by Kennedy Ryan
“I never think of voodoo and conventional religion co-existing, but seems like MiMi figured it out.”
“She wasn’t religious, but she cobbled together her own faith in a way.” Lotus takes a sip of her drink before going on. “I make the distinction because I think religion, when abused, has been one of the most destructive forces in this world. Religion killed Jesus. Religion led to the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials. People conveniently organize their beliefs around their agendas. Taking money, starting wars, segregating, lynching—all of it had some scripture, some tenet twisted around to fit hate. True faith is about relationship.”
I push aside an empty bowl. “How do you figure?”
“First of all, relationship between you and God. Higher power, whatever you call it. Something bigger than you,” she says. “And second, relationship between people. The Bible says true religion is taking care of widows and those who can’t care for themselves—the most vulnerable.”
“I get that.”
“But religion, as it’s tossed around now, has so little compassion. So little humanity, and faith is first human.”
She pushes the last of the grits aside and rests her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands.
“It’s us admitting to the universe we don’t have all the answers. Too often religion says yes, I do have all the answers, and if you don’t like them, you can’t sit at my table. So we have all these tables. Too many tables, and not enough love.”
“You sound like you’ve experienced this firsthand,” I say.
“I did, growing up.” She nods, sadness, memories, something darkening her eyes. “Faith should give hope, not take it away. Church people wouldn’t allow MiMi to worship with them. They called her a witch.”
“Was she?”
“She was an old woman who wanted to celebrate her faith with her community.” Lotus shrugs philosophically. “She couldn’t sit at their table, so she made her own. Every Sunday morning, we’d sing hymns on the back porch. She’d pull out her little Bible and read to me. That thing was falling apart, pages hanging out. She kept it by her bed and read it every night.”
“And that’s how you got into the Song of Solomon?”
“It became my favorite, yeah. You ever read it?”
“We weren’t exactly religious. My father was a judge. Elected official, so we went to church whenever he was running for office. I know some Sunday school basics, but beyond that, no.”
“I think a lot of people just want to feel like there’s something else. Something beyond what life seems to be,” she says, running a fingertip around the rim of her glass.
“And you believe there is more than what life seems to be?”
“You know how scientists say we only use like ten percent of our brains?” she asks.
“Scientists don’t say that,” I correct. “It’s a myth, and it’s been debunked.”
“Are you always this much fun?”
My own quick laugh takes me by surprise. “You were about to make a point using your fake news. Don’t let me spoil all your fun with, you know, actual facts.”
“Well, the point I was trying to make before you butted in with all your facts and shit,” she says, rolling her eyes and then grinning, “is I think we only use a portion of this world—that we miss a lot of the things that are right in front of us, and we miss a lot of things we can’t see, but never sit still long enough to recognize.”
“Are you sure you’re only twenty-five? Now it doesn’t even feel right to call you PYT.”
Our chuckles and laughing eyes meet over the table. I block out the other diners, the clang of dishes, and the murmur of conversation. I focus on any breadcrumbs she might drop that could help me understand what shaped her.
“So should I call you Glad?” she asks cheekily.
“What? Hell, no.”
“But I heard people calling you that today at the park.”
“Yeah, but it’s like teammates, media.” I shake my head. “Some sports reporter said I was a warrior in the paint and that evolved to Gladiator, and a lot of people shorten it to Glad.”
“Everyone calls me Lo.”
“I think I’ll call you Button,” I say teasingly. “I mean, considering that’s what lead to our first kiss.”
I can’t know if a blush lurks under her copper-tinted cheeks, but her lashes sweep down and her pretty mouth curls at the corners.
“As in, cute as a button?” she asks. “I’m already height-challenged.”
“In the real world, we call that short.”
“At least I can walk into a restaurant without squatting.”
“You got me there,” I concede, chuckling. “Okay. How about if I only call you Button when it’s just the two of us? It’ll be our thing.”
“Do friends have ‘things’?” The look she levels over the rim of her glass asks a dozen other questions I want to answer.
“I think we’re the kind of friends who do what we want.”
Her brows arch, speculation in the mysterious dark eyes. “Oh, are we?”
This conversation has only deepened my attraction to Lotus, and I have no intention of turning back now.
“We will be,” I affirm, holding her stare.
If we’re two friends who do what we want, I know what I want. And the more I discover about Lotus, the less simple it seems.
12
Kenan
There’s no place like home.
Being here in Philly brings back so many memories, most of them connected to my dad. His markings on the wall for Kenya and me as we shot past our father and mother in height. Him reading his Sunday paper in the bright kitchen of our Society Hill townhouse. His sigh, half weariness, half relief when he’d walk through the front door after a long day in court. I feel his presence and hear his voice in every room.
Simone and I are unloading the groceries we bought from Whole Foods. Since my mother sprained her ankle and stayed home while we shopped, it was good time alone with my daughter. Simone opens the cabinet to the left of the stove to put away salt, pepper, and oregano.
“Spices to the right, Moni,” Mama says, glancing up from her crossword puzzle.
“Sorry, Grandma.” Simone smiles at my mom and moves to the other side. “Daddy, can we go to Geno’s?”
Her eyes brighten with rare excitement and possibly hunger for the famous cheesesteaks.
“Sure. We’ll swing by after we check on Faded with Uncle Lucius. Sound good?”
She nods and presses in to me, batting the longest lashes known to man, or at least known to this man. “And Federal Donuts, too?”
“Cheesesteaks and Federal?” My arteries just wept.
“Where else can I get fried chicken and donuts together?” she asks, like that’s a logical rationale. “We have to hit Federal while we’re here.”
“Kenan, now you know you did Federal for breakfast and Geno’s for lunch growing up,” Mama says, her smile wider than I’ve seen it in a long time. “He might eat all strict and vegan now, Moni, but believe me when I tell you he didn’t always.”
She’s right. Lucius and I ate and screwed our way through the city back in the day. Neither of my favorite ladies need to know about the trail of condoms I left behind.
“Mama, I told you I’m not vegan.” To my mother, you’re either eating cheesesteaks and donuts or you’re vegan. Apparently, there’s no middle ground. “Moni, let’s do cheesesteaks today and Federal tomorrow,” I suggest. “Sound good?”
“Yes.” She nods and an eager light enters her blue eyes. “And maybe some shopping.”
My gut clenches. I gulp.
“Shopping?” I ask, trying disguise my trepidation.
“Daddy, please.” Simone presses her hands together and pushes her bottom lip out. “Maybe Forever 21 and GAP, and I think there’s a J.Crew at the—”
“Okay.” I massage the subtle throb that has started in my temple. “Some shopping. And I thought we could catch the outd
oor movie at the Oval.”
“Eeeeek!” She throws her arms around my neck. “I’m gonna go change clothes.”
She practically skips toward the kitchen door.
“Erin Simone Ross,” Mama says, using my daughter’s full name and never lifting her eyes from the crossword puzzle. “If you don’t get back in here and finish putting those groceries away.”
Simone stops in her tracks and turns toward us with a sheepish grin.
“Yes, ma’am,” she says.
She chatters about shopping and donuts and dance class for the next few minutes while we put away the last of the groceries. I’m glad I brought her to Philly with me. Not only because we needed time alone out from under Bridget’s shadow, but because I think it’s done my mother good seeing her. And Simone has seemed happier, too.
How different would things have been if I hadn’t traveled so much, hadn’t spent so much time away from my daughter? There’s never been a time since she was born when I wasn’t playing ball nine months of every year.
“Done,” Simone announces triumphantly. “Now can I go change?”
“Yeah.” I love-swipe her face. “Your Uncle Lucius will be here soon, so hurry up.”
She’s gone in a flash of coltish legs and a mop of wild hair.
“Thanks for bringing Simone to see me,” Mama says once we’re alone in the kitchen.
“Sorry it’s been a while. It was hard to get away.” I join her at the table. “And it’s tough for me to be here sometimes because it makes me miss Dad. You thought any more about selling?”
“Why would I? Him being gone is what makes me miss him,” she says, turning the ink pen in her hands. “Doesn’t matter where I sleep at night. What matters is he’s not beside me when I wake up.”
Her mouth turns down at the corners and she blinks several times. I hate that I said anything. It’s been more than a year, and Kenya and I keep trying to help her work through the grief, but sometimes I think she wants it. Like if all she has left of my father is grief, she’ll take it.
She’s a small woman in a family of giants. My father was six-five. My sister, six-three. Me, six-seven, almost six-eight. My mother is five-five in her socks. And she still has about an inch on Lotus.
Thinking of Lotus challenging me in the middle of Rucker Park makes me smile. She makes me smile.
“So how’s Bridget?” My mother’s tone cools noticeably. She didn’t see through Bridget like my father did. She embraced her as a daughter and loved her from the beginning. In spite of Dad’s years of behooving, she was shocked and hurt when news of Bridget’s infidelity broke.
“Bridget is Bridget.” I sigh, wrapping my hands around the tiny teacup Mama set in front of me. She loves her tea even when it’s ninety degrees outside. “This new reality show she’s doing . . . I don’t even want to talk about it.”
“She still thinks the two of you will get back together?”
I laugh, the sound hard and humorless in the kitchen. “If she does, she’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“She should find someone who will love her the way she’s looking for,” Mama says decisively.
“Are you saying I didn’t?”
Mama tilts her head in a way I recognize in myself, assessing and weighing her words. “I think she had a harder road than she thought, being married to you.”
“Wow, thanks. It almost sounds like you think she was justified in cheating on me.”
“No.” Mama says firmly. “Never.”
“But you do think I didn’t love her enough?” I ask with a frown.
“I think your father saw something I didn’t see. You and he are so much alike.” She twists her lips into a bitter smile. “Were so much alike. He was like you before we met.”
“How do you mean?”
“Hard to know. Not prone to open up. Men like you have to be pried open slowly, and Bridget tried to crack you like a nut. For the woman you love, though, really love, it’s not hard work. I didn’t have to crack your father. Didn’t have to pry. He spilled himself with me.” She shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t know why, really. I didn’t do anything special.”
“No, but you were someone special. It wasn’t what you did. It’s who you are.”
I get that. I feel that with Lotus. It’s too early to think that way, but it’s hard not to draw the comparison.
“It’s not too late for you to find that, Son.” Mama reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “You or Kenya, if she would sit herself down long enough.”
I grin at that and walk my cup over to the sink to dump the untouched tea. “She said she has someone for me to meet when she comes to New York, so all’s not lost on that front.”
“I might get grandbabies yet!” She claps her hands and cackles.
“Excuse me, what’s Simone? Chopped liver?”
“One?” She demands, eyes wide, but sparkling with humor I haven’t seen much lately. “I need at least a spare, since you don’t have any prospects.”
“Who said I don’t have any prospects?” I mutter, grinning and braced for her third degree.
“Kenan Admiral Ross, what are you not telling me?”
“I’m not holding out . . . not really.” I lean against the sink and cross my arms over my chest. “There is this . . . uh, girl, I like talking to.”
“You like talking?” Incredulity lifts Mama’s brows. “Go on.”
“She’s so different from me. She’s outgoing and vivacious and the life of the party.” I laugh and shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “But she’s also thoughtful and sensitive. Superstitious.”
“Where are her people from?” Mama asks semi-haughtily.
“Her people, as you call them, are from New Orleans, but she went to Spelman and lived in Atlanta before she moved to New York.”
“Excellent school.”
I don’t bother telling her Lotus dropped out to pursue fashion. Despite the huge risks she took, it’s all turned out well, and she landed on her feet. Lotus is a cat with nine lives.
“And does Bridget know you’re interested in someone new?” Mama shoots me a meaningful look. “She knows she lost a good thing.”
“She didn’t lose too much. I’m paying her enough every month.”
“You know that’s not what I mean, and watch that one. I didn’t see her before for what she was, but I have since. She’s got a vindictive streak.”
“Maybe I do, too.”
“No, you don’t. You can make a person feel like they don’t have the common sense of a sheep with one look, but that’s not vindictive. It’s just your personality. Your father was the same way.”
The doorbell rings before I can comment.
“That’ll be Lucius,” I say.
“So the shop’s doing well?”
“Great actually.” I head for the front door. “At least that’s what Lucius tells me. I need to see for myself.”
Lucius stands on the stoop, sporting a big grin and a white kufi cap fitted tightly to his skull.
“Assalamualaikum,” he says, reaching up to hug me.
“Mualaikumsalam,” I reply, pulling back to give him a once-over. “You leaner, bruh.”
“Cutting out that pork.” He grins sheepishly, still looking like that guy I played JV basketball with in high school. That is before I got bumped up to varsity, of course. “And that workout you turned me onto didn’t hurt.”
“Didn’t hurt?” He swore up and down he didn’t need my “fancy” diets and workouts to lose weight. “Okay. I’ll let you have that. Come see my mom before we go to the shop.”
“Your mom still fine?” he asks with a teenage boy’s irrepressible smirk. “You know she always had that Claire Huxtable vibe.”
I roll my eyes and lead him back toward the kitchen.
“Damn shame we can’t even watch The Cosby Show anymore. Lisa Bonet was fine as hell,” he complains. “We lost Cosby and Kanye.”
I laugh, thinking of my conversation with Lo
tus.
“Yeah, I did see on Twitter that Kanye’s in the sunken place,” I joke.
“Twitter?” he asks, giving me a crunchy face. “You still using Twitter?”
I wish Lotus was here to appreciate this.
13
Lotus
“Happy birthday!”
Billie blows out all twenty-seven candles on the huge chocolate espresso cake. With laughing eyes and her hair even redder than usual from the glow of candles, she looks ironically younger as she celebrates another year.
“I hope you made a wish,” Yari says, aiming her phone at the cake and the birthday girl for a photo.
Billie’s smile slips so quickly, I doubt the camera caught it, but I did. We all cheer, and I’m glad the people who care about her most are here celebrating. Paul wouldn’t be here with us peons.
Makes me sick.
How an otherwise bright, ambitious, honest-to-a-fault woman like Billie can let Paul have her birthday cake and eat it, too, astounds and depresses me. She has ceded everything to him—all the control, all the leverage. She thinks Yari and I don’t understand, that we’re too hard on her, but I’ve seen firsthand and more than once how dangerous it is to trust someone unworthy with your heart. It’s why everything I’ve ever shared with a man was below the belt.
Lately, I haven’t even shared that.
Right on cue, Chase leans over and blows in my ear. Is that shit supposed to be sexy?
I swat at him like he’s an annoying fly.
“Chase, when you gonna give up?” Yari shakes her head and passes around plates with slices of cake.
“I’m not.” He squeezes my thigh under the table. “We’re on a break, but she’ll be back.”
“No, she won’t.” I force a smile and push his hand away. “You are firmly in the former fuck category, and there you shall remain.”
Amanda, who is still in my personal doghouse for feeling Kenan up on the low, leans forward, affording us a glimpse of her plastic surgeon’s handiwork overflowing the dress’s plunging neckline.
“I hope you’re not holding out for our watch model,” she says, her eyes bright with spite and liquor.