“Make sure it’s deep!” Asif yelled after her.
~~~
Deuce was leaning against the reception desk when Zora entered the lobby. Dressed in chinos and boots with a white crew-neck shirt, he was nodding at something the woman at the desk said. Taking a breath, Zora prepared to greet him.
It was the middle of the day. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near the apartment, and if she had known he would be, she would have asked Asha to meet her at a restaurant someplace instead.
“Hey!” she said, manufacturing some cheer. “What’re you doing here?”
Deuce turned away from the desk and toward her. His eyes ran her length, fleetingly, but not so quickly she didn’t notice.
She was wearing a black form-fitting jersey maxi-skirt with her Chucks, and a white tank, topped with a cropped denim jacket. Her cornrows were still holding strong, but nevertheless, she wore a red headwrap, in anticipation of the humidity making her hair fuzzy as the day wore on.
“Hey,” he returned. And then there was a little glitch while he seemed to be figuring out what to say.
“I’m here for lunch with Asha,” she said, giving him an out. “Were you just up there, or just heading up?”
“Yeah. Nah. Something’s happened.”
“What?”
Deuce glanced at the receptionist and nodded his goodbye before coming closer. He put a hand on her arm.
“It’s probably nothing, but …” He stopped and swallowed.
“What’s probably nothing? Is it … is it your mom?” Zora gripped his arm.
“My mom? No.” He shook his head and looked confused for a moment. “Not my mom. Asha. She went to the emergency room.”
“The emergency room?” Zora’s voice rose. “Why? Did she …?”
“No, no. She didn’t lose the … Come over here.” Deuce led her to the small waiting area where they sat on two of the ottoman style chairs. “It was a false alarm. Kal and me were meeting a couple guys from school and she called. There was some … I don’t know, some cramps or something and she got scared, so we came back here. Kal took her to the emergency room.”
“And what did they say?” Zora asked, her heart pounding. She remembered Asha’s apprehension about the pregnancy.
“It’s probably nothing,” Deuce said. “They said everything looks fine. They’re gonna do a couple more tests, but it looks like everything’s fine.”
Zora’s shoulders sagged and she exhaled deeply.
“Okay. So … should we go over there, or …?”
“Nah. Kal doesn’t want that. You know how he can be. But Asha told me you were planning to meet her here, asked me to wait and let you know what’s up.”
“Are you sure she’s okay? And that the baby …”
Deuce nodded. “Yeah. When I got off the phone with Kal a couple minutes ago he said they saw the heartbeat, and everything looks good so far.”
Letting her head fall back, Zora shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Deuce was staring at her.
“I’m down a lunch date,” he said. “And looks like so are you. Want to …?”
Zora nodded. “Okay.”
Neither of them was in the mood to be too choosy about where to eat, so they ambled a few blocks down to a small place, unimaginatively named Vietnam. The restaurant was jampacked with the lunch crowd, but the tables turned over quickly, and they were able to get one stuffed in the rear, near the swinging doors that led to the kitchen.
The din of voices, utensils on plates, and the clatter of pots and pans surrounded them, as servers dashed back and forth, holding trays aloft, bearing steaming, aromatic dishes of colorful food.
“This looks really good,” Zora said, picking up one of the large glossy menus.
There were dozens of choices, with pictures accompanying almost every one. A brusque and businesslike young woman happened by to slosh water into their glasses and inquire about whether they wanted tea.
“Yes, jasmine,” Zora said. “Thank you.”
The young woman hurried away again almost before she got the words out.
Deuce laughed. “I guess this is one of those kinds of places, huh?” he said.
“Right?” Zora said, still looking down at her menu. “Where you feel pressured to come up with your order in two minutes or less. Well, I’m not going to be bullied into ordering until I’m good and ready.”
“In my experience, you can’t be bullied into anything,” Deuce returned.
“That’s not true. You bullied me into plenty in the past.”
At that he said nothing, and when Zora looked up, he was sipping from his water glass and looking almost hurt.
“Persuaded is probably more accurate,” she amended. “You’re very persuasive.”
“If I really want something, yeah,” he said, his eyes meeting hers.
Looking down again, Zora tried to focus on the words on the massive menu. It was in English and Vietnamese, so the typeface was very small.
“I’m still a little worried about Asha,” she said. “I think I’ll call her after this. I can’t even imagine …” She looked up at him again. “Can you believe they’re pregnant?”
“And getting married,” Deuce added.
“Yeah. I just can’t …” She stopped and shook her head. “Who would have thought, right?”
Thought that it wouldn’t have been them. Who would have thought that it wouldn’t have been them, who got married first? Had kids first.
“Yeah.”
“How’s Kal doing with it?” she asked.
“Good. Better than good. He’s geekin’.”
Setting the menu on the table between them Zora leaned back, shaking her head in almost disbelief.
“Wow. I mean … right? Just … wow.”
Deuce grinned. “Word.”
They sat with that for a moment. And Zora wanted to ask Deuce how he was doing with it. His best friend was taking a huge step toward manhood and the kind of life that no one would have believed he’d have for almost a decade to come.
“Asif said to thank you, by the way.”
A change of subject seemed warranted, since neither of them seemed to know how to maneuver through a conversation about someone else’s impending marriage and baby.
“He thanked me himself. When I texted him earlier.” Deuce shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal? He said you’re having the screening at your father’s house?”
“I told you. He has a new media company now. So, on the off-chance he’s there, he might be interested as well.”
Shifting in his seat, Deuce reached for his own menu and looked down at it.
“Yes, but you never …”
“You ready to order?”
Their briskly efficient server was back, pen and pad held at the ready.
“Not quite yet,” Zora said, smiling up at her. “Ten minutes. Thank you.”
The server scowled disapprovingly and moved on.
“He could have hosted the screening at the studio where we did that interview,” Zora continued. “You didn’t have to go to all the extra trouble of …”
“It’s a lot harder to get people to agree to go to some random studio than it is to get them to accept an invite to my father’s house.”
“I’m sure. But …”
“Zee. It’s no big deal.” Deuce said, placing exasperated emphasis on each word.
“Okay,” she said, backing off. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t …”
“I did,” he said. “Because it’s your cousin, I went to extra trouble. So, just … get comfortable with that.”
She pursed her lips then un-pursed them and sighed.
“Well … thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
They chose their dishes in silence and when their server returned, were ready to rock and roll, much to her delight. Finally, she bestowed a smile.
When she was gone, Zora laughed. “Now, we’re in her good graces o
nce again,” she said.
Deuce smiled, his eyes never leaving her face.
“What?” she asked.
“You look incredible,” he said, shrugging.
Just as she was about to respond, he put a hand over hers. And it felt, honest-to-God like he delivered an electric shock, or like her hand had been sitting there, expressly because it was waiting for some contact between them.
“I can still tell you that, can’t I?”
“Y…yeah, of course.” Her teeth raked over her lower lip.
“I like when you wear that thing …” He indicated her head-wrap. “I can see your eyes … everything, better.”
“I thought you liked my hair out,” she challenged.
“I like that, better,” Deuce said, nodding, his gaze never leaving hers. “But I like this a lot too.”
“So basically, hair out, hair wrapped … you love it all. Is that it?” she teased.
“Yeah,” Deuce said, squinting as if thinking through the question. “That’s basically it.”
Zora wanted to pull her hand away, almost as much as she’d wanted him to touch it in the first place.
It felt like he was trying to seduce her. If he was, it was unfair. And not just to her, either.
“Tell me how your mother is, how work is.”
At that, Deuce was the one to pull his hand away.
“I don’t know how my mother is, because she won’t talk to me about her treatment. So, I’m for sure thinking about moving back up there to be with her. Doesn’t feel right, her being in that house all alone except for people who’re paid to be there. And with my aunt and grandmother stopping in when they can.”
Zora nodded.
“She’ll fight me on it, but I’m doing it anyway,” he said. “If I live there, I’ll see for myself how she is.”
“That feels like the right thing.”
Deuce looked at her. “You think so?”
She nodded again. “Yeah.”
They said nothing for a few moments, then Deuce leaned back.
“As for work …” he began then stopped.
Zora let her head fall to one side. “As for work,” she prompted.
“Jamal Turner is on my ass like, every day now.”
“About what?”
“Everything. Gave me a speech about SE being my father’s legacy. Like I didn’t already feel a lot of pressure to succeed over there.”
“I’m sure I can’t talk you into not feeling pressured, but you are going to succeed, Deuce. I know it.”
“You know it, huh?”
“I do.” She nodded.
“Changed the name for the damn label like three times this month alone. Can’t settle on a logo, the damn focus groups were garbage …”
“Well, if you don’t have a name, the logo would be challenging,” Zora offered. “What’re some of the names you came up with.”
“Going HAM was one, but Jamal didn’t like that …”
Zora spluttered. “Because it would be stupid.”
“You think so?” Deuce laughed.
“Going HAM Records? You couldn’t seriously have thought that would work. What would your logo be? A side of pork?”
“That’s not what …”
“I know what ‘going ham’ means, Deuce. But you need something that people get, the minute they hear it.”
“My target demographic would’ve gotten it. What if I dropped the ‘going’?”
“Worse.”
“Worse?”
“Yes. I promise you. Much worse.”
“Okay, well I finally figured it out anyway so there won’t be a Going HAM Records in existence.”
“What’d you call it?”
“Gollum Records.”
Zora’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t get it.”
“You know when the gollum in Lord of the Rings does that creepy voice and says, ‘my precious’ …”
She smiled. “Yeah?”
“So, ‘going gollum’ is like when you have something you treasure, something special.” Deuce paused and took a breath. “And you want to keep it away from anyone … anyone who might want to take it from you.”
“The idea being that you’re going to sign the kinds of artists that people will want to …”
“Steal. Yeah. Something like that.”
Zora looked up at the ceiling and chewed on her lower lip for a moment.
“I don’t … hate it,” she said finally, teasing him. “Gollum Records.”
“You don’t hate it?” He grinned at her. “That’s the best you can do?”
She shrugged.
Deuce nodded, his eyes still on hers. “I’ll take that, I guess.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I have to look amazing,” Regan said, doing a full turn in front of her mirror.
Her dress was pink chiffon and short, and its flouncy skirt swirled about her slender thighs like gossamer. Her legs looked a mile long in off-white heels, and her arms were thin but toned.
A screening, Deuce tried to explain to her that morning, was not the same as a movie premiere. But she insisted that she needed to look spectacular, since it was her first social outing since the robbery.
And she succeeded. She did look spectacular, if a little underweight. While she got dressed, she commented on her weight-loss, saying the only good thing about having had a gun to her head was that she had been too out of it to eat a full meal for more than three weeks.
“You look fine,” Deuce said, glancing at his watch. “Hurry up though. We still gotta swing by to get Kal and Asha.”
“Fine? Is that all you can say?”
“Regan, you always look good. No matter what you wear, no matter what you do with your hair, you always look good. Okay? So, now can we go?”
“Don’t do that,” she said, her expression flat.
“Do what?” he asked, feeling his patience begin to wear even thinner.
“Be so … dismissive. And act like me wanting to look nice when I’m meeting my boyfriend’s friends makes me neurotic or something.”
Whenever she called him that lately, Deuce wanted to bang his head against a wall. He told himself it was because of the unrelenting … togetherness she had been insisting on since the robbery. And he tried to remind himself of the earliest days of their relationship when some of the very same things that were an irritant now had been cute.
“I’m not being dismissive, Regan. I just don’t like keeping people waiting.”
“Then fine. Let’s go.”
Shooting him a look over her shoulder, she turned and grabbed her pashmina off her unmade bed huffing out of the room.
Shoving himself up from the armchair in the corner, Deuce followed, still feeling the knot in his stomach that had been there all morning. He had been texting with Asif since yesterday, confirming the set-up, letting him know the time he should arrive at his father’s place in New Jersey and other details. But he hadn’t asked, and Asif didn’t volunteer whether Zora would be there.
And she didn’t volunteer that information either. Since their lunch together that day when Asha went to the emergency room, they had been texting on and off. Most of it was her asking about his mom, and about work; and him sending her screenshots of the Gollum Records logo options and complaining about how hard Jamal Turner was still riding him.
But he hadn’t heard from her since he’d texted her the day before, one simple question: Lunch again soon?
The lack of a response Deuce took as a smackdown and sent nothing more. After that faux pas, he didn’t relish the thought that he might see her tonight, with Regan at his side, all dressed-up and preening like a cockatoo.
On the drive over to get Kal and Asha, with Regan sitting next to him, still in a snit, he forced himself to catalog all the things about her that had kept their relationship going for three months.
She watched sports. Loved football and could talk smack with the best of them. In her closet, she had a genuine Tom Brady jersey, whi
ch she had from going to his second Super Bowl win with her father.
She had a laugh that was as delicate and feminine as any he had ever heard.
And she was such a … girl. Loving anything that was prissy, or frilly, or fussy or pink. Like the dress she was wearing now. Her girliness was the kind that made a man feel like a man. She never opened her own doors, pulled out her own chair, and sometimes didn’t even order for herself at restaurants. He kind of dug all that.
Reminding himself of these things didn’t work, though. By the time Deuce pulled up in front of his apartment building and spotted Kal and Asha waiting just outside, both of them dressed casually—as was he—Regan already felt out of place in their crew, and she hadn’t even met them yet.
~~~
“can’t say I don’t get what you see in her,” Kal said as they walked across the flagstone driveway.
Asha and Regan were a few paces ahead. Even though wearing heels and walking on an uneven surface, Regan managed to maintain the runway swish of her hips that had caught Deuce’s notice when they first met.
Regan had never been to his father’s house before but strode ahead with a sense of confidence that might have people mistaking her as someone who owned the place. Asha on the other hand kept glancing over her shoulder, obviously wanting to wait for Kal and Deuce to catch up before she crossed the threshold of the open front door.
“I know you got somethin’ else to say,” Deuce said. “So g’on get it off your chest.”
“Nothing,” Kal said with false casualness. “She’s completely predictable for you at this point.”
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Kal shrugged. “Really pretty. Looks great in pictures I bet and is someone you couldn’t possibly take seriously. Since you’re not looking to take anyone seriously other than you know, your girl.”
For a moment, Deuce was insulted on Regan’s behalf. She never played games, was clearly into him and didn’t mind him knowing it. And above all, she was … uncomplicated. For three months, all of that had amounted to a pressure-free good time. Apart from bouts of occasional clinginess, Regan was a good girlfriend. But once Kal said it aloud, he had to admit it to himself as well—despite all that was good about her, he didn’t take her seriously.
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