Deuce thought he heard a sharp intake of breath and then Asha was smiling and Kal was hurrying down the hall to meet her. Zora emerged from the rear, wearing another of her outfits with wide-legged pants, this time a shell-pink pantsuit with a halter top that showed off her shoulders and seemed cut low on the sides, probably with an open back. Her hair was out in an Afro, large and resplendent. Beautiful, as always.
Gaze fixed on her, Deuce stood.
“How was the bachelor party?” she asked, when they were close enough to speak.
“Pitiful. Went out with some of his boys from the old days, but Kal couldn’t hold his liquor. Tolerance is down since he’s been training.
“So, after a few rounds of vomiting, I took him back to his spot and we sat up drinking water all night till he fell asleep, hydrated enough to not look like shit for his wedding day.”
Zora laughed. “Sounds like it was …”
“Lit. Yup.”
Smiling, she reached up and fixed his collar. Just the touch of her fingertips against his neck made Deuce relax, and realize just how tense he had been, with them being off like they were, even if just for one day.
He leaned in and inhaled her at her neck.
“I missed you,” he whispered, smelling the sunshine-y scent of her perfume.
“Missed you, too.” She leaned against him briefly and then they turned to see what was up with Kal and Asha.
Halfway down the hall, they were having a private moment, foreheads touching, eyes shut. It looked like they were praying.
“Her mother texted to let her know she couldn’t make it,” Zora said. “Can you believe that? Texted at the last minute.”
Deuce looked at her.
Zora’s lips were tight, her eyes angry.
“I was wondering where she was,” he said.
“Asha said that once she heard that Javi was coming, she backed out. Like she figured that was good enough. To have a ‘best friend’ here, like that could substitute for a parent. I can’t even imagine. On the most important day of her life, and …” Zora broke off and shook her head in disbelief.
“Yeah,” Deuce said, speaking slowly. “That’d be a pretty crappy feeling.”
~~~
The ceremony was brief; in a small room, with a civil servant standing at a lectern, asking Kal and Asha to repeat their vows. She smiled only at the end when she pronounced them man and wife, and Kal cupped Asha’s face in both hands to kiss her.
Javier buzzed around, taking pictures with his cellphone and Kal’s parents, smiled at each other, a secret smile, probably remembering their own wedding. Deuce didn’t look at Zora, because he knew what might be too naked in his eyes.
When the ceremony was done, Deuce pulled Mr. Carter aside, and asked if he would allow him to cover the cost of the wedding brunch.
“As a gift,” he said. “From Zora and me.”
“I don’t think so, son,” Ibrahim said, his voice firm and brooking no argument. “My wife and I, we have to do something to contribute to this day. I’ll take care of the meal.”
They piled into two cabs and headed to a Mexican restaurant, that Kal said was one of his favorites. Pulling two tables together, they ordered for the table, a family-style breakfast of sangria and huevos rancheros, sausage enchiladas and warm tortillas. Kal kept one hand on Asha’s abdomen almost throughout the entire meal, occasionally, and almost absently, rubbing it.
“So, what’s on the agenda now?” Javier asked, clapping his hands together with satisfaction while Mr. Carter was settling the bill.
“Y’all can do whatever you want,” Kal said. “But I’m taking my wife home.”
Blushing, Asha looked down at her lap, and played with the ends of her pretty hairstyle which Deuce had a feeling wouldn’t make it through the night.
As they walked in a group out to get cabs back to their hotels and homes, Deuce sidled up to Kal and yoked him around the neck, pulling him close.
“Glad I could make it out, man,” he said. “You done good. You got a real one.”
Kal looked at him. “You do, too, D. She’s difficult sometimes. Damn, she’s difficult. But she’s worth it.”
~~~
“I don’t know whY I thought people climbed up here,” Zora said, turning to face him.
Deuce smiled. “If they did, would you have done it?”
“Probably not,” she admitted after a moment.
He laughed.
The plan was that they would go up to Grizzly Peak, see the famed view of San Francisco Bay, and maybe even stay up there long enough to watch the sun set. Zora heard about it from the concierge when she was asking for recommendations for things that she and Asha might do to relax the day before the wedding. Then Denise texted to say that she wasn’t coming to the ceremony, and Asha hadn’t been in the mood to leave the hotel.
Instead they got mani-pedis in the suite and ate expensive desserts ordered from the room service menu. Javier showed up later that evening, and Asha’s spirits lifted somewhat, but the bridal shower had been every bit as underwhelming as the bachelor party sounded.
So, now Deuce and Zora had come up to the Peak instead, except it wasn’t the hike Zora envisioned, but a winding, steep drive up a winding two-lane road called Grizzly Peak Boulevard to a pull-off area where teenagers parked, and tourists looked down at San Francisco and ooh-ed and ahh-ed while taking pictures.
It was an awesome view in the daytime but would have been even better at night. Deuce and Zora stood next to the car they’d hired, while their driver remained inside, leaning back and reading a newspaper. He had probably seen the vista a million times over, and now was quite unimpressed.
Deuce was studying the view, and Zora studied his profile. The chiseled jaw, now with a low-shorn goatee, the hair dark and silky; the heavy brows, the strong neck and masculine bulge of an Adam’s apple. In tapered sweats, running shoes and a sleeveless crew-neck shirt, he probably he could have hiked up the hill. And would have looked amazing doing it.
He looked amazing doing most things. Even brushing his teeth. If she met him today, though, would their connection happen as it had all that time ago? He looked so different. He was so different. More serious than he had been, less playful, more driven. In a matter of weeks, he had changed. In his expression, sometimes she saw traces of who he was becoming. He would be more like his father than he even knew.
“I went to Senegal,” Zora said.
Deuce turned and looked at her in surprise but said nothing.
They had talked about going together. Zora mentioned once that she hadn’t been since she was fifteen and they agreed that the next time she went, it would be with him. It was going to be a shared adventure, one of those once-in-a-lifetime trips where you stumbled around in a foreign country with someone equally clueless, but whose company was enough to make the inconveniences of not knowing either the language or the culture part of the fun.
But instead Zora had gone with her brother just after the New Year. Ousmane knew both the language and the culture, and traveling with him wasn’t quite as fun as it would have been if it were her and Deuce. It hadn’t felt adventurous at all.
That she had been to Senegal without him was an inconsequential confession, but it was her final one. After this, there was nothing more of even marginal importance about their time apart that she needed to tell Deuce.
“I just … wanted you to know that.” She shrugged.
He turned and looked at her, his smile inscrutable.
“How was it?” he asked.
“It was fine.” She shrugged again. “I would have liked to go with you.”
“We will,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Taking a step closer, his eyes held hers. Then he sighed and put an arm around her shoulder and together they walked closer to the edge of the observation area.
Immediately below was a craggy area, just rocks and dirt, and below that, a trail.
“Did you feel like I was gon’ be mad at that?” Deuc
e asked quietly, looking out toward the horizon. “That you went to Senegal without me?”
“I don’t know. It was something we were going to …”
“I’ve been thinking,” Deuce said. “About that. About the things we were going to do together.”
“Yeah?” Zora glanced at him, but he still stared ahead.
“I’ve been stuck there …” he said. “Thinking about the things we were going to do.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Ever since you came back. I’ve been stuck, thinking and being mad about where we would be, if you hadn’t left, if we hadn’t broken up, if … if … if …”
“Yeah, and I know it was my fault that we never got to …”
“No. That’s not what I’m trying to say.” Deuce turned to look at her for the first time. His eyes were warm, thoughtful. “I’m saying that there are no ‘ifs’, there is no lost time. What happened with us is what was supposed to happen.”
Zora narrowed her eyes, not sure she liked where this might be going.
“I mean, I’ve been forcing this accelerated pace, because I felt like we … you know, lost some time. Telling myself that we would have been engaged by now, or married by now, or … whatever. And then Kal dropped all his news and I was like, ‘how’d he get there before me?’ Like it’s a race or something that I was supposed to beat him at.
“But when I was watching them get married today, I was thinking, ‘who the hell would have known?’ Right? Who the hell would have known that Kal would have a baby on the way and be getting married just a little over a year after graduation? And be happy about it.”
At that, Zora laughed. “No one would have.”
“Exactly. So we don’t know what our timing is either. And it’s crazy of me to force it. Especially since, this stuff with your father … law school, my business. And everything that’s happening with my moms.” His chest heaved at that last one, the heavy one. “We have some stuff to work out.”
“But I want to be with you,” Zora said quickly, fearing that he might be about to say something about them taking time apart.
She might not know a lot of things, but that she knew she did not want. Not ever.
“And you are with me.” Deuce put a hand at the side of her face, and took two steps closer. He buried his face in her hair for a moment. “You are. I forgot that for a minute. Trying to orchestrate some future in my head, I almost forgot to enjoy right now.”
Zora looked up at him, her heart full to bursting with all she felt for this man.
“Let’s do that,” Deuce said. “From now on. Let’s just enjoy right now.”
Feeling her eyes fill, Zora nodded. “So, this means … what?”
“It means that on the day we get married—whenever that happens, whenever you want that to happen—I want your father there. Your mother, your brother, your crazy-ass cousin … Everybody who loves you, and who you love. I want to do it right. “But for now, all I need to know is that it’s you and me, rollin’ …”
“Till the wheels fall off,” Zora finished for him.
Deuce grinned. “Nah. That phrase …” He shook his head. “That ain’t for you.”
“What do you mean?” Zora pulled back pretending to be offended. “I said it right. Didn’t I?”
Grimacing, Deuce shook his head. “The inflection was a little janky. You said it like the un-cool Social Studies teacher who tries to use slang to get through to her students.”
“I did not!”
“You did.” Grinning, he took her hand, and stepped over one of the log barriers, heading for the hillside. “C’mon … let’s climb down and see where that trail leads to.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“If you can’t make it, it’s cool. Especially with all that’s been happening with you mom. I hear you’re upstate with her now?”
The word was out. Now that her health had deteriorated much more, everyone knew that his mother was sick, and they were all anticipating the worst, though no one said as much. But Deuce never talked about it with anyone besides Zora and his father.
“I can make it,” he said, ignoring the question about his living situation. “You’re leaving in ten minutes you said?”
“Yeah. But he’ll be back in town at the end of next month, so if you can’t …”
“I can make it,” he said again.
Jamal tapped the doorframe, and looked at him more closely for a moment, clearly wanting to say more. “If you’re sure.”
“I am. I just need to make a couple calls and then we can head out.”
“Okay.” Jamal spoke slowly. “Because …”
“Ten minutes.”
“I’ll wait for you downstairs out front with the driver.”
“Cool.”
When Jamal was gone, Deuce sat still for a moment, trying to remember who was where. His father was on the West Coast. His aunt had already done her time for the day, and his grandmother could get over to the house, but wasn’t equipped to handle any emergencies on her own if something went wrong.
But this was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Jamal was going to a party at the home of a friend who happened to be a friend and industry mentor to a young up-and-coming performer who went by the handle Strych-9. He was South African and had a unique sound that was hard to classify. It was New African, with a little Jamaican dancehall and hip-hop mixed in.
And on the Continent, apparently, his music had catapulted him to almost godlike status.
Watching YouTube videos late into the night a few weeks ago, Deuce happened across the footage of Strych-9 arriving in Accra, Ghana for a World Music festival. His trip just from the airport to his hotel was like the motorcade of a visiting dignitary. Children and adults alike lined the streets in the hundreds, chasing after and trying to mount the hood of his Range Rover. And when Strych-9 opened the moon-roof and emerged, the cheers were deafening.
A few miles into the trip, police escorts joined in to avert chaos, leading the SUV with flashing lights while the young man stood and waved from the opening at the top of his chauffeured vehicle. That footage was edited to include clips of Strych-9’s eventual performance at the festival, with shots of women trying to rush the stage, some of them fainting in the front row, and being carried away by security, arms and legs splayed.
After a little research, Deuce confirmed that he was virtually unknown in America, and unsigned by anyone. It was like finding a diamond the size of a baseball lying by the side of the road. No doubt countless people had walked by, not knowing the value of what they overlooked.
And best of all, Strych-9 was only nineteen-years-old and more than passably good-looking. His sound was unique, he had a look they could definitely work with and he came with an already developed listener base maybe in the hundreds of millions since Africa alone had a population of over one billion people.
Deuce was going to this party, no matter what. But first things first: he needed someone to look out for his mother.
~~~
“Of course I’ll go. But … are you sure it’s the best idea?” Zora asked. “For me to be the one who …?”
“Nah, baby. I’m not sure. But you’re all I got right now,” Deuce said on the other end of the line. He sounded rushed, and like he was walking while he talked.
“Well, that’s a resounding endorsement.”
“I’m just sayin’. You two never really had a chance to squash all that stuff from before, so I can’t lie and tell you it won’t be … weird when you get there.”
No, they hadn’t squashed anything. Because shortly after her inviting Regan to her home while Zora was spending the night, Sheryl had gotten what Zora assumed was her wish—she and Deuce had been on the outs. And now, even though it had been two weeks since they came back from California there had been nothing resembling a conversation or reconciliation.
But for there to be a reconciliation, Sheryl would first have to admit there had been a breach, and that she had
done something she shouldn’t have. Zora didn’t hold out much hope of that happening. For all she knew, Regan was still visiting.
“So, I guess I’ll check the train schedule,” Zora sighed.
“No, you’ll never make the one I usually take. You need to get an Uber.”
“All the way to Bedford? That’ll be super-expensive.”
“I’ll call it for you. I’ll text you when it’s on the way …”
“Wait,” Zora said quickly, hearing that he was about to hang up. “Are you going to warn her that it’s me who’s coming?”
“Yeah. If you’re lucky, she’ll pretend to be asleep.”
“And if she does that, who’ll let me in?”
“My grandmother should be there as well.”
Sighing, Zora looked at the ceiling. “And what time do you think you’ll be …?”
“I don’t know, baby. It’s a party. Late. I need to get some type of rapport with this kid before he leaves the country, so I don’t know. If all goes well, we might leave and go … someplace else afterwards to kick back and get some drinks.”
“Someplace else? Like where?”
“You don’t want to know,” Deuce said. “But … don’t worry. I won’t do anything you wouldn’t want me to do.”
Zora narrowed her eyes. “Are you talking about …?”
“Yeah. Strip clubs. Dudes bond over shit like that. Look, baby, I gotta go. I’m about to get in the car with Jamal. I’ll order you the Uber and text you when it’s on its way.”
“Okay, but …”
He hung up before she could ask him if she should bring dinner.
She should, she decided. With people like Deuce’s mother, it was always better to show up with a bribe.
~~~
Standing outside the door of the Bedford house with a sack of now-cold Jamaican food from the place near her apartment, and a tote overstuffed with a change of clothes, Zora took a deep breath and rang the bell.
She had also bought along one of her textbooks, because school had started and she was swamped with almost a hundred pages of reading every night. Time in general was scarce, so she would use the time waiting for Deuce to get home as reading time.
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