4. #2
“What did you say?” Diedra asks. She’s placed the bowl of popcorn in her lap. It’s hers now.
“None of your business. I’m not about to be talking about this all night either,” I say, taking a sip of this hard lemonade that doesn’t seem to go down hard anymore. In fact, I’ve taken several sips that went down smoothly.
“You know what I find interesting?”
I roll my eyes as the alcohol eases me into a calmness that I don’t want to have. I want to be angry, but I’m not. I’m—I don’t know what I am.
“What do you find interesting, Diedra?”
“That Kasim was your crush, and then y’all just stopped talking. What’s up with that?”
I shrug nonchalantly as if the sting of losing him all these years later doesn’t still bother me.
Then I remember the reason I had to let him go.
It pained me for years, but as an adult, you shrug things off and keep it pushing.
Childhood crushes and dreams of being with someone forever quickly fade when you realize what they think about you behind your back.
I say, “My mother was his parents’ maid.”
“I know that much. Wait—is that why you stopped talking to him?”
“Not directly, but I—I felt like he and his parents secretly looked down on us. My mother worked for them for years, Diedra, and we were still struggling. We went to those rich people’s house every day, knowing we were returning home to a one-bedroom apartment with one TV.
I literally had to sleep on a pull-out sofa bed.
Meanwhile, they had enough bedrooms in that house to open a bed and breakfast.
“I’m not trying to downplay your situation, but as a single mother, your mom did what she had to do. You still had a roof over your head, right?”
“Yes, and I’m not denying that. I appreciate it all. I’m just telling you how I felt back then.”
“Okay, so let me see if I’m putting this together correctly. You resent him because his parents had money, and he grew up rich?”
“No. I—” I release a sharp breath as frustration builds in my chest, but it does nothing to lessen the bitterness I feel having to relive this. What a mess! There is no way something like this should affect me in this manner.
I say, “Right after freshman year—high school—during summer break, I went over to his house with my mom when she was working like I normally did. Kasim was there, of course, acting like he was happy to see me. Anyway, we were in his room and he asked me what I would do if he kissed me. I said, run. I remember that vividly, but I also remember I didn’t want to run because I was—well, I thought I was in love with him.
And I also thought he was my boyfriend, even though we had never given each other any title.
It was just unspoken. I felt like it didn’t need to be said.
We were us. Kasim and Giada. So, we’re sitting in his room at the foot of the bed.
He leaned forward and closed his eyes. I closed mine, and somehow our lips found their way to each other.
It was quick, but impactful. Then we parted.
I smiled. He smiled. My mother opened the door and we both jumped.
I remember she was pissed. She didn’t see us kiss, but I knew that she knew we had feelings for one another.
When I got home that evening, Mom warmed up some leftover spaghetti for dinner and told me I couldn’t go back there. ”
“Why? Because of the kiss?”
“No. She said she had overheard a conversation between Kasim and his mother. His mother told him that she didn’t like all the time he was spending with me.
Said it was cute when we were younger, but as teenagers, we were too close.
She said he couldn’t get mixed up with the maid’s child , and he needed to set his interests on girls that were more on his level, like the ones at his private school.
My mother said Kasim replied to her that he knew better—that he wasn’t interested in me like that , and he wouldn’t date a poor girl.
There were prettier girls at his school. He even laughed at my clothes.”
“No,” Diedra says with a reddened face. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. So, you want to know what happened—that’s what happened. I never went back, and I’m not about to be connected to a man who broke my heart and called me ugly.”
“Wait—he didn’t call you ugly.”
“It was implied.”
She takes a deep breath and places the popcorn bowl back on the table. “Ah, man.”
I read another text from Kasim:
All you have to do is agree to this, and one million is yours. Please take my proposal under serious consideration.
“He’s still texting you?” Diedra asks.
“Yes,” I answer her while replying to him:
Giada: Why don’t you get someone else to do it? I’m sure you have plenty of PRETTY women to choose from.
Kasim: What is that supposed to mean?
Giada: It means exactly what I said.
Kasim: I don’t want anyone else. I know you, G.
Giada: Correction…you ‘knew’ me. And I’m not ‘G’ to you anymore. Just because we had dinner last night doesn’t mean a thing. That was for charity. Nothing more, nothing less.
I place my phone on the table and massage my temples.
Diedra says, “Listen—I get it. He did some messed up stuff, but y’all were kids. Maybe he said what he said to get his mother off his case about you. Whatever it was, he’s surely a different person now. He’s a grown man, and—”
“Oh, so because he’s an adult, he doesn’t see me as the poor girl anymore.”
“Well, you certainly won’t be poor after he drops that fat milli in your lap.” She throws her head back, her laughter filling my living room as she sinks into the sofa cushions. “The way I see it is, he owes you that much! Nothing fixes a broken heart like a one followed by a crapload of zeroes.”
I pinch a smile to hide my true feelings. I feel like crying. When my phone buzzes again, I pick it up and read yet another message from him.
Kasim: Here’s what I know…what I remember. We, you and I, made a promise to each other when we were 12 to always have each other’s back.
Giada: Yeah…how’d that work out?
Kasim: You say that like it’s my fault.
It is your fault!
Oh, how I want to climb through this phone and wrap my hands around this man’s thick, muscular neck.
“Giada, breathe,” Diedra says.
“I am breathing,” I grunt out.
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“I’m fine, Diedra. See.” I plaster a smile on my face, one of which I know she knows is fake. She’s been rocking with me since high school. This g irl knows my thoughts before I can get them out.
Kasim: I need your help. I don’t trust anyone else to do this for me. Only you.
After a long sigh, I look at Diedra and say, “He says he doesn’t trust anyone else to do it. Like, how do you trust someone you haven’t seen in fourteen years? I could be a drug dealer for all he knows.”
Diedra cackles. “You? A drug dealer?”
She falls back, laughing harder than she was before.
I take one of my pillows and sling it at her. “You get on my nerves.”
I sip more lemonade.
“Okay, okay, okay,” she says between gasps, still laughing. “All you have to do is sign them papers. After he gets his bread and you get yours, y’all can go your separate ways.”
“It’s deeper than that.”
“What is?”
“The connection we had. What I’m afraid of is falling back into that feeling of thinking we’re something when we’re really nothing. It’s not like he wants to marry me for me . This is for him—for his inheritance. I don’t want to confuse the two.”
“Then don’t. Keep a business mind about it. Let him know where you stand, and y’all go from there. There’s no need for you to miss out on this blessing because of some old beef.”
I sigh again, but I give her advice serious consideration.
What would saying yes to this proposal mean?
Am I to believe that we’d live separate lives while he gets his money, and I live like the wife of a rich man?
Would he expect me to cook for him? Clean for him?
Sleep in the same bed as him? Could I go through with sharing my life with this man whom I have a lot of resentment for?
And if so, just how long is this fake marriage supposed to last?