A Love Like the Sun

Chapter 27 How to Tarnish a Target

Promote it on @heaven_of_hair

Please help my daughter with her skin lesions. Treatment is $3,000 and I…

This seems dope. You dusties need to go to RI and seek help from Ni Ni.

She’s so thick it hurts :,)

She’s ugly. Bet her hair products don’t even work.

Look at my parentsssss. They’re so cute together.

Dm to be my sugar baby and I will spoil well and give weekly allowance

So, is she a maid or not? Why clean toilets if you have a whole business?

@saratoni1 time for a trip to RI?

Just because she has a Black mom doesn’t mean she should be telling Black girls with 4c curls how to do their hair.

The last comment makes me wince. Eighty-nine other people chimed in underneath. The photo they’re going on about is one of Issac in my shop chair and me doing his hair. I anticipated these kinds of comments but didn’t realize how much reading one would sting. Mom didn’t give me much melanin, and my dad was white. My hair’s a 3c, maybe a 3b on wash day, and people have confused me for Hispanic all my life. Especially because the population in Providence is so high. It’s never bothered me much, but at times I have felt just a little out of place when it seems like I have one too many boxes to fit into. But I’m no victim. I understand how nuanced and messy the situation is because of the pain Black women have had to endure due to erasure and colorism.

Issac and Lex just stepped outside to pick up the garbage that lines of customers left in front of the shop. It’s only Mom here with me, and when I look over, she’s smiling down at her own phone. Something twists in my belly as I recognize it as the kind of smile that springs up uncontrollably whenever someone special sends a message. For a moment, I consider asking if she’s texting Pete because I can’t forget hearing her bubbly laugh across the shop today when she had that conversation with him. She breathes out, and I can see her smile falter, her hands shake a little. My chest tightens at the thought. Vanessa Thompson loves hard, often cries over my father still, and I find myself wondering if she could survive another heartbreak.

And selfishly…if I could survive her being in love again.

She catches me staring, says, “Why are you looking at me that way?”

This is my moment to ask her if something has shifted and she’s open to dating again, but my throat is dry, and I decide I don’t want to know. “Maybe you should take over the hair-care part of the Experience from now on,” I say, which is something I was going to suggest that now feels small in comparison to the thoughts of her circulating in my brain.

After I tell her what the comment said, she sighs and leans against the counter; a stand of gray hair falls over her face. “You’re not telling them what to put in their hair, you’re helping them find what’s right for their hair in our product line. That’s the point of the Experience, right? Truth is, baby, people are going to have something to say no matter what you do and what you don’t do. As long as your heart is in it, be who you are. Be your whole self. Alright?”

The tight coil in my belly begins to loosen hearing the words from Mom’s mouth. She’s right. My heart is all the way in it. I’m finally fully focused on doing what I love, and I want to share that love with others, if they’re open to it.

“Alright,” I say. “I will.”

“Besides, I thought you were staying off the internet.”

“I wanted to see what people thought of our launch.”

“Pssh. Let Lex handle that,” Mom says, waving her hand and opening the cash register. “You prioritize keeping your mental health in check.”

The lady is hardly ever wrong. I’ll delete my personal social media accounts. Besides, we have the business page, and that’s the one that counts. Issac will understand. Just as I think about him, he walks in the shop and gives me a smile. Yeah. That man will support whatever I choose to…

The thought leaves me when a notification comes across my screen.

Darius Palonco tagged you in a post.

That coil in my stomach twists tight again and makes me sick with knowing. Mom’s saying something to me, but I can’t hear her as my finger hovers over the red button. I force myself to press it, but I’m completely thrown when I find a picture of me with my head flung back in a laugh while sitting across a candle-lit table. Darius took this on our last date. He took this when I thought he was somebody who enjoyed spending time with me. He doesn’t have many followers, a little over three hundred, but the caption reads: She’s a cheater, he’s a homewrecker. She was mine first.

I refresh the picture, and there are several comments already waiting.

Drop the date this photo was taken. knew something was sus

bro, get a life, always gotta be someone coming in with lies

you’re the homewrecker

Drop the date!!!!!

@shauna341 See, told you she doesn’t deserve Issac. What a hoe.

Show us proof

I start to shake, Mom squeezes my shoulders. “What’s wrong, baby?”

Lex and Issac are suddenly at my sides, but I can’t even look at them. I pass the phone to Mom. Count my breaths. One. Two. Why would he do this? Why would anyone do this? Then comes the misplaced blame: I should’ve talked to him when he wanted to talk. I should’ve…

“Where the hell does this boy live?” Mom says, pulling me away from ridiculous thoughts—this is entirely on Darius. “We will go over there right now and—”

“Mom,” I say, trying to stop the room from spinning.

But it doesn’t help when I look up and Issac is glancing down at my phone, a deep frown on his face.

“And rip off his balls,” Lex finishes. “Take his fingers and shove them so far down his dirty throat the doctors will have to extract them through his ass.”

“I just…everyone stop. Let me think of what to do.”

Mom and Lex shut their mouths. Issac silently passes me my phone. The first thing I do when I gather myself is report the post, the second is block Darius from our business page as well as my personal one.

The third is meet Issac’s stare.

“You okay?” His voice is unwaveringly gentle. He takes a step closer. “Do you need another minute to sit with this? I just want to make sure your heart is good before we talk about the situation.”

Just a couple of hours ago, I was floating from how well the Experience went. Just a few seconds ago, I was filled with fury and hurt over Darius, but now I’m just feeling anxious.

“I want to hear what you think,” I say. “What should we do? I hate the attention. Especially for the business, and is this going to affect you? What if he posts something else? What if…” I trail off while wondering if Darius has taken other pictures of me. I don’t think he has, but clearly he can’t be trusted to not have snuck a few. Then I remember the sexy picture I sent him, and my heart ticks in panic. I shift away from Issac, from Mom’s worried eyes, from Lex’s angry expression, the tips of my ears are burning hot.

Darius wouldn’t release that picture, would he?

“Everything is going to be fine,” Issac says from behind me. “I doubt this will get real traction with all the other stories out there right now, with no real proof that what he’s saying is true, and with you mostly a ghost on socials it should die down quick. You saw what happened with the articles about your job. Twelve hours later people already found something else to talk about. Darius is trash for this, but I’m mostly concerned about you and how you’re feeling.”

Lex makes a humming sound at Issac’s concern. It’s probably furthering Lex’s agenda to get the two of us together. But his observing eyes don’t stop me from looking into Issac’s and asking, “Do you want to go somewhere? Before your flight back to Cali? I could use some air.”

He nods, so I hug Lex and Mom.

“Issac’s right,” I say. “Darius just wanted a little attention; I won’t give him any more of mine and let him ruin this day for me. We can’t let him ruin this day for us. Promise me you’ll both go home and celebrate. The Experience was everything we could’ve dreamt of.”

I see the corners of Mom’s lips turn up, some light seep back into her eyes. “And more. It was a dream, baby.”

“Shane’s waiting in our apartment with homemade drinks and his attempt at making my family’s recipe for Peking duck. I promise I’ll drink a mojito for each of us,” Lex says.