by Paula Chase
“When did Jess say all this?” Michael said finally.
Mina’s breath streamed in an internal sigh as she gathered her answer. She’d only brought up Jess’s side remark because she thought Michael would dismiss it as Jess being her usual Queen Bee-self, their shared dislike for her mutual. She hadn’t expected Michael to actually be concerned about the offhand comment. But his eyes, small in his face, were a mix of concern and what Mina was sure was fear. She put as much nonchalance in her voice as she could muster.
“The day he came and introduced himself to me.” Mina waved it off. “Man, forget Jess. I told her—”
“Was Jay there when she said it?”
“No,” Mina said, understanding. She was relieved when Michael’s eyes brightened and the worry knits disappeared from his forehead. She touched his leg, gently. “I know JZ can be a real tail about your design skills. But he’s still your boy, Mike. If he’d been there he would have defended you.”
Michael snorted. “I don’t need defending.” His eyes wandered to JZ, bouncing between low-talking to Jacinta and loud-talking about the game. “I just know if he’d heard Jessica say that, he’d be like, ‘Man, Mike, I told you people was gonna start tripping ’cause you designing girls’ clothes.’”
Michael’s laugh was uneasy.
Mina kept mum about the fact that Jessica claimed not to know about his fashion skills. Instead, she rolled her eyes. “That’s ’cause Jay don’t know what to say out of his mouth sometimes.”
“And that’s why I was worried about what he might say when he met Rob,” Michael said. He cocked his head and glanced at Mina. “Rob is gay, you know?”
Mina swallowed, nodding vigorously in confirmation even though she had no idea if Rob was gay, straight, or ambidextrous. She hadn’t known much of anything about the dude until recently. He definitely had a way about him that was a little on the feminine side. But so did Michael and ... well, Mina had never questioned if Michael was gay and had no plans to assume it.
She felt as if she’d walked into a trap when Michael stared into her eyes as if he were reading her mind, and probed. “You did? How?”
“I ... I mean, I didn’t know.” Mina licked her lips, forcing moisture onto her tongue. “I just meant, no I’m not surprised. I ...”
Michael’s tongue clucked as he exhaled. “So JZ not the only one who assumes then?”
Mina felt the disappointment radiating off him in thick waves. Her throat clenched with embarrassment, but she spoke low near his ear, defending herself vehemently. “It’s not that I assumed. I mean you were the one who asked the question like you assumed I assumed.”
Michael chuckled without humor. He spoke in the same low, intense voice, his lips inches from Mina’s ear. “Because I figured everybody would assume it anyway. And that’s why I ain’t wanna bring Rob around JZ.” His hoarse whisper, meant only for Mina’s ears, seemed loud even in the noisy sunroom. “The whole night, I kept thinking Jay was going to tell some stupid homo joke, just to test Rob and see how he reacted.” He shook his head. “You know what’s messed up about that?” He paused long enough for Mina to shake her head no. “I don’t even know whose side I would have been on.”
Mina scowled. “Well, Jay didn’t say anything about it to me or the girls. Even if he thought it, he’s not gonna bring it up unless someone else does.” She attempted to assure Michael despite not quite believing herself. “No one’s judging Rob.”
“Or me?” Michael shot back. “Just because nobody said anything doesn’t mean they not wondering or judging. Right?” He cocked his head, appraising Mina. “What about you? Are you wondering if Rob is my boyfriend, Deev?”
The question lit Mina’s face on fire. It didn’t help that Michael’s warm breath closed in their tight quarters even more. She pulled her head back an inch, to get a better look at his face. It was tight with anxiety and as close to panic as she’d ever seen Michael, belying the icy fury in his voice.
“I’m not wondering anything, Mike,” she said, her own voice contradicting the pure terror she felt at fighting this battle alone. Relief softened the hard creases in Michael’s face and Mina let the breath she’d been holding out slowly between her teeth. She scooted her hand underneath his hand, sliding her fingers in between his, debating for a second how to go on, before adding, “You said Rob was your friend and I believe you. But if it’s more than that, that’s swazy too. For real.”
Her heart beat crazily in her chest, waiting. She had no idea what she’d do if Michael revealed he was gay, right here, right now.
In their silence, the clique’s noise volume hit its peak. The game forgotten, Mina’s eyes skittered between looking at Michael and looking just beyond him at the sliding glass doors. She prayed she’d have the right reaction—whatever that was—yet knowing instinctively that it was whatever didn’t set off any alarms and bring JZ over with his joking sarcasm.
As if conjured up by her thoughts, JZ’s voice, sing-songy in its demand, climbed over the chaotic buzz. “Ay, what y’all two girls over there gossiping about?”
Never missing a beat, his eyes on Mina, Michael threw up the middle finger at JZ, cutting tension JZ wasn’t aware existed.
Mina laughed and rolled her eyes in JZ’s general direction, doing her part to act normal. But it was hollow.
Finally, Michael’s fingers curled gently around hers, squeezing enough to make her look up squarely at him. His voice was low and steady and his eyes probed hers, searching for what, Mina didn’t know. She swallowed to moisten her dry mouth, as he said, “Look ... I need a favor.”
Psychic Flashes
“There’s a piece of me who leaves when you gone.”
—Keyshia Cole, “Heaven Sent”
Mina had an itch.
Her fingers tingled, barely able to resist dialing Brian’s number so she could scream at him—or his voice mail, didn’t matter—“Why haven’t you texted me back?”
Fifty-nine minutes and thirty seconds is more than enough time to get a text back, she thought, frowning down at her phone as if it were to blame for its silence.
Any other time she would have made good on her impulse and called him by now, but Michael had her captive on the wide circular riser in the workshop portion of his basement bedroom, altering the sapphire blue prom dress he’d made special for her last year. She dared not ask Mike for a break. Little taskmaster, he’d already busted her for fidgeting and huffily reminded her that this is exactly why she’d never have a career in modeling.
That and the fact that I have zero interest in starving myself for a living, Mina thought, shifting her weight to her left leg.
She jumped, gasping as a tiny prick pin of pain stung her lower left thigh.
“Ouch, Mike, that hurt.” Her legs twitched in an impatient dance, almost knocking Michael off the riser. She scowled down at him, behind her on his knees deftly pushing pins into large segments of blue fabric. “I thought you were a professional. That’s twice you stuck me, boy.”
“Keep still.” His hand stung her bare legs. “I am a professional but I’m not used to models with as much booty as you.”
She threw darts at him with her eyes. “Okay, if you didn’t have tiny, sharp objects in your hand I’d respond to that.” She fussed good-naturedly down at him. “When you asked me for a favor, I had hoped it was something easy like not revealing that in reality you are Batman.” She chuckled at her own joke, while Lizzie, getting dressed behind a rice-paper screen, burst into a fit of giggling. Encouraged, Mina nagged on, happy for the distraction. “I didn’t know it was going to involve Manchurian torture with needles and hours of being a living mannequin.”
Michael swatted her leg again. “Yeah, yeah. I appreciate your assistance.” He poked her butt with a finger. “Seriously. I keep thinking I’m sinking it into the dress but it’s your buns.”
“Shoot, what are you talking about?” Mina pinched her tiny waist. “I’ve lost weight.”
Still on his knees,
Michael straightened up and squeezed a handful of fabric at Mina’s torso. “Who you telling? Look how much of this I need to take in. Seriously, Diva, are you eating at all? Or have you found a way to exist on the fumes of love?”
Mina chuckled half-heartedly and, speaking of love, turned her attention back to her cell phone, making certain to remain stock still to avoid more pricking. She flipped open the phone’s clam shell top, willing a message from Brian to pop up on screen.
She checked the time, for the fifth time in five minutes.
It was four P.M. and it was Tuesday.
She mentally ticked off Brian’s schedule tattooed in her mind. She didn’t need Groupie Love’s maniacal detail; she knew his whereabouts back and forth like she knew her own.
He would have had practice early that morning, eaten breakfast, attended most of his classes, and would have just been getting out of biology and heading to a late lunch when she texted him. His second practice was at five P.M. The window was closing for them to talk.
“Love nothing. It’s called stress,” Lizzie offered, emerging from behind the screen wearing a yellow pin-striped zoot suit. She stood beside Mina on the riser, shoulder to shoulder. “Did you have another ‘psychic vision’?”
Lizzie bumped shoulders with her, then gave Michael a tiny “oops sorry,” look.
“I’m not saying I’m psychic.” Mina sniffed. She’d explained this a million times. “But every now and then ... I don’t know, it’s like I get this feeling that something’s going on with him.”
“When you have ‘feelings’ that come true, it’s psychic.” Michael gave her a knowing look from the floor. “For you, it’s called paranoia.”
“He’ll call back, Mi,” Lizzie said, confident.
“Why is it taking him so long?” Mina frowned at the phone. “I try to only text or call him when I know he has a few minutes to talk. It’s been an hour.” She pouted. “Who can’t hit somebody back with a text in sixty minutes?”
“Hysterical much?” Michael said, eyebrows peaked in a fatherly reprimand. He nudged Mina’s thigh, signaling her to turn and face him. As she turned slowly he stood up, eyeing the dress carefully for any bulges. His fingers ran over the fabric gently, picking and pulling at spots, testing them for give. “There are a million reasons he hasn’t hit you back, yet. And I bet none of them have anything do with Hot Duke Boys.”
Mina winced in the face of Michael’s reassuring smile.
She wanted to believe that so bad. But at the mention of the message board, she fiddled with the phone, debating whether to send Brian another message as Michael went to work on the dress’s sides.
Text him and say what? Why haven’t you texted me back?!
Her heart wanted to trust Brian.
Her mind wanted her not to care.
She hadn’t been totally bluffing when she’d said to Kelis that she couldn’t control what he did three hundred miles away. It was hardcore reality and, in an effort to avoid being consumed by thoughts of what Brian was doing every second, one she’d believed in wholeheartedly last semester.
I can’t control it. I can’t control it. I can’t control it. She told herself that often and most times it helped her cherish the moments he called, said he loved her and missed her.
The problem was, she realized with painful clarity, that it had been so much easier to believe it when she’d had no clue Brian was officially a Hot Duke Boy or that fifteen thousand plus girls were arming themselves with data that Groupie Love claimed could help snag him. Back then, she’d been equipped with the arrogance that went along with the security of his regular messages and calls.
Now, all she had was Hot Duke Boys and seventy minutes without a return text.
She rolled her eyes at the phone, then looked over toward the stairwell. The sound of thundering steps vibrated until JZ’s cinnamon face appeared.
“What’s up, party people?” He threw a fist pump Michael’s way but avoided going near the work area. He turned the TV on, flipped a switch on the gaming console, and plunked down onto a sofa more than halfway across the room.
Michael returned the fist pump.
“Hey,” Lizzie said.
“Hey, Jay,” Mina said, reluctantly closing the phone.
JZ looked Mina up and down before returning his attention to the game. “You plan on going to prom again? Or ya’ll having some kind of dress-up party?”
“Yeah, it’s a dress-up party.” Michael snorted. “Come over. I have the perfect dress for you. It’ll go just right with your brown eyes.”
JZ’s eyes rolled. “Don’t even play like that, kid.”
“Mike’s getting his stuff ready for the Carter review,” Lizzie said. Her mouth kept moving, but her body instinctively froze as Michael moved from Mina to her with the pins. “Mina and I are his models.”
“More than I needed to know,” JZ said, his fingers flying fast and furious over the game controller.
“Where’s Cinny?” Mina said.
JZ patted the pockets on his jeans. “She’s not in there.” He shrugged. “No idea.”
“Oh my God, the sarcasm is so unnecessary,” Mina said.
“I’m saying, how I’m supposed to know where she’s at?” As his fingers jammed at the control, JZ’s eyes intently penetrated the screen of the TV, before sliding Mina’s way in a sarcastic glare. “She’s y’all girl, not mine.”
“Not the way I hear it.” Mina beamed. “What’s up with y’all kissing?”
“What?” Michael looked up from pinning Lizzie’s pants leg. “Son, you holding out on me?”
“I was just messing with her.” JZ scoffed. “Gave her a little New Year’s Eve kiss.”
“Uh-huh. Little nothing,” Mina said. “Somebody is so pressed.”
“Cinny spreading my business like butter,” JZ grumbled.
“If it wasn’t a big deal, then it’s cool that she told us,” Lizzie said. She gave an impish eyebrow raise. “Right?”
JZ’s shoulders rose, then fell in a sluggish heave.
Unable to resist, the trio teased him mercilessly about his undercover feelings for Jacinta even as JZ feigned indifference, twice flipping them the bird for their troubles, causing the teasing to go up a notch.
“Why are you acting like it’s so wrong that you like the girl?” Mina said. “She—”
A Keyshia Cole song burst lustily from her phone, stopping Mina’s words cold. She flipped the phone open so hard she rocked its tiny hinges. Her eyes scanned the text from Brian, greedily absorbing every word.
Wassup Toughie? Whatchu doin?
Eager, she texted back, letting the conversation about Jacinta and JZ float over her head. A few words registered, “Raheem” “hot” “Cinny’s tripping” “not trying,” as she delicately punched the keys, unable to avoid posing the question that had nagged her the last eighty minutes.
Nothing. Modeling 4 mike. Whut took so long 2 hit me back?
She blew out a deep breath, relieved to get the question off her chest, and picked back up on the conversation as if she’d never left it.
“I think Cinny would break it off with Raheem if it wasn’t for the fact that he has to come home and then she has to see him,” Mina said. “It’s not like she can avoid going to the Cove to see her family. She knows they’d just end up back together.”
JZ turned away from the game long enough to give her a contorted look of confusion and annoyance. “Sound like dude stalking her to me.” He shook his head, muttering to the television. “What part of breakup don’t he get? The break or the up?”
“I’m not saying I agree,” Mina said, gazing down at the first note from her phone. Her words flowed quickly. “But they’ve been friends for a long time. She’s just trying to figure out how they can break up and still be cool.”
JZ’s reply—“Maybe they can’t. But if she’s not trying be with him that way ... it’s wack to keep stringing dude along if she know at some point she gon’ finally kick him curbside”—went over
Mina’s head as she read Brian’s response.
I wuz in class, couldn’t answr or the prof would trip. Wht kind of modeling u doin ... nekkid? ;-)
Mina laughed aloud, grinning harder when Michael said, “All is right in Mina-land. Must be Brian.”
Her fingers flew as she responded to Brian.
O u wld b cool w/me posing nude? I thght u had bio 2–3:15 on Tues?
She looked up in time to see Michael push himself upright. He stood in front of her and Lizzie, looking over the alterations with a critical eye.
“Ay, Jay, I need a solid,” Michael said. His knees cracked as he did a deep knee bend. He stretched as if ready to take a run while JZ put the game on pause and walked over to the middle of the room, stopping at the four-foot-tall white bar table, closer but still just outside the work area.
JZ sat at one of the table’s two silver scoop stools. “What up, kid?” he said, rising silently above the table as his foot deftly played with the stool’s hydraulic footrest.
“I need to take a video of the outfits I plan on showing for the runway review,” Michael said. He put his hands up to Mina and Lizzie, signaling them to stay put on the riser, then took a seat at the other bar stool. “Once I get the outfits all fixed up, can you record it for me? I’m gonna need Lizzie and Mina to model them from front and back, to show my whole portfolio.”
Mina caught the frown crease in JZ’s forehead just before she looked down and checked on the incoming message.
I kno mike all artsy n shit. So naw he cld paint u nude n I’d b cool. Jus him tho! I have all new classes, Toughie. My schedule changed up.
“Ohhh,” Mina said under her breath. She’d forgotten it was a new semester.
JZ’s voice boomed tense and disapproving, snapping her to the present. “So you seriously doing this Carter thing? I thought you said you wasn’t down?” His frown crease deepened, giving his handsome face a menacing appeal.