Chapter 11 Touré
CHAPTER ELEVEN
touré
“Are you sure you’re okay with Niomi joining us?” I search Celine’s face carefully for any sign that she’s not being entirely honest.
“Am I fine having my idol all to myself for a couple of hours?” She grins and pops a blackberry into her mouth from the buffet set up for the Gospel brunch. “I’ll manage.”
“Not all to yourself.” I slice into my omelet and give her a warning look. “You have to share her.”
“Things must have gone well last night if she’s coming for breakfast.”
I open my mouth to reply, but she lifts a staying hand before I can.
“Please don’t take that as an opportunity to share too much information about your love life.” Her mouth twists into a moue of distaste. “We’re in a good place. Don’t ruin it.”
I flop back into my seat and hook one arm over the back. “And here I was prepared to give a blow-by-blow account.”
“I’d like to be able to look her in the eye when she comes, thank you very much.”
We share an easy laugh and both take a few bites.
“I just wanted to make sure it was okay that she joins us,” I continue. “Because I wanted time with you this weekend, and it felt like we didn’t get much of it.”
“Like I said we have plenty of time.” Her smile falls into a straight line. “Unless you’re going away again any time soon?”
“No.” I reach across the table to take her hand. “I’ll be home writing this book. It’ll give me time to figure out what I want to do in this next chapter of my life. I think I’m done with the road for awhile.”
She doesn’t reply for a moment, but searches my face. “Seriously, Dad?”
“Yeah, a few networks have actually approached me about my own show.”
Her eyes stretch and her mouth drops open. “Your own show? That’s huge.”
“Could be. I’m not jumping at anything right away.” I shoot her a careful glance. “I thought if I’m home, we could . . . you know. Spend some time together. Not just snatched at holidays and every once in a blue moon, but real time.”
“That’d be nice,” she says, her expression sobering. “Look, I’ll admit I resented your job sometimes for always taking you away, but I want you to know I respected what you do. It inspired me. You’re kinda my hero.”
I let go of a scoffing breath. “Some hero.”
“Do you really think I don’t appreciate what you’ve done? All the stories you’ve broken? Reported from places, in situations nobody else would take the risk to tell? I do. Why do you think I chose journalism? Why do you think I chose Finley?”
“I didn’t—”
“I chose them because of you, Dad. For myself, yes, but to be like you.”
Even as my throat heats and tightens with emotion, something loosens inside.
Guilt? Dread? Fear? I don’t know, but her words bring relief I didn’t realize I needed.
Not that I didn’t make mistakes. I know I did.
Not that I didn’t sometimes choose work over my family.
I did, but that my daughter still wants a relationship with me.
I’m here now to give that to her. To give that to myself.
“You’re not off the hook,” Celine says, lips pressed against a grin. “You still have years to make up for. I’ll need a lot of attention and emotional blackmail money wouldn’t hurt. Lemme give you my cash app.”
“If that’s what it takes.” I laugh, pretending to reach for my wallet.
“Keep the money. Instead, maybe we take a trip together after I graduate? We could go to your favorite place you’ve ever been.”
I freeze, scanning her face to see if she means it. “You’d want to take a trip with your old man? For real?”
“I’d make that sacrifice, yes,” she says with fake solemnity. “Maybe once you finish your book?”
I shake my head and huff a short breath. “If I turn in this book. I have a lot to figure out, and it doesn’t even have a title yet.”
“Elsewhere was such a great title for the first one. It was a great book.” She spears a sausage link and tosses me a wide grin. “Glad I don’t have to follow that up.”
I roll my eyes, but chuckle at her sass.
It’s been easier this weekend than I thought it would be.
I know we have a long way to go, but Celine is more gracious than I’ve ever been.
Maybe she got that from her mother. She’s generous and makes room in her heart for you, even when you’ve given her every reason to reject you.
It makes me want to shield her from this world.
I’ve seen the underside of humanity, exposed in war and genocide and racism and every kind of terror mankind creates for itself.
There are times when we need a shell. I believe it’s Annette and Cedric who’ve helped shape my daughter into someone who is so open and gracious.
I don’t want to smother that vulnerability, but maybe I’m her shell-maker; the one to help her defend herself against the harsh realities of the world.
I haven’t always been around. I won’t always be around, and I want her safe and self-reliant when she has to be.
That, I know how to give. That, I know how to do.
“There’s your new girlfriend, Dad,” Celine teases, nodding toward the entrance where Niomi stands, searching the room until she finds us, a smile blossoming on her pretty face.
Maybe Celine expects me to deny the girlfriend label, but I won’t unless Niomi wants me to.
Last night was fantastic. Once-in-a-lifetime, blow your mind sex, yes .
. .but more than that. We can’t just pick up where we left off on that bench twenty years ago, but last night could be the start of something new.
To call it love in such a short time would be to cheat its potential; to belittle what it can become if we take care of it and give it time to mature, the same way we had to mature.
In the wake of one of the best nights of my life, I’ll just call it special for now.
I want to see where it will go. I hope Niomi does, too.
“Morning,” Niomi says, her smile tentative as her gaze flicks from Celine’s face to mine. “You sure you guys don’t want to—”
“Don’t worry about him.” Celine waves her hand in my direction dismissively. “Sit and talk to me.”
I send Niomi a wryly amused look and gesture to the seat between Celine and me at our round table. “You heard her.”
“If you’re sure.” With her hair scooped up away from her face and her makeup light, Niomi sits. A Kelly-green pant suit makes her appear bright and fresh in the late morning sun.
“Very sure.” Celine grins, folding her hands beneath her chin. “We can swap stories about my father.”
For the next hour, we sip our bellinis, eat a delicious brunch and keep each other thoroughly entertained. When the subject of Celine’s future comes up, Niomi doesn’t hesitate to ask questions and weigh in.
“I’m not sure what I want to do exactly after graduation.” Celine shrugs. “I have a few months to figure it out. My mom has some connections at Teen Vogue and Marie Claire, but I want to earn my way, not get opportunities because of who I know.”
“You earn your way by being good at what you do,” Niomi says.
“We don’t have a good ol’ boy network. We have each other, and any time we see a chance to pull another sister up, we should.
Believe me, the folks who get opportunities because their dads are the CEO or because their grandfather was a founding member, are not questioning if they deserve it.
Most of the time they believe they’re entitled to it.
It was theirs before they even asked. So take every advantage. ”
I smile, not wanting to add to Niomi’s sage advice. I know what it means to Celine to have a woman, a Black woman, traveling the path she sees for herself in many ways. I like seeing them form their own bond, outside of me.
“As a matter of fact.” Niomi pulls out her phone. “Let’s exchange numbers. I have a lot of contacts. Maybe there’s an opportunity out there that could be your next step. Your first step.”
“Seriously?” Celine asks, her owlish gaze trained on Niomi’s face.
“Absolutely.”
We only have a few more minutes to discuss Celine’s plans before she stands and prepares to go speak.
“I think it’s time.” She adjusts the Miss Finley sash across her dress. “I gotta sing for my supper, or brunch rather. This won’t take long.”
She glides off, picking her way through the tables and approaching the stage.
“She’s incredible, Touré,” Niomi says. “You should be really proud of her.”
“I am. Not sure I can take much credit for it, but yeah. She’s something else.”
“Not take credit?” Niomi scoffs. “That’s your daughter. I don’t know Annette, but there is a lot of you in Celine. The drive and ambition. The curiosity. The reserve with just enough humor hiding underneath.”
I want to believe it; believe that I had a part in shaping the amazing young woman taking the stage. I sneak my hand under the table to find Niomi’s, linking our fingers on my knee.
“Thank you for the things you shared with her. She needed to hear that, and hearing it from you gave it just that much more weight.”
“I meant it. I wouldn’t be where I am now had it not been for so many people helping me along the way.”
“Same.” I raise my bellini. “Here’s to reaching back and paying forward.”
“I can toast to that.” We clink glasses just as Celine reaches the mic.
“Good afternoon,” Celine says, spreading her smile around the room. “I’m a senior and as, you may know, this year’s homecoming queen.”
The applause and whistles that follow draw a happy laugh from Celine before she goes on.
“I’m not up here to give a speech. They asked me to just share a few words. I want to encourage you to be ever curious.”
She looks out to the audience and finds me, holding my stare.
“My father taught me that. He’s the most curious person I know.
And don’t let anyone impose their limits on you.
Dad, you taught me that, too. When you shake off other people’s expectations and pursue your own, it will take you far. It took my father far.”
She looks down for a second and then back up, her eyes finding mine again. “But now I’m glad he’s home.”
Home.
The word, the almost reverent way my daughter says it, tolls in my head, a bell bidding me in from distant lands to a place that is warm, welcome, waiting.
If my first book Elsewhere depicted my travels and the lessons the world taught me as I pursued my ambitions, maybe this book should examine the time I lost; a cautionary tale of, not only the reward of chasing our dreams with such focus, but if we’re not careful, the perils.
The lessons of not taking family and friends for granted.
The joy of finding those things and people I neglected still here waiting for me.
The grace of coming home in time to reclaim the things that almost slipped away.
Niomi squeezes my hand, her eyes soft and her smile sweet.
As I sit here with the woman I never thought I’d have, listening to the daughter who has given me a second chance I may or may not deserve, on the campus where it all began, my heart burns and swells in my chest. It feels like I might burst with gratitude.
The experiences I had here prepared me, propelled me into spaces I never imagined I’d occupy.
I wouldn’t trade that for anything, but in this moment where my past, my present, and my future intersect so perfectly, I’m most grateful that I could still come home.