Walking on Cowrie Shells

by Nana Nkweti

  “Yes, Mummy,” said Astrid, then again, “yes, Mummy.” The last said to empty air. Her mother had finally taken off.

  • • •

  On the PATH train platform into the city, Young, Mimi, and Mbola had assessed Astrid’s costume.

  “Who you?” Mbola had asked, her tone filled with no small amount of suspicion. “What are you supposed to be?”

  “What she is, is highly kkuljaem,” Young answered, giving her his highest compliment in a worldview filled with two types of people: those noteworthy enough to be kkuljaem, and all the rest who were just plain nojaem. Astrid giggled the first time she heard the word. It sounded like “cool jam”—a chart-topping Spotify bop or the kind of artisanal preserves hipsters sourced from farmer’s markets and food co-ops. Young spelled both in Korean for her: (kkuljaem) and (nojaem). More vocab for the Rosetta word bank.

  Mimi gave Astrid a once-over. “She’s that ninja superhero chick from their comic book.”

  “She’s a samurai. And it’s a graphic novel,” said Young.

  “Whatevs, superheroes don’t wear glasses,” said Mimi, with finality.

  “What about Clark Kent or Beast?” Mbola said, eager to support her (fingers-crossed) future baby daddy, her eyes on Young, saying, “And Cyclops wears that visor thingy so he don’t burn folk up with his eyes. Ooh, ooh, and what ’bout your girl Wonder Woman, Mimi, what about her?”

  “Alter egos don’t count,” Mimi said. “When she’s Wonder Woman, she’s a princess and she’s perfect.”

  As the two girls bickered, Young and Astrid swapped home evasion stories involving synchronized watches and draconian parental curfews. At the mention of his father, Young sighed repeatedly, running charcoal-stained fingers through his crazed anime hair, its spiky tufts defiant, jabbing the air excitedly like inky exclamation points. His dad, senior pastor at the biggest Korean Presbyterian church in Central Jersey, bowed a head full of gelled, upstanding Kim Jong-il hair in prayer every Sunday morning at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., and 12 o’clock services. The right Reverend Yoon had serious hair and serious plans for his son to be leader of his flock someday. Plans that did not involve Young’s siblings: his sister Gi, a K-Poppy-slash-keyboard activist who flooded racist Twitter feeds with ARMY fancams and wore colorful T-shirts with sayings like “Unicorns Are My Spirit Animal,” or Park, his blind older brother, who was a stellar sculler in the “engine room” of a championship eight-man rowing team. The Rev would be damned if he let his younger son, and heir apparent, succumb to a life of frivolous etching.

  “You’re going to have to tell your dad about the letter sooner or later,” Astrid said. “You have to speak up for yourself someday, senpai.”

  “Right back at you, kōhai.”

  There were two letters actually: Young’s acceptance to a fine arts program at Pratt and Astrid’s to Princeton. Hers was in the notebook she carried everywhere, kept close to her chest like a breath or a promise. Young’s was tucked away, alongside his art supplies, in a hidey-hole at school. Both were safeguarded from mothers who “accidentally” read your diary or fathers who sprinkled your “heathenish” artwork with holy water.

  Young had sighed once again. “Look, tell her you don’t want to go to Princeton. It’s a great school, just not for you. Show her that life goal list of yours. What’s your mother gonna do? Whip out The Photo again?”

  The Photo was legendary among her friends, holding sway in their collective imaginations like lore of the One Ring or the Sorcerer’s Stone. Astrid had first seen The Photo when she was ten years old, slipping peas to their dog, Cujo, under the dining room table. Her mother put her fork down and left the room. She returned with a photo—it wasn’t The Photo yet—but her mother held it up to her face with all the import that it would soon come to hold. Astrid had grown up listening to her classmates’ stories of how tricky parents guilted them into eating liver, brussels sprouts, and the like with tales of all the little children starving in Africa. Except for Astrid, there was no mystery malnourished African child behind door number two.

  That child was real.

  That child was a relative.

  “This is your cousin Adama,” her mother had said, pushing the photo even closer to her face. “Look at her! Do you think she can refuse food? Do you?” And Astrid had studied the little girl standing barefoot in a blush of red dust, yet improbably clean; clad only in a trophy-shiny Super Bowl T-shirt, donation-bin wear from a team that had forfeited their championship dreams. Adama stood there smiling, a mud brick hut behind her, an uncertain future ahead of her, and the photo became The Photo: her mother’s insurance for her good grades—Adama’s parents could barely afford her school fees—and good behavior—if Adama misbehaved, she was disciplined with a caning. It had worked for a longer time than Astrid was willing to own up to, even to herself.

  “Have you met my mother?” Astrid jokingly asked. “Answer? No, you haven’t, because you know if Mrs. ‘No daughter of mine is dating before marriage’ catches me with a boy, I’m donezo. She’s a paragon of open-mindedness. Yeah right. I’m keeping all this on the low. She’ll kill me.”

  “Sure she will.” Young’s expression was still doubtful. One of his bonsai brows, so dubbed due to their bushy expressiveness, raised high.

  “No, I mean it.” Suddenly, Astrid had a vision, so vivid—Mittyesque, her mind supplies. God, she wished her life was that Technicolor, or her un-life, as it were. There she lay, her lifeless body prone with arms akimbo in a ghoulish foxtrot, in a photo labeled “Exhibit A.” There was Gwendolyn, her somber older sis, the attorney—African parent-approved career #1—defending her mother in court as her brother Gerald, the doctor—African parent—approved career #2—testified about “mental duress” and “temporary insanity.”

  “If only she had gone to Princeton and become an engineer!” Her mother wailed as a jury of sympathetic peers nodded in understanding. Lawyer, doctor, engineer—the high holy trinity of professions blessed by African parents. Writing graphic novels? No. Friggin’. Way.

  • • •

  Astrid and Young “Money” Yoon’s table is at the tail end of a strivers’ row of indie comic labels, one-off prints, and handmade fabulist’s figurines. For a moment, Astrid is hopeful when she sees Young talking to a guy who is leafing through their dwindling maybe? stack of merchandise. They were set to meet Baek Hyeon, owner of Arcania and a chain of sister stores in cities up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Baek Hyeon was big on promoting minority artists, especially fellow fans of deep-cut doujins and one-of-a-kind manhwa from the homeland like Young. Astrid had also wowed him with her Blerdy trivia. Did you know MLK was a Trekkie? Did you know Storm, weather witch extraordinaire, beat Themyscira’s Finest, in a legendary crossover smackdown? Did you know that Lois Lane was Black for a day? This homegirl hopeful jumped into a Transformoflux and got a melanin injection just to test if Superman would still marry her ebony 2.0. The more you know (cue rainbow xylo)! This was the kind of rando, weeaboo knowledge that triggered side-eyes from Mimi and had Mbola declaring “you ain’t never gonna get a man,” but Baek Hyeon got it. And “it” was going to get them a distribution deal, she hopes.

  Astrid puts her glasses back on and realizes it’s not Baek Hyeon, it’s just Abel—the skeevy owner of another, rival comic book store.

  “How big was your print run?” Astrid hears Abel ask, as she steps up to the pair, lychee bubble tea in hand.

  “’Bout a thousand,” Young says with puffed-chest bravado.

  Astrid nearly spit-takes her boba at Young’s inventive salesmanship. They had really only printed three hundred copies of The Seer: The Tales of Augur Brown, a blind swordswoman—Zatoichi meets Cleopatra Jones. Augur had an eerie ability to see inside evildoers’ souls and dispensed a blade-based justice according to a personal ethos loosely derived from bushido code and the laws of the street.

  “Wow, you mean business, dude. I thought this was some sorta vanity project.”

  “We told you we were serious
about this,” Young says. “Astrid and I are a team. Her writing’s gotten so good, it’s like she knows my characters better than I do.” Young taps a pencil against his palm for emphasis. “Her scripts keep my visuals in mind. She’s an awesome collaborator.”

  Astrid smirks at this over-the-top praise-a-thon, she can’t help herself. Later she’ll have to faux-swoon into his arms, bat her eyelashes, and sigh, “My hero. Thanks ever so kindly for saving lil’ ole me from that big, bad Abel.” They’d talked about this. Astrid and Young had had many a heated discussion about damsel-in-distress tropes and all the regressive gender politics lingering in geek culture. He knew better. He caught her look and the cocky curl of his upper lip said: “Bring it.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll display a coupla copies on my shelves and go in fifty-fifty on the sales price. Deal?” says Abel, head bobbing in enthusiasm—a graying ponytail practically wagging with excitement at the thought of profits.

  “I’ve got to discuss it with my business partner.” Young looks at her, still half smirking.

  “Sure, sure. You do that,” Abel says, then turning to Astrid, declares, “Nice getup.”

  Astrid looks at his retreating Hawaiian-shirted bulk, then at Young. She raises an eyebrow.

  “I know, I know. He’s a chauvinist ass who only likes his girls chesty and splayed across comic book covers. Blah, blah, you said it already. Now get over it.” He smiles.

  They both knew about Abel’s collection of hentai back in his storeroom—everything from futa to furry. His top-shelf titles held for special clientele with a taste for saucer-eyed dakimakura girls, kitted out in abbreviated plaid minis and Hello Kitty backpacks, opulent oppai bouncing as they’re ravaged by slimy tentacles, in every orifice.

  “Whatevs,” says Astrid. Turning to go, she smiles sweetly. “BTDubz, your girl Mbola says hi.”

  “She’s so not kkuljaem,” Young replies.

  The first time Young had called Astrid kkuljaem, she had giggled, then gone quiet. She’d just shown him the first draft of her script for Augur Brown’s next installment. They were sitting together on a tweedy brown sofa tucked in a corner of the library, their legs inches apart but no actual contact ever made. Astrid found herself wiping suddenly clammy hands and then her glasses on the hem of her flowery summer dress. Daffodil petals swept clean one lens, then the other. Young was silent, poring through her work. When he looked up, his eyes seemed to pinball all over her. What was he thinking? What was she thinking? She wrote stories in the margins of textbooks: tales of a father killing his infant son to end a family curse unfolded alongside tangents and quadrants in Bittinger’s Algebra and Trigonometry: Seventh Edition with enhanced study guide; a tale of two sisters on a Jack Sprat spectrum of eating disorders, one anorexic, the other obese, scribbled in the paginated sidelines of Essential Physics by E. W. Rockswold. A niggling shame began coursing its way through her body, burrowing in deep like a chigger, down, down, down. Young finally looked her in the eye, then cast his gaze on the page, then on her again.

  “Thank you,” he said simply, pulling out a vast, world-building expanse of drafting paper. He drew her. It had taken all of five minutes, but when he finished, it felt like the first time, in a long while, that anyone had seen her, the real her. Not in the “you’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl” or the “damn you tall, shorty” regard that made her feel like some gawky girl Groot.

  Young found her lovely. He found her, like he had set sail that day and miraculously discovered her, landing wide-eyed and intrepid on uncharted shores.

  That night she went home. Said the proper “yes, Mummys” at the dinner table and dutifully passed the egusi stew when prompted, all the while this new awareness surging inside like a secret superpower, tingling through her. She looked up sharply. Had her mother just given her a look from across the gari? She gulped the rest of her food as quietly as possible.

  Later, in the dark of her room, she was glowing. A thousand Christmas lights flashing and manic, just under her skin. The sensation only just bearable. She knew how to be quiet about relieving the tension, no telltale rustling of bedsheets, no sighs—just a long pillow held tight between the soft V of her thighs, then a squeeze, a squeeze, a squeeze.

  • • •

  After way too many texts—where u at? /getting sumthin 2 eat / by auditorium / naw, by Spidey statue / huh?—Astrid finds Mimi in a clutch of adoring fans posing for photos. Mbola is ringside, holding Mimi’s Fendi purse. Astrid supposes all the attention is partly in the novelty of Mimi as a “Black girl Psylocke,” but most probably because her costume is basically a leotard and some strategically placed purple scarves that barely conceal her massive boobs. Mammaries, Astrid thinks. Mammaries.

  Back home in Cameroon, some tribes iron girls’ breasts when they develop too fast. Wooden pestles pounded foufou and flesh alike, anything that was sharp or unyielding would do really: a grinding stone, a coconut shell, a hammer held steady-handed over hot coals. Mothers beat down their daughters’ breasts to keep them safe from come-too-quick womanhood, from the libidinous gazes of that older uncle, that schoolmaster, that strapping boy in the classroom’s corner desk at their secondary school. Her mother was born of this tradition. Astrid sometimes caught her mother eyeing her long, wayward limbs in exasperation, as if her growth spurt was somehow a calculated rebellion. Astrid tries to be good, she does, but the harder she tries, the harder her mother becomes, still. Her sister Gwendolyn had tried to explain it once, stuff about Astrid being the “last cocoa,” the late-life child their flagging mother tried doubly hard to keep in line, yada, yada, yada. It was all so exhausting—her mother’s worries, her nameless fears—but Astrid supposed this was why her mother had lied about The Photo.

  A week ago, Astrid had learned the truth, surrounded by dark Twilight poster boys vamping at her from the walls of Mimi’s bedroom. She was checking her Insta page: scrolling past four “like” notifications and three new follows. Two were easily identified but the third was from some girl she vaguely felt she should know. Someone from summer camp, a Sugar Pine alum maybe? No, the girl listed her hometown as Bamenda, Cameroon. She almost asked her girls if they knew her, but they were busy: Mimi, supposedly studying but in actual truth DMing a Parisian bodybuilder on TikTok and a Filipino Tinderoni in BK; Mbola, checking out YouTube tutorials, how-to vids by Ms. D. Vine on the best way to install your own lace front. She looked at the girl’s warm, glossy-lipped smile again and stopped cold. It was Adama. As in her cousin, Adama. Adama with 3,579 friends. Astrid had thirty-two. Adama in dozens of duck-faced selfies and ussies. Astrid had a grainy class photo as her profile pic. Wearing bifocals, no less. There were fabulous foodie flat lays. There was Adama with a braided fauxhawk, there with kinky twists, in an Escalade, in a Pajero, on a merry-go-round, was that a jet?, cozying up to a cleft-chinned guy tagged as Marcus Tambe, a barrel-chested footballer, a Marcus Konwifo, and a DJ Bae named Marcus Atekwana who looked like he used his washboard abs to scrub girls’ panties. All the choice Marci.

  Adama’s life was amazing. Verified.

  Astrid jumped up, stumbled to the bathroom, and promptly threw up.

  How lame is my life? She dry-heaved once more. Twice more. What life? She wished she could facetune her whole existence, slap a Juno filter over it all.

  Two days later she got her acceptance letter to Princeton, its words standing dark and ominous against the creamy paper. It was official. The reality of that almost made her throw up again. She felt ridiculous for dreaming beyond the picture-perfect life her family wanted for her: nice cars, nice houses, nice husbands, nice jobs. All so tidy. So prefab. Sometimes she went to the mall to get messy, to fuck things up. To pocket pens behind the cashier’s back and fill that well inside herself. Why? Why did she have to make such a fuss and want more?

  “Ouch. What the—?”

  Someone just stepped on Astrid’s big toe. Post-thirst-trap-photo-op, there is some slight jostling and jockeying for position among the tight band of young
men—some spandexed, some not, some with eager lenses jutting, some with limp camera straps dangling and tangling as they press in close to her friend. Astrid moves back a bit and her sheathed katana pokes a guy in the belly.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles.

  “No worries,” he says, looking her over as he rubs his deflated paunch. “Who are you supposed to be?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that one out,” Astrid replies.

  • • •

  Astrid stares down at the NYC subway bench with its ritual scarifications, its palimpsest of celebrity memorials: Tupac 4 Life, R.I.P. Biggie, Forever Whitney. On their trek back to Jersey, Mbola and Astrid sit together silently for a number of reasons.

  First, their mouths are full. Astrid is chewing wasabi nuts; Mbola is sucking on sunflower seeds, spitting their freshly desalinated husks in a long trail that makes Astrid think of children lost in fairy-tale woodlands.

  Second, they are exhausted. The rest of the afternoon had surged forward in a blur: an advance screening of a new Marvelverse TV show, Mimi’s “honorable mention” in a cosplay contest, and a pretty informative panel on how to survive the impending zombie apocalypse. While the “panelists”—three guys in fatigues toting Day-Glo orange rifles—handed out copies of an actual Centers for Disease Control zombie-preparedness guide, Mimi and Mbola argued survival scenarios, should an outbreak happen in Africa. Mimi figured high body counts: They can’t even cure Ebola, let alone some zombie virus. Mbola was a tad more optimistic: Stop playing. They would ether them zombie mofos. Them motherland Africans stay packing machetes. Astrid tuned them out and took detailed notes for her lemony Richonne one-shots. She was big on research, had spent hours at the aquarium documenting all things piscine for her Afrocentric mermaid story, “La Sirène Africaine.” Just then she was diligently recording instruction drills for how to kill or successfully elude the walking dead. Differentiating, of course, between Romero’s slow, lurching Dawn of the Dead revenants and the quickened undead “zoombies” of 28 Days and its ilk. Kill shots to the head were deemed universally appropriate.