Chapter Twenty-Five
Dani
From: tanyaholden@
To: djenkins@
Subject: One Last Request
Dani—
This place took something from you—take it back.
Love you deeply,
Tanya
Fuck.
Take it back? Take it back?! What if I don’t want to get it back, Tanya? Did you ever think about that? Whatever I lost there was meant to be lost and stay that way.
My softness? My belief in humankind? My naivety? New York can keep all that.
What about the piece of you that never recovered from that hotel room? You don’t want that back?
Shit, could she really be asking me to face Nigel? To take back what he took from me?
That’s very on brand for her, but I’m not sure I’m ready to do it.
I look over to Micah’s furrowed brows and smooth out the wrinkle between them with my thumb. “Why so serious?” I ask.
“I don’t like this. I don’t want you to do something you’re not comfortable with. Not when it comes to this and … him. I love Tanya, but you come first.”
Why does he always have to make me feel things? I was trying to approach this dilemma with logic, and now my heart has entered the conversation and it’s very loud.
“You’ll be with me, won’t you?”
He looks at me with dreary, half-lidded eyes before his eyebrows jump up to his hairline. “Oh, that was a serious question.”
“Now, why else would I ask?”
“Storm, I told you from the jump we’re partners in this. I’ma be wherever you are.”
I take a deep breath and say what’s on my heart. “Then I’ll be okay.”
Micah and I will head to New York in a couple of days, but today I’m going with him to Our Place to talk to his cousins.
I haven’t been back here since the day we met. I always wanted to, but I had drawn a line in the sand. All places associated with Micah were off my radar.
I’m excited to see the inside of this place. All I had ever seen was Micah’s mural on the back wall, which I’m glad to see is untouched, but I always wanted to immerse myself in the place that meant so much to him.
When I step inside, I immediately understand the magnitude of this place.
The layout is pretty standard for a community center and there aren’t any decorations that particularly stand out. It’s the energy.
When you walk in, there’s this overwhelming sense of …
joy. This isn’t just a place where kids go to be a warm body in a seat until they can go home.
This is a place where they can explore who they want to be in this world.
I saw a little girl tell a teenager that she wants to run for her class treasurer but was afraid she’d be made fun of, and the teenager has been helping her ever since with making signs for her campaign and a cute slogan.
The kids here understand the importance of a place like this, and they do everything they can to protect it.
Two women walk up to Micah and me. The one with box braids in a messy bun is wearing a brown blazer over a white T-shirt and jeans.
The other, with coily hair framing her face, wears a cardigan over a tank top and jeans.
The woman in the blazer, whom Micah introduces as Paris, has a kind smile, while Penelope, the woman in the cardigan, has a kind face until she smiles.
Her smile and laugh are a bit diabolical sounding and looking.
“This is Dani—”
Paris interrupts Micah before he can say anything else. “Oh my God, you’re Dani.”
Penelope elbows her and she winces.
“Shit, I mean. Hello, kind stranger I’ve never heard of.”
Micah rolls his eyes. “Bailey told y’all my business, didn’t she?”
Penelope holds her thumb and index fingers up. “Lil bit.”
Normally, I would be furious at my business being on front street, but this feels good. This feels like I’m on the path of something great.
“I’ma have to beat her ass,” Micah says casually.
“Umm, no, you won’t. Because who told Bailey all our business, hmm?” I chastise.
“Oh yeah, I like her,” Penelope says.
We follow the women back to their office and they direct us to sit while Penelope grabs the chair across from us and Paris stands at her back.
“So, you ready to hear us out?” Paris asks.
“I guess so,” Micah says in a somber tone.
I grab his hand to offer solidarity. He’s been there for me a lot over these past few months, and I’m honored to now be doing the same thing for him.
I squeeze his hand all throughout Paris and Penelope’s proposal, reminding him he’s not alone in this.
His face is generally blank during their presentation, so I can’t get a sense of what he’s thinking except for when he squeezes my hand back.
He’ll seemingly zone out and then squeeze my hand three times to let me know he’s back and focused.
This keeps going while Paris explains Micah’s function as a partner and Penelope breaks down the numbers. When they’re done, they look so proud. Micah looks unamused.
“I remember all this from the last time you made this pitch. I guess I just still don’t understand why? Being on the board I get, but why do you want me to be a partial owner?”
Paris groans in frustration. “Ugh, isn’t it obvious? It’s what Mom wanted!”
The waves from the bomb she dropped rip through the room at an alarming speed. It hits Penelope first, causing her to squeeze her eyes shut. It hits Micah next, his jaw practically hitting the floor. It hits me last, leaving my stomach in knots.
“What do you mean? Chi Chi left the place to my mom because you two were too young. What does that have to do with me?”
Penelope picks up where Paris left off. “Sometimes, it’s hard for us to remember what Mom’s voice sounded like.
Last year, we found ourselves wanting to hear from her again, so we looked through our keepsake box and there was a note stuck on one of the last pages of this book she used to read to us as kids. ”
“I don’t know how we missed it before,” Paris adds.
“But it was a login for an email account. She had this whole separate account that she used strictly to email herself all her dreams and aspirations. Sometimes, they were just detailed accounts of literal dreams she had the night before.”
Paris pulls out a printed copy of one of the emails and hands it to Micah.
He reads it out loud, bringing the girls to tears as he recounts his aunt’s wishes that one day the three of them run the center together.
How she always envisioned it that way because they were the reason she decided to stop dreaming about opening Our Place and actually do it.
How she wanted them to be proud of her and wanted to leave behind something they could be proud of.
Monica must have intended to change her will to say just that once the three of them were of age, but she never got a chance. She was taken from them when Micah was just fifteen, Penelope eleven, and Paris ten.
Micah lowers the paper, tears welling up in his eyes. “I was always proud of her,” he manages to say.
“Us too,” Paris agrees. “So we asked you to be a partner because we wanted to honor her wishes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You weren’t ready to hear it. You pretty much shut down the conversation before it really got started. We didn’t want to tell you about Mom’s note and guilt you into it. We hoped you’d want to be a part of it,” Penelope responds.
“But you’re telling me now.”
Paris sucks her teeth. “Because if you didn’t want this, you wouldn’t be sitting in that chair. Look, you can still say no. We’re not trying to force your hand.”
“Right,” Penelope cuts in. “But for what it’s worth, we always saw the three of us doing this together too.”
It’s easy to see how much they admire Micah. I hope that one day he can fully grasp the impact he makes on this world.
He stands from his seat and walks around the desk to pull Penelope and Paris into a group hug. When they part, all their cheeks are stained with tears.
“I still need to think about it. But I promise I’m considering it, okay?”
Paris bobs her head up and down while Penelope offers a curt nod as she dabs a tissue under her eye.
“The Pee Pee Girls plus Micah. It does have a nice ring to it,” Micah sings.
Paris and Penelope freeze. They look at each other before Paris pretends to strangle him and Penelope pretends to kick him in the groin.
As we’re leaving their office, I lean over and whisper to Micah, “‘Pee Pee Girls’ is insane, by the way.”
“It writes itself!” That’s his only response.
A tall, muscular teenager with sepia-hued skin walks through the front door, a fitted cap covering his head. He spots Micah and rushes over to him with all the urgency of a young child.
“What’s good?” he says as he holds his hand up to Micah.
Micah daps him up and pulls him in for a hug. “What’s up, Tee? I didn’t know you were working today.”
Ahh, this must be Tavion. Micah told me about his godson and how he lost his dad.
I knew Micah had hooked him up with a job here, so I’m glad I’m getting a chance to meet the kid Micah adores so much.
But if I keep letting myself become so ingrained in his life, I won’t be able to pull myself out. Is that really what I want?
“I’m not. There’s a kid here who walks home every day but has issues with some of the kids in his neighborhood, so I try to come by and walk with him whenever I can.”
Oh, this kid is a mini Micah in the making.
“Which kid is it? Want us to drive him?” Micah asks.
“Nah, I got it. Those kids don’t mess with me.”
Micah seems to accept this response. He wraps his arm around my shoulder. “Tee, I want you to meet Dani. Dani, this is my godson, Tavion.”
Tavion looks at me like he’s got a secret, or rather knows a secret. I think it’s more than just Bailey that Micah spilled his guts to. “Nice to meet you, Dani. You can call me Tee.”
I step into his open arms and return his hug and sentiment.
Since the boy Tee’s here to escort isn’t ready to leave, he and Micah decide to shoot around at the basketball hoop out back. I have no interest in doing that, but I do offer to catch their rebounds.
“Hey, can I ask, what did you and my parents used to do around here?”