Chapter 3 How to Not Be a Waste of Time
Issac tells me to toss my phone out the window after Darius sends another nude. “This guy needs some damn lessons on being a gentleman.”
I raise an eyebrow, laugh a little. “What kind of lessons do you have to offer?”
We’re both sitting on the living room floor, having drinks and hand mixing raw shea butter for a product I’m hoping to launch. Mixing certain butters by hand is key, but my wrist gets sore and my skin is dry from overwashing at the hotel, so sometimes I’ll cheat and break out the electric mixer. I’m happy Issac is here to help. He puts down the bowl and presses his back against the bottom of the couch.
“If it’s the first time sending risky photos, you have to go slow. Just a pic in bed with only boxers on or whatever.” He pretends like he’s laid out, lifts his hand like he’s taking a pic. “You send that. See if you get anything back.”
“And then what?”
“If they make a move or seem interested, you ease it out until you get to the real dirty stuff,” he says. “But listen, since you didn’t respond to the first one, which was already a red flag, he absolutely should not be messaging you with more.”
I pick up my phone, glance at a picture again. “I mean, it’s not half-bad-looking. Maybe he thinks I won’t be able to resist.”
Issac laughs, but there’s a look I can’t describe in his eyes when they meet mine. “Maybe you shouldn’t resist? Could be worth a shot.”
I nudge him with my elbow. “Anyway, it’s not just about the unsolicited dick pics.”
“Well, what else did he do?” he asks, some trepidation and protectiveness in his tone.
Issac and I have always talked about intimate things that we probably shouldn’t share. Still, it’s a little weird to tell him, “I sent Darius something first, actually…”
His eyes go wide before he tilts his head. “And then what happened?”
Heat works its way up my neck. “He gave me…a thumbs-down reaction,” I say.
“A what?”
I’m already embarrassed, and now Issac wants me to explain. “You know…”
“No, I mean…what the hell?” He pushes the bowl out from in front of him and leans forward. With him this close, all I smell is sandalwood. It’s not his usual cedar scent, and I briefly wonder when he switched to something a little sweeter.
“Guess the picture I sent him wasn’t sexy enough.”
Even though I tried for a lighthearted tone, Issac doesn’t crack a smile. His eyes darken to match the shade of his skin as he stares at me. He opens his mouth like he wants to ask something but then shakes his head and forces out a breath. After a few seconds, he pours us a shot of rum and says, “To meeting better lovers.”
We raise our glasses. “Actually, I’ll be happily single for a while,” I say.
Issac narrows his eyes. “You’ve already been single for a long while. Is that what you want?”
“Pretty positive,” I say, and he shrugs before the shot makes our faces sour. But it hits me while my chest is still burning. “Wait, what about Melinda? Isn’t she your better lover?”
Confusion contorts his features, and he says, “We’re not dating anymore.”
Now I’m the confused one. “Weren’t you just with her last week?” When I went on my last date with Darius, Issac said he was having lunch with Melinda.
“That was…sharing a meal with a friend,” Issac says, surprising me. “It was fading for a while, but we decided to officially call it quits over that fine lunch, actually. Sorry, I thought I told you.”
I cut my eyes at him, a tiny seed of betrayal growing in my belly. How long would he have gone without sharing this with me? I’m sure the internet was first to find out.
“Did she break it off with you?” I ask. “Is that why you look gutted over my mention of her?”
Issac shifts uncomfortably. “It was a mutual decision,” he says. “But gutted? Is that what I look like?”
Melinda and Issac weren’t in a relationship, they were dating, but he spent so much time with her I thought I’d have to prepare to be the best man at his wedding. Because Issac has big feelings on love, and he shared them with the world. Before reaching this level of fame, he already had a substantial social media presence by being a mixed-media artist who’d create on video, but after he started talking about his dating life, his platform skyrocketed. Turns out, people love watching a beautiful shirtless man use his hands to make sculptures while listening to music, but they love it even more when he tells them he’s not into wasting a woman’s time. That he hardly makes it past a few dates before realizing the compatibility just isn’t there and, politely, being up front about it. The best part is that Issac believes firmly in soulmates. Everyone has one, his is out there somewhere, so why would he string along someone else’s other half?
Does this mean he doesn’t have sex? Of course he does. But those agreed-upon situations are discussion for another day.
Issac’s revelation made people worship him. If only all men were this honest; get someone like Issac; if you date me you’ll realize I’m your soulmate, they’d comment on videos of him creating collages adorned in fresh flowers with a crown of them on his head.
Brands from all over the world realized his potential to help sell them, and he met Melinda on a photo shoot while they were modeling jeans. One date turned into twelve, and it was easy to assume he might’ve found his soulmate. I’ve never met her, but weeks ago he said he wanted me to, and I took that as more evidence to prove she was different. I guess different doesn’t always mean soulmate. Unless there’s more to the story.
I frown. “Sorry for assuming. It’s just…Melinda’s the first girl you’ve seemed serious about in as long as I’ve known you. I thought you were in love.”
“What about Bianca from back in the day? I might’ve loved her.”
“The one Mom hated from high school?” I give him my best skeptical face. “You went to Providence Place mall to share a plate from China Wok with her like twice.”
“We watched a movie the second time.” Issac laughs. “But Vanessa really did hate her, didn’t she? Guess that was my sign that it wouldn’t last.”
“When does anything last with you? One-date wonder.”
“At least I’m not out here with a busted radar like you. Picking mediocre men who turn out to be less than, and that’s when you actually give anyone the time of day.”
“You must have a busted radar too. Didn’t you think Melinda could be the one?”
Issac reaches for an open jar on the coffee table and brings it to his face. “This is a winner,” he says. But then his eyes dart around the room. “Wait, why do you have all of this product here? Why’s it not at Wildly Green?”
My stomach clenches. I grit my teeth. “We’re renovating,” I tell him, which feels like only half a lie. Then, quickly: “But don’t change the subject. Did you or did you not think Melinda might be it?”
He seems to accept my answer about the shop before he says, “She’s beautiful and smart, doesn’t mind my bad jokes. For a while there I thought…this could be special. But never the one. And she knew I wasn’t it for her either. We were only keeping each other because we enjoyed spending time together. That isn’t enough.”
I lean forward, chew my lip. “But what if she finds someone else and you realize too late that you should’ve given it a real chance? Maybe a soulmate connection isn’t something you just feel, maybe it’s something you have to be committed to building.”
A curious expression crosses his face as he watches me. “Do you believe that?”
I open my mouth to answer, but no words come out. I don’t know what to believe about love and relationships anymore. Not after I thought my parents were soulmates, then death ripped my father from my mother so cruelly.
After a few seconds, Issac sighs and looks away. “I tried to see something that wasn’t there. I really did.”
Not for the first time, I wonder if the death of his parents has affected his view on relationships too. His mom and dad died in a car accident when he was twelve.
“I believe you,” I tell him, and his shoulders sag in relief. If this news has already come out on the internet, I’m sure people are circulating their own theories and he’s been bombarded with questions about Melinda, so I take the jar he’s holding and say, “Does your hair need love?”
“Please,” he answers with a smile.
But when I sit on the couch, expecting him to scoot so he’s on the floor beneath me, he awkwardly sits still for a few seconds. “We can go to the kitchen,” I offer, wondering if in the six months since I’ve last seen him we’ve transitioned to stool sitting instead. But then he kisses his teeth like I’m being ridiculous and moves into position. Because of his hesitation, my body is aware that he’s between my legs like it hasn’t quite been before.
Growing up together on Mercy Street meant my mom would see him day in and day out without proper hair care, and though she’d grow frustrated that his foster parents never took him to the barbershop, he’d shrug it off: always sunshine energy on the outside. Vanessa Thompson wasn’t buying it. We went to school with a lot of Black and brown kids, many of whom loved to brag about their fresh haircuts from barbers on Broad Street. So, she took it upon herself to give him a fade with the clippers one day, and started the routine of Issac coming over before school for help with his hair, working her magic through each of his hair phases, until she started asking me to do it instead. While I conditioned his hair back then, we’d share pastelitos from Johnny’s chimi truck and talk about our crushes. I’d follow up his soothing song-voice and sing to him completely off-key, and he’d read me comic books while I did my best to make him look as good as my mom did.
I run my fingers through his hair now. It’s denser than mine, thick in the middle, the curls are pencil-sized ringlets, and it’s gorgeous. He has the sides faded and the top is long enough to braid if he wanted me to. If I could braid better, maybe he would. I dampen his hair with a spray bottle and work some cream through it. He tells me it smells so damn good, quirks his eyebrows, and starts listing off ingredients that might be in it.
Then, finally: “You know what, don’t tell me. I trust you.”
I smile and tug his hair a bit. “You better. Now, pay up.”
He pulls out his phone, knowing exactly what I want. Issac may be a model now, an influencer, he may do commercials and campaigns for Nike, but before this he was just a boy with passion and an eye for beauty. He’s sickening, I like to joke. One of those humans who is both good-looking and good at too many things. God made him and said, Let me add extra. But even though he’s Hollywood now, he hasn’t gone a day without making some type of art. And I love when he gives me little insights into whatever he dreams up.
“First,” he says, then leans his head against my thigh. The feeling gives me unexpected goose bumps after he’s seemed distant and momentarily distracts me from the way he lifts his phone to take a picture of us. I snap into the moment, insisting I look hideous. He argues that hideous and me don’t belong in the same sentence.
“Sure. Sure,” I say. “You better not post that.”
“Zero social media,” he says. “I got it, hermit.”
He swipes through pictures, then stops on a video that he shows me. “It’s not a project,” he says. “But I’m hoping it can be.” The video is of a botanical garden three times the size of the gorgeous one we have in Roger Williams Park. This one has exotic plants and tall trees with lush green canopies.
“Some big names put together a new art exhibition they’re calling Year of the Lotus for the end of summer,” he explains. “They want to rotate between art and fashion exhibits each year, and they’re hoping the event will eventually become something like the West Coast’s version of the Met Gala. They already asked if I wanted to showcase Secret Sun.”
Excitement shoots through me. Secret Sun is a code name for the project he’s been working on privately since high school. I pinch his neck. “You finished it?”
He swats my hand away playfully. “Almost,” he says, and I can hear his joy in that one word.
I’m excited I’ll finally get to see it.
“But I’ve heard the team hit a snag with location and might cancel the exhibition. My plan is to pitch the botanical garden, and myself. I’ll suggest an artist or two from Providence to be part of the show, ask if I can help with last-minute designs for the space, and maybe they’ll even let me be one of the hosts that night.” My fingers go still in his hair. He realizes immediately, tilts his head back to look up at me. “What happened?”
Issac is so good at what he does, and Lord knows the camera loves him, but he still wants art to be at the center of it all. I’ve been bugging him for a while to speak to his team about finding more chances to show his art on a larger scale, but he’s been worried because he’ll have to dial back on other work. His face and openness online may make him (and them) the most money, but that doesn’t mean his heart is fulfilled.
I wrap my arms around his head and squeeze. “I’m so proud of you.”
He tells me I’m suffocating him, and when I loosen my grip, I expect him to joke about liking it, but instead he runs his fingers through his hair and tries to stand, laughs when his knees crack, mumbling about old age creeping up, even though he’s only turning twenty-six.
“Speak for yourself,” I say. “Because I’m young and thriving.”
“No truer words have ever been spoken,” he says. “Living your dream. You and Vanessa looking like goddesses at the face of it. I’m proud of you too, Ni.”
The guilt of not telling him what’s going on wrenches my gut again, so I deflect with: “Are you trying to make me feel good after Darius came through with the thumbs-down?”
“I forgot all about him. But clearly you didn’t. Did the pics leave you wanting for more?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“The only thing that’ll make me shut up is some food.” He holds out a hand, then pulls me to my feet too. “Let’s order chicken parmigiana.”
“That’s all we eat when you’re home.”
“There’s nothing like home chicken parm in Cali,” he says, then eyes me suspiciously. “Why? How many times have you had it since the last time I was here? Don’t tell me you brought your boy Darius to our spot.”
He’s faking jealousy and the normalcy of it feels nice. “Not even once,” I say, seriously disgusted by the thought. “And I’m not saying I don’t want it.”
“Well, dial the number already then, big head.”
“My hands are tired from all that work I just did on you, but I’m the one with the big head?”
He rolls his eyes in response and passes me my phone.
I won’t tell him that I never feel right ordering chicken parm without him.