“What kind of opportunity?”
He was already walking out the double doors leading to the lobby. “Come by and you’ll find out.”
* * *
“So did you meet him?” Soraya asked, a film of sweat spreading across her naked body thick with curves all over. She twisted her long curly black hair into a knot.
My heart was still beating from our lovemaking session. I took a big gulp of cold water and collapsed back onto the pillow. “Nah.”
She propped herself up on an elbow and raised a thick eyebrow at me.
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause the whole thing was strange and mad fast,” I said, distracted by her beautiful brown areolas. “Plus, I was jus’ messin’ around. I dunno what made me do it, but I sorta wanted to see if I could actually change this powerful white guy’s mind.”
“And you did,” she said, tracing my chin with a slender finger. Shit gave me chills.
“Yeah, but I was jus’ messin’ around. I dunno what this guy actually wants. Plus, I’m too busy with everything else.”
“Everything else like what, D? You’re always sayin’, ‘I’m jus’ waitin’ for the right opportunity.’ Isn’ this it?”
“Nah, this isn’ it. At least not what I envisioned.”
“And what did you envision, Cassandra?”
I sat up. “Man, quit that Cassandra shit.” I had to give it to her; like Ma, she knew how to push my buttons. We’d met when we were seven. She’d just moved to the States from Yemen, and Jason saw her at Marcy Playground playing alone. He ran to my house, and when I opened the door, he said he’d found an alien, pushing her in front of me. When I said, “Hello,” she said, “As-salamu alaykum!” “See,” he said, nodding in self-satisfaction.
We brought her up to show Ma, and Ma slapped both of us upside the head, and said, “She’s not an alien, silly boys. She’s jus’ new. You better treat her like a queen.” I’ll skip the corny romantic shit, but we became best friends, and then, around middle school, became more than that, and have been together ever since, minus a few minor breakups. She was my Wonder Woman.
She laughed. “You know what my dad said about you?”
“Nah, what’d Mr. Aziz say about me?”
“He said you’re a smart guy with a bright future. And, jus’ from lookin’ at you, the way you actually listen to people, and are always curious, that you’re not like the other guys around here. That you’re different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’ know. Jus’ different. So keep it real with me. Is it really jus’ not the right opportunity, or is it somethin’ else?”
I turned away from her. She had the type of eyes that saw through you. “Somethin’ else like what?”
“Like you bein’ afraid of what could come of it but disguisin’ that by sayin’ it’s not the right opportunity ’cause you wanna stay here and take care of Mrs. V when she’s the last person who needs to be taken care of. Plus, she knows you’re holdin’ yourself back for her, D. She jus’ wants you to get started with your life.”
Damn. The pro of being with someone for more than half your life is that they know you better than you know yourself. The con of being with someone for more than half your life is that they know you better than you know yourself.
“I have started. What would I be afraid of?”
There was a knock at the door. “Dar, I brought some pizza home for us all to eat.”
“Thanks, Ma. But who’s us?”
She sucked her teeth behind the door. “Don’ think I don’ know Soraya’s in there. Hi, baby.”
Soraya shifted under the covers, wrapping her naked body as if Ma had X-ray vision. “Hi, Mrs. V.”
“Mr. Rawlings is comin’ up to join us, so get dressed and come on out.”
The good thing about living in a three-story brownstone was that there was plenty of room. Mr. Rawlings lived on the garden floor, Ma’s bedroom was on the first, we had a large living room and kitchen on the second, and I had the entire third to myself. I’d told Ma I could stay on the first floor with her, to make room for another tenant, but she said that I was grown and that grown men need their space.
Even though we all had access to the back garden, Ma and I rarely went. First thing, Mr. Rawlings loved that garden. He tended it all day and night, even in the winter when he’d put up frost blankets, bedsheets, and heat lamps. It blew my mind to see radishes, broccoli, turnips, kale, spinach, and other vegetables sprouting when there was snow on the ground.
Second, the man was about as old as the earth itself. He was in his late seventies back then and had lived at 84 Vernon for decades before Ma inherited it. I’d never heard him talk about family, so I assumed he didn’t have any. But after Ma’s parents passed only months apart when she was twenty, he treated her like a daughter, and then when I came along, he treated me like a grandson. All this made Mr. Rawlings the man—a Bed-Stuy veteran to be respected.
Soraya and I entered the kitchen. “Hi, Mr. Rawlings,” she said, planting a wet kiss on his bald, liver-spotted head. He was wearing his usual outfit: the Old Geezer™ starter kit equipped with soft-soled black leather shoes, gray slacks, and a tucked-in plaid shirt with a navy vest over it. Sometimes he exchanged the vest for suspenders. Yes, suspenders. His rosewood cane rested on the arm of his chair.
“Good evenin’, Jasmine,” he said, winking at her. Jasmine, of course, being the princess from Aladdin.
She pinched his cheek. “Don’ start, old man.” Like I said, the man was a Bed-Stuy veteran to be respected, but if you’re going to dish it out, you also got to take it.
“Take a seat and let’s say grace,” Ma said from the head of the table, still rocking the clothes she always wore to and from work—a loose fitting white blouse tucked into blue jeans—smelling like chlorine. I knew breathing that shit in all day wasn’t good for her, but she refused to quit, saying that she was good at her job and needed to feel good at something.
The four of us held hands and Ma prayed. “Dear Lord, thank you for your unconditional love, the opportunity you’ve afforded all of us to be able to sit down with one another, eat good food, not have to worry about where our next meal is goin’ to come from, and—”
She pulled her hands away, her whole body convulsing like the cough was coming from somewhere deep inside of her. As if a monster had wrapped its phlegmy tentacles around her insides.
“Ma,” I said, rubbing her back. “Spit it out. Whatever it is, spit it out. You’ll feel better afterward.”
“Thank you, baby. I’m alright. Let’s finish up.”
We grabbed hands again. “Sorry, Lord. Had a cough.” The four of us chuckled. “Thank you for the opportunity to see another day. Dear Lord, I pray that you help Darren find his path and that you use him as an instrument to help others in the ways we all know he’s intended to. I pray that Soraya continues to grow her father’s empire of bodegas to the farthest edges of your green earth, and that Mr. Rawlings’s garden continues to produce delicious vegetables and flowers for all of us to admire and enjoy. Amen.”