Under the Bali Moon

by Grace Octavia

  “You came!” Zola called to Zena when she spotted her walking toward the building from the parking lot. Zola had been thumbing through her phone; she looked as if she might have been calling Zena. She quickly stashed the phone into the hobo sack on her arm and embraced Zena. “I can’t believe you came. Malak said she’d make you, but I can’t believe she really did!”

  Zena let Zola wrap her arms around her, but Zena kept her arms straight and at her sides. She could smell weed and some spicy perfume in Zola’s hair. It reminded her of when Zola started smoking marijuana in high school. Zena had discovered her stash beneath the sink in the bathroom they shared between their bedrooms. Zena was home for spring break and needed to borrow one of Zola’s tampons, but when she pulled out the box, a rather large Ziploc bag of marijuana fell to the floor.

  “Malak can’t make me do a damn thing,” Zena said as Zola let her go at Lucille’s.

  “So you came on your own accord?” Zola grinned.

  “I came, Zol. I just came. Okay?” Zena said flatly. “I’m saying, what more could you want from me? Just last night you told me about the wedding, and today you’re picking out wedding dresses. It’s a bit much—and a bit fast.”

  “Well, I have two weeks, and Madame Lucille was the only couture dressmaker who said she could have something ready.”

  “A rush order? Sounds expensive.” Zena pointed out. “How are you paying for this?”

  “No worries. It’s a gift,” Zola said grinning. “And you don’t even have to worry about your dress, either. All covered.”

  “Well, I know it’s not Mommy. And where is she? Isn’t that how this is supposed to go? Like, your mother should be here, right?” Zena asked. There was no reason to add friends to that list. Zola never really had many friends. Growing up, Zola always complained that the girls in their neighborhood were too shallow or too mean. She preferred her books of poetry and her Alton.

  Zola stepped back and looked up the street pensively. “I invited Mommy. But she claimed she had things to do in her garden and that I could do it myself. You know how she is. Ever since Daddy—” Zola stopped herself and looked back at Zena as if there was something she was about to say that both of them knew but neither really wanted to hear. She went on, leaving gaps where those words might be. “If she doesn’t want to be here, I’m fine with that. I don’t want to deal with her pessimism anyway. That’s part of why Adan and I decided to elope. I can’t deal with all of her negativity. She can’t deal with all of her baggage.”

  While Zena’s scowl hadn’t dissipated, these words served as a bridge to her sister’s emotional landscape and softened Zena’s antagonism. She knew her mother’s limitations too well, and although Zena always managed to live with them, to put them aside and continue to press forward, Zola saw her mother’s shortcomings as short circuits in their own relationship. While Zena took Lisa’s ever-swelling pain at her husband’s betrayal as revelation of what came with loving someone, Zola internalized Lisa’s disdain for their father as slight disdain for them, for her in particular.

  Soon, Madame Lucille, a silver fox decked out in a black cashmere duster and thick black Dior lenses, came out of the dress shop chiding the sisters for loitering in front of her business and, worse, blocking the couture vision in the display window. When the sisters revealed that Zola was the bride, Madame Lucille snapped her fingers, and two perky assistants dressed in all black appeared from nowhere to whisk Zola into the empty shop, where they busied her with a bin of fabric swatches and photo albums.

  One of the assistants took Zena’s measurements. Madame Lucille reappeared with a sketch pad and began talking about Zena’s bone structure, the length of her arms, the width of her ankles as she sketched what looked like a bunch of scribbling from Zena’s perspective. After what felt like seconds, Madame Lucille exhaled as if she’d run a mile and dropped her pencil to the floor. Without conferring with Zena, who was leaning forward from the hold of the assistant with the measuring tape to get a peek at the dress sketch, Madame Lucille shared her work with Zola.

  “I love it! I love it so much!” Zola squealed before looking at Zena. “Oh, my God! You’re going to look fabulous.”

  Zena smiled and tried again to get a look at the sketch herself, but one step away from the assistant measuring her led to the woman mistakenly jabbing a straight pin into Zena’s thigh.

  “Ouch!” Zena hollered as Madame Lucille left the room with the sketch.

  After Zola picked out a few bridal gowns from the look book, one of the assistants brought a stuffed rolling wardrobe into the showroom, and Zena sat on a plush cream parlor settee as Zola was tugged in and out of dresses that looked half-right and all wrong. Madame Lucille peeked over her glasses and gave adamant “no’s,” scolding her assistants as if they were the reason for the trouble finding something perfect for Zola.

  Zena watched Zola’s confusion in the scene and thought of what she had been doing this time of year when she was Zola’s age. Along with some of her classmates from Howard, she’d locked herself up in a hotel room out by the airport and studied so long and so hard for the Bar Exam that when she closed her eyes, she could see the pages from her study guides burned into her pupils. While the room smelled stale and the delivery pizza got really old really fast, the dedication to passing the exam was addictive to Zena. The focus required that she leave thoughts of everything else, of everyone behind. She didn’t have to worry. All she needed to do was focus. And soon that focus would pay off and fix everything that once worried her.

  The only thing that kept threatening to splinter Zena’s focus in that hotel room six years ago was the knowledge that somewhere in New York, Adan was probably doing the same thing. Law school had been their dream together. On one of those long walks home from school, they decided they’d open a practice together. The name was to be something like Law: From A to Z, which Zena hated, but Adan’s enthusiasm made it minimally appealing. They’d take on civil rights cases like Thurgood Marshall and Johnny Cochrane. The plan was to graduate from high school, go to Spelman and Morehouse, then they were off to Harvard Law. They would work part-time so they didn’t rack up student-loan debt, return to Georgia to take the Bar and then Law: From A to Z would be born.

  Adan made it all sound so simple in the love letters he passed to Zena in the hallway at school. But then Zena didn’t get into Spelman, and Adan got a full scholarship to Morehouse. Resourceful, he changed the plan. He’d take the full Morehouse scholarship. Zena would go to Bethune-Cookman. They’d see each other on breaks and in four years meet up at Harvard. But then that didn’t go as planned.

  Adan got into Harvard, but Zena wasn’t accepted, and while she’d gotten into some top-tier law schools, she loved her Historically Black College experience at Bethune-Cookman and how Howard’s law alumni in Georgia began courting her when she’d been accepted. So after seven years together, lots of leaning on and dreaming, two weeks before college graduation, Adan showed up at Zena’s off-campus apartment talking all philosophically about their relationship and love and what people have had to do to survive through the centuries.

  Zena ignored most of this. She was used to Adan’s speeches. His big ideas and pontificating. She sat at her kitchen table, eyeing her thick Howard acceptance folder and half listened as a girlfriend would. As Adan paced and talked about excellence and “keeping his eyes on the prize,” she watched him and remembered the first day they met. How cute he was. That he stole her air. The butterflies. That night after the football game junior year in Jason Corbin’s basement when she lost her virginity to Adan.

  She remembered their long talks, talks just like this, where they figured things out, understood things, revealed their deepest secrets in whispers. Adan had been the only person she could talk to about her parents’ divorce, how it felt to suddenly not have a father there every morning—how it felt to have him ripped from her life. What it was l
ike to watch her mother waste entire weekends in bed, smoking and watching Dallas reruns. And even when Lisa managed to get up and out and meet someone, it would be weeks before she’d discover he was in a relationship or just emotionally unavailable. Soon, Zena watched as Lisa gave up and resolved to stay in bed, or as close to bed as possible.

  Adan was the only person who would listen to this and drape his arm over her shoulders before kissing her cheek. That was when he was a boy, but standing there in her kitchen, Adan was a full-grown man. Maybe this meant all men weren’t all bad and unreliable. And love was something she could trust. Not all marriages were like the ones she’d seen in New York, like her parents’. Some were good. Mrs. Pam and Mr. Roy were in love, always in love. For the first time, Zena wondered if she’d always be in love with Adan. If he’d be her husband and they’d be married.

  But then she heard Adan say something.

  “So we should just be friends,” Zena remembered hearing Adan say that afternoon in her apartment, miles from Bethune-Cookman.

  She watched the assistants stuff Zola into another horrible dress and remembered Adan standing there, his arms crossed, his eyes focused and serious. But he couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t. But he went on. “I’m going to be in Boston and you will be in DC. It won’t be like Atlanta and Florida. You won’t be home on weekends and I won’t be able to stop everything to spend time with you. Look, we have to focus right now. We have to get this right, Z. We can’t afford to lose.”

  Zena remembered feeling her chest grow warm and looking at Adan as if he was slipping away and suddenly a million miles in the distance. “Lose what? Lose us?” Zena had asked, confused.

  “No,” Adan answered. “I mean lose sight of your dreams. Of where we are going and how that could benefit our people. We have to put that first, Z. We have to put that before ourselves. And who knows, maybe when we make it, we can get back together, but until then, I think it’s over. I think we have to let this thing go.”

  Zola was standing in front of Zena, complaining about something. None of the dresses were working, and she was running out of options.

  “What do you think I should do?” Zola asked in the middle of her lament, but Zena didn’t know how to respond, as she hadn’t been listening.

  Zena took a sip from the bottle of Perrier one of the assistants had placed on the glass table beside the settee.

  “She’s getting annoyed,” Zola said, pointing to Madame Lucille, who was pulling dresses from the racks and tossing them to the floor while admonishing her assistants in French for bringing them to the showroom. “I can’t afford to mess this up. I don’t have time to go somewhere else. But nothing is sticking. Nothing looks like me—you know? The dresses are too big and fluffy or too slender and elegant. I don’t think I’m any of those things. I guess I don’t know what I am.”

  Zola fell onto the settee beside Zena and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

  “Maybe I’m in over my head. Maybe that’s what this dress thing is about. Like, I’m rushing so nothing is working,” she said helplessly.

  Zena sighed audibly at her sister’s inconsistencies. While the sudden sadness was new for free-spirited Zola, the flip-flopping wasn’t. For the first time, Zena got the inkling that maybe the wedding didn’t have to go down; that maybe there was something she could do to stop it. She could use Zola’s indecisiveness to get her to see things the way Zena saw them; or at least get Zola to hold out long enough to pass the Exam and then have more options.

  “You might be right.” Zena fed the idea to Zola softly beneath Madame Lucille’s fake French chattering with the assistants about what to put on the wardrobe next.

  “You think so?” Zola asked, her eyes widening on Zena.

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t say anything else, since you’ve obviously made up your mind, but maybe this is a sign.”

  Heat from outside rushed toward the sisters, signaling that the shop door had opened. They turned to see a familiar figure walking toward them, but the harsh rays of the sun coming in from the display window splashed in over most of the features.

  “Who is it? You can’t come in here now! We have a private appointment!” Madame Lucille protested, walking toward the figure with her assistants behind her.

  “I was invited,” the person said, and Zola jumped to her feet.

  “Mommy!” she yelped and ran to her mother for relief. “You came.”

  “Yes. Last minute, but I came,” Lisa said, walking past Madame Lucille. She was wearing a sweat suit, a hot pink Wal-Mart jogger that she refused to give up though it was shrinking and losing shape. “I thought you girls needed me right now. Lord knows what would happen if I left you alone doing this.”

  Zola pulled Lisa to the settee as if she was joining a slumber party. Along the way, Madame Lucille greeted her as the mother of the bride and snapped for the assistants to bring her something to drink.

  Zola pointed to all of the dresses she’d picked over, the ones she was sure she’d love and the ones she hated but tried anyway. She went into the speech she’d just given Zena about maybe making the wrong decision, but Lisa was obviously unmoved by her child’s confusion. In the middle of Zena and Zola, Lisa looked around the shop and saw a mannequin toward the back in a thin rose-gold lace sheath that looked more like a cocktail dress than something a bride would say vows in.

  “Try that one,” Lisa said, pointing to the dress knowingly.

  All eyes shifted to the back of the shop and then back to Lisa as if she was crazy.

  “No, Madame! It’s not enough,” Madame Lucille argued, wagging her index finger at the simple design. “It doesn’t have enough gravitas. It’s not for the bride.”

  “Well, maybe not for all brides, but I think it may fit this one.” Lisa slid her hand onto Zola’s knee.

  “Really? You really think so?” Zola kind of tilted her head toward the dress. It really was nice. Simple, but nice. Pretty and dainty. She stood and walked to the mannequin with her hands held out, set to grab hold of her mother’s suggestion.

  Minutes later, all in the shop would see that mother really does know best. Lisa’s simple suggestion looked easy on Zola. When she stepped out of the dressing room in the rose-gold sheath, which looked whimsical, soft and romantic against Zola’s mahogany skin, Madame Lucille covered her mouth as if she was about the cry.

  “Magnifique! Magnifique!” Madame Lucille shouted. “It’s perfect. Like it was made for you, mademoiselle! We can add some layering, a little fall from the shoulders. But I love it!”

  “I know! I know!” Zola was back to her giddy self, nearly dancing her way to the fitting pedestal. “I love it, too!”

  Zena watched her sister’s glee as she floated by in rose gold. Zena always thought the talk about the moment the bride finding “her” dress and bringing everyone in the room to tears was a bunch of crap. It was just a dress. But in that moment, looking at Zola, she felt some of that sappiness. Lisa’s selection made all the other dresses look silly. It was somehow an expression, an extension of Zola’s beauty that pushed her into some new status of womanhood. It made Zena’s thoughts toss through memories of Zola growing into her femininity: her first time wearing Zena’s lip gloss, her first lace bra, Zena twisting Zola’s hair up in a bun before her first high school dance.

  As Zola posed for Lisa, Zena felt something like tears creeping up the backs of her eyes, but she held them back.

  “You love it, Zena?” Zola asked.

  “It’s okay,” Zena offered. “Nice.”

  It was a weak approval but enough for Zola, who turned and went back to smile at herself in the mirror behind the pedestal. The assistants went on pinning the dress to her thin frame for proper alterations and some personalized touches from the swatches Zola liked, and Madame Lucille assured Zola she’d personally handle everything within th
e next three days.

  After hearing this, when the fitting was done and everyone naturally gathered at the front of the shop, Zena inquired about the dress Madame Lucille quickly sketched on a pad for her.

  “It’s special,” Zola said. “I wanted you to have something really special.”

  “But it’s your wedding. Shouldn’t you be in the special dress?” Zena asked.

  “I know, but you’ve always been way more fabulous than me,” Zola explained.

  “Well, how much does it cost?” Zena asked Zola, remembering that Madame Lucille had promised to make and fix a dress in just days. “How much is all of this costing?”

  “I already told you—don’t worry about it,” Zola said.

  “It’s taken care of,” Madame Lucille said, and the tone of her voice made it clear that some astronomical fee she’d imposed had cleared someone’s bank account.

  “Taken care of? By whom?” Zena asked, looking to Lisa suspiciously, but she knew there was no way she could pay the thousands it was likely costing to cover these charges. “Who is paying?”

  “Me.”

  A male voice shot into the small shop like a flock of seagulls suddenly taking flight. The door was wide-open as if it had always been that way, and in the frame stood a person, a being that brought a bounty of confusing sensations to Zena’s body and mind. She was stimulated by the sight, excited, awakened, pulled to life the way anyone would feel seeing an old friend, but then she was angered and agitated, dragged through the past the way anyone would feel when that old friend was an ex-boyfriend.