A Love Like the Sun

Chapter 22 The Idea That’ll MakeBreak Us

I’ve barely had time to put my luggage down when my doorbell goes off. One time, then three more.

When I open the door, Katrina waves her phone in the air.

“Bitch,” she says, barreling through the house and almost tripping over my rug.

I plop down on my couch, say, “It is I.”

I’m exhausted from the flight, still trying to adjust to the time difference, and Katrina’s been a burst of energy since the first day she entered our shop with stilettos and a crisp pantsuit on. She says she’s been like that all her life and has a hard enough time toning it down at her consultant agency to keep the stiff men running the show satisfied with her performance, so she refuses to do it with her friends. I’d never ask her to; I just can’t always match her bravado.

“What are you going crazy about?”

“You.” Kat stands over me, shoves her phone in my face. “I’m crazy about you, just like 856,000 other people in the world.” She tilts the phone to look at it again. “Scratch that—998,200 now.”

My stomach leaps into my throat. I sit up straighter, grab the phone from Katrina. Shida Anala posted a carousel on her Instagram of the listening party, and in the third slide she’s looking beautiful, cool, otherworldly, and I’m right beside her, looking pretty good too. We’re both laughing, glowing, clearly happy in each other’s company. Part of the caption for the carousel reads: Laniah is the most perfect moonstone I’ve ever met. We all love her already.

Me. Shida referred to me as perfect and a moonstone in the same sentence.

“Look at the next one.” Katrina claps her hands excitedly.

A shiver travels my spine. I take a breath, slide right to a picture of me and Issac, his arms around my waist, his face in my neck. I’m smiling like it’s the best day of my life.

“Well, shit,” I finally say, sinking back in my seat and trying to slow my racing heart.

“Yeah, girl. The press have already changed their tune about you. No one cares about those stupid maid articles anymore. And in fact, there was one posted a while ago about how happy Issac seems. It was littered with praise for him. Kind of sickening if you ask me, but my girl is a good look for him.” Katrina starts to dance in front of me. “You’re a celebrity.”

“Shut up. Definitely not, and you know I don’t care about that,” I say.

“And yet you’re grinning really hard.”

“My face hurts,” I say. Then think of my conversation with Bernie. How does he feel about all of this? Issac needed to get out of the tabloids to be taken more seriously as an artist, and maybe being with me really can help.

“As it should,” Kat says.

“Shida,” I whisper. Then louder, a happy scream: “Shida Anala.”

“Your wife,” Katrina says, and we burst out laughing. “The love of your little life.”

We stop abruptly, stare at each other in silence for a few seconds before we crack. Katrina starts singing the lyrics to Shida’s summer sensation. I stand up on the couch and try to hit one of the high notes. Doing an injustice to the song, honestly. But the good feelings from the weekend double back all over again, and Kat slips out of her shoes to join me. We dance across the cushions like teenagers.

I’m happy she’s here, and always herself, no matter what energy I can offer back.

Morning comes and my head is pounding as soon as I swing my feet off the side of the bed. When Katrina left last night, I called T-Mobile to change my phone number and added extra privacy protection. Much like the first time Issac posted a picture of us, I spent hours warding off texts from people I haven’t heard from in years, even prank callers that brought me back to being twelve at a sleepover. And after reading comments comparing how happy Issac looked in the pictures with me compared to how happy he looked with Melinda, I can’t shake the thought that he’s with her right now. Maybe they’ve met up somewhere in private, maybe his tongue is…Okay. Nope. This isn’t how I’m spending my time. I down two ibuprofens with a glass of water, then get ready for a jog. I speak to my body ahead of time. Tell my legs this is a thing we do now, tell my lungs to be strong, my head to be easy on me, then I go.

This is only my third day, and I won’t lie to myself and say it’s getting any better. Everything burns, my vision is blurry from sweat stinging my eyes, my lungs feel like they might burst, but the one thing that helps is distraction from thinking of the shop. While I was in Cali, it sustained a steady amount of business, but what happens in two months when things between me and Issac die down completely? Will people go back to shopping for their products where they usually do? Worse than these thoughts is the fear that this will all backfire and people will hate me after the breakup. Issac said he’ll do whatever he can to make sure that doesn’t happen, but the truth is even he can’t control the outcome, especially where social media is involved. Another truth: we might not make it until summer’s end. Issac’s love life shouldn’t be put on hold to help my business. So Mom and I need more than just our products to set us apart. My brain runs wild, memories of each day in the shop coming at me quicker than I can handle. But I’m able to latch on to one: little Destiny with her beautiful 4c hair, sitting while we tried products to see what worked for her. It was similar to what Shida wants me to do with her soon.

An idea hits me and makes the half-mile jog back home feel easier.

There’s a nervous tick in my chest when I walk into Wildly Green and see Lex and Mom setting up for the day. I’m only two steps into the shop when the words rush out of me. “I have an idea.”

“Good to see you too, baby,” Mom says, putting the last stack of dollar bills in the cash register and closing the drawer. “Nothing like coming in, saying good morning, and telling us about your weekend with Issac.”

I mumble a quick hello, move to slap both hands down on the counter. “But I need you two to listen.”

“Baby, we’ve got five minutes until the shop opens; we need to get ready.”

“And we’re moving like snails today,” Lex says, without sparing a glance at me. “My eyes are half crusty from sleep still, and Shane made me a big fattening breakfast this morning to absolve his guilt, so I’m sugar and grease tired.”

“I’m happy you two made up and I don’t have to fight him because I fear I’d lose,” I say, “but this is important. Eyes and ears and hearts on me. Right now.”

Lex stops what he’s doing and leans against the counter, giving Mom a shrug. “Don’t you want to hear about what has our little celebrity here so excited? I can’t say I’m not intrigued.”

I roll my eyes, but his bait makes Mom close the cash register drawer. “How much money have we made since I’ve been gone?” I ask. She tells me more than we have in months and I clap my hands together, making a note that I need to check inventory and plan for the next wave Shida’s post could send. “But the hype from me and Issac won’t last long, and even though our products will speak for themselves now, we need something more sustainable. Something we can grow with. To make us memorable in the sea of good companies out there. And I’ve been thinking, it’s this store.”

“I’m not following, baby.”

Lex plays with sunflower petals in a vase on the counter. “You have to tell us a little more. Time is ticking.”

I feel like everything inside of me is buzzing with light to counteract the seconds passing by, and I hope they can catch some of it as I look around the room. “We need to make Wildly Green a whole experience.”

Mom raises an eyebrow, but then: “Keep talking.”

And so with three minutes to spare I rush to tell them more about Destiny, about curating a hair-care plan for Shida Anala, about so many people saying they try things that don’t work for them. I run through quick scenarios of us creating hair oils and leave-in conditioners for people with them right in the store. I tell them we can let the customers browse while we’re getting their custom orders ready or give them a time to come back and pick up the products. I see the idea getting lost in Mom’s eyes and remind her that she’d do something similar for me and Issac when we were young, creating salves on the spot for our scrapes and burns, balms for our eczema, shampoos that wouldn’t dry us out.

Lex’s hums, points a finger. “Oh! Maybe if the hair products do well, we could make creams and body butters for certain skin types too.”

“Yes. That’s perfect,” I say. “We’d have to really put our heads together on inventory, how much it would cost us for our time. If it’s scalable. How much we should charge without people feeling like they can’t afford it. And we’d have to do something about the shop, redesign the space. It’ll be a huge effort on all of our parts, on our pockets, but I think it’ll be worth it. I know it.”

Mom frowns. “I think it sounds too risky, baby. We’ve been doing so well here. Your idea sounds lovely but like it’ll eat up all the money we’ve made and then some. I might’ve made special things for you and Issac when you were kids, but I couldn’t afford the time or the supplies to do that with anyone else. It wasn’t even an idea on the table back then.”

I grab both her hands. “I understand, but I’m afraid if we don’t do something different now, things will dwindle down. And I believe in us. But a lot of those customers can easily go back to getting their products at the big retailers, where they’re cheaper and easier to find. We need to give them a reason, make them feel special. The time to take risks is now. I wrote up a quick business plan before coming here, and we can talk logistics together, make spreadsheets, but Mom, we need something like this,” I say. “There are soap-bar and candle-making spots across the country, but I haven’t heard of something for the hair-care industry yet. I think it will help us entice investors. Offering a one-of-a-kind service to customers might make us stand out. And the best part is, creating new products is something we truly love. We’ll enjoy this so much. You just have to believe in us.”

A customer knocks on the door, and Mom glances at the clock on the wall. My stomach sinks as she sighs at me. But then a smile splits her face. “We’ll discuss details later. But, baby, you’re a genius.”

“A whole genius,” says Lex, then dances toward the door to flip the sign to open.

Mom’s eyes are shiny, and they make mine water as she reaches across the counter and squeezes my hand. “Do you really think we can do it?”

“I know we can.”

She nods, and for the rest of the workday there’s some extra sunlight surrounding her.