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“You first,” Adan said.
“No, you first,” Zena countered.
“I’ll just say this,” Adan started with his voice cracking from its usual cool. “It’s fine if you don’t want to hang out and, like, be friends. I know school is starting soon and you’ll make other friends. Okay? I know that. But I want to be your friend. I like you and I want to be your friend.” He looked into Zena’s eyes. “I really like you.”
“Like, I like you, too,” Zena blurted out clumsily.
The words were innocent enough, but the intentions had deep meaning behind them. What the two of them knew was their relationship had strengthened and left so much heightened emotional residue that they both laughed to lighten the moment.
“Hey, can I come in for a little while?” Adan asked.
“In here?”
“Yes. Into your house.”
“Ohh.” Zena looked over her shoulder as if maybe there was a circus breaking out in the living room behind her. She turned back to Adan. “You sure?” she asked him.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“Look, Adan. We don’t have anything. I don’t have a Nintendo like you do. Our television is on the floor,” Zena said.
“That’s fine,” Adan answered in his cool tone. “I’m not here to play Nintendo or watch television. I’m here to see you.”
“Ohh,” Zena repeated. She stepped back and let Adan in. He kept her company and left right before her mother was to be home from work. That became their nightly ritual when her mother worked doubles. They swore Zola to secrecy and bribed her with Twix candy bars.
Zena was sure all of this would change when school started and all of the best friends Adan had, who frequently stopped by the house, got his attention before her. While she hadn’t met any of the girls in the neighborhood, she imagined they’d all be prettier than her and have nicer bikes and already know all of the lyrics to the popular songs Adan played incessantly.
None of Zena’s fears came to pass. Adan was also in the first-period history class where Zena sat beside Malak. One day when the teacher was absent and the substitute was late, the bored students started playing Twenty Questions, and Adan was selected first to sit in the hot seat in the center of the classroom. The girls led the questioning, asking if Adan was a virgin—he was and he admitted it—and soon Malak, who’d started the game for this very reason, asked if Adan had a girlfriend.
“Yes. I think so,” Adan revealed, and the heartbreak from the girls in the room was palpable.
Malak pushed further: “Does she go to this school?” Adan nodded. “Is she in this classroom?” Adan nodded. “Is she wearing a red sweatshirt?” Adan nodded. All eyes moved to the only girl in that classroom who was wearing a red sweatshirt—the new girl. Zena.
* * *
When hungover and weary Zena could no longer ignore the sun rising outside her bedroom window, she decided to force herself out of bed. She suffered through her shower and pampering routine and stumbled through her condo trying not to remember Adan’s face when he admitted that he liked her that night at her house.
When Zena finally made it out her front door and to her car, she decided she needed to make a stop before heading into the office, so she called Malak to inform her of her extended late arrival. While Malak sounded surprised, Zena could also hear in her voice enthusiasm at the idea of her boss being out of the office a little while longer.
“Everything okay?” Malak asked with concern about the issues they’d confronted the night before laced in her tone.
“I’m fine,” Zena said with forced brightness before adding rather dutifully, “Just email Judge Jones’s assistant to let him know I won’t make our appointment. I’ll stop by the courthouse a little later, and I hope to catch him if he has time. And make sure those files from the new Patel case are entered into the system. I’ll need them when I get in.”
Zena could hear the sarcasm in Malak’s voice when she replied, “I’ve already entered those files, and I’ll send the email right away.” Malak paused before adding, “Zena, I’m here if you want to talk about—”
“That will be all,” Zena said, cutting Malak off as if she was a stranger trying to find her place in some tragedy she didn’t understand. She hung up and exhaled through her mouth before jumping in her car to head to her mother’s house.
* * *
Lisa Shaw still lived in the same little brick house in West End, Atlanta, she’d found refuge in after her divorce and escape from New York. After years of haggling with the West Coast landlord she’d never seen, Lisa purchased the modest property and was so proud of her achievement she went about the work of turning the little abode into an oasis in an enclave that was decent when she’d moved in with her family
but declined through years of home owner flight, Section 8 hustles, weak property flips and foreclosures during the recession. But, Lisa, just happy to have her own land, held firm and refused to leave, even when Zena offered to purchase her mother a more lofty condo in town.
When Zena pulled into the driveway outside her mother’s ranch house, she scanned the well-kept front garden packed with blooming perennials like the bog lily, the yellow flag iris and cannas. In the middle of the yard was a freshly painted white swinging garden bench Lisa forbade Zena and Zola or anyone else from ever sitting on. “That thing is just for show,” Lisa said ten years ago when she had two day laborers she’d picked up in front of the Home Depot come and install it. “Got me a garden and a swing,” Lisa said, standing beside Zena and Zola that afternoon when the work was done. “Can you imagine that? A girl from 40 Projects? Got her own garden and swing!” She laughed and repeated her instructions: no one could ever sit on that swing.
Zena was about to use her old key to unlock the front door, but it was already swinging open. Standing there was Lisa with her right hand on the knob and a lit cigarette in her left hand.
“Babygirl, your ears must be itching,” Lisa said. She craned her neck over the threshold and looked past Zena toward the street, scanning the right and left side of the sidewalk. As usual, she was wearing one of the dozen dashikis Zena and Zola had gotten her for Kwanzaa. Her long gray dreadlocks were up in a bun, and her glasses were set low on her nose. While she was fifty-three and had endured what most would call a hard life, Lisa’s appearance belied that fact. Beneath the gray dreadlocks, thick spectacles and frumpy house dress, she hadn’t aged a day since they’d gotten off the bus in Atlanta.
