It was junior year of high school. Zena and Adan were walking home from school. The dented Nissan Maxima Adan’s parents got him when he turned sixteen was in the shop again, and while his best friend, Hakeem, volunteered to drive them home, Zena wanted to walk. She never minded walking home, not with Adan anyway. They could talk, really talk, about things in the world, things nobody else ever talked about, not at their school anyway. The longer she’d been around Adan she was learning that this was something that separated him from anyone she knew—he could talk about anything and seemed to know everything. And not in an annoying way, either. He was humble and charming. One afternoon, the two were walking hand in hand debating the possibility of love at first sight, a new concept Zena had encountered in a romance novel she found in the library at school. Zena said no, true love wasn’t possible, and was completely dominating the conversation for a long while as Adan listened quietly, nodding from time to time. “It’s ridiculous. Impossible. You can’t love someone after seeing them just one time. Like one time?” Zena posed. “Like looking at someone doesn’t let you know who they really are. They could be a horrible person. A liar. A killer. Right?”
Adan nodded again in acknowledgment of Zena’s comment. “You just don’t know someone. Like sometimes, I don’t think you ever really know anyone. But definitely not from first sight. You don’t know them enough to love them,” Zena went on.
“But...” Adan began slowly before pausing to gather his ideas. “But, what if it is possible? Like if it does happen for some people?”
Zena looked at Adan as if he’d gone crazy. “What kinds of people?”
Adan shrugged. “I don’t know. Just, some people. Like, maybe us.”
Zena laughed at the idea. “Us? You and me? Love at first sight?” She laughed again, though something in her stomach flipped the way it had when they’d met when her bicycle chain popped.
“Yes, us.”
Adan let go of Zena’s hand and took a few steps ahead of her so he could turn and face her. “You don’t think we were love at first sight? You’re saying you didn’t feel anything when you first saw me? Nothing?”
Zena stopped walking and bit the inside of her upper lip to stop herself from smiling. She had felt something when she first laid eyes on Adan. But “love”? Was it love? Zena looked up at the street signs: Sassafras Street and Blue Stone Road. She readjusted her purse on her shoulder—Adan was carrying both of their book bags. Looking up at the signs, she said, “I did feel something.”
Adan reached out and caught ahold of one of her hands. “Me, too. I felt something, too,” he admitted.
The hold Zena had on her upper lip failed, and a huge smile was produced on her face, one that was so big, it almost hurt her cheeks.
“What? What’s so funny?” Adan asked. Standing there in his Aeropostale sweatshirt and with his and Zena’s fake matching Benetton knapsacks hanging from his back, Adan looked so nervous, as if he was starting a conversation he’d never wanted to have.
“Nothing. I’m not laughing. I’m just smiling. Smiling and wondering,” Zena said.
“Wondering what?”
“I’m wondering if you’re saying you love me. If we’re in love,” Zena said.
Just then everything went black. The sky first and then everything around Zena and Adan went to shadows as if night had come from nowhere. Adan grabbed Zena’s hand—not as if he was scared, but just automatically, as if it had been his first instinct to hold on to her, to protect her. “What’s happening?” she asked, spinning around. It was just three-fifteen in the afternoon but no one was outside in their neighborhood. Not one dog was barking. No cars were speeding by in the road blasting music. It was dark and quiet.
“I don’t know,” Adan answered, turning, too. At some point, while he was holding Zena’s hand, the two were back-to-back surveying their surroundings. It was the year 2000, and cell phones hadn’t become a thing yet. The only way they could get anyone’s attention was to scream. But something told them not to. Something told them everything was fine. Adan looked up at the sky. That’s when he saw it. The moon—right in broad daylight. “Look,” was all he said.
And feeling his head tilted back behind her, Zena looked up, too. After staring for a while, Zena uttered, “It’s beautiful. It’s an eclipse.”
Chins up, ear to ear, hands still clasped from behind, Zena and Adan stared at the moon as if it was their first time seeing it, as if it was a pearl pinned to the sun. Everything beneath the sky disappeared. They were floating astronauts, space twins, drifting in a celestial storm of miracles somewhere between Earth and the heavens.
At school the next day, Zena and Adan told their science teacher, Mr. Palabas, what happened to them the prior afternoon. He was one of those spunky, white, hip earth science teachers who spent far too much time at the school trying to get the students he taught to understand that science was interesting and applicable and cool. When they talked to Mr. Palabas, he acknowledged there hadn’t been an eclipse—including the fact that he had not seen one. The rookie science teacher nodded along as Adan and Zena recalled their story before beginning to let them down gently. From the bookshelf behind his messy desk, he pulled a textbook that weighed more than a toddler and flipped through pages with recorded eclipse dates in the past and future predictions. There were no predictions for April 14, 2000. Without saying it, Mr. Palabas was implying a scientific reality: there had been no eclipse.
“So you don’t believe us?” Zena asked as more kids started filing into the room for class to begin.
“I believe you two experienced an eclipse,” Mr. Palabas answered.
“But was there an eclipse—an actual eclipse of the sun?” Adan asked.
“Not according to these books—not according to science. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t experience one. Maybe it was your eclipse. An eclipse just for you two,” Mr. Palabas said, and Zena and Adan looked at each other.
* * *
After switching from her driving flats to her red-bottom pumps, Zena walked into the lobby of the Peachtree skyscraper, where she rented a small but extravagant space with floor-to-ceiling windows and complementary plush leather office furniture. She promised herself she wouldn’t bring up the wedding or Zola or her mother and definitely not Adan as she got off the elevator on the tenth floor. But when she saw Malak sitting at her desk in the reception area, everything she’d been hoping to hold inside came up and out her mouth the way secrets and gossip force their way to the surface when best friends resume company.
Zena leaned into Malak’s desk and just started.
“Can you believe he went to my mother’s house looking for me again?” She paused but went on with no answer from Malak, who was in the middle of a conversation with the phone receiver to her ear. “I mean, what the hell? What do you want from me? Why are you looking for me? Just because our sister and brother are getting married doesn’t mean we are suddenly besties and you can just roll up at my mother’s house,” Zena said as if she was suddenly talking to Adan, but then she switched back to Malak with, “Can you believe that? Can you believe that mess? Wait, girl. Are you on the phone? Never mind. Sorry.”
Malak slid the phone onto her desk and looked up at Zena with little surprise. “I’m off now,” Malak said. “And, yeah, I know he was looking for you.”
Zena dropped her workbag to the floor. “How?”
“He came here,” Malak revealed.
Zena looked around as if maybe he was still in her office hiding out. “Here?”
“Yes.”
Zena reached over the desk and grabbed the sides of Malak’s arms like she was a reluctant witness to some atrocity. “What? Are you kidding me? He was here? What did he want? Why was he here?” She shook her friend.
“Clearly, he was looking for you.”
Malak raised her arms to break from Z
ena’s hold. She was used to Zena losing all composure when these kinds of things happened. In fact, she’d already told herself that she wouldn’t bring Adan’s pop-in visit up, but since Zena had already opened that door, all promises of silence had been recanted. “Calm down, Z,” she said. “He was just downtown and wanted to talk to you. I think it’s about the wedding or something.” Malak grinned. “He looked good, too. Smelled good. Had on one of those fancy suits. He obviously wanted to impress someone—and it wasn’t me.” She sucked her teeth playfully.
“I don’t care how he looked. He isn’t my man,” Zena said defiantly as she slid into the seat before Malak’s desk—a clear sign she wanted more information. “But what did he say? I need to know everything he said.”
Malak went through Adan’s visit second by second for her best friend—how he’d said, “Ze-ena”; how he looked crestfallen when Malak revealed that Zena hadn’t showed up at the office just yet; that he said he was in town looking for a new office space; that he was bringing his practice to Georgia. He was tired of the New York hustle and wanted to be closer to his dad. Malak shared her condolences about his mother passing and he’d looked down at the floor. He changed the subject quickly, told her she didn’t have to tell Zena he’d stopped by. He’d see Zena soon. He’d make sure he did this time.
Zena froze with her mouth open and heart beating wildly. “What?” she managed to get out. “He said that? Are you sure he said that—like exactly?”
“No, I’m crazy, I made it up. I made it all up,” Malak teased but then added, “Of course, I didn’t fabricate this story. Why would I do that? He said it. All of it.”
“Why? Why would he say that? Why does he want to see me?” Zena asked.
“I have no answers—only information. Good information, though. But, like I said, it seemed like he wanted to talk about the wedding.”
“The wedding? Why do we need to talk about that?”
“Again, I have no answers, but I’m guessing it’s about you being the maid of honor and him being the best man,” Malak said. “Maybe he wants to go half on a gift with you. Or maybe he doesn’t want them to get married, either. Maybe he’s just as pissed off about all of this as you are and needs to vent.”
Zena pondered. “But, still, why talk to me about it? Not like I can stop it.” She scowled as she recalled the last conversation with her sister. “I don’t even want to think about this. And I sure don’t want to talk about it with Adan. Shouldn’t he go vent to someone else if he has an issue? Someone like his wife?”
While she’d been nodding along with all of her friend’s commentary, the last question gave Malak pause. She looked at Zena like she’d misspoke. “His wife?” Malak repeated as if Zena knew something she didn’t or maybe Zena was confused or just wrong. “What do you mean ‘his wife’?”
“His wife!” Zena shot back solidly like there was no way Malak couldn’t know exactly what she’d been talking about. “His wife! Adan’s wife! That’s who he should be talking to. Right?”
“Talking to his wife who?” Malak’s furrowed brow confirmed further confusion.
“His wife! The woman he married. That doctor—the surgeon in New York,” Zena said so confidently, she sounded like she was identifying the color of the sky.
“What wom—” Malak stopped herself and directly said to Zena, “He never married that chick. Adan’s not married—not unless you know something I don’t know.”
“He married her. It was in the damn New York Times!”
“No—their engagement was in the New York Times. But not the wedding. They never got married.”
Zena felt all the blood in her body leave her extremities and flood her brain. Her heart quivered. Something behind her eyes turned red, and she felt like she could faint—if she didn’t have to hold on to ask Malak more questions. She had to be certain she was hearing what she was hearing. What was she hearing? Adan not married? Not married? Not married three years ago and probably on his second child by now? Moved on from her and into his life, a suburban dad with a suburban wife and life that was comprised of elegant dinner parties in the Hamptons and Paris vacations? What? What the hell?
“But he was engaged and it was in the newspaper! He was supposed to marry her! Why didn’t he? Why didn’t you tell me?” Zena looked somewhere between bewildered and amazed.
“Tell you? I’m not even supposed to mention his name. Remember that? You forbid me from ever saying his name after that Times article came out,” Malak said.
“But my mother? Zola? No one has said anything to me about it. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Z, you forbid all of us from saying anything about Adan.”
“Who cares about me forbidding you? You never listen to me any other time. And I’d think you’d know this was big enough to tell me. You can’t just have me walking around in the world thinking my ex-boyfriend is married and he isn’t!”
“But you said you didn’t care. Remember? You said you couldn’t care less about anything he was doing. He was so far in your past you hardly remembered anything about him,” Malak recalled, sharing the fake sentiments as dully as Zena had. “Plus, I figured you knew anyway. That you would get the information the way everyone else gets information about their ex.” Malak picked up her phone, unlocked it and handed it to Zena with a blue screen flashing. “Facebook,” she said, leading Zena to Adan’s page.
“Single!” Zena read aloud on his profile. She clicked into his pictures and scrolled through. There he was, all brown and peering into her. He’d aged, grown into something more distinctive, distinguished like his father and his uncles. Had a short fade and expensive-looking spectacles. He looked like the kind of man who read the newspaper at a coffee shop every morning, as if maybe he was a professor or a UN ambassador. He was handsome. The perfect depiction of what he wanted to be. In one picture he was sitting on a couch reading a book. In another, he was standing a few feet left of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Zena quickly wondered who’d taken the pictures.
“So, you’re saying you’ve never looked at this page?” Malak inquired, surprised by what she knew was the answer. “It’s public. It’s like...public.”
“No. Why would I?” Zena asked.
“Because he’s your ex. I look at all of my exes’ pages on Facebook. I even look at my exes’ exes’ pages.”
“I don’t have time for that. I’m too busy with this.” Zena looked around the office suggestively. “I can’t worry myself with what’s happening to Adan. I wasn’t trying to get my feelings—” Zena stopped herself.
Malak completed her thought. “Hurt?” she offered.
“No—confused,” Zena corrected her. “I didn’t want to get confused by whatever this is.” She flippantly flicked the phone back onto Malak’s desk and jumped up to regain her composure.
“It’s the truth—reality—you know, what you’ve been avoiding all these years,” Malak said.
“Don’t start!” Zena picked up her bag and started walking toward her office. “I’m not avoiding reality. I’m avoiding Adan. Totally different.”
“Sure you’re right,” Malak said, unconvinced.
“Of course I’m right,” Zena said. “Look, I’m done with this. I’m letting it roll off my back.” She smiled obnoxiously and pretended to shake invisible feathers on her back. “I’m feeling great. I’m ready to get on with my day and move on from all of this nonsense. I’m going to my office to look over these Patel files, and then I’m heading over to the courthouse to try to catch Judge Jones. Can you email his assistant so they’re expecting me?”
“About that meeting—”
“What?”
“Zola called. She’s going to get fitted for a dress today, and she wanted you to go along with her. I think she wants you to pick out a dress, too, or something,” Malak revealed.
/> “Today?” Zena looked down at her watch. “I can’t do that today. What, she thinks because she decided to get married in like forty-eight hours I need to rush and change my whole schedule to be at her beck and call? No way. I am an important attorney, and I have things to do—none of which include picking out a wedding dress.”
“Actually you don’t have anything to do,” Malak said nervously.
“Nothing? What do you mean, nothing?”
“I cleared your schedule.”
“The hell? Why would you do that?”
“Because this is more important,” Malak said, standing up to meet her best friend eye to eye. “Because you said you would at least try to support your sister. And because she needs you. And because I love her. And because I love you.”
The sweet statements at the end softened the impact of Malak’s actions.
“Please give me the strength to be a fence!” Zena shouted in disgust before turning to her office. “I need a barrier to stop me from screaming at somebody this morning.”
Chapter 3
Zola was standing on the sidewalk in front of the big shop window at Madame Lucille’s Lace, one of the last black-owned couture bridal boutiques in Atlanta. On display in the window was an elegant, slender brown mannequin draped in crystal-lined lace and organza that swept the floor. A Mississippi transplant with a French name and fake French accent, Madame Lucille Archambeau was known for making dramatic, big-entry wedding gowns that piqued the interest of the city’s new elite ladies who used their wedding day to make a statement about who they were and where they were going.
When Zena pulled into the parking lot at Lucille’s, still rolling her eyes at the idea of participating in the dress selection and fitting, she noted how small and humble her baby sister looked standing before the bedecked mannequin. She was so lanky, so svelte, her frame seemed smaller than the mannequins. Zola was sporting her common puffy topknot, vintage pink bifocals, weathered white high-top Chuck Taylors and secondhand-store clothing. She was boho chic, pipsqueak cute, no frills and no Atlanta fly girl fashion. Just beautiful without trying to be. But fragile and small. Too delicate. So delicate, Zena almost felt bad for her standing there by herself. If she didn’t know Zola, she’d wonder where her people were—where her friends were. If anyone cared a thing about her.
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