Courtship: A 'Snowflake' Novel

by Nia Forrester

  “What is this?” Klara reached for it and broke the seal. “Get well card?”

  She peered inside and her face fell. She looked up at Ibrahim then down in the envelope again. It seemed for a moment that she might be distressed, but then she smiled.

  She stood, came around to Ibrahim and reached up to pat his cheek.

  “You are good boy,” she said. “Very good boy.”

  “Just take care of yourself. Go lie down or something. Rest up, and then come back to work.”

  “I will,” Klara seemed to have renewed determination.

  “And we can’t stay,” Ibrahim added. “I just wanted to stop by and see how you’re doin’.”

  Jada stood as well, extending a hand to Klara who took a moment to notice it because she was staring at Ibrahim as though he was a miracle. When she finally took Jada’s hand, it was to clasp it in both of hers and squeeze it firmly.

  At the door, as she let them out, she gave Ibrahim another hug which he received once again, with something like embarrassment.

  “In the envelope …” Jada began, when they were almost back at the car.

  “It was just her pay,” Ibrahim said.

  “But … Does she get paid while she’s …”

  “Nah.” Ibrahim gave a brief laugh. “This ain’t exactly the kind of job that has benefits. I just … worked her share and got paid her share.”

  “And then gave it all to her?”

  They were at the car now, and Ibrahim unlocked and opened the door for her, holding it so she could get in.

  “Yeah, but …”

  Jada put a hand at the back of his neck and dragged him forward to kiss her before he could finish. When she pulled back, he stared at her intently, but said nothing.

  Once he got in on the driver’s side, he sat there. Just sat there for a few seconds until Jada turned to look at him.

  “Ibrahim …”

  “I have to tell you something,” he said.

  Nodding, Jada held her breath for a moment. “Okay,” she said, releasing it once again.

  “I’m not some kinda saint. That extra money I got for doing Klara’s work? I gave it one of my homeboys. I gave it to him, and he flipped it for me. So, what I gave her in there? It cost me nothing. I just wanted to make sure you don’t think …”

  “That you’re perfect or anything?”

  He didn’t speak, so Jada nodded.

  “I don’t think you’re perfect,” she said, because he seemed to need her to.

  “Okay.” He started the engine and gave one firm nod, settling the matter.

  As he drove, Jada looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.

  He thought that what he’d done to get the money made him less of a good person. While she thought that only a person as good as he was, would think it necessary to make that confession at all.

  ~~~

  As soon as she let herself into the house, Jada could tell they had been waiting for her. Not just watching television, which was how they tried to seem, but waiting.

  Her mother sat up just a fraction straighter, and her father’s jaw tightened a little. Not with anger—because it was still hours before curfew—but with what looked like determination. And just that quickly, Jada knew precisely what was coming.

  “Hey!” she said, brightly. “Are we having movie night?”

  She only said this because her father rarely sat to watch television unless it was the news. And the news show he preferred had long passed.

  “Would you like to?” her mother asked. “I can make popcorn.”

  For a single, fleeting moment, Jada felt she was seeing into the future. In the future, her mother would still be here in this living room, energized and excited by the mere mention of a family “movie night.” And she, Jada, would have pulled even farther away than she felt now.

  Because of Ibrahim, she had walked fearlessly into a party at a drug house, eaten some of the best meals of her life in underground, unlicensed restaurants, and walked through one of Oakland’s struggling neighborhoods and into a secret garden.

  And just this evening, in the backseat of his car, parked in a secluded spot, while she and Ibrahim kissed and touched each other, she learned that desire could sometimes feel stronger than any other emotion. Stronger than love, fear, shame, anger, or even pain.

  She knew he had to have felt it, too, in the way her body trembled against his, and her breaths came harder and faster with each kiss. When Jada reached down to touch him through his pants, he captured her wrist, holding it tight and redirecting it away from his erection.

  Ibrahim, she’d said. Please.

  She begged him, but he didn’t relent. At least not completely.

  Instead, after seeing the look in her eyes, which had to have close to desperation, he moved his hand, sliding it between her legs. Then he was slowly running his fingers along the apex of her thighs while they kissed. It wasn’t too long before the seam of her jeans was damp and Jada, gasping against his lips, unfastened the buttons to slide partway over her hips.

  Ibrahim didn’t stop her. He watched, and let her do it. Maybe he could tell she was well past stopping, even though they were in a semi-public place where, if they were caught it would have been disastrous. Maybe he was past stopping too, because when she grabbed his hand and shoved it down into her underwear, his breath came out in one hard, short burst.

  Jada.

  He said her name in the same way she had moments before said his. And for a few seconds she was relieved, thinking that he might finally give in to what it was abundantly clear they both wanted.

  But again, he surprised her. He seemed to summon his will from somewhere, and suddenly, he was moving with less urgency. His lips alternately parting and sucking on hers, his tongue exploring, and down below, his fingers, stroking. He managed, somehow, to turn the focus from himself and his wants and entirely toward satisfying her.

  And he had. Within the limits of his boundaries, he had. Jada came with a clenching, jerking ferocity that had her clamping her thighs shut, holding his hand in place and biting hard on Ibrahim’s shoulder to avoid making a loud noise.

  Clutching his arms, she dug her fingers into his biceps. She heard him breathing and felt his heart thrumming in his chest, but he remained still, allowing her to feel the full force of her orgasm, waiting until she came down from the high and was able to release him her thighs relaxing around his wrist.

  Lifting her head, Jada was for a moment embarrassed to meet his gaze, feeling as though she had violated him. At a minimum, she may have forced him to violate the code he wanted for their relationship. But when her chin dropped, he tipped it upward again, so their eyes met.

  Hi, he said, with a tinge of amusement, as though she was returning from a long absence.

  And in a way she was.

  Hi. Jada smiled shyly at him.

  Ibrahim grinned back at her. And then he kissed her.

  She felt more than desire then. She felt love for him. She felt loved by him. And it didn’t matter what her parents might say to her, she was never going to be persuaded to give him up.

  “I might be too tired to sit through an entire movie,” Jada said now, feigning a yawn.

  It was true that she might not be able to sit through a movie, but untrue that she was tired. She just wanted to escape to her bedroom, lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling. She wanted to replay that moment, when Ibrahim looked at her, amused but matter-of-fact, untroubled by how much she wanted him, and more than willing to give her what relief he could.

  “Sit for a moment,” her father said, indicating the armchair where he usually sat.

  Both her parents on the sofa, with her in the armchair made the room take on the air of an inquisition.

  “Was that Ibrahim?” her father continued once she was seated. “Who you were out with this afternoon?”

  Jada swallowed before answering.

  Suddenly, she was worried about the state of her jeans. Had she refastened every b
utton? What about her hair, her mouth? They had kissed for a long time, and sometimes very hard. Her lips still tingled, and felt swollen, and even tender in places. Were they visibly bruised?

  “Yes,” she said meekly.

  “He seems like an industrious young man,” her father said.

  But it wasn’t the words that got her attention. The words were fine. It was his tone. It didn’t sound like the beginning of a conversation, it sounded like what she feared it would be, the opening salvo of an unwelcome lecture.

  33

  Then

  “Prophet. Wake up.”

  Ibrahim groaned and shrugged away the unwelcome hands on his shoulder.

  “What?” he demanded.

  The longer nights picking up the slack and doing Klara’s work as well as his own were beginning to hit him hard. That first week had been fine, the second week less so, and it had only gotten progressively worse.

  Now, he went to bed with his arms, neck and back aching and woke up feeling like hell. How a woman Klara’s age had managed, doing even half of what he was doing now, Ibrahim didn’t know.

  “When’s the last time you seen Breonna?”

  At that, Ibrahim opened his eyes.

  The blurry image of his brother Zac materialized and slowly sharpened. He sat up, still groggy, and blinked a few times, shaking his head to get the cobwebs out.

  “Breonna?” he repeated, still trying to get his brain to fire on all cylinders.

  “Yeah, man, when you seen her last?”

  Running a hand over his head, Ibrahim shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a week, ten days?”

  “Brittany’s here,” Zac said. “Askin’ after her. Almost knocked down the damn front door.”

  “Who the hell is Brittany?”

  “Her auntie. C’mon, man. Get up. She said she ain’t seen Breonna in two days.”

  “Why she think to come over here?” Ibrahim asked, annoyed.

  “I ‘on know. Get up. Come talk to her.”

  He got up, but went to take a piss first. Then he washed his hands and took a moment to stare at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looked rough and thought of his father’s refrain whenever he woke up in a bad mood.

  Don’t talk to me, he would warn as he emerged from his bedroom. Not one goddamn word. Not till I shit, shower and shave.

  Rinsing out his mouth and grabbing a t-shirt that was hanging on the bathroom door handle, not even sure it was his, Ibrahim went out to the living room to see Breonna’s aunt and tell her in person what he had just told his eldest brother.

  When he got there, he was surprised that his father was there as well, and awake, as was Manny along with Zac. They were all looking at him expectantly.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  He looked toward Breonna’s aunt.

  Brittany.

  He remembered now. She was one the neighborhood’s legendary baseheads. Now thin, barely clean and with a mouthful of browning teeth, word was she used to be one of East Oakland’s beauties.

  Ibrahim had heard the story so many times, he rolled his eyes whenever his father started in with it again, which usually happened whenever he spotted Breonna.

  Back when they were still messing around, she might come sheepishly slinking out of Ibrahim’s bedroom and run into his father in the hallway then slip out of the house.

  Hi, Mr. Carter, she’d say, eyes downcast.

  His father would watch her leave then turn to Ibrahim.

  You know her auntie used to be the baddest chick in these parts? Damn shame what she done to herself.

  Then he’d tell the story of the umpteenth time. Her daddy was a Panther. Used to run with Huey and ‘em. But he had this thing, this thing a lot of ‘em had. They would get with white girls. White girls from good families most of ‘em, who hung around, trying to volunteer or join the movement, feeling guilty about their privilege, wanting to ‘give something to the cause’.

  Except the only thing these cats wanted from them, besides a little of their daddies’ money was some pussy. I heard tell that sometimes they’d game these chicks to death, make ‘em think if they rejected a sexual advance, they were racist, weren’t really down like they said they were. All kinds of head-games. Hell, I heard some girls were passed around like concubines by brothers who already had ‘em a woman. A Black woman, of course. While the white girls were just there to use for the sex. I don’t know if it was revenge, or some forbidden fruit stuff, or if they was really just into white women. But that’s how it was.

  Funny, right? How they just turned all that shit upside down?

  Brittany’s mom? Ain’t nobody know who she was for real. Some white girl. Got pregnant. Went off and had her, brought her back to the daddy who was with the Party and told him she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t raise a Black child. So Brittany was raised by one of the women in the Party who had two other half-Black babies she was takin’ care of for a couple brothers who had similar predicaments. One of ‘em was your girl Breonna’s mother.

  And all Ibrahim ever responded to that soliloquy was, I keep tellin’ you, Breonna’s not my girl.

  Brittany, sitting on the sofa, with brow furrowed, had lank, auburn hair, pulled to one side and fastened carelessly with a red rubber band. The tips were bleached blonde and looked dry and brittle. Her fingernails were as yellow as her teeth, as yellow as the whites of her eyes. And she fidgeted incessantly, barely able to sit still, twitchy, and probably jonesing for her next hit.

  “Prophet,” she said.

  Ibrahim was taken aback that she knew his name. Or rather, his street name. He couldn’t recall if they had ever even spoken ten sentences directly to each other.

  “You seen Breonna?” she asked.

  “Nah. Not for a minute. Why? What’s goin’ on?”

  “She called me couple days ago at the house. She was cryin’ and asked me to call her job, tell ‘em she couldn’t come in … I ask her why she can’t call and she said she just couldn’t. I ain’t heard from her since and she ain’t come home.”

  “Are you sure?” Ibrahim asked.

  He knew Brittany turned tricks near Boulevard, and like most women who sold their bodies, probably didn’t confine her work hours to nine-to-five. Breonna could easily have come home and gone out again without Brittany being any the wiser.

  “I checked her room,” Brittany said, sounding impatient. She had likely explained this many times before to his father and brothers. “Nothing been moved, nothing been taken. She ain’t come to shower and change, nothing.”

  “Where did she say she was when she called?”

  “She ain’ have to say. At that Kwame’s house.”

  “So did you …”

  “Of course I called him! Of course I went over there!” Brittany raised her voice for the first time. “You think I’m stupid? He said he ain’ seen her, but I know he lyin’. And he crazy as I ‘on know what. I know he hit her. His hands was all cut up and bruised. She prob’ly somewhere hidin’ from him.”

  Ibrahim shrugged. “She’s not here. I haven’t seen her.”

  At that, Brittany started to cry. “He done somethin’ to her. I know he did. And if you ‘on know where she’s at, I know she’s ...”

  Her cries were a high-pitched keening that was like a drill to the brain, disturbing, and almost painful to listen to.

  “Brittany, Brittany …” Ibrahim’s father stood and went to rest a hand on her shoulder. “What else did she say? We can help you look but tell us what she said. Everything you can …”

  “I told you what she said!” she shrieked. “That’s all she said. Nothing more than I told you.”

  “What makes you think she’d be over here?” Ibrahim asked, annoyed.

  He was beginning to think of sleep again. Breonna and her aunt were pure drama. They attracted it. They might even have needed it, because calm was too unfamiliar.

  Breonna would turn up sooner or later. Maybe a little bruised, but she would show up. And when she did, maybe
he would have that talk he’d been meaning to have with her, about Kwame, and about how she deserved more. If only he could believe she would listen.

  “You her best friend,” Brittany said unexpectedly. “That’s why I come here. She always say that, ‘Prophet is my best friend’.”

  ~~~

  He and his father and brothers split up into pairs, Ibrahim going with Manny, and Zac with his father. They divided a list of places that Ibrahim knew Breonna liked to hang out—corner stores and friends’ houses, takeout places she frequented and even local strip malls.

  It felt like a monumental waste of time, and he was tired, his head pounding from lack of sleep, from stress, from hunger. He hadn’t run in days, and he felt his body yearning for it. Raj was right, meditation was mental health care. And running was his meditation.

  “Man, we ain’t gon’ find her like this,” Manny said, sucking his teeth as they pulled away from the sidewalk in front of the house of one of Breonna’s friends. “When the last time you seen her for real? Y’all been creepin’ or somethin’?”

  “Nah. You know I’m dealing with Jada. I ain’t seen Breonna in like a week or more. Just like I said.”

  “So, c’mon ‘best friend’, where you think she’d be at?”

  Those were the words that had moved Ibrahim to act back at the house. Best friend. When Brittany said them, his first instinct had been to deny it. Breonna wasn’t his best friend by any stretch. Except, that wasn’t what Brittany said. She said Breonna had said he was her best friend. That wasn’t the same thing.

  He was her best friend.

  It took Ibrahim all of twenty seconds to acknowledge that that might be true. Breonna didn’t hang with too many other girls and the ones she did party with were some combination of cruel and kind to her, which kept her head spinning and made her already deep insecurity even more profound. Ibrahim suspected that all Breonna was to them was bait.

  She had that look that got guys’ attention, at least initially. She’d catch a dude’s notice in the club or at some party because of the long hair, the fair complexion. But often, her “friends” would wind up taking the prize for themselves—if guys in clubs could be considered prizes—because they were prettier or cleverer at the game of seduction.