it might help.

  Akilah doesn’t even really say no—her throat hurts too much from crying to speak. The mortification from Tiana’s attitude still rings too loud in her ears for Akilah to even manage a nod or a shake.

  She doesn’t get it. Tiana is her best friend, but still caught her off guard. Tiana’s snap back—Well, we’d be able to go if you didn’t give Jamal all your damn money—made Akilah still. Jayleen had almost jumped in, would have snapped back if Akilah hadn’t deaded the situation. Because Tiana’s right, isn’t she? That Akilah is the one with the job, and it’s only fair that she treats her friends if she has t
he money . . .

  It isn’t the first time that Tiana’s been annoyed when Akilah couldn’t front the money for them to go out, but it’s the first time she’s used Jamal’s name, buried the knife as deeply. Akilah doesn’t want to fight with Tiana or Jamal, doesn’t know how to make them both happy . . .

  No, that’s wrong, too. She sniffles, pulling away from Jayleen even as they gently scratch between her braids. Tiana wouldn’t be pissed if only . . .

  Akilah’s breath goes jagged with tears that were cried months ago.

  Another spider, three of them now, crawl up from the back of the couch. Akilah feels sick.

  “I suppose Jayleen stopped braiding when you started your business. Didn’t want to step on their girlfriend’s toes. But I always assumed if you were going to braid hair, you were going to do it right. No rush jobs, no rotating chairs of clients to squeeze in another dollar.” Akilah doesn’t speak. “It was a shame to see my old clients again. Saying that you’re rude, that you’re rough on their heads—”

  “That’s not it and doesn’t give you any right to be doing magic on me!”

  Auntie tilts her head. “You paid me to fix your head, didn’t you?”

  Her words ring with a different kind of importance, and Akilah freezes. She freezes before she sees the spiders—the ones under the couch and from the kitchen and down the hall and over the television. She can’t move even before she sees the spiders moving to form a circle around Auntie, or the couch and folding chair and drapes sharing the same spiderweb glimmer.

  Akilah does not turn to look at the walls behind her.

  “In the old days,” Auntie says, “I would have been petty. So many young upstarts who think that talent and attitude and rudeness all go hand in hand. Who don’t think about why they want to rush things. I would have said to hell with it—if weaving and braiding is so important to you, you can do it for the rest of your days.” The webbing stops reflecting light and begins to glow. It’s a blessing that Akilah is frozen in place, because otherwise she might collapse to her knees. “But I’ve grown a little wiser in my old age. And there’s better ways for me to deal with youth. You always have a reason for your behavior.” She unfolds her hands. “So instead, I just teach you about yourself.”