Vanya
VANYA
“FRANKIE, I NEED you to help me with something.”
I was absolutely going to drive myself crazy thinking about Xerxes and wondering what he was doing. I’d called Frankie and she’d agreed to come hang out at my place because Ms. Safi had her babies and she was home bored. I told her she probably needed a nap, but she was insistent on needing human contact with someone who could hold intellectual conversation. Since I’d never been a mother, I wasn’t about to override what she said she needed. We’d been relaxing since she got here and I felt like a slacker for not being at work, but I didn’t have shit else to do. Xerxes was gone and Navi was running her clients.
“Shit, this sounds serious. Is it about… how you need to slide down on that man’s dick and stop playing?” Her hair was in two long braids and she sat forward far too eagerly for my liking.
I almost choked on the mimosa I’d poured for us at the look on her face. “What? No, I’m not a virgin, I know how to do that if I wanted to.”
She had the nerve to suck her teeth and sit back on the deep rust-colored velvet sofa that was the centerpiece of my apartment. “I mean I doubt you’d know an orgasm from the looks of your ex, but tell me what you need.”
I hesitated thinking back to something I’d seen on One that had started an entire discourse. I’d attempted to fall down the rabbit hole, but kept getting confused because I was missing cultural context. “What’s the cookout?”
It was her turn to choke and she threw a pillow at me as I laughed. “Van — what the hell?”
“I’m serious!” I was giggling because I know I had to sound crazy.
Her coughs turned into laughs as she looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I know you are, but I’m still kinda thrown off.”
“Listen, I’ve done the research, I have tried to do the whole context clues thing and I still don’t think I have it right. I can’t. I would rather know what it means from your perspective than to hear it from an outsider’s point of view. Cause I feel the explanation I read was written by a white person.”
She nodded her head in that sorry sis kinda way as she agreed with me. “Oh, if it was online that’s definitely facts cause most of us wouldn’t be researching it.”
“See! I know there’s invites to the cookout and I get it’s metaphorical. What denotes someone getting an invite to the cookout? I thought it was just a white person acting right but then I saw this whole thing on One where people were saying they could get their invite revoked and they were Black. Help me not fuck up, Frankie!”
Frankie tried to answer me but it just came out as giggles and odd gasps of air.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I promise it’s not at you—”
“Well, I’m not laughing so it’s definitely not with me. Listen, I’m not trying to start an international incident like that girl charging six thousand dollars to line dance at trail rides!” I flopped back dramatically, which didn’t help.
She was waving her hands and catching her breath but I still needed her to get it together.
“Technicality. Okay, listen. The cookout is absolutely metaphorical. It ain’t like everybody is pulling up to one location with their favorite side and somebody’s uncle in leather church sandals is manning the grill.”
I blew out a frustrated breath because I didn’t even know that there were uncle sandals that were designated just for church. “Frankie, this explanation is just bringing up more questions.”
“Sorry, we’ll get to that. It basically means that the Black community as it exists in America is the cookout. The culture essentially. ADOS, those of us who descended from the enslaved were automatically a part of the cookout. That’s our shit. But the people who show themselves to be allies, they get an invite to the cookout.”
“So they get invited into the Black community.”
Frankie started shaking her head again and I was almost sorry I asked her for this clarification. “Not as like a member or a permanent resident. More like someone who’s allowed to eat the food. Because they’ve paid the price of admission. But they can’t spend the night. Do you understand where I’m going?”
I nodded slowly thinking I had it but I wasn’t sure. “So, like the cookout is Carowinds , and they paid the admission fee.”
“Yeah but the price is more like acting like they have fucking sense. Being anti-racist. I mean before if you had rhythm you could get an invitation to the cookout, but America post 2016 shut that shit all the way down.” Frankie gave me a second for her explanation to sink in.
“Okay so that’s why they mad at the line dancing girl. So no more invites to the cookout.” I thought I was good until I looked down at my hand. “Shit, am I invited to the cookout?”
Her head tilted and I could almost hear the challenge she was about to throw at me. “Aren’t you Black?”
I threw my hands up because I wanted to scream yes but since I didn’t know shit about myself it was all an assumption. “Who even knows.”
“You’re a work in progress. I mean I hate to say it but your husband is going to be the best tour guide around this theme park of Blackness as you’ve so eloquently put it.” She reclined back on her side of the couch and gave me a sympathetic look.
I ignored that husband noise she was talking because there was no way that was happening. “I really got done a disservice by being adopted by them white people didn’t I?”
“You absolutely did. But I mean, hey, life’s looking up, right?”
“Most definitely. Okay so, Xerxes, automatic invite to the cookout. Even though he’s biracial? I thought some of them were a problem?”
She cackled at me, and I still didn’t understand what the hell was so funny. “See that’s another nuance you have to catch. Xerxes is good because he’s a mama Black biracial.”
I gripped my hair at the root as I stared at her, feeling my brain was about to explode. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said! His mama is Black. You learn your culture from your mother mainly. Now with these halfricans running around the Consortium, they are well-versed in both sides of their culture, but yeah, they still Black. Look at Safi and Deuce.”
“So because your dad is white or something else, you get a cookout invite. But if your dad is Black and your mom is white, you don’t? Why is that?” Because this whole thing was feeling like math and I sucked at math unless I was calculating a commission on a house sale or a discount at the store.
Frankie sighed apologetically and sat her flute down on my gilded wood and glass coffee table. “I keep forgetting you’ve only seen one very narrow view of Black maleness. For example, look at your ex—”
“He would rather choke than be labeled as Black.”
She pointed at me and I knew that’s what she was getting at. “My point has already been proven. If he was to marry a white woman, do you think he would instill in his children anything positive about Blackness or Black people? Or would he try to pretend they were all one big white happy family?”
I shuddered thinking that it would’ve been his dream to continue to poison the minds of whatever came from his loins. “Definitely the latter. He never had anything positive to say with even me. So I’m sure it would even be worse if his partner was of another race.”
She held her hands out in a ta-da fashion and grinned. “And it is men like him that will go to the other side and claim one of their women as some type of war prize-”
“Okay, this is making sense, I’m following. So your kids, automatic.” I ticked that off on my finger to keep track.
“Yes.”
“Deuce has an invitation through his wife and kids?”
“Really more because that man has more than proven to be an ally and an accomplice through his marriage. I’m sure he has righteously bust his guns for Blackness more than a time or two.”
“Way more information than necessary, a simple yes would’ve sufficed. Now I gotta look at that sweet Scottish man and wonder how many people he’s killed. But thank you for letting me know Mr. Deuce is a ride or die.”
She grinned at the way I was clearly panicking. I mean, I’d assumed, but having it confirmed just meant I couldn’t gather with her without a killer being around. Which had me looking at her even closer.
“You’re welcome. Don’t you feel safer?”
She was grinning proudly, which meant she was definitely part of the I keep that thang on me brigade. “I feel something. What about Xerxes’ daddy?”
“Okay, he’s half Persian so it’s complicated. By way of the dads liking him, I would say he gets an invite. They really don’t tolerate bullshit. And a lot of Persians have been persecuted too. But then again, some of their community really don’t fuck with us like that. Anti-Blackness is pervasive in a lot of communities around the world, even Black ones. He snagged a woman like Ms. Babette so we can say he’s got his lifetime pass on lock. I mean the man denounced his crown to marry his Black wife so, kind of a big deal.” She was giving me the history of this man like I would be tested on it later. Now I was even more nervous.
“Okay, so—”
“NO! You’re thinking too hard about this.” She waved her hands. I knew I was doing the insecure thing that she hated. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to always be the odd person out in every conversation.
“I’m just trying to understand the rules!” I flopped back onto the sofa and she was laughing at me again. Another pillow hit me in the face and she was gone stop throwing shit at me.
“There are no rules, Vanya! That’s what you have to get. You’re too used to the orders of whiteness. How there’s a hierarchy. How rich white people and poor white people don’t ever really mix. Like white folks all have that person in their family that made it that don’t fuck with their kin anymore. Black folks ain’t like that. You’ll see millionaires posted up on the block with dope boys cause they don’t forget where they came from. And it ain’t just some I’ll cut a check shit. It’s the real life being involved in everything kinda shit. Are there outliers? Sure. But it’s normally the ones who are trying to get closer to whiteness that shed the culture of Blackness. White folks don’t mix like that until it’s time to be racist and then they’re side by side upholding the tenets of white supremacy like it’s their job. Black people know that if the least of us is affected, it’s going to affect all of us. So solidarity is our thing. That’s the word of the day for you when it comes to all this. Solidarity. We have it, they do not.” She widened her eyes like I’d seen her do with Skye. It was a silent scream to tighten up and I was going to listen.
“I’m never gonna be good at this.” I hated sounding so damn weak, but I felt like I was someone who’d been exiled from their homeland for years and then dropped back in the middle of it. I was praying to be accepted and Frankie had done so without question. Because she also knew how it felt to be a Lone Ranger. Other people might not extend that type of grace to me.
“There’s no good at it that you have to be, Vannie. You just have to be. That’s it, that’s all. You think Liam didn’t get shit with blond hair and green eyes speaking a white people language? That didn’t change who he was. How he felt or alter his Blackness. It’s on an end of a spectrum that some people might not identify with but that man is still a Black man. Loc’d up, green-eyed monster that goes bump in the night that he is. White daddy and all. He’s Black. Just like you are. If Safi didn’t teach her kids anything, it was who they were despite how they looked.”
I felt my eyes water and I shuddered a deep breath. “Is that why she’s the voice in my head? Telling me I’m not doing it right? That I’m not good enough?”
She moved from her spot and gave me a hug. She knew how badly my adoptive mother messed with my head and I accepted the comfort she wanted to give me.
“Yes. So as soon as you tell that bitch to shut the fuck up, you’ll realize you don’t have to earn approval in the Black community when you’re Black. And yeah, shit is a lot more progressive than it was when we were younger. You have it until you don’t. And even now there is such a range of acceptance of Blackness in our community that you would have to be one of the fools Harriet would’ve left behind to lose your Black card.”
“But that’s what has me worried. The lies I was fed as truth. The amount of work I still have to do to unpack everything.”
“And are you?”
I wiped my face and tried not to look at her. “Am I what?”
“Doing the work?”
“Of course but—”
She turned my head in a big sister way despite us being the same damn age. “Then there’s no but. Your effort and desire to improve is what you need to focus on. You can have missteps. But remember that you always have belonged. Even though they told you that you never would and they were your only saving grace. It’s not true. Don’t let them stop your growth. You hang out with us and absorb. And guess what, Vannie, none of us will ever know everything. And that’s fine. But every aspect of this family unit that you and your kids will have surrounding you will embrace you. Look at how they’ve done it with Nyima.”
I laughed at how she eased that kids thing in there like I didn’t notice. “She’s from a whole other country, though.”
“I mean, we can treat that Mormon shit like that too cause it’s foreign as hell.”
I cut up laughing at her because she had the craziest look on her face. “That makes me feel better.”
“Y’all’s kids will be more than good. Gonna be dropping bars in English, French and Farsi. Might give birth to the next Kung Fu Kenny .”
My comfort immediately vanished as she made another reference I had no context for. “And that would be…”
Frankie looked absolutely horrified. Exactly how she did when she made a Black culture reference and I stood paralyzed since I didn’t understand what she meant.
“Girl, go pull up YouTube so you can be a part of the Black culture phenomenon you missed last summer. See, it all started about a year ago when Kendrick Lamar released a verse on the Like That record…”
“Vannie?”
“Yes, Frankie?”
“I’m about to show my ass in this store okay?”
“Wait, what?” I looked up from the rack I’d been looking through since we’d come to South Park mall. We’d gone through the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef, which was really a Drake massacre, if I was being honest.
She was pulling the two braids that she had down her back into buns as she kept her eyes somewhere else. “I said—”
I put my hand on her arm to get her attention, but she refused to take her eyes off of whoever had pissed her off. “No, I heard that part. Should I be asking why? Why are you about to show your ass in this store?”
“Because I see a bitch who was allowed to live and it just don’t sit right with my spirit.”
“Allowed to li—Francesca Merrick what the hell?” I had to stand in front of her again because she was seriously going after someone. Her beautiful cocoa brown skin was glowing, as though the thrill of going after whoever this was invigorated her. Since we’d been lying around the house, we were in leggings and t-shirts. It was as if the universe made sure Frankie was appropriately dressed to beat some girl’s ass and smile in her mugshot.
“Quentin?”
“Yes, Mrs. Frankie?” Because yeah, he was downstairs waiting on me when we left out of my apartment to come shopping and insisted on going with us. Frankie had no problem telling me to just hush and go along with it because he wasn’t going to not come. So I did. ‘Cause we would’ve been fighting if he’d tried to send me back in the house like a child.
“You see that girl over there working?” She pointed to a Black girl with long blonde hair standing in the men’s department.
Quentin had his head dipped down so that Frankie could speak into his ear. He seemed all too happy to do whatever it was she wanted. “What about her?”
“I need you to get her to come with you.”
He glanced around like he was already formulating a plan. “Where?”
“The parking lot, the car, wherever. Whatever you got to do, I need you to make it happen in like half an hour, can you do that?”
He glanced at me and I shrugged my shoulders because I didn’t have a fucking clue about what Frankie’s ass was going to do. And I also knew that there was no reasoning with her when she was this determined.
“Yes, ma’am.” Quentin gave her a quick nod, straightened his blazer and grinned.
“Wonderful. Vannie, you good to come with me to this next store?” I hesitated because I knew she wanted us out the way in case the girl turned around and spotted her.
“Quentin, you good?”
“Should be. Let me handle this. You sure you want to hang around?” I didn’t know why he was cautioning me, but I wasn’t going to leave my friend.
“Frankie has never let me down so I’m going to be the same for her. If she needs me to have her back, I’m there. No questions asked.” I gave him a nod as he smiled at me before I turned and followed Frankie to the next store. It was a shame that I wasn’t worried about getting in trouble with whatever was going on. Feeling invincible was probably the first step on the road to hell, but I was sure by the end of the day I would be bathing in flames.
The water splashed against her face snapping her out of whatever trance she’d been in as she sat in this metal chair. She gasped, her hair and shirt drenched with water. “What the fuck?”
“Surprise, bitch!”
My best friend was in rare form. And by rare I meant in a form I hadn’t seen her in before. I thought I’d been exposed to all of Frankie’s sides. I knew that she had to be able to match Liam’s crazy if she was dealing with him. And based on things she hinted at, his crazy was something spectacular. But I hadn’t seen her display anything like it. Now? Now my girl looked like she was a rabid dog ready to get let off a leash.
Frankie was standing there with her two braids hanging looking like she was gonna grab a bat and go full blown Harley Quinn in here. And here was a concrete room in a basement that was somehow high tech while also being desolate.
The woman that Quentin had gotten out of the store had been dumb enough to follow him willingly after only a few minutes of sweet talking. I didn’t think Quentin was bad at what he did, but damn, were women really following behind money that easily? Had us out here looking like fools.
“Why am I here? Where is here? Is Liam coming?” She barely got the sentence completed before Frankie reached back and punched the taste out of her mouth. Her lip was crushed into her tooth because it started bleeding profusely. My mouth was hanging open because I saw Frankie baby wearing and baking bread. This Frankie? She looked like she would go toe-to-toe with Jada and win. I mean, they were friends.
“If you even think to spit that blood on me I will make this shit far more painful than it was already going to be.” Frankie mugged the fuck outta the girl who spit the blood off to the side just like Frankie told her.
“How are you mad at me because of some shit your nigga did, huh? You mad cause you couldn’t keep him and now he’s going to always be looking for something better?” She was laughing like something was funny and looked deranged with blood falling out of her mouth and one of her teeth looking chipped.
I had to step forward because talking to my friend like that wasn’t about to fly. “Hold up! The last thing you can ever do in my presence is talk shit about my friend. Couldn’t keep him? That man is a certified maniac and yet he let her live. You were something to pass the time with. Had him all to yourself for two years and probably hadn’t even looked at his dick but you over here talking slick to my friend? I would slap your ass myself if I wasn’t sure that Frankie wanted the pleasure.”
The people in the room who knew me were all staring at me like they’d never seen this side of me before. It was crazy because Frankie had but she was acting brand new. Frankie told me this girl Katrice had been caught with Liam the night before they got married. This is the same girl who approached her with her baby and tried to touch Skye. The thought of that pissed me off even more.
“Vannie, you good?”
“There are very few people in this world I would go into war for and you’re one of them. Lost her mind talking to you like that.” I backed up thinking we would calm down and I heard Shoaib chuckle.
“I vish shahzadeh was here to see zhis.”
“Bruh you act like he ain’t got cameras that can run this back.” Quentin and Shoaib were standing against the back wall of this nondescript room we were in. The walls were metal, the floor was too and I could only imagine what had happened in this room before. Sho was here when we arrived so I knew he was somewhere on the premises.
Frankie turned to me with a solemn look on her face and I wondered what was up. “Vanya, this is the time. If you don’t want to see some shit that might stress you out—”
“Sometimes violence is necessary. When someone wrongs you I understand that you can’t always turn the other cheek. She doesn’t seem the type to learn lessons. Asking about your husband like she don’t see that big ass boulder on your hand.” I was pissed that she still thought she had a chance with Liam. Like he wasn’t happy at home.
“Fuck you and that bastard baby you had. You think Liam wants to be at home with you playing house?” My mouth fell open and I was tapping my foot trying to keep myself from going off.
Instead of getting mad at the way she was behaving, Frankie just giggled. I wasn’t sure if it was actually funny or if it was the signal that she was dissociating.
“Darling you got the broken version of Liam. The pieces that were left behind when I removed myself from the equation. You got a man that was a shell of himself, so if one of us doesn’t know Liam, it’s you.”
“Call my goddaughter a bastard again and no one here can keep me off you.”
“What you gonna do, bitch? You look even softer than her.”
“Soft? I could’ve sworn that Frankie just slapped the fuck out of you.”
“Whatever. Get him down here so I can talk to him. There’s no reason for me to be doing this with y’all. He and I can more than work this out. Wonder if he’ll tie me up tonight.”
I froze at her words but Frankie didn’t. She walked to one side of the room and picked up a large wrench. She raised it over her head and before the girl could say shit, Frankie smashed her in the side of her head.
“Mrs. Ghàidheal ain’t holding back.” Quentin was laughing again and I was almost distracted but I saw her reach up and try to fight back. Frankie didn’t get the chance to hit her again because I jumped on her before she could pull at her braid.
Something in me snapped seeing her trying to hit my friend and we were tag teaming this girl like we were school house bullies. Feet, fists and fury were flying and although my hands hurt from the punches I landed, I couldn’t stop myself from releasing my anger on her. That is until I smelled that distinctive scent a second before I was pulled off her. I was getting ready to ram her head into the concrete floor again but since I couldn’t; I spat on her as she lay on the ground. I was struggling against Xerxes to get back at her. He didn’t say a word, just let me work my adrenaline out until it finally began to wane.
“Are you alright?” He’d turned me around so I could no longer see the crumpled object of my anger on the floor.
“I shouldn’t feel like this.”
“Feel like what?” Xerxes’ eyes went back to scanning me for injuries but I knew I didn’t have any.
“Invigorated. But I do. There should be a sign over the top of the door that says ‘we’re all mad here’. Is there something in the air?”
He smiled softly at me and I’d forgotten I was supposed to be annoyed with him. “No, zibā.”
I got lost looking into the eyes I’d missed for these last few days. I was melting as I watched him watching me. I was about to say something, but then I heard another lump and Liam laughing.
I turned to her briefly and she was still on the ground while Frankie and Liam kissed each other like the room wasn’t full of people. “What’s going to happen to her?”
His eyes fluttered to the body on the floor and then back to me. “Whatever Francesca decides.”
“And that’s it?” That seemed too easy for what I imagined normally occurred here.
There was a moment he paused and I knew he was contemplating not being honest. I prayed he wouldn’t lie to me and I braced myself when he parted his lips.
“Zhat is how zhings are done. It was different when it was a matter between her and Liam. But she insulted zhe wife of a member. Zhe head of a families, no less. Zhat’s not somezing we let slide. Zhe disrespect of it. She spoke on a child and lied on Liam. She’s a loose end and a liability zhat we cannot have. Zhat is why Francesca wasted no time having her picked up. She was granted an additional nine monzs of life zhat she didn’t deserve. You shouldn’t feel any sympathy for her.”
“I don’t. That’s the part that scares me.”
He smiled knowingly and I was sure this lack of empathy was something he lived with daily. “Never feel sorry for someone who would sell you out or kill you to save zhemselves. She could’ve done zhe right zhing. Left zhe family alone. She didn’t. She didn’t play wiz fire, Vanya. Katrice jumped into a volcano after being warned multiple times not to leap. You can’t save stupid.”
A shot rang out and I almost expected to hear it. I’d almost known it was coming. I chuckled and tried to decipher what was the purpose.
“It’s funny?”
I looked down at my hands and could see the bruises on my knuckles forming. “It is something. But is it alright to get out of here? I need to shower.”
“As you vish, zibā.”