by Aya De León
Tyesha planned to press her friend at school the next day, but Shanique was absent. First a day, then a week, then two. Eventually, Tyesha caught up with Shanique’s older cousin. The girl had been trying to avoid her, but Tyesha cornered her in the rec center bathroom.
“Where’s Shanique?” Tyesha asked.
“Sorry, Li’l Red,” the girl had mumbled. “I don’t know.”
The cousin couldn’t meet her eyes and tried to push past her, out of the bathroom.
“What happened to her?” Tyesha pushed right up against the girl, feeling a dull pain where her own budding breasts pressed against the hard bone of the girl’s rib cage. The girl was tall like her cousin, but more flat-chested.
“I don’t know nothing,” the girl mumbled, and tried half-heartedly to get away. But Tyesha had seen her before on the basketball court. She played on the high school team. Tyesha knew this tall girl could drive past any opponent if she wanted to. But her listless defense here in this bathroom made her look thirsty to confess.
“You know what happened, don’t you?” she yelled at the girl, pressing a determined hand to the girl’s solar plexus.
The girl burst into tears, and then it all came out.
* * *
Deza stormed back into the apartment, as “Joe” drove away. “Auntie Ty, I don’t mean no disrespect, but have you lost your black mind? I mean, WTF?”
“Deza, I’ so sorry. I thought—I mean—it’s just—I thought Joe was a man. You know, an older man trying to take advantage.”
“Auntie Ty, are you serious right now?” Deza asked, incredulous. “My own father has a bodyguard that I swear is a serial killer, always tryna creep up on me and Amaru. Plus I’m a nineteen-year-old female emcee and been in the rap game since I was sixteen. Do you know how many motherfuckers I’ve had to fend off, talking about ‘come to the recording studio I got in my house.’ Motherfuckers with a microphone in their closet offering me and my girls forties and weed. If I didn’t know how to handle myself, I’d have been a casualty of hip-hop long ago.”
Tyesha looked at her niece. She remembered pushing her on the baby swings. How had she gotten so grown?
“You’re right,” Tyesha said. “I just—something happened with my best friend in middle school and Car Willis—”
“What?” Deza asked. “Your best friend in middle school was fucking with Car Willis?”
“Not fucking with,” Tyesha said. “It was statutory rape.”
* * *
Shanique and Car Willis had had sex—because she needed to show him she was woman enough to please a grown man—but first he’d shown her some porn. Just vanilla. A black man and woman having sex.
As an adult looking back, Tyesha had imagined Shanique watching the film, seeing what must have been the delighted expression on the actress’s face, hearing her breathless encouragement: Yes! more! give it all to me! How could a thirteen-year-old know fact from fantasy? The real sex would have been nothing like that.
Shanique had gagged. Had cried with the penetration. After he finished, he had sent her home on the bus, flecks of blood in the semen pooling in her panties. He was cold and scornful now because she had failed to please him. Failed to be grown enough. There would be no wedding. No Hollywood ending. No more calls. No second date.
Shanique had feigned sick for days, but her mother had found out when she caught Shanique crying on the toilet with a burning in her vulva that turned out to be an infection.
Shanique never came back to school or to church. Her mom moved the family down South to live with a great aunt.
“That’s fucked up,” Deza said, shaking her head. “My DJ boyfriend was a little older than me—seven years—but I made the move on him. And it’s not like I was a virgin.”
“Seven years?” Tyesha asked.
Deza’s phone buzzed, and she looked at it. “It’s Yo. She got a last-minute call to spin a hip-hop set in Bed-Stuy. She said she can swing back and get me.”
“You should go,” Tyesha said.
Deza grabbed her coat and ran out the door. She had almost closed it behind her, when she turned and stuck her head back in. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
Tyesha nodded as the door closed, and she heard the jangle of keys and deadbolts turning.
In the now empty apartment, Tyesha felt stripped and naked after the rage subsided. The fresh and bitter slice of Woof’s betrayal blended with the never-healed bruise of losing Shanique. And through it all, the heaviest grief that there was no fairy-tale ending. Just when a black girl thought she had made it through the woods alive, just when she relaxed into maybe loving the woodcutter, she would learn he was on the side of the wolf.
Chapter 14
The next day, Tyesha woke, having shed the initial layer of grief and reached a new wave of fury. How could Woof have agreed to do an album with Car Willis? She had slept poorly. In the morning, she had called up Marisol and vented about it. She had lunch with Jody and Kim and ranted some more.
“You’re better off without him,” Jody said. “What is this, like his third big fuck-up?”
“I wanna say I thought he’d changed,” Tyesha said. “And then it just sounds pathetic. This time I’m done for good.”
“So I always thought he was a dick,” Jody said. “But I can see some of the appeal. You’re high powered, and you need a guy who won’t be running around sucking his thumb and worrying that he’s not in your league.”
“Did you have breakup sex?” Kim asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Tyesha said. “I couldn’t even entertain breakup sex when the name Car Willis has been on my lips within the past hour.”
“Well, then, no wonder you’re still so upset,” Kim said. “You need a little something to help you forget him. What about that stockbroker? Wasn’t he always trying to see you?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Tinder calls, girl,” Kim said. “Swipe now, get some tonight.”
“Tinder’s too misogynist,” Jody said. “Try Bumble—the girl gets to choose.”
“I gotta go,” Tyesha said. “I have meetings all afternoon.”
* * *
As it turned out, her last meeting was with Drew, the geeky black reporter from the Village Voice.
The two of them sat on the leather couch in the office. He had his notebook in his hand and a digital recorder on the coffee table.
Through his questions, a story emerged. The Maria de la Vega clinic had been founded by Marisol Rivera and Eva Feldman to serve the sex work community of lower Manhattan. They provided a full range of services to support the sexual and emotional health of sex workers. They also provided money management and career planning to help the workforce, primarily young women, think about their futures in an industry that was high paying but also high risk and high burnout. This included entrepreneurial and skills training for long-term professional development within the sex industries, and also planning and support for those who wanted to exit the industries.
Tyesha had taken over as executive director in June, shortly after she had graduated with a master’s degree in public health from Columbia.
Tyesha shared a sanitized version of her own background in the industries. She had been a waitress in a strip club. She mentioned that she had done a bit of exotic dancing at private parties but had too much stage fright to strip in the clubs. She didn’t mention that she had done her dancing during escort gigs, where the clients were really paying for sex.
Instead, she played it up like waitressing taught her firsthand what it was like for the dancers, and that was why she had put the resources of the clinic behind this union fight.
“And you come from a long line of public health fighters,” he said. “Lucille Couvillier, she’s your paternal aunt, right?”
“Maternal,” Tyesha said. “I have my mother’s last name.”
“Your father’s last name is?”
“Unknown,” Tyesha said. She took a breath and just said it out loud.
To a reporter. “I don’t know who my father is.”
He blinked twice and began scribbling on his notepad.
“What?” Tyesha asked. “Weren’t expecting that type of ghetto drama?”
“Not just ghetto drama,” Drew said. “My little brother. We just learned that his father wasn’t my dad. I’d prefer ghetto drama to middle-class drama. At least it’s honest.”
“How old is your little brother?”
“Twenty-five,” he said. “Imagine going a quarter century thinking the man who raised you was your biological father and then learning it was someone else. A friend of the family who was always around. That’s some bullshit.”
Tyesha shook her head. “As a kid I used to wonder sometimes, but then I just let it go. My mama wasn’t gonna tell me, and nobody else knew, probably not even the guy. And it’s not the only paternity issue going on in my family. My sister—this is all off the record, right?”
“Of course,” he said. “The story is just gonna focus on the clinic and the stripper strike. In fact, we can wrap up the interview. Is there anything you’d like to add?”
Tyesha looked at her watch. “Oh my god, has it really been two hours?”
“Time flies when you’re participating in award-winning journalism,” he said with a grin.
“And it’s seven thirty,” Tyesha said. “No wonder I’m so hungry.”
“Well, do you wanna grab something to eat?” he asked. “I’d love to talk with you more. Off the record, of course.”
“Sure,” Tyesha said. She hadn’t bothered to cancel her dinner date with Thug Woofer. They had plans to go to their spot, the uptown steakhouse. But her “don’t ever call me” should have been cancelation enough.
“What would you like to eat?” he asked.
“Sushi.”
It turned out that Drew was from Springfield, Illinois. He grew up in Champaign-Urbana, where his parents taught at the university. But he had spent time in Chicago as a teen and understood her cultural reference points.
“You know,” he said, “I was in Chicago when they torched the Urban Peace Accord Center. My grandmother lived in South Shore and we all used to go for Thanksgiving. She lived just down the street from the center. We heard the sirens and ran over to see what was happening.” He shook his head. “I’ll never forget the sight of the burning building. They estimated that the gang who burned it down had used the equivalent of a full tank of gasoline. My parents lost it. ‘This is why we moved out of this hell hole . . .’”
Tyesha remembered. She had also stood outside the center and watched it burn.
Sitting at the sushi restaurant, she felt the same burning in her eyes.
“Oh my god,” Drew said. “Tyesha, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears, but they didn’t fall. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t.
It was the memory, but also she had only felt rage about the breakup with Woof. Remembering Chicago—that fire, her aunt, losing someone she really loved—put her in touch with the loss of Woof. Whatever else she could say about him, he was a guy who kept getting her hopes up. But this latest Car Willis fiasco was the final straw. She had fallen in love with a mythical creature, like a unicorn. Thug enough to understand her rough upbringing, but successful enough not to be threatened by her. She was a fool to think that his past, all that bitch-ho-pussy line wouldn’t raise its ugly head in some kind of way. She thought that just because he was respectful to her that it would be enough. But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t treat her well and team up with a guy who preyed on young teen girls. She needed to fuck with guys who understood that.
She was so used to writing off most guys she met because she had worked as an escort. But she was out of that business now. She looked across the table at Drew. His forehead was furrowed and his eyes were concerned. How had she convinced herself that this kind of guy wasn’t for her?
“What do you think of Car Willis?” she asked.
“Excuse me?” He blinked at her.
“The singer, Car Willis,” she said. “What do you think of him?”
“I think it’s a symptom of our society’s sickness that he’s not rotting in jail,” Drew said.
Just then, the waitress arrived with their dinner order.
Tyesha had ordered hers with extra wasabi. She loaded it into the soy sauce until it looked like old guacamole, a greenish brown.
“Why do you wanna know what I think of Car Willis?” he asked.
“Just a Chicago thing,” she said, holding a piece of tekka roll aloft.
“Well, you’re about the right age,” he said. “Did he ever hit on you?”
“Friend of mine,” Tyesha said. “It was . . . it was fucked up.”
“Damn,” he said.
“Enough about him,” she said.
She dipped the sushi in the spicy soy sauce and ate it. The burn rose through her nose and throat to her eyes. The tears spilled down her face.
“Are you okay?” Drew asked.
“Wasabi,” Tyesha croaked, and took a sip of sake. “I like it hot.”
* * *
After dinner, they walked back toward the clinic.
“I was wondering,” she said, “would you like to maybe get a drink somewhere?”
“I have a confession to make,” Drew said. “I didn’t invite you to dinner to talk off the record. I invited you because I find you really attractive.”
She smiled. “Then I’ll take that as a yes to the drink.” They found a cozy bar down the street and ordered a round of drinks.
“Are you married?” she asked after the waitress left.
“Wow,” Drew said. “You ask the hard-hitting questions first. Car Willis. Marital status.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said. “Do journalists know all the tricks of evasion?”
“Sorry,” he said. “Not trying to be evasive. Not married. No girlfriend. Last date was two weeks ago. No sex. She was a white woman I met at a club. Sex was an option, but I couldn’t get it up after she put on Miley Cyrus.”
Tyesha burst out laughing. “Are you serious?”
“Not entirely,” he said. “I actually could get it up but that was just a physiological response. I wasn’t really into her. And the Miley just completely killed it. So there’s my deal. How about you?”
“Well,” Tyesha said, “when I first moved to New York, I was dating a guy and found out that he was married. So I like to ask that question up front before I get even the least bit invested. And I had recently reconnected with someone I dated a while back. But the problems that pulled us apart before pulled us apart again. I dumped him and am eager to move on.”
The waitress appeared and handed them their order.
“Could having a drink with me be construed as part of the moving on process?”
“I’m hoping so,” she said. “I guess I don’t usually date guys like you.”
“What?” he asked. “Left-handed guys? I assure you, everything they say about our sexual prowess is true.”
“No,” she said. “College-educated types.”
“Really?” he asked. “Why not? You have a master’s degree.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Black women just outnumbered black men everywhere in college. And so many of the brothers were dating women who weren’t black. And it was too much of a fishbowl. I just found it easier to date guys from the neighborhood. By the time I had graduated from college, I had never even dated a guy who was also in college at the same time as me.”
Drew shook his head. “You look like one of those women in Essence,” he said. “With your briefcase and your fly suit. You should be with, like, some Morehouse man.”
Tyesha laughed and nearly spit her drink.
“Not hardly,” she said. “The only college educated guy I dated was the married man.”
“Well, let me present myself officially,” Drew said. “Drew Thomas. I did my undergraduate work at B
rown. Then I got my MA in journalism at UC Berkeley. Single. Employed. Childless. And looking for a Chicago-raised black woman with a public health master’s degree. Ivy League graduate work preferred. Also, must have strong interest in sex work advocacy, and some labor organizing is a must. I know it’s specific, but there are millions of women in New York City. I’m keeping my hopes up and my standards high.”
She laughed and raised her glass. “To high standards.”
They toasted.
* * *
Drew’s apartment was the classic Village closet. It wasn’t much bigger than Tyesha’s office. On one side was the kitchenette. A half-size refrigerator stood beside a small Formica counter with a toaster oven and a microwave. Above it was a single set of cabinets.
Under the lone dusty window was a desk with a laptop and a file cabinet.
He sat down on a durable-looking sofa that folded out into a bed.
“Come here, Chicago girl,” he said. “Show me how high your standards are.”
Drew unfolded the bed and pulled her down into a kiss. He was a bit awkward at first, but they found a rhythm.
He fumbled with her bra strap, but she undid it for him. When he slid the cups from her breasts, he looked a bit awestruck.
Tyesha laughed. “You like?”
“Everything about you is so beautiful, Tyesha,” he said.
Almost reverently, he removed her clothes, then his own.
His body was soft, muscles lacking in definition and angle. But she liked it. She liked him.
She grinned. “Lie down,” she said and rolled a condom on. Then she lowered herself down onto him.
He gasped and let her ride for a few minutes, both of them grinning with the pleasure of it. Then he pulled her leg forward and turned them over. She enjoyed the warm press of his soft belly against hers. His stroke was unhurried, almost leisurely in his pleasure of their every touch.
He tried to turn them back over so she was on top, but they got tangled halfway there. He continued thrusting while they were on their sides, and he hit a spot of pleasure.