Almost Crimson

by Dasha Kelly

  Terri replied, “Then you should have come before 8 o’clock.”

  “Why, so I could stand around waiting to move furniture after 8 o’clock anyway?”

  “Boy, hush,” Terri said.

  CeCe and the other women followed suit when Terri lowered herself to a floor pillow. The man walked to the sofa instead and pulled it away from the wall.

  “Dub!”

  “Terri, don’t get brand new. You know I ain’t sittin’ on the floor.”

  The women groaned and shook their heads. Dub batted back their teasing comments as he pulled the couch closer to the circle. They all laughed, including CeCe.

  Dub froze on the edge of the couch and glared at her. “Where’d you come from?”

  CeCe’s laughter was replaced with a stunned and gawking silence. She intended to introduce herself, but no sound came out as her mouth clammed open and closed.

  Dub leveled her with a satisfied smile and said, “I don’t speak guppy, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t start,” Terri said, shooting him the side eye. She pulled a stick of incense from the plastic champagne flute next to the stereo and lit it. “Dub, this is CeCe. Be nice. We want her to stick around for a while. CeCe, this is Dub. We all made a pact to love him in spite of himself.”

  CeCe looked timidly at Dub. Dub scaled her with his sultry eyes and smiled.

  “Party before the party,” Terri said, shifting the mood and attention to the Aretha Franklin discography set she’d slid from CD rack behind her. She slipped her fingers into what turned out to be an empty box and pulled out a sack of weed and rolling papers. CeCe looked to the women and smiled.

  “Can I move in tonight?” she asked.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  INEXHAUSTIBLE

  CECE ENTERED THE APARTMENT, SO full of afternoon sun that even the hallway glowed. She’d decided not to head back to the office after visiting the house. Her steps were still full of hardwood music as she padded their carpeted hallway humming, intoxicated, all over again, with Rocky.

  Tossing her purse and keys on the kitchen table, she floated moth-like toward the sunlight humming through the front-room windows. Her mother’s voice met her in the hallway.

  “You could’ve told me.”

  CeCe stopped flying, guilt and stomach plummeting to the floor. Then quiet, both women expectant.

  “Crimson?” her mother called.

  CeCe lifted her feet, like cement blocks, to the end of the hallway. The few steps weakened her. She could feel her breath and heartbeat thrusting back at her blouse. CeCe stopped at the archway. Her mother, in profile, sat in her armchair. Her face was expressionless, even now, but weary. CeCe looked at her mother’s features, how they were loosening their moorings. Her mother had set herself free too late, and now she was getting old. She carried her years less gracefully than other fifty-year-old women she had met, but CeCe forgave her mother this thing.

  CeCe wouldn’t describe the years she’d given her mother as forgiveness. Inside, a small part of her still had its arms crossed, convinced her mother could have gotten better if she had tried. The more reasonable parts of her understood her mother’s unwinding. CeCe had satisfied her resentment with selfish martyrdom. Self-pity had also proven to be an inexhaustible distraction. Her mother hadn’t chosen this life, regardless of how she believed her mother could have raged back at it. CeCe couldn’t persecute her mother for the defects in her chemistry, the shredding her soul has endured.

  “Hey, Mama,” CeCe said apprehensively. Her mother didn’t turn to face her.

  She repeated, “You could’ve told me, CrimsonBaby.”

  CeCe stretched out her fingers, the only part of her able to move. She wanted words to find her. She wanted her mother to look at her. CeCe balled her fingers. Her mother turned.

  CeCe’s lips remained closed. Her eyes opened and closed. Her mother looked away. CeCe crossed into the room. An explosion of flowers sat on the coffee table. Starbursts of primrose, saffron and sugar petals clustered into loose knots, sprouting into towers, and curling in all directions.

  CeCe stared at the bouquet, unmoving. Her heartbeat resumed its pace and her face unfastened a smile.

  “They just came,” her mother said. “Maybe thirty minutes.”

  “Who are they from?” CeCe asked, moving toward the flowers.

  “You tell me,” her mother said. “You didn’t want me to know you were seeing somebody?”

  CeCe laughed, reaching for the card. “I’m not seeing anyone, Mama.”

  Hardly beautiful enough, the card read, but I’ll keep trying. Much, Eric.

  CeCe’s mother hummed a little from her chair. “Maybe you are now.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  WORTHY

  CECE SAT AT THE SMALL kitchen table as Terri shuffled around the apartment, dusting, vacuuming, and moving stacks of notebooks and mail from one room to another.

  “What is wrong with you?” Terri asked, stopping in doorway of their kitchenette.

  CeCe looked up at her, puzzled. “What?” she said. “I’m reading.”

  “No, you’re not reading,” Terri said, waving her dust rag at CeCe for emphasis. “I can usually hear you flipping six pages a minute. You must be staring at the words. What’s up?”

  CeCe adored her roommate. It had been just over a year and she’d come to look at Terri like a big sister. In spite of all her cosmic-astrolology-energy-community-power talk, Terri knew how to get at the core of things and still be gracious with her raw honesty. CeCe closed her book.

  CeCe reached for the stack of mail resting near the kitchen phone and tossed a large, square envelope toward Terri’s end of the table.

  “I’ve been cordially invited.”

  Terri picked up the envelope and slid the thick invitation from inside. CeCe watched her friend’s eyes scan the calligraphy text.

  “Greg Rockwell?” Terri said. “Is that Rocky?”

  CeCe nodded. Terri clucked.

  “Aww, sweetie, I’m sorry,” she said. “You know it’s for the best, right? This sets you free to fall in love with someone else now.”

  CeCe glared. Terri laughed, clutching the dust rag in mock deference.

  “Too soon?” she said, teasing.

  CeCe’s sobs erupted from her core. She heard the stuttering sound against the linoleum as Terri scooted the other kitchen chair closer. CeCe fell limply into her roommate’s slender embrace. Her forearms were wet with tears. Terri loosened her soft harness and slowed her cradling rock when CeCe’s crying begin to subside. CeCe pulled away, eyes on her lap. Terri leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. She wore long biker shorts and an oversized T-shirt that was plain blue, except for the huge, wet stain CeCe had left in the center of her chest.

  “You don’t have to stop loving him,” Terri said. “You just have to release him. I take it he was your first?”

  The words crashed into CeCe’s fragile chest. “No, he’s not my first.”

  Terri hooked her hands around her bent knee and leaned back.

  “Really?” Terri said with genuine surprise, “I would’ve bet money—”

  “I don’t, um, have a first,” CeCe interrupted. She saw curiosity melt over the concern in Terri’s eyes.

  “So . . . ” Terri said, her eyebrows raised into questions marks and her elegant almond features filled with knowing.

  “Yes,” CeCe said, slumping back against her chair. “Yes.”

  Terri was quiet, nodding, trying to restrain an impish smile.

  “On purpose?” Terri asked, still wrestling with the corners of her grin.

  “On purpose?” CeCe repeated, her eyes sweeping the cabinet

  doors and appliances for a suitable response. “I—I guess so. I mean, it just never happened.”

  “Did you ever want to?” Terri asked, giggles gone from her now.

  “Yeah,” CeCe said. “I guess.”

  Terri gazed, patient while CeCe began to fidget. “You wanted your first time to be w
ith Rock?”

  “Rocky,” CeCe corrected. She looked into Terri’s eyes and said, “Yes.”

  Terri gave another slow nod and leaned forward in her chair.

  “There are no mistakes,” she said. Her eyes were filled with compassion and warmth. CeCe didn’t always connect with Terri’s flower child-speak, but she appreciated her cosmic advice today.

  “The universe knows exactly what it’s doing,” Terri said. “Whether he was meant to stay in your light or not, destiny always finds its way.”

  CeCe gave Terri a weak smile and Terri stood to leave, picking up her dust rag from the table.

  “If everything works out,” Terri said, “destiny will find its way into them drawers.”

  CeCe raised her book with a threat and a grin as Terri scooted into the hallway.

  “I’m ready,” CeCe announced one Sunday, while Terri perched on the edge of her huge blue bed filing her toenails. CeCe had been on a string of dates with a former store customer named Raven. Once his invitation jumped from chicken wings at the sports bar to taking a ride on his motorcycle to stealing away to a bed-and-breakfast, CeCe had rushed into Terri’s room to verify whether his plans were to have sex with her.

  “You’re ready because you’re twenty-four and it’s time for sex to happen or because it’s time for sex to happen with you and Raven?”

  CeCe lay on her back watching the slow spin of the ceiling fan. “Both?” she said, more a question than a confirmation.

  “I think you might have different expectations depending on your real answer. First times are all about expectation,” Terri said.

  “It can’t be both?” CeCe said. “About me and about Raven?”

  “Of course it can,” Terri said. “But, trust me, deciding whether the priority is you or whether it’s y’all will make a difference.”

  Me or us.

  “Sounds like a lot of thinking around whether to fuck or not,” CeCe said.

  “Trust me, fucking is worth thinking about,” Terri said. “That’s how you own it.” She pointed her emery board at CeCe for emphasis.

  Own it? CeCe thought. I’m supposed to own fucking?

  “Does Raven know it’s your first time?” Terri asked.

  CeCe took a deep breath and exhaled, making a long motorboat sound with her lips.

  “Mmmhmm,” Terri said.

  CeCe rolled over onto her stomach, closing her eyes and listening to the scrish scrish scrish of Terri’s nail file.

  “How do you even bring up something like that?” CeCe asked.

  Terri looked to the ceiling, thinking. “Hi, Raven,” Terri offered, “I’m looking forward to Saturday. I have something special I want to share with you.”

  CeCe groaned.

  Terri laughed. “You’ll be fine,” she said. Scrish. Scrish. Scrish. “You’ll be just fine.”

  Terri taped a note to CeCe’s door when Saturday morning came: “Own it!”

  CeCe put on her Soul II Soul CD and packed her gray duffel bag with toiletries, an Anita Baker CD, and a sundress for brunch. The last item CeCe packed was a satin fuchsia camisole she’d purchased on one of her lunch breaks. CeCe thought it flattered her figure well, embellishing her small bosom while amplifying her ample derriere. CeCe pulled off the price tag and tossed it into the wastebasket. She decided it would be less overwhelming for Raven if her lingerie and her vagina weren’t glaringly brand new.

  When CeCe emerged from the apartment with an overnight bag, she could see Raven’s face burst open with excitement. CeCe wondered why he seemed so surprised, as if he suspected she might change her mind. The trunk to Raven’s car popped open as he bounded up the steps to take her bag. He kissed her hard on the cheek.

  “You look beautiful, Beautiful,” he said, giving her elbow a soft squeeze.

  He held her hand through dinner and grew increasingly affectionate at the martini bar: standing particularly close behind her in lines, a thumb tracing the curve of her back, a warm palm resting on the inside of her knee. CeCe thought she might hyperventilate before the end of the night, not from Raven’s touches, but because of his electricity. She’d read of “sexual energy” in her novels, but she hadn’t expected it to be literal. Visceral. Magnetic. Intoxicating.

  Raven held her hand while they waited for the restaurant valet. They were quiet, comfortable, enjoying the live jazz spilling from the upper-level lounge. Without fanfare and without pretense, Raven raised their clasped hands and pressed a kiss into the back of CeCe’s palm. Her heart fluttered.

  When Raven pulled into the parking spot of his apartment, he turned to face CeCe before killing the engine. He leaned in for a quick peck on the lips. CeCe felt herself blush again at this slow and focused attention.

  “This was an amazing night,” he said. CeCe smiled in agreement as he leaned in for another slow kiss.

  “I have a feeling I’m in for more ‘amazing,’” he added with a sly, sexy smile. That dimple, CeCe thought.

  He kissed her again, deep and passionate. CeCe drew in a deep breath once their lips parted and she began to assemble Terri’s words in her head.

  “I’m a virgin,” her mouth blurted instead.

  The smile lingered on the left, dimple-less corner of Raven’s mouth while he searched CeCe’s face for a punchline.

  The smile faded.

  “You’re for real?” he asked, retreating to his side of the sedan.

  CeCe nodded.

  “Aww, man,” Raven said. He turned from her and looked straight, into the indigo night. CeCe couldn’t turn away. She watched him as the flutters in her stomach elevated to quakes.

  “CeCe,” Raven began, turning to face her again, “I, um, I don’t know what to say.”

  Although CeCe knew his following words would be devastating on one level or another, she was more alarmed to see this fissure in his composure. In the past month or so that they’d been going out, she’d never seen him get flustered or overly dramatic or lose his poise.

  They had sat in the car for nearly twenty minutes, two quiet islands in vastly new waters. When Raven spoke, he explained that he’d never been anyone’s first and was nervous—no, “unnerved” was the word he’d used. He asked the typical questions: had she waited for religious reasons, had she ever tried, was she sure. CeCe matched his low tone. The entire exchange felt like a prayer.

  They sat some more, the stars out in the distance each taking their turn to spin against the night.

  As he put his hands back on the steering wheel, Raven assured CeCe that he genuinely liked her and was humbled she would consider him so worthy.

  “But I guess I’m not so worthy,” he said, more to himself than to her, “because I don’t know if I’ve ever been this nervous in my life.”

  The drive was quiet. As they stood at the bottom of her apartment steps, Raven pulled CeCe close into his body. She felt the tangle of tears at the back of her throat and refused to release them. Not out here. Not on the cement steps she’d expected to mount in the morning as a bona fide woman. Not next to her gray duffel bag with the brand-new nightie still folded inside.

  CeCe politely declined his usual escort into the building. Entering the dark apartment, CeCe was grateful that Terri was gone on a retreat with her doctoral cohort. No doubt, CeCe thought, Terri was listening with her body and beguiling the group with her lyrical thoughts. CeCe gave herself permission to fold her body into her roommate’s blue bed and let the tears go.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  LOBBY

  WITH EACH WEEK THAT PASSED, CeCe withdrew from every social ritual, except visiting the library and her mother. She skipped Thursday happy hour with Terelle, payday pancakes with Doris, a few phone check-ins with Pam, and only half-heartedly dished the tabloids with her cousin, Tremaine.

  Raven had left one awkward message a week after their fateful night. CeCe and Terri played and replayed the recording, trying to analyze his stumbling unease. CeCe theorized the call simply proved his proper upbringing, not that he wanted
to hear from her again.

  “Give him a chance,” Terri had said.

  “Fuck that punk,” Terelle had said.

  “Wait to see if he calls again,” Doris had said.

  He didn’t.

  After another fruitless week of voicemail checking, CeCe stopped waiting to hear from Raven. She reassured her small tribe of girlfriends that, yes, she understood Raven’s issue with her virginity was no reflection on her. Still, CeCe imagined herself emitting a radar signal to all men, warning them to keep their distance. A twenty-four-year-old virgin was, apparently, a young-adult brand of cooties.

  “Maybe I’ll just buy some sex,” CeCe had broadcast to her friends. “Order myself a full-body massage with a generous side of ‘happy ending.’”

  “Rent-a-dick? Your scary ass?” Terelle had said, howling at the prospect. “I’m sorry, but I’d pay to see that go down!”

  “Just do me a favor and stay off that Craigslist thing,” Doris had said.

  Pam had lathered them both into breathless laughter about crotch catalogs, toe-curling money back guarantees, and bring-your-own-lube specials. Before hanging up, she had said sweetly to CeCe, “It’ll happen, girl. It will.”

  Terri appeared in the doorway of their bathroom a week later and said, “I have a proposition for you.”

  CeCe stood in front of the mirror, using a small-toothed comb to part her hair into narrow sections and scratch and lift the dry flakes from her scalp. Aunt Rosie had told her to always give her scalp a thorough scratching before washing it. CeCe looked at Terri’s reflection warily. Whatever the proposition, CeCe already knew she would ask Terri to do her laundry in exchange.

  “Let me help with your first time,” Terri said.

  CeCe’s hand froze, the red comb hovering above her scalp. She leaned against the vanity sink, close to the mirror, wearing a tattered tee and faded gym shorts. Instantly aware of her protruding ass pointed at Terri, CeCe watched her roommate through the mirror and formed her reply.