Under the Bali Moon

by Grace Octavia

  “Wait! What’s wrong?” Adan asked, grabbing her arm to stop her.

  “Study? Yeah, right. Study what? I’m in all of your classes, and we don’t have any tests coming up.”

  Adan frowned as if Zena was being irrational, and Zena hated that. “I don’t only study for exams. I study to be intelligent,” he said.

  “Well, go right on ahead. You be intelligent,” Zena snapped back.

  “What?” Adan pushed.

  “You love Goodie Mob! Why would you miss their concert?” Zena asked. “Look, are you seeing some other girl? Is that it? Do you want to break up?” The words from Zena’s mouth released some emotional torrent inside of her. She didn’t even know where it came from, but she started crying and shaking and saying things to Adan that she didn’t even mean. Some other kids in the hallway started looking on, so Adan quickly pulled Zena into the classroom beside his locker.

  The room was empty and dark. Zena walked over to the window and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Adan, I can take it now. If you want to break up now, I can take it.”

  Adan responded with, “What are you talking about?”

  Zena turned to him, looking surprised that he wasn’t following. “You keep canceling dates with me. You’re not talking to me. You keep saying you’re studying and sleeping. So, I’m thinking you just want to break up.”

  Adan still looked lost, even more confused. “No. Not at all. That’s not it.” He laughed a little, but quickly hid his chuckles. He walked over to Zena beside the window. He opened her closed arms and smiled at her.

  “What are you smiling about?” Zena asked.

  “I’m smiling because this is funny. Because you think I want to break up with you and what I feel is the opposite,” he said. “Zena, do you want to know why I’ve been canceling on you? Why I’m not going to the concert?” Zena nodded. Adan reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed it to Zena.

  “What? What’s this for?” she asked.

  “I can show you better than I can tell you,” Adan said. “Open my wallet and inside you will find $73.48. All the money I’ve saved for the last month.”

  Zena opened the wallet and counted the money. Adan knew the exact amount. “So? Why is that important?” she asked him.

  “It’s the money I’ve been saving to take you out someplace nice for your birthday. I asked my father for money, but he said it was important that I saved my own money to take you out. That’s what a man should do. That’s why we haven’t been going to the movies and I couldn’t go skating or to see Goodie Mob—because I want to take you out to a nice dinner for your birthday. Can’t you see? I don’t want to break up with you. I want to be with you. I love you.”

  Struggling to erase this sweet memory of the first time Adan said he loved her, Zena was rolling around in her bed like a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. Soon, she gave up on sleep and reached for her cell phone. Thankfully, Adan’s number was not in her phone book, because right then he would’ve gotten a confusing, whiskey-tinged earful about how he’d lied to her that day in the empty classroom.

  Instead of phoning her ex with a drunken diatribe, naturally, Zena called her best friend.

  “You told that man where I was?” Zena blurted out when Malak answered.

  “Hum. I guess this means you saw Adan?” Malak posed the question coolly. “And judging from your voice, you’ve seen Jack Daniel’s, too. I thought it would take you at least a week to turn to the bottle. But I see it’s been what—like eight hours?—and you’re already giving me Diana Ross in Mahogany over the phone. Do you need me to come over there?”

  “No!” Zena protested, poking out her lip as if Malak could see it. But her protest wasn’t quite convincing. She needed her best friend with her. She knew it and Malak knew it.

  As if she’d heard the opposite, Malak replied, “Okay. I’ll be there in like two hours. I need to get the kids and drop them at my mama’s. And don’t drink all the liquor, either. I want some.”

  Zena hung up and covered her face with the first thing she could grasp—some lumpy red throw pillow she kept reminding herself to throw out. The simple satin square matched nothing in her stark taupe and ecru bedroom, and it mostly maintained its residency due to tradition and Zena’s own forgetfulness. In fact, she’d actually forgotten where the little red pillow had come from in the first place, and that was part and parcel of her reluctance to toss it out. She remembered having the pillow on her bed at her first apartment in Daytona Beach. But she didn’t remember how it had gotten there. Didn’t ever remember buying it. Sometimes she imagined showing up to one of her Bethune-Cookman reunions and hearing one of her old roommates ask if anyone had the old red pillow her dead grandmother had made, or something like that. Zena would reveal that she still had the thing, and they would have a good hug before Zena produced the pillow and saved the day.

  But right then as the lumpy satin pillow soaked up Zena’s tears and anger, she knew this was all a figment of her imagination. As she pressed the pillow to her face, it pulled her thoughts back. That pillow didn’t belong to any of her old roommates. No one’s dead grandmother had made it with her bare hands. The little stupid pillow was a Kmart Bluelight Special Adan had picked out for Zena’s first apartment two weeks before the start of sophomore year. He’d tossed it into her cart.

  “Red? Why did you put that into the cart?” Zena stopped pushing the cart and reached to pull out the red pillow, but Adan grabbed her hand.

  “Just get it. It’ll look nice on your bed,” Adan said.

  “But my comforter is purple and tan.” Zena pointed to the full-size bed-in-a-bag set in the cart. Beneath it, she had a purple lava lamp, a set of plastic purple hangers and a tan photo collage wall hanger, all decorations for Zena’s bedroom in her first off-campus apartment she’d share with three other coeds.

  “You need a pop of color, Z,” Adan said confidently.

  Zena grinned. “What do you mean ‘a pop of color’? What do you know about that?”

  “It’s the style. All the girls at Spelman have one pop of color in their dorm rooms. Like pink and white with turquoise. Or red and black with yellow.”

  All summer after freshman year, Zena had to listen to Adan talking about how the Spelman girls across the street from Morehouse did this and that. How they wore their hair and what kind of music they were listening to. Adan would go on about his Spelman sister, Morenike, and her natural hair. That Morenike was going to study in Paris sophomore year and Zena should do the same thing. It would look good on her Harvard application.

  “Red, black and yellow is disgusting, and how do you know what the dorm rooms at Spelman look like?” Zena asked suspiciously; she’d already decided that Adan was cheating on her and had fallen in love with Morenike.

  “Because I’ve been in the dorm rooms at Spelman,” Adan replied with not one marker of nervousness.

  “Really? And what would you say if I said I’d been in the male dorms at Bethune-Cookman?” Zena pushed herself between Adan and the cart and put her hands on her hips to strengthen her inquisition.

  “I’d say, ‘I’m happy for you,’” Adan answered. “I’d ask what colors the guys in Daytona Beach are using to decorate their rooms.”

  Zena huffed and stomped to the back of the cart before tossing the red pillow back onto the shelf.

  “Really? Don’t do the jealous thing, Z. You’re so much cooler when you’re confident.”

  “I am confident, but I don’t care how the girls at Spelman decorate their rooms, and I definitely don’t want to hear about it or that you’re all up in their rooms.”

  “Why not? The only reason you wouldn’t want to hear it is if you think I’m cheating with one of them.”

  “Are you?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Then why are you always tal
king about them?”

  “Because they’re great girls—great women. And they’re my friends. Why not? You want me to talk about dudes all the time?” Adan asked.

  Zena said, “I want you to talk about me.”

  “About you? You want me to talk about you?” Adan smiled and walked toward Zena. He pushed the cart away and stood in front of her. “You know, it’s funny that you complain about me talking about all those girls because all those girls complain about me talking about one girl.”

  “Who?”

  “You,” Adan revealed. “They complain because I’m always talking about how you have straight As. And how you got the Presidential Scholarship. And that you’re the first in your family to go to college, but they’d never know it because you’re taking junior-level classes and acing them all. And that you’re so pretty. And while the girls at Spelman are cute, really cute, none of them are as beautiful as you. Not even close.”

  Zena was blushing and feeling stupid about arguing over the red pillow. She was about to apologize, but Adan stopped her.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I know everyone keeps telling us this long-distance relationship thing doesn’t work, but we’re going to show them all. We’re going to make it. We have a plan, and no girl at Spelman, not even my Spelman sister, is going to ruin that. I love you, Z.”

  The Bluelight Special red pillow made it back into the cart and through checkout. Adan was right. It added the perfect pop of color to the purple and tan Kmart bed-in-a-bag.

  * * *

  By the time Malak made her way to the apartment, Zena had cut the little red pillow into so many pieces it looked as if rose petals and cotton balls were scattered all over her bedroom floor. Zena was sitting on the floor in the middle of the mess, looking as if she was trying to figure something out.

  “I see you finished the liquor,” Malak said, looking at the empty bottle of Honey Jack on Zena’s nightstand. “How many times do I need to tell you that you can’t drink?”

  Malak dropped her purse and jacket on the bed and went to gather her friend off the floor.

  “Let’s get you back into bed,” Malak said, pulling up a reluctant Zena.

  Zena groaned something that sounded as if it might be a cry or helpless whimper as she allowed her friend to move her body.

  “How did you get in here?” she asked Malak.

  “I’m your assistant. I have a key.”

  Zena nodded and slid into her normal place in the bed. Malak hopped in beside her. She reached for her purse.

  “I didn’t know what you had, so I made this a BYOB party.” She pulled out a bottle of Hennessy. “No sense in just one of us being drunk.” She giggled and slid the bottle onto the nightstand so she could go to the kitchen to get one glass.

  When she returned, Zena had already opened the bottle and was taking sips through tears.

  “Oh, shit!” Malak climbed onto the bed and grabbed the bottle. “You’re turning down epic breakdown lane right now! I’ll go with you, but you have to let me catch up.” Malak poured her glass, took a quick shot and poured more Hennessy before putting the bottle back into her bag and zipping it shut. She took a sip and lay back on the pillow adjacent to Zena.

  The friends rested in silence for a while, letting the moment catch up to Zena’s racing emotions and Malak’s alcohol level.

  “I was fine,” Zena whispered. “Doing just fine. I was over him. I’d moved on.”

  “Chile, wasn’t nothing fine about you. Yes, you were doing something that looked like moving on. But wasn’t nothing fine.”

  “I’m a successful attorney. I make a good salary. I vacation in Tahiti. I have perfect credit. I own a horse,” Zena listed, struggling so hard to sound sober.

  “And you don’t have a man. Not-a-one!” Malak countered. “When was the last time you had a man? I sure can’t remember.”

  Zena tried to recall this information herself; it was hard, but after some seconds she resurrected a name: “Corey! That was my last boyfriend.”

  “The dude with the perm? The one everybody said was gay?”

  “He didn’t have a perm! He was half-Panamanian. And he wasn’t gay.”

  “You can keep claiming that, but he was gay as hell. Evidenced by the fact that he didn’t ever want to get into bed with you,” Malak said laughing.

  “He was a Christian man who was saving it for marriage.” Zena felt herself smile a little.

  “No, he was saving his down-low lifestyle for marriage. As soon as you two crossed that threshold and he got those papers, you wouldn’t have seen an ounce of affection for the rest of your life! Next!”

  “Well...” Zena tried to recall another ex, and this required so much thought she was frowning and furrowing her brow as if she was considering some complex mathematical equation. “What about Obinna?”

  “That fine African doctor?” Malak recalled. “He was a good catch. What ever happened to him?”

  “He wanted me to move to Nigeria with him.”

  “Hell no! They get you there and it’s Not Without My Daughter starring Zena Nefertiti Shaw as Sally Field. Next!”

  Zena started frowning and furrowing again, trying to find another name, but the struggle was too difficult.

  “You know what—just let it go,” Malak said, “because you’ve already proven my point—ever since your breakup with Adan all you do is date these men who aren’t available to you, or you aren’t available to them. It’s like you’re waiting on someone or something to happen. Like you’re waiting on this perfect man to show up, but we both know he doesn’t exist so maybe you’re waiting on a specific perfect man to show up.”

  “I’m not waiting on anyone. Especially not Adan.”

  “Then why aren’t you married? Why haven’t you found anyone yet, Z?” Malak asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing. Why aren’t you married? Why haven’t you found anyone?” Zena countered.

  “Because I’ve been married and it didn’t work out. Marriage is a gamble. My ex was way too controlling. But we aren’t talking about me. We’re talking about you, Zena, and your lack of an ability to find a mate.”

  “You say it like there’s something wrong with me,” Zena complained.

  “Because there is,” Malak said flatly.

  “But you just said marriage is a gamble, so how is there something wrong with me if I’m not married? That’s the same crap everyone says to successful, independent black women like me! Maybe there’s nothing wrong with us. Maybe we’re just smarter.”

  “Look, I don’t know about all that stuff you done read in some Essence ‘Single in the City’ article, but I know you. I’m your girl and I’ve been studying you more than half my life. I know what’s wrong with you and when something is wrong with you. And I know exactly how you must’ve felt when you saw Adan today at the dress shop. And I know it broke your heart.”

  Zena rolled over to snuggle in Malak’s arms and let her tears fall.

  “That’s it, girl! Let it out! Let it all out!” Malak said, patting Zena on the back.

  The sun had finally set and the room was dim. Blue lights twinkled from electronic devices. Some sad Sade song should’ve been playing on the radio.

  “What happened that night you and Adan broke up in Daytona Beach?” Malak asked. “I always wanted to know, but you never said anything. You just said it was over with him, and then you left for law school. When you came back, you made me pinkie promise never to say his name again. So I didn’t, but I always wanted to.”

  Zena looked at the pieces of the red satin pillow all over her bedroom floor. The breakup was two weeks before graduation. She was on her third apartment by then. She only had one roommate. The red pillow was still in tow. Adan was giving his philosophical “Eyes on the Prize” speech and had broken up wi
th her before she even realized what was happening. Again, she remembered him saying, “So, we should just be friends” in that fake, nasal “Man of Morehouse” accent he’d picked up on the debate team.

  Those words sent Zena into a rage that frightened both her and Adan.

  She had jumped up from the kitchen table and started wailing at him, calling him names and sobbing so deeply she wouldn’t be able to stop long after she’d pushed Adan out onto the street without his car keys or his bags or anything and refused to let him back in until he returned with police.

  Zena had tried to forget but still remembered all the things she’d said to Adan before she kicked him out—that she always knew he’d do this to her; he was just a liar. He was just like her father. No good. She struggled to slap him, to scratch him, to punch him, but Adan just held Zena down and told her she’d get over this—that she’d be okay without him. That only further infuriated Zena and sent her to a place beyond rage—to pure sorrow, to a real mourning over all of the love Zena had lost in her life that made her knees weak and delivered her to the floor, where Adan knelt down and tried to understand as she wept.

  When it seemed as if she was almost calm, Adan had asked what she wanted him to do. How he could make things right?

  Zena had cried, “Marry me. Let’s get married. Then we’ll move to Boston together and you can finish law school and I’ll just go to school for paralegal or something. I can be your secretary. Whatever. I don’t care, as long as we’re together. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t!”

  Adan had stroked Zena’s hair into place. “No, we can’t,” he said as earnestly as he could. “I can’t let you do that.”

  Zena had asked, “Why? Why can’t you?”

  “Because I believe in you too much to do that to you. And that’s why I’m doing this. That’s why we’re breaking up. If we stay together, you’ll lose yourself. Lose your dreams. And you losing your dreams, well, that’s not a part of my dream,” Adan had replied.