17. Girl Talk
girl talk
alyssa
I heard Simone’s house before I made it through the front door. Music going, wine already being poured, and the warm chaos of what was turning into my new tribe. Taryn spotted me first and waved me deeper inside, acrylics flashing.
“Alyssa! Come get this glass and sit your ass down.”
I said hello around the room and took the glass she pushed into my hand. “What is this?”
“Liquid courage.”
Kendra, Marlowe, and Zenobia were already halfway into a bottle and talking over each other. Kendra was Aunt Lorraine's daughter, Marlowe and Zenobia were Uncle Reggie's, the whole female Wade cousin contingent out in force.
Kendra caught my eye and lifted her glass at me.
Julian had introduced us a couple months back, saying we were cut from the same cloth, two lawyers, both a little too independent for our own good, and figured we'd take to each other.
He was right, the way he was annoyingly right about a lot of things.
One lunch turned into a standing thing, and we'd gone from polite, to her knowing more and more of each other’s business.
Simone came down the stairs with five white boxes balanced in her arms, tied with sage green ribbon, and our names in her careful cursive on the tags.
“Oh no,” Marlowe said. “Simone.”
“What?”
“You did too much.”
“It’s a gift.” Simone set the boxes on the coffee table.
Kendra lifted her ribbon by the end and let it drop. “There is monogramming, Simone. In cursive.”
“What’s wrong with cursive?”
“Nothing’s wrong with cursive. Something’s wrong with you, postpartum, monogramming pajamas.”
“Zaria is a toddler. Is that still postpartum?” Simone flopped onto the couch beside me. “Open them, my God. The point is we match.”
I opened mine to find a sage green silk button-up pajama top with a small white “A” over the breast pocket, and matching pants. “I love them, Simone. Thank you.”
Taryn held hers up. “They’re gorgeous. Now everybody go put them on so we can get drunk.”
We changed in different rooms and came back matching, glasses refilled, the coffee table laid out with charcuterie, and the baby monitor glowing on the side table with Zaria asleep upstairs.
Raschad had been banished to Zion’s for the night under threat of bodily harm and had Zhaire and Micah with him.
I sat there for a second and looked at the five of them.
Before I moved here, Tamika and Jordan and Jada had come to Ma’s house to say goodbye, and we’d sat out on the back porch talking until two in the morning.
I’d thought then that I wouldn’t get a night like that again for a long time.
And here I was, in matching silk with five women I’d known all of a few months. Different sisters. Same kind of room.
“Alyssa.” Marlowe was watching my face. “You alright?”
I took a long sip. “Yeah. This is nice. Thank you, Simone.”
“Don’t thank me, sis. You’re family.”
“Y’all decided that fast.”
“Girl.” Zenobia pointed at me. “You are Raschad’s blood. Raschad is married to Simone. Simone is a Wade. So by the transitive property of Black genealogy, you are a Wade, and we have adopted you. The papers are signed.”
“There is no recall,” Kendra confirmed.
“Binding adoption,” Marlowe agreed.
“You are now legally one of us,” Taryn said, with dry authority. “Welcome.”
I laughed. “I’m honored.”
We talked about everything and nothing. Our weeks, the shows we were behind on, the books nobody was finishing, work, and then the way it always does, the conversation turned to men.
“So,” Taryn swung to me. “Julian?”
I didn’t look at her. “What about him?”
“You tell us.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Mm-hmm,” half the couch hummed at once.
“They run together in the mornings,” Simone shared.
“Just a couple times a week, yes. He’s helping me train for a marathon.”
“Mhm. I drove by y'all coming back from one of those runs the other week, you know,” Marlowe leaning in. “Talking, laughing, looking like a couple. A happy one.”
“Not you spying on the people,” Taryn teased.
Kendra had her legs tucked under her and her glass in both hands. “He looks at you different. I’ve known that man my whole life. He does not look at women the way he looks at you. That’s just a fact.”
“He doesn’t look at me any kind of way. We get along well and have become good friends. Besides, Julian doesn't date. Y'all would know that better than I do.”
The looks that happened between the five of them across that sentence were a whole conversation in two seconds. Marlowe's eyebrow going up, and Kendra pursing her lips, and Simone glancing at Taryn, and Taryn glancing back at Simone. The whole room shifting into a register I didn’t understand.
“You want to know what it is? It’s the charts,” Simone piped up excitedly.
“Julian’s a December Capricorn, Saturn-ruled, hence the whole…
” She waved a hand in the air, at the entire concept of Julian.
“And you’re a Scorpio, Capricorn moon, which makes the two of you an earth-water situation, and earth-water is the most—”
“Simone. Pul-ease!” Taryn groaned.
“…durable pairing in the—”
A groan went around the couch.
“Miss Cleo was not invited tonight,” Taryn cut her off again. “We are not doing readings right now, okay? Hang it up, Simi.”
“I’m only pointing out that their compatibility is documented.”
“Documented where? By who?”
“By the stars, Taryn.”
Marlowe set her wine down. “Okay. Forget about Julian for now. New question.” She looked at me. “When’s the last time you got some?”
Suddenly I’d have given anything to keep talking about Julian. “Y’all are gonna laugh at me.”
“We are not gonna laugh,” Simone said.
“It’s been a long time.”
“How long? Just say the number,” Zenobia pushed.
I closed my eyes. “Six, seven years, or so.”
Nobody said anything for a full three seconds.
“SEVEN!?” Taryn gasped.
“Taryn,” Simone warned.
“No. No! Alyssa, didn’t your husband die like four, five years ago?”
“Five. It wasn’t a good marriage at the end. It’d been sexless a year, year and a half before that. I stopped counting at some point. Sex stopped, and then he was killed, and I wasn’t exactly itching to go find somebody new. The opposite.”
The room got very quiet again. Then, Taryn sucked her teeth loudly.
“I’m sorry, and God rest that man, and may he stay resting.
” She put her hands together for a half-second prayer, then dropped her hands and looked at me.
“But girl! You are fine, you are smart, you are still breathing! Meanwhile his trifling ass — may he rest in peace — was out there blowing backs out while you changed diapers. So tell me why you haven’t had your back blown out yet? ”
I burst out laughing. “Taryn!”
Marlowe clapped. “She ain’t wrong, though.”
“Okaaay?” Taryn sang at the room and then back at me. “Not for nothing, but I woulda got me some as soon as I got home from the repast.”
Simone put her head in her hands. “You are terrible.”
“It’s not that I’m holding out over Malik.” I shook my head, still chuckling. “It’s life. Work. Micah. Keeping us afloat. Dating hasn’t been on the list. And it stopped feeling like something I was missing a long time ago. I stopped wanting it.”
Kendra set her glass down. “Can I say something?”
“Yeah.”
“I hear you. I understand where you’re coming from.
And I want you to hear me, because I think you and I are wired similarly.
You don’t have to date, if you don’t want to.
You don’t have to fall in love. None of that has to be on the table.
” She held my eyes. “But seven years isn’t focus, Alyssa.
That’s a body that’s been waiting on something its owner hasn’t given it permission to want. ”
I nodded.
“I’m thirty-four. Not married, not looking to be, haven’t had a serious relationship since law school, and not particularly sad about it.
But I have needs, sis, and I take care of them.
Periodically, and carefully, with men who are not coming to my mama’s house.
That’s not desperation. That's a grown woman who knows herself. That is care for your own body.”
“Mhm, speak on it Kendra.” Taryn nodded.
“And being an accomplished woman does not help. Especially in our profession. A third of the men are intimidated by us, and another third are competing with us. It’s not easy. But the answer to it’s not easy is not therefore I will starve. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
Zenobia leaned in. “Can I be real with you too? Look at you. You are beautiful inside and out. Your husband had a whole queen in his house and went looking in the gutter anyway. That was his inadequacy, not yours. But sounds like you took that and decided the safe move was wanting nothing.” She held my eyes.
“Don't you carry that man's mess like it's a verdict on you.”
“There’s a man out there whose eyes are gonna find you the second you walk in a room. Before they find anybody else,” Taryn added. “One who’ll cherish you and love you down. Ask me how I know?”
“How do you know?”
“Because I swore this off harder than you ever did.
Years. Told anybody who'd listen I was never falling in love, didn't want it, wasn't built for it.” She shrugged, and the smirk went soft.
“Now I'm married to a man I make a complete fool of myself over. Daily. I was the one who said never. Said I didn’t want it. Now look at me, all in love and shit.”
I took a long drink, which everybody correctly read as me dodging.
“Julian would cherish you,” Simone offered, as if it had just occurred to her.
“Mm-hmm,” went the whole couch.
“Not y'all back on Julian. How many times do I have to tell you—”
“We’re. Just. Friends,” all five of them mimicked me at once while rolling their eyes.
I had to laugh. “Well, as long as you get it.”
Marlowe sat up and clapped once. “Okay. So. The gala.”
“The what?”
“The Isaiah and Niecy Wade Foundation Gala. It’s in two weeks. You’re going.”
“I’m not invited to a Foundation gala.”
“Sis.” Simone touched my arm. “You’ve been on the list since you moved here. Lennox Falls hasn’t officially been told you exist yet. The gala is where they about to find out when you walk into that room. There’ll be a bachelor auction that night also.”
“I’m not bidding on a man at an auction.” I shook my head.
“Oh, we know you won't be bidding.” Taryn grinned. “Julian wouldn't let you spend a dollar in that room if his life depended on it. He’d have the staff refuse to assign you a paddle before he let you raise one for him or anybody else.”
They all laughed, nodding in agreement.
“Here you go again.” I rolled my eyes.
“The auction’s fifteen percent of the night,” Simone said. “There’s dinner, dancing, and a roomful of donors and partners and professionals. Men are gonna flock to you. Straight lose their minds when you walk through the door.”
“I don’t have a dress.”
“My specialty.” Taryn slurred. “Saturday. I’m taking your ass shopping and you are trying on dresses until we find the one. And it’s going to be tight. Show off that ass and those perky titties, honey!”
“What is wrong with you?” I laughed.
“Nothing. I’m a woman with vision.”
“Get her something like that dress she wore to Simone’s rehearsal dinner,” Marlowe said, and the whole couch dissolved into a laugh I wasn’t in on.
“What was funny about my dress?”
“Nothing at all. Just that it made Julian trip on air.”
“No he did not,” I said.
“I saw it,” Simone cosigned. “We all did. The man tripped.”
I gulped down the rest of my wine. “Okay,” I said. “The gala.”
“The gala,” they all echoed, and five glasses went up.