Anthony #2
“I ignore it. My folks have my image damn near sanitized and there are moments when I want to speak up about something or have an opinion and I’m not allowed to because they don’t want to threaten the brand, i.e.
the money.” She rolled her eyes and I gathered more respect for her, knowing that she really wasn’t about playing the sidelines.
But still she was too old for people to be controlling her words as closely as they were.
“You bust your ass to be rich and then you gotta keep a muzzle on to stay that way? What’s the point? There's too much shit going on that’s bad in this world for people to just chill and only worry about themselves.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying, but people are only worried about their checks, which I can understand. But not when I’m standing there allowing my silence to equate to complacency.”
I was completely impressed with her words. Aphrodite was making me feel shit that couldn’t even be a thing because I had no certainty of where I was going to end up in the next few months. Even if I landed where I wanted to be, that would be thousands of miles away from her.
She grinned at me like she was seeing me for the first time, although we’d been out here talking for almost ten minutes. “You wanna go get something to eat? I know I’m starving and you have to be too.”
I reached for my phone ignoring all the thoughts I’d just spoken about it being pointless to do anything with this girl. I was going to laissez les bon temps rouler. Shit, it was close to Mardi Gras.
“Uh, yeah we can order a car or—”
Her scoff brought my eyes up from the ride share app I’d been pulling up. “A car? I might be from Jersey but that’s not how we do it when we’re in New York.”
I looked around thinking she was about to drive us somewhere but only delivery trucks were still left in the lot. “How did you get here?”
“My father drove but the car isn’t here and I’m more than sure he’s occupied with someone and won’t be coming back soon. He’ll only worry if he doesn’t see my practice tape for Monday in his inbox.”
I couldn’t keep talking cash shit about this girl’s daddy but I damn sure wanted to. Instead, I just shook my head to prevent me from saying some foul shit. “We just met so I’ll keep my comments to myself.”
“That you have them tells me you’re already a better man than the one that donated his sperm to create me. But what are you in the mood to eat? You’ve been to New York before, right?”
“It’s been a minute but I know there’s some of everything around here. What do you suggest?” We weren’t really dressed to go somewhere fancy but I was ready to go wherever Aphrodite suggested.
The wind blew one of her locs across her face and she tucked it behind her ear as she was glancing around nervously. “It’s cliché, but I want pizza. You good with the subway?”
“The chain?”
“No, the transportation silly.” She giggled and it brought a smile on my face. Despite how pretty she was, Aphrodite had a humility that most famous and beautiful women didn’t have. It was making whatever was echoing around in my spirit intensify.
“I ain’t nobody special, you sure you won’t have a problem?” This girl was talking about hopping on public transit like she wasn’t a damn world champion and gold medalist.
“Nope.”
She did some magical thing where all her locs were twisted up into a bun at the base of her neck.
She pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her bag that damn near blocked out her face and then put her hat back on, damn near touching the tops of her sunglasses.
She was incognito and I knew that folks on the subway wouldn’t think twice about having a celebrity riding the car with them.
Most folks didn’t recognize athletes unless they were in uniform so I figured we were probably good.
She might draw more attention to herself by wearing those shades inside than she would if people just saw her face, but I was more than willing to stand in the way if someone got out of hand.
Since she seemed to be ready I nodded toward the busy street and said, “Lead the way.”
She grinned and then grabbed my hand. We waved goodbye to a few of the people who were still lingering around and thanked them again for their help on the shoot.
I was sure that the vision we made was of a couple and I wondered if gossip was going to start about the two of us.
People had eyes and cameras everywhere but I hoped they just minded their business.
With the amount of paperwork we’d had to sign to do this photoshoot, I was sure everyone there was attached to some type of NDA.
We made our way out of the parking lot and to the nearest subway entrance. It was only two blocks away from where we’d been so I pulled out my phone and shot Twan a text.
“Everything okay?” I tucked my phone in my jacket pocket and noticed that she looked worried.
“Just letting my brother know I’m good.”
She smiled sadly her dark brown eyes tightening slightly. “It must be nice to have someone who looks out for you like that.” We jogged lightly down the steps and all the while our hands were still connected.
“It is. I never knew how much until I almost lost it.”
I was looking for somewhere to get a metro card when she pulled hers out and scanned it twice. My brows shot up at the easy way she just handled all of this but it also made me realize she had normalized doing shit for other people without them asking. Another sign her people weren’t shit.
Her face perked back up like she was about to hear a secret that had me laughing at her again. “There’s a story. But we can wait until we have food before we get into it if you want to.”
We stopped in the caverns of the subway and the shit looked just like the movies. I tried not to look around but circumstances wouldn’t allow me not to. Home was a place that had been too ruthless for you to be caught slipping and I didn’t want to end up a statistic before I could regain my name.
The smell wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but it was still dank and stunk of trash.
People were standing around minding their own business.
There were posters and graffiti and it smelled mildly of cold dumpster and body odor.
Reminded me a lot of home, there just weren’t any food smells to balance it out.
Almost like someone had sprayed out a trash can but hadn’t cleaned it.
The smell wasn’t overpowering, but it lingered.
People of all walks of life were waiting for the train.
Those who looked like money, folks who looked like they needed money and everything in between.
To her credit Aphrodite was standing there, still holding my hand not bothered by any of the shit going on.
“Might be for the best. But where is this place we’re going to?”
“Hole in the wall spot that you would never expect to have food so good. They also do a chopped Italian sandwich and a chopped cheese. Normally, places specialize in one thing but this one had it all and I found it on accident but I go whenever I’m in the city because it’s that good.”
Her eyes were sparkling so I could tell she was excited but she lost me after she said pizza.
“baybeeh, I need you to slow down. You talking about a lot but unless you talking about American food or some good ole red beans, boudin, gumbo or crawfish you gone have to explain everything else besides that pizza.”
“What is a boudin?” Her head was cocked to the side like she could parse out the meaning of the word if she said it enough times in her head.
“Oh, we gotta getchu down to Nawlins, baybeeh. You won’t be able to eat nothing else after you get a taste of some real food. That fusion is second to none.”
A subway car stopped in front of us halting our conversation as people streamed off and others were getting on.
I tightened my hand in hers and dipped my head slightly to guide her through the throng of people.
I kept her body sheltered within mine as best I could.
The last thing that was going to happen while I was around was some fuckboy feeling her up or invading her space.
I watched way too much crime TV to think that stuff didn’t happen.
We found two seats toward the back and I sat down, ensuring her body was closer to the wall of the subway and mine was between her and strangers.
The glasses came off as soon as the car began to move again. The sudden jerk of movement took me by surprise but I got used to it within a few seconds. My eyes were scanning the folks around me when Aphrodite squeezed my knee to get my attention.
I faced her because her fine ass was playing a dangerous game touching me like that. The attraction definitely seemed mutual, but again dick was about all I could offer her right now and she wasn’t that type of chick. At least I didn’t think she was.
“I’ve had gumbo before—”
I’d heard this from too many people to give validity to her declaration. Folks were calling any brown gravy soup with veggies in it gumbo and the gumbo slander needed to end.
“Where at?”
She was confused because I was sure she thought I was just going to co-sign that shit and keep it moving. “What do you mean?”
“I mean who made it? If it wasn’t somebody’s grandmama or Auntie’s house then you ain’t had it. Unless your mama’nem from the south or wherever then you might have had gumbo. But even everybody from the south can’t get that roux right. I’on’t care what they say.”
Aphrodite was grinning again like she had me. “I had it at an Emeril—”
I faked gagged and shook my head at her trying to hold back my disgust. “Ahhh hell nah. Not that fat white man who still got y’all thinking y’all had quintessential Nawlin’s food.
How the man gone stake a claim to a kind of cooking he had to steal from other folk?
They trying to colonize our food just like they trying to do Treme .
What Katrina didn’t take y’all trying to help them steal. ”