Diamond Life

by Aliya S. King

  “Dr. James got it in my head that I should write a book,” Z said, his eyes on his notebook.

  Beth paused. Then turned to the refrigerator.

  “A book about what?”

  “My life.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Beth brought the cream over to the counter island where Z sat and dumped some into her coffee. Beth had never been thin. But she was never fat. And she was always conscious of what she ate. But ever since Kipenzi died and the baby was born, she was bringing home donuts and making brownies, marshmallow treats, and pecan pies. There was always something sweet in the house and Z saw a new chin begin to start peeking out from under her first one.

  Z didn’t care about her weight at all. She could have been three hundred pounds and he’d still love her. It was the behavior that was leading to the weight gain that bothered him.

  Addiction in any form was now difficult to watch. He even stopped hanging out with some of his boys who smoked cigarettes. It was a constant reminder of the many times Z was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, holding a glass pipe to his mouth and inhaling.

  Beth slid a slice of pound cake in Z’s direction and cut a larger slice for herself.

  “Lot of things in your life I can’t imagine you’d want to revisit.”

  “Like getting molested?”

  Beth stopped chewing and nodded. He knew she’d never heard him actually say that word before.

  “That’s why people write books, Beth. To purge. To vent. It’s therapy.”

  “You’re already in therapy.”

  Z opened his mouth to explain how those things were different. But he stopped. It was just one of those things Beth was not going to get. When he went to rehab, she was ecstatic and supportive. But the real work came after he returned home. And Beth was overwhelmed in her own world of mourning her best friend’s death, nursing a newborn, and raising four boys. Z did his best to help out. But he had to attend a twelve-step meeting every day. And he knew Beth resented that time away. She made a face when she saw him in bed reading The Big Book and other self-help books. He read voraciously. And when he was done, he would place the books on Beth’s side of the bed and tell her she should read them too. The stack was two feet tall. And Z had finally started a new stack next to the old one.

  Beth was having a hard time dealing with a sober Z—and he could feel it. He sometimes wondered if she’d rather he was back on drugs.

  “I’m just trying to figure out how you’re going to fit in writing a book with studio time,” Beth said, slicing off another piece of cake.

  “I’m taking it easy on the music for now,” Z said.

  Beth picked up the baby from the high chair and held her with one hand while wiping down the tray with the other.

  “Does Jake know you’re taking a break? I heard him on the radio saying you were coming out fourth quarter.”

  “I’m going to talk to Jake about it,” said Z. “I think he’ll understand if I’m not making music right now. I’ll probably do a best-of or a compilation. I might do one song. Jake knows what’s up. He’ll support me.”

  Z let that last sentence hang in the air. Beth had her back to him, pulling down various boxes of cereal for the boys. She gathered cups, bowls, and spoons, arranging them at the island bar. The sentence hung in the air: He’ll support me.

  Z was quiet. Waiting for his wife to respond. Beth left the kitchen and yelled up the stairs for the boys to come down. Z went back to his notebook and continued to write.

  That night in bed, Z sat up, with his reading glasses on, reading Howard Street, which he’d managed to find at a bookstore in the city called the Strand. The copy was even autographed by Nathan Heard. Made out to someone named Lumpy, which amused Z to no end.

  “You just don’t imagine a guy named Lumpy reading this kind of book. And getting it signed, y’know?”

  Beth was spooned against Z.

  “Maybe someone got it for him as a gift,” said Beth.

  “Why would you get it signed to Lumpy? I’m sure he had a real name.”

  Beth sat up straight and smoothed her hair out of her face. It had grown like crab grass while she was pregnant. And the locks now reached down to the small of her back.

  “Z, I do support you.”

  Z took off his glasses and closed his book. But he didn’t turn to face his wife’s direction.

  “I don’t feel that way sometimes,” he said.

  “This is weird for me too. You’re a completely different person than the boy I met in West Virginia.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  Beth put her hands on her husband’s cheeks and turned him to face her.

  “It’s a glorious, miraculous thing. I thank God every single day. But I’m scared.”

  “That I’ll relapse?”

  Beth nodded. And they were both silent for a spell.

  “Remember that book we had to read in ninth grade?” Beth asked. “About the dumb guy who takes some experimental drug that makes him a genius?”

  “Flowers for Algernon,” Z said.

  “Remember what happened to Charlie?”

  “He got super duper smart. Sort of started looking down at his people. And then the drug wore off and he started losing everything he knew.”

  “I feel like you’re Charlie right now,” Beth said, her voice breaking. “I see how you look at me and the kids. I know I need to get myself together. But seeing you in your self-help-guru phase is tough for me.”

  “So you prefer me in my crack-smoking phase?”

  “Of course not. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know my place and my role.”

  Beth dropped her head into her hands.

  “I just feel like you don’t need me anymore.”

  Z’s heart flipped over twice, and he threw his arm around his wife’s fleshy waist and kissed her forehead.

  “I love you more now than I ever did,” Z whispered into her ear. “I can never repay you for what you did for me.”

  “So now what? I just sit around watching you read books and stand on your head?”

  Z chose his words carefully. In the early days of recovery, there was always the danger that everything you say could come out preachy.

  “I think now you just chill out,” Z said. “You’ll find your place.”

  “How do I help you?” Beth asked.

  “You help me every day. Just by being here.”

  “Are you serious about writing a book?”

  “Yes. I’ve finished the outline. Everything from the foster home at age three to the last trip to rehab in Anguilla.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now I find a collaborator. I won’t be able to do this alone.”

  Beth reached over to her bedside table and handed Z a sheet of paper. It was a printout of several emails sent back and forth from two people.

  BethieZ@aol.com

  My husband’s working on a book. He might need a co-writer. Would you be interested?

  AlexWashington@gmail.com

  I think I’m getting out of the collaboration business for a while. But tell him to call my agent. He can probably recommend someone.

  BethieZ@aol.com

  I want my husband to work with someone I trust. And I trust you. Will you just meet with him? For me?

  AlexWashington@gmail.com

  Sure. Name the time and place.

  “Wait,” said Z. “Isn’t this the same chick who wrote Cleo’s book?”

  “She wrote most of it. Then she quit.”

  “I’m not working with her.”

  “Despite that,” Beth said, “I respect her. She’s fair. And she’s diligent. Did you see the story she wrote for Vibe on Kipenzi’s life and death?”

  “It was good,” Z said.

  “So talk to her.”

  “Email her for me,” Z said. “Tell her to meet me in room 210 at Scott Hall tomorrow
at nine-thirty a.m.”

  Beth nodded and started texting.

  Z turned over to curl up next to his wife.

  “Thank you, Bethie,” he said, kissing her on her neck. “Thank you for everything.”

  Alex was already sitting at a desk when Z strolled in to the classroom at 8:55.

  “You’re early,” Z said, slipping into the chair next to her.

  Alex stuck out her hand.

  “Good to see you, Z.”

  “Same here,” Z said, pumping her hand.

  “So what kind of story do you have to tell?”

  “A disturbing one.”

  “Can’t be more disturbing than some of the things I’ve read about.”

  “So you know about the cigarette burns from my stepfather and getting kicked out of the house by my mother when I was ten because dude didn’t like me?” Z looked Alex squarely in the eye.

  “Oh. And you know about getting shipped off to live with my grandparents and being molested by my grandfather when I was eleven?”

  Alex’s lips parted and her eyes locked on Z’s.

  “And those were the good old days!” Z said with a laugh. “If you can believe it, things got worse.”

  Alex still didn’t speak. Z moved his chair closer to hers.

  “It’s not a good sign when an eighth-grader comes to school high on crack cocaine and fall-down drunk. It’s even worse when he was introduced to both by his own grandmother . . .”

  “I can introduce you to my agent,” Alex said. “You obviously have a story. He can help you find a writer.”

  “I thought I found one already,” Z said. “Isn’t this why we’re meeting?”

  “Well, no, I just told Beth I would talk to you, but I’m not sure I’m the best person for the job.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “Z, you don’t harbor any resentments toward me about Cleo’s book? She put a lot of your business out there, and I’m the one who helped her write it.”

  “Please. I’m thanking Cleo in my own book. If she hadn’t written that book, I might still be out there.”

  Alex nodded. She stood up, slipped into her jacket, and put her messenger bag across her chest.

  “Let’s both give it some thought,” she said, extending a hand for a final shake.

  “You think about it. I already know I want you,” Z said. He ignored her hand and pulled her in for a hug.

  “My wife says you’re the one,” said Z. “So that’s it. You’re the one.”

  Alex gave Z a weak smile and left the classroom. Z watched her go.

  Z tried to suppress the connection he felt when he hugged her. He wasn’t even sure why he’d hugged her. It wasn’t his style at all. But after telling her about his past, saying things he’d never said outside of therapy, he felt vulnerable. Alex had been completely attentive. Z could have talked to her for five hours straight.

  As his classmates began to file into class, he kept his eye on the window facing campus. Eventually, he saw Alex make her way to her car, walking quickly and stomping through the snow in high rubber boots. But she didn’t get inside. She put her hands on the roof and put her head down. He stared at her until Dr. James asked him to bring up his paper. When he got back to his seat, Alex was gone.

  A thin line of bright sunshine came through the bottom of the bedroom door at the Parker Meridien. And Zander dreamt of Bunny.

  The penthouse suite in midtown Manhattan had been Zander’s ad hoc home for nearly a year, ever since he and Bunny had gotten into their first serious fight. Although she’d started it by hitting him first, Zander ended it by punching her in the eye, regretting it as soon as he lifted his hand but too far gone to stop it.

  As soon as his parents bailed him out of jail that night, he checked into the hotel, long his father’s favorite, with nothing but the clothes on his back. Two months later, anything of importance that he owned had made its way from the house to the hotel. He hadn’t planned on moving out at nineteen. He thought he’d live at home until he was legal. But once the music started to take off, he felt supremely out of place sharing space with a newborn baby and three annoying younger brothers.

  As much as he’d hated to admit it, the fight had made him feel like a man. Not because he’d hit Bunny. (He’d decided ten years before that any man who could hit a woman was less than a punk.) But the whole incident made people take notice. Getting arrested had been his coming-out party. He’d had to face the judge, and it was the first time in his adult life he had to take admonishment from an authority figure other than his mother. That first fight with Bunny gave him purpose and direction. He now knew who he didn’t want to be (his father) and what he needed to do to ensure that (control his temper). A better idea would have been to stop seeing Bunny altogether. But Zander wasn’t strong enough for that.

  This morning he turned to his left side and hugged the warm body close to him. Less than a half-second later, he remembered the night before and bolted out of the bed, whipping the sheets off and wrapping them around his waist.

  “Yo, what are you still doing here?” Zander asked the woman he’d met in the hotel lobby bar the night before.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  Zander stood up and went to the door.

  “You need to get up outta here—”

  “Or what? You’ll smack me around like you do that little girlfriend of yours?”

  “Go.”

  “For the record,” the woman said, “you did not cheat on Bunny. Not really anyway. You definitely wanted to. But I knew you’d regret it so I didn’t let it happen.” Zander had gotten up too suddenly. His head was swimming and spinning. Things slowly came back to him. Coming back from a studio session. Meeting his boys in the lobby bar. Throwing back drinks until three a.m. Paying off the paparazzi so they wouldn’t publish pictures of him and his underage friends drinking. Then the girl. Zander remembered doing a double take at her neck. It was thin and long. And she held her head up so high it looked like she was being controlled by a string threaded through the top of her head. The neck mesmerized Zander. Soon the neck was in his hotel room. He was pulling his pants down and trying to push her back onto the bed. But something happened. He didn’t have sex with her. She went down on him. But then what? He could vaguely remember coming so hard that his legs buckled beneath him. He fell asleep on the floor, his pants pooled around his ankles. She must have pulled him into bed.

  “So you just get in the bed with me like I invited you?” Zander asked, his lip curled up in disgust.

  “I had a great time with you, Zander,” said the woman, tugging on a pair of jeans. “I programmed my number into your phone. Use it.”

  “You did what?”

  The woman took a final look in the mirror, ran her tongue across her front teeth, and straightened her back.

  “Call me.”

  As soon as she stepped to the front door, there was a sharp knock.

  “Zander!” a woman’s voice screamed. “Open the door before I break it down!”

  Zander grabbed the girl by the shoulders and shoved her into the back bedroom. He opened the bathroom door and pushed her inside.

  “Don’t say a word,” Zander whispered through his teeth.

  The girl smiled. “You think I’m scared of Bunny?”

  “You should be,” said Zander.

  “Zander!” Bunny screamed out again. “I’m not playing with you. Open the door now!”

  Zander took a deep breath and opened the door a crack. He tried to look like he was just waking up.

  “What’s up, Bunny. Did you call me?”

  “Move,” Bunny said, smashing her way into the room. “You had some chick in here last night. And y’all both better pray to God she had enough sense to leave.”

  “Bunny,” Zander said. “You need to calm down.”

  Bunny moved quickly throughout the suite, turning over couch cushions and opening and closing doors.

  “Ooooh, this bitch better not be in this roo
m . . .” Bunny whispered.

  “There’s no one here, Bunny,” Zander said. “Your wilding out for no reason. Again.”

  Bunny didn’t answer. Instead, she went into the back bedroom and tugged at the bathroom door.

  “Who’s in here, Zander?” Bunny asked, shaking the door handle so hard that Zander was convinced she was going to break it off completely.

  “Bunny, you need to—”

  Bunny tugged harder at the door, grunting.

  “I’m not leaving until this door opens up,” said Bunny.

  Zander moved Bunny to the side and stood in front of her. He grabbed her forearms and pulled her close to his face.

  “Stop, Bunny,” he said. “Just stop. Now.”

  Zander slowly backed Bunny away from the door and toward the front foyer. The bathroom doorknob clicked and the girl from last night sprinted out of the bathroom and ran barefoot, shoes in hand, to the front door of the suite.

  “Oh hell, no!” Bunny said, breaking away from Zander’s grasp and giving chase. She caught the girl by the ponytail as soon as she got one hand on the doorknob. Bunny got her arm around the girl’s neck and brought her down to the floor quickly.

  “Bunny, chill out!” Zander said, attempting to peel her off the girl who was trying to shield her head with both of her arms. Bunny got in two good punches to the side of the girl’s head before Zander was able to pull her off. The girl screamed and finally scrambled to her feet and ran out of the room, leaving the door to the suite wide open. A cleaning woman rolled by with her cart and stopped, staring at Bunny and Zander, who were both out of breath and heaving.

  “Should I call for help?” the cleaning woman asked.

  “We’re fine,” Bunny said, slamming the door in her face. She turned to face Zander.

  “You just can’t keep your dick in your pants, can you?”

  “I didn’t touch her,” Zander said.

  “So what the hell was she doing hiding in the goddamn bathroom, Zander?!”

  “She ended up here last night and fell asleep,” said Zander. “Nothing happened. And now this chick will probably be calling the cops on both of us because you’re an idiot.”

  Bunny rushed up to Zander, trying to slap at his face with her hands. Zander bobbed and weaved, blocking her hands with his forearms and ducking when she tried to punch him directly in the jaw.