Black Girls Must Die Exhausted: A Novel for Grown Ups

by Jayne Allen

  “Where are we headed?” I asked.

  “Tab, you know better than to ask me that. We’re going to dinner.”

  “But where?” I teased, enjoying the levity of the interaction.

  “You’ll just have to see,” he said, smiling his sexy smile at me. Damn he’s fine. And he smells good. Marc was being deliberate again tonight—he even had on a blazer over his button down and jeans standard. And I noticed the leather driving shoes instead of his usual low-key sneakers.

  It didn’t take me long to wonder. We pulled up just a few minutes from my place at the US Bank Tower, a downtown landmark. There was really only one place he could be taking me then, it was certainly one of the most romantic restaurants in all of Los Angeles, and it sat at the very top of the building. Sure enough, an elevator whisked us upward opening its doors to reveal a modern décor with a clean elegance that accented but didn’t mask the centerpiece of the design—360 degrees of floor to ceiling unobstructed views across all of Los Angeles. It was enough to erase the last bit of contempt from my mind and push me into hopefulness for the rest of the night. In my mind, Marc and I were already back together. I reached for his hand to walk to the table. He took it briefly, and then brought his arm around to place his hand on my lower back, again, ushering me in front of him to follow the hostess. Once we were seated and while we waited for our orders, we caught up on everything large and small that happened since we hadn’t spoken in what seemed like so long.

  “So what’s up with the promotion? When do you find out?”

  “It could be next week, that’s what everyone thinks,” I said. “I’m so nervous. My real estate piece went over well, but you know, Scott Stone still gets all the broader interest assignments, like sports and stuff.”

  “Well, you know, you have to be ten times better to get ahead. I know you’ve got what it takes, Tab. You’ll get it,” Marc said confidently. I appreciated his belief in me, but part of me didn’t feel like he understood what I was saying. I had to work 10 times harder to get ahead as a black person, but also 10 times harder as a woman on top if it. That’s just how it was, and sometimes I wondered if I could be enough to meet the stakes.

  “Yeah…” I said slowly. “Oh, and you’ll never believe this. Lexi and Rob are separated!” Marc and Rob had become friendly over the time that we dated, as we had been out as couples on several occasions, so I felt like he would understand at least a bit of the shock of the development.

  “Really? Why?” Marc asked.

  “Because he was cheating.” I said. “Cheating and got caught.”

  “My man was cheating? And got caught? Damn, that’s a tough one. So what happened?” Marc asked. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with his reaction.

  “Well the girl hit Lexi up on Instagram…”

  “Instagram?” Marc asked with a screw face. “Aw man, don’t tell me he was with one of them…what do they call it? Insta-Hoes? Insta…thot?” Marc’s faced scrunched up as he searched for the word.

  “No,” I said, cutting him short. “It was some chick that works in a department store men’s section where he shops, but she reached out on Instagram to Lexi after Lexi posted her birthday pics. You know, the party that I invited you to…” I said, raising my eyebrow for effect. Marc just kept the shocked look on his face, so I continued. “Anyway, Rob bought Lexi a Mercedes—so over the top—and they posted the pics and everything on Instagram. Next thing, this girl was in Lexi’s DM’s.”

  “This sounds like a bad reality show, Tab.”

  “I know. And then, Lexi confronted Rob about it, and he finally admitted it. He was having a full-on affair! Because he got discouraged about work.”

  “Well…” Marc said, with his sexy thinking face. “I can understand, but I’m not saying that’s the way to go though.” He studied me after he finished speaking.

  “You can understand? Really? I can’t. I mean, why would you jeopardize your entire family, and all that, just for some random woman you met shopping?” I studied Marc’s face for a reaction. Not finding one, I continued. “Anyway, Lexi made him leave, so now he’s staying at his friend’s. I think they’re gonna get back together, personally. I give it a few more weeks,” I said, taking a sip after my self-satisfied proclamation.

  “Sounds like times are rough on that brotha. I’m gonna have to reach out to him,” Marc said.

  “Reach out? You barely know him. Are you friends??”

  “Nah, not exactly, but we chat from time to time. I mean, I can understand what circumstances might have put him out there like that. It’s probably rough to be away from his family. That’s all I’m saying. People aren’t always as strong as you think—and aren’t always doing things with bad intentions. Sometimes we just fuck up. That’s real.” Marc said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Humph.” I took another sip of my drink. “You can reach out to him if you want to, but until Lexi rocks with him, he’s dead to me.”

  “Girl code, right? I get it.”

  “Hell yeah girl code!” I said. I had to admit, even if we were talking about somebody else’s relationship, after all the tension in our own, it felt good to share a laugh.

  Dinner was incredible. The wine made everything blur together—emotions, thoughts, even my words sometimes, as we worked our way through the bottle. I knew I made the right decision holding off on Todd. And except for the Todd news, I caught Marc up on the last bit of time, with the unguarded openness that we shared before he broke my confidence in him, and my heart. For those wonderful, delicious moments, I forgot all about my tears and why they had been shed.

  “Tabby, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past couple of weeks,” Marc said as he reached across the table for my hand to hold. I gave it to him. “A lot of thinking.” His thumb caressed the sensitive area just under my knuckles. I looked around the room, distracted in my thinking. Was this what I thought it was? It distracted me further. At this point, I was fully mesmerized. “What I did, breaking up with you, wasn’t fair.” Wait, is he going to…propose? “And, when I thought about it, it didn’t even really make sense.” I braced myself. I wanted to say something but everything in me told me to hold my tongue and try to make it through the next few minutes to see what he had in store. I looked around the room trying to remember the moment. I managed to keep quiet by taking a sip of wine with my free hand. He continued. “So, not only did I want to apologize, but I wanted to explain some things. Some things about me and my family—I mean, you know some. But, you don’t know the whole story, and it matters.” Family? It matters? Marc and I can be a family. I started to imagine what Marc and my kids might look like.

  “Marc, you know that you can tell me anything,” I said, dreamily.

  “I know Tab—I’ve always gotten that sense from you and I feel comfortable. I mean, as comfortable as you can feel about shit like this—stuff like this.” Marc shifted a bit, but still didn’t let go of my hand. “Tabby,” he looked me in my eyes directly, holding my gaze, “my…my father is an alcoholic.”

  I took a deep breath in. Now, that wasn’t what I was expecting. “Oh?” I said. It was all I could muster and still hide the letdown. Marc didn’t talk much about his family other than at first to give the basic information, and usual updates as we continued dating. We hadn’t progressed to spending the Holidays together yet and his family had not made it from Florida to visit. This was not what I thought he’d be telling me right now. It was almost like the needle skipped on the evening. Still, he had a point to make, so I let him continue. Maybe this was his strange way of bringing us closer.

  “My father is an alcoholic and his…disease has really played a foundational role in my life. In who I am—how I think about things. I’m really just starting to realize it.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, for one, it’s hard to say this as a man, but I’m constantly worried….I mean, I’ll just say it, I’
m afraid.” At this, I definitely was no longer thinking of children with Marc. In fact, as he spoke, I started to realize that I was watching Marc take on some of the characteristics of a child himself.

  “Of what Marc? Does he get physical with you?”

  “No, not that kind of fear. I’m afraid…that…in some way, that I’m like him. That I’ll wind up like him. Even right now Tabby—I’m counting the drinks that I’ve had. Do you realize that? I’m actually counting. When we’re out, I don’t stop drinking because I’m driving, I stop because I don’t want to wind up…”

  “Like your dad,” I said quietly, half in thought.

  “Yeah,” Marc said. “And when you brought up the idea of having a family and making things more serious between us, it just made me panic because to me, family has meant chaos…and abandonment…and pain, Tabby, lots of pain.” I felt my chest tighten, so I tightened my grasp of his hand. My heart started to ache for him and all I wanted to do was take the pain away. Seeing the look on his face, I forgot about everything I thought I needed and wanted only to hold him with so much of my love that he wouldn’t hurt anymore. I wished that just by my touch, I could heal him. Seeing his brokenness, I wished that maybe I could be enough to make him whole.

  “Marc, I had no idea. I…don’t know what to say…” I stumbled over my guilt-laden words. “Me bringing up my…condition wasn’t to hurt you. I just, I just know that I love you and if I had my choice of it today, you’d be the person that I’d have children with…and a family.” It was hard to choose words around the topic when he had already told me that basic elements of a human life, family, children, and even marriage, meant for him such destruction and negativity. How do you even have a conversation from here? My thoughts were racing, but my mind was a traffic jam of slow processing.

  “I know you didn’t know Tabby, I haven’t told many people,” Marc said, looking me in my eyes intently. “I just don’t have high hopes, or good examples for marriage.” His words were a stab in my gut. How could I ever fix that? My emotions continued to swirl in all directions as Marc continued, seemingly unaware of the turmoil he was causing. “I’ve watched my parents over the years. They’ve stayed together, but I have no idea why. They’re both miserable and my mom…well, I worry about my mom every day. Sometimes, I wish that she would just leave.” I thought about Lexi, and Rob and I wondered just for a moment what Lexi would do if Rob were abusive to her. Was cheating abuse?

  “Why doesn’t she leave him?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

  “I don’t know. I’ve tried every way to convince her—I’ve offered her to come live with me, she wouldn’t have to work. Really, she doesn’t have to work now. But she won’t leave my dad. I know it. She’s not ever going to leave…until it’s the end of things.”

  “The end of things?”

  “He’s sick.”

  “Oh, Marc, I’m so sorry. All this—I had no idea.”

  “How would you know Tab? I didn’t tell you. And honestly, I didn’t want you to ask. I was just enjoying our moments, pretending that we could exist in a world outside of everything like this, that you could be my escape. You wouldn’t like it in my real world. I promise you wouldn’t.”

  “How do you know that, Babe?” I said softly, hearing myself slip back into my familiar endearment. After this sharing, I had never felt closer to Marc. Maybe I could be the one to take on his burdens, since I’d been carrying my own for so long. “My family is kind of messed up too. I mean, my dad walked out on me and my mom and married his mistress,” I said. Marc was unfazed by what I shared.

  “Yeah, but at least your dad was dependable to you,” Marc said, fixed on delivering his message. “My dad was there, but I never knew which one I was going to get. Would he show up drunk to my graduation? He did, by the way. Both graduations—undergrad and b-school.” His words caught in a jagged breath. He paused before continuing, “I’ve just spent my whole life walking on eggshells. Like I said, you wouldn’t like my world, Tabby, I promise.” Tears glistened in his eyes like…diamonds. He blinked them away before any fell.

  I just wanted to be close to him, closer than we were, physically. I wanted to feel him inside me, to envelop his pain and absorb it and send it away through my body into somewhere else in the Universe. In that moment, I was in love with him, and wanted him to take me home.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  C

  In front of my building, we sat in Marc’s car, engine idling, conversation meandering around every topic but the one we needed to address.

  “So…” Marc said awkwardly, signaling a turn to the more serious. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to go upstairs,” I said, as seductively as I could, biting my lip. Marc took my hand.

  “I mean, about us.”

  “Can’t we talk about it in the morning?” I asked.

  “We could, but I’d rather talk about it now…so that we’re on the same page before we go…up there.” Marc motioned upward with his eyes, to the higher floors of my building. What I wanted was clear. What he wanted was not.

  “Ok,” I said, straightening up and trying to push the boozy cloudiness from my thinking. “I made an appointment last week…for egg freezing.” I thought Marc would show more relief in hearing this.

  “Yeah…about that. Tabby, I’m also not sure that I want to have kids. I need you to know that.” On those words, it was almost as if time itself stopped breathing. I could hear the idling of the engine and tried to focus on the soothing music on KJLH in the background. I figured that I must have misunderstood what Marc said. There’s no way he would just be telling me something like this only now. “There are a lot of things that I still need to figure out. That’s why I told you everything I told you tonight,” Marc said, searching my face. As much as I tried to push it down, I started to feel a flash of anger spark in my gut.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I said, looking at him with incredulity.

  “I’m just being honest, I don’t know if I want those things. That’s why I tried to tell you everything at dinner. I do know that I want what we have, and that you’re an amazing woman. I don’t want to lose you Tab. I don’t.” Marc looked at me sincerely and reached for my hand that was resting in my lap. I didn’t move. Instead, I sat for a few minutes in stunned disbelief. Anger again threatened my control. I could feel myself slipping.

  “Marc, what are you doing right now?” I said finally, yanking my hand away. Of course this is what he’s doing. It was never about me, was it? “I cannot believe that you are fucking tonight up like this with this bullshit!” I said, hearing my voice enter a new volume. Marc doesn’t care about me…he only cares about…

  “Calm down, Tabby! I’m just saying…” All this time. All this time wasted.

  “What are you saying, Marc? That you want me to waste another year-and-a-half of my life on your indecisive ass? Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I barely recognized my own voice, or the words forcing themselves out of my body.

  “Tabby, do you have to drop all of those f-bombs?” Marc said. For a moment, I thought that I was going to black out.

  “Yes, the absolute fuck I fucking do! Because what you are saying right now is some motherfucking fuck shit, Marc. Seriously!”

  “I’m on your side, Tabby,” Marc said quietly. I was not quiet. I had already been quiet. Too quiet. All this time wasted.

  “You’re on my side? How, Marc? How are you on my side?”

  “I’m supportive, I’m here for you,” Marc replied with quiet intensity..

  “Supportive? You’re supportive? Do you hear yourself? In what way?” I demanded.

  “Like with your promotion, I’ve encouraged you, I…” I cut Marc off that point, feeling like my head was just one more word from launching into orbit. The nerve.

  “You encouraged me with my job? Are you se
rious?! The one thing I do have under control? You think that my career success is due to your encouragement?! You think encouragement is what stands now between me and this motherfucking promotion that I’ve been working my ass off, for the past year and a half?! Have you even listened to any fucking thing I have said to you in the past month?!” I was trying not to yell, I really was, but I was most definitely yelling by this point. I was done being polite. “I told you I wanted to have children. So, you know that, Marc. Now, I have to spend my entire fucking savings to make sure that I can, because family might suck for you, but it’s the entire world I never had. And now you’re sitting here in my life, in this car, wasting days that I’ve borrowed, telling me that you don’t know if you want to have kids?? And you don’t know if you ever want to get married? Are you fucking kidding me?!”

  Marc, by this point had ramped up also. His voice was elevated now and full of passion. “Tabby!” he said, gripping the steering wheel tighter than I had ever seen him do while driving, “I was just being honest with you! I still want to be with you, I just don’t know if I want to get married to anybody or have kids, with anybody. But, my mind could change! Why won’t you fight for us?” I felt my eyes widen in disbelief.

  “Fight?” I repeated loudly, and with increasing volume. “Fight who? Fight you? For us? What the fuck for Marc? What am I fighting for?” I could hold nothing else back. The flood of rage overtook me making me too angry to sob like I wanted to. I hadn’t meant to make Marc my enemy, but in that moment, he was everything and everyone and no one, all at the same time. “I am already fighting Marc!” I spit out his name in the exact same way I would say “motherfucker,” but used all the restraint that was left in my body to spare him the direct insult. I continued to yell though, at full steam, with tears eventually beginning to release in streams down my face, mixing with my mascara. “I’m fighting for my promotion at work—I’m fighting my ovaries—who also don’t know if they want to have children, by the way! I’m fighting stress and weight gain—‘cause I have to look good, right?! Oh, I’m fighting my hair—I can’t even wear it the natural way it grows! And, I’m fighting for my life, it feels like, every time I get pulled over by the fucking police. So, now, you want me to fight you too? Cause you can’t make up your damn mind? Like you’re some kind of prize at the end of an obstacle course?” Marc said nothing. He only looked at me with his mouth slightly agape, as if I had been speaking in tongues.