by Alyssa Cole
“There’s the merry-go-round,” Fab said, pointing. “And that’s the zoo, I think.”
“I would have had you over for a sunset meal if time had allowed. The sunrise view is the main attraction here though.” Likotsi had come to stand beside her and now laid one hand over Fab’s.
Fab knew what that hand felt like slipping into the cup of her bra, sliding over her skin, tugging down her panties oh-so-carefully, respecting the fabric.
Desire shivered through her. She wanted that again—the closeness, the heat, the feeling that filled her up as they had kissed and licked and explored each other’s bodies—and tonight was maybe the only time she could ever have it. Even if they did meet again, even if they met as many times as they possibly could, possibly only extended to a few more days at the most.
She pushed that thought away, focused on the weight of Likotsi’s hand on hers.
“Was that the chivalrous version of ‘that dress would look even better on my bedroom floor’?” Fab asked, grinning. “I thought you didn’t like being presumptuous.”
Likotsi lifted one shoulder, her previous stiffness gone. “I’m just providing useful information. It’s what I do.”
“Well, heaven forbid I stop you from your natural inclination to be helpful.”
“Let’s go sit down,” Likotsi said, moving toward the table. “I’m clearly attracted to you, and that pattern would contrast nicely with the Persian rug in the bedroom, but I already told you that a few days wouldn’t be enough. I want to know you.”
Likotsi was looking back at her with that almost worshipful intensity again.
“Most people drop all of this smooth talk once they’ve already gotten you into bed,” Fab said.
“Finding a sexual partner is easy,” Likotsi replied. “Finding someone that makes you need to know more about them is not.”
“When are you leaving again?”
“Soon. Within a few days.”
Fab exhaled audibly, then walked toward the table.
“Right. Yeah.” She’d hoped that what she already knew would have changed somehow, but this was the grounding reminder that she needed. “That fucking sucks. Because I want to know you, too. And this sounds weird, but I already kinda feel like I do, in a way?”
Fab wouldn’t normally just put it all out there, but it wasn’t like she had anything to lose—or rather, losing was the only outcome here. There was no reason not to be honest.
“So we both have this sensation? Interesting.”
“What sensation?”
“There’s a word for it in my language, but . . .” She shook her head, dropping her gaze to the ground before meeting Fab’s eyes again. “Tell me about that ring on your finger. You made it?”
Early that morning, Fab had shown Likotsi the corner of her apartment with her materials and hammers and soldering irons, and the projects she was working on to put up on the shop. She nodded.
“Your work really is exquisite. I bet you could sell it anywhere.”
“That’s the plan,” Fab said. “By this time next year, I’ll have a small boutique, or a stand at the very least, in addition to my online shop. I think I can do it.”
“Of course you can,” Likotsi said.
“You say that with such confidence,” Fab said, leaning back in her seat.
“Well, you’re the woman I’ve fallen a little bit in love with,” Likotsi said easily. “I think you can do anything.”
Fab rested her hand on the table to steady herself—that had been a joke the night before, but now . . .
No. She’s leaving.
“Right,” she said. “What’s for dinner?”
Fab let Likotsi pull out her seat for her, and as she lowered herself unsteadily into the cushioned chair she told herself that her vertigo was from being up so high and not because she was a little bit in love, too.
Chapter Seven
Winter
Likotsi remained awake in the strange apartment, tense and worried and debating whether to accidentally awaken Fab to demand that she tell her what was going on.
But then she looked at Fab, lips slightly parted and expression content, and decided to let the woman sleep and, while Fab did so, to perhaps give this “chilling” a try.
She listened to Fab’s occasional snores and stared at the river of light being projected onto the ceiling. The river changed colors cyclically as it flowed above her, and she began to feel a sense of calm as she absently marked off the colors in her mind. Red, orange, yellow, blue.
The atonal hum of the music drowned out her worries about what, exactly, was happening with Fab. The music wasn’t so different from the meditational chants of the priestesses back home; Likotsi didn’t go to the temple as often as she should, but she had always loved how the songs could help her sit quietly and just be.
She lost track of how long she’d been chilling when the flow of light suddenly stopped, pulsing frenetically in place as if fighting against the flow of time itself. She took a deep breath and exhaled. No matter how the day turned out, it was amazing that she was here in this moment—she’d needed this, and somehow Fab had known that.
The river of lights began moving again, reversing its flow, and Likotsi’s thoughts did the same, taking her back through the months since she’d lost Fab. Her life hadn’t been relentlessly bad, but everything had been dull. Gray. Leeched of vibrancy. Even her most flamboyant suits, her brightest shoes and accessories, had been unable to beat back the drabness that caught up to her when she stopped focusing on her job. Now Fab was with her again, and everything seemed more . . . vivid.
“Hey. Hey!”
Likotsi startled back into consciousness to find Fab snapping a finger next to her ear.
“Wow. You were in the zone.” Fab waved a hand in front of Likotsi’s face. “I knocked out, but you might have been having an out of body experience.”
“No. Last time I had one of those, I was in your bed,” Likotsi said, taking hold of Fab’s waving hand. Her thumb grazed Fab’s palm, and Fab’s breath caught. “This was refreshing, but I was very firmly in my body, thanks.”
“Right.” The word came out soft, breathy, and Fab’s gaze was soft with desire.
Likotsi wondered what would happen if she pulled her close, if she sank back into the weird softness of the bean bag and Fab sank with her—if Fab would taste the same if Likotsi licked into her mouth, and if she would feel the same beneath Likotsi’s hands.
The door to the apartment opened, and ten or so people who looked like they’d escaped from a yoga studio’s Pinterest board walked in.
“Oh, this is so zen,” one of the women said.
“We should go.” Likotsi stood and pulled Fab to her feet, and Fab started for the door, taking the lead naturally.
Likotsi had wanted to see the city in a new light, and as they continued their journey after leaving the DREAM space, she realized that she was. The yellow taxis swarming the streets seemed brighter. The blinking orange hand of a traffic signal grabbed her attention from a block away. Even the people they passed seemed to have come into focus, swaddled in their winter coats and not letting the cold keep them from enjoying their day.
They walked for hours, Likotsi no longer questioning every move and Fab seemingly operating on some inner spontaneity compass. They wandered down streets lined with expensive apartment buildings that had once been tenements, weaved through the imposing columns lining the walkway of a courthouse, explored a memorial to an African burial ground, and made their way down Broadway, instead of up as Likotsi had originally planned to do. They veered left to avoid crowds and ended up at the South Street Seaport, checking out the old ships docked there and, more importantly, window shopping at the mall.
Likotsi’s feet were slightly numb from the cold but surprisingly unblistered despite the new shoes as they crossed the tip of the island from east to west through the Financial District, filled with imposing old buildings and statues of the men credited with building America. Sh
e had never understood the veneration of these men, who took their own biases and made them into a country’s laws, but Americans were quite strange, after all.
“Looks like we’re running out of island,” she said as they walked down a street with a cobblestone road and restaurants nestled into the ground floors of brick buildings. The barren trees of a park that butted up against New York Harbor was across the street. “I guess—”
“I guess that means we’re jumping on the Staten Island ferry and heading out to sea,” Fab said, glancing at her. “Was that on your list? It’s free.”
Likotsi’s list was still in her pocket, but she didn’t have to look at it because she’d created a new one in her mind. In her heart. This list had one task, and she didn’t have to write it down because it was the one thing she had wanted for so long: be with Fab.
“Wait, what’s that?” Fab was squinting at what appeared to be a large metallic cephalopod filled with flashing lights peeking out from behind the bare branches of tree limbs. “I haven’t been here in a long time, that must be new.”
“I’ll admit that I’ve been on the Staten Island Ferry before,” Likotsi said. “Perhaps we should check out this . . . whatever this is?”
As they drew closer, Likotsi saw people milling about the entrance. Large panes of glass that surrounded the gazebo-like structure beneath the spiral revealed an aquarium with humongous fish swimming round and round their tank. No, not an aquarium, though meant to look like one.
“A carousel!” Fab exclaimed.
Instead of the traditional ponies, this carousel was made of larger than life sea creatures seemingly blown from phosphorescent fiberglass. They moved in an intricate choreography, some spinning in unison, others moving up and down. Likotsi felt somehow overwhelmed by the unexpected beauty they had stumbled upon.
“I wanted to take you to the beach,” Fab said quietly as the carousel came to a halt and the occupants of the fish, mostly families with children, hopped off. “That’s what I said, that last night together when we were up late imagining what we’d do together if you could stay here for the summer. We’d go to Brighton Beach, and then to the Coney Island Aquarium.”
Fab’s voice was hard to read, but her eyes weren’t, even as they reflected the rippling lights meant to simulate being under water. There was longing in those depths.
“Well, this is the next best thing,” Likotsi said, pulling out her wallet to pay their entrance fee. “Besides, it’s much too cold at Brighton Beach today, though some people didn’t seem to mind this morning. There was a whole group running into the waves. I considered it, but I didn’t have anyone to watch my clothes and ‘semi-nude train ride into Manhattan’ isn’t on my to-do list.”
She slid into the circular opening in what appeared to be a betta fish, the surface of the creature smooth and cool beneath her fingertips as she traced the flowing fins before settling into the single seat. Fab took the fish next to hers, a spiky finned creature that was a bit frightening in its beauty.
The music started and Likotsi let out a yelp as the carrousel began its circular trajectory and her fish began to spin in place, like a tea cup ride.
“I’m glad we haven’t eaten yet,” she said loudly enough that Fab could hear her over the subdued classical music.
“Why did you go to Brighton Beach today?” Fab asked when her fish spun so that she could briefly meet Likotsi’s eye.
“It was on my list,” Likotsi called before Fab’s fish whirled away from her. The fish she faced now had a small girl inside, and Likotsi returned her smile though she felt slightly sick. She wasn’t sure if it was the ride making her dizzy or the tornado of emotions inside of her.
Her fish lined up next to Fab’s, neither of them spinning for a moment, and Fab raised a brow.
“What else was on the list?” she asked, just enough curiosity in her voice to shift something in Likotsi.
She’d been waiting for everything to be all right, but they’d been together for hours and she still knew nothing about why Fab had cut contact. She couldn’t point her shoes forward until she was able to move from the past, and because Fab was being reticent, she’d have to lead from behind.
She reached into her inner pocket and pulled out the neat white rectangle of paper, leaning to hand it to Fab even though the signage said to keep your hands inside the fish at all times. Fab reached out and grabbed it just before her fish spun away again.
Likotsi looked down at her hands in her lap. She didn’t try to catch Fab’s eye to see what her reaction was to the list, written in Likotsi’s neat semi-cursive.
Forgetting Fabiola Itinerary
Brighton Beach
Chinatown (soup dumplings)
Fashion District
Morgan Library
Roosevelt Island Tram
Plaza Hotel bar
Lakay Sa Lakay for the egg/hot dog appetizer
It seemed silly in retrospect, thinking that visiting places they’d been and places they’d imagined going together one day would somehow free her from love’s clinging web. But it had been an action, a decision. A step away from her sadness.
Somehow, it had led Fab back to her.
Likotsi took a deep breath and looked up. Fab’s expression wasn’t exactly sunny, but it wasn’t angry either. She gazed at Likotsi as if it was continents that separated them, and not a few meters of space on the platform between them. The music changed, and a violin-heavy piece filled the structure. Likotsi wondered if any of the other passengers felt the music throb in them, somehow both unutterably sad and full of possibility.
Neither Fab nor Likotsi spoke, but their gazes stayed locked on one another for the duration of the carousel’s turn. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though Likotsi’s neck did hurt from craning around fiberglass fins and turning in her seat to keep her eye on the woman who had her heart. She didn’t know what would happen when the ride ended, but she’d shown her hand. She had nothing left to give, and hoped Fab would give her the one thing she needed, which wasn’t on the list: the truth.
Chapter Eight
The Previous Spring
Fab looked over the three dresses she’d laid out for the gala Likotsi had asked her to attend, the waning evening light haloing the buildings across the street and sending rays of stubborn sun through her window. She’d spent her day at work focused on getting the most pressing assignments done so she could leave a bit early.
And maybe, just maybe, could call out sick the next day.
Likotsi would technically be working at the gala, some kind of fundraiser for a pan-African society, but she’d been able to get a ticket for Fab so they could sneak in some dinner and dancing. Fab was excited to learn what exactly it was Likotsi did, in addition to seeing her one more time.
One more time.
Each time they met up was supposed to be the last, but after three overnight dates, hundreds of messages via the dating app, and a few stolen coffee breaks and quick meals, it was starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, they could keep saying “one more time” and this wouldn’t have to end.
Fab didn’t want it to. She didn’t know how tonight would go, but she was hoping she knew how it ended—with “one more time.”
Her phone rang, the sound of Tabou Combo’s Aux Antilles filling the room. It was in that moment that Fab realized that she hadn’t checked her family chat all day—on this day.
Goose bumps raised the hairs on her arms. She almost considered not answering because she already knew that whatever news awaited her on the other end wasn’t good.
“Hi, Maman.”
“Are you really so busy you couldn’t call last night? Or all day?”
Maman was using the tone. The tone that spoke of such utter disappointment, that contained pure wonder at how she could have birthed such an ungrateful child.
Fab’s shoulders hunched. “I’m sorry. Work was so busy, and life, I can’t—”
“Don’t speak to me of can’t, while you’re busy taking selfi
es and trying to quit your perfectly good job for some nonsense.” Maman’s voice was brittle, the ragged edges of each word scraping against the delicate heart-shaped balloon of Fab’s happiness. “You know who can’t right now? Lise. And you won’t even help.”
The balloon popped.
“I have helped.” Fab didn’t understand why her mother was mad at her. She was the one who had visited Lise to calm and comfort her over the last two weeks, the one who went every Sunday night for dinner, no matter what.
She reminded herself that for Maman, for Tati Lise, helping was just what you did when family needed you. It didn’t matter if you were busy or had plans. Fab was the ungrateful Americanized girl, selfish, who’d forgotten to check in because she’d been fantasizing about a woman she had no future with.
“I don’t think you know the meaning of help. Lise told you she was scared, and you told her she was being superstitious. Now they are holding her!”
“What?” Fab had heard, but she didn’t want to have understood.
“They are putting her in detention, sending her to the prison in New Jersey like she’s a murderer.” Maman’s voice crumpled on that last word, like a discarded soda can beneath the tire of a yellow cab.
“Is she getting deported?” Fab’s voice was unnaturally calm—somewhere in her mind, she was aware that she was in shock. But that awareness was buried beneath memories of Lise’s long fingers teaching her to slip beads onto thread, how to match colors perfectly, how to take ugly old costume jewelry from the Good Will Store and turn it into something new and beautiful. “I went over the paperwork with her. Her lawyer did, too. They said this was just a check-in.”
“I know all of that. She’s still in detention.” Maman was quiet for a moment, so quiet Fab thought maybe she’d hung up. Then she heard a deep inhale. “This government says a lot of things, don’t they? It’s just like back home. They say one thing, and then they take the people you love and maybe you never see them again!”