Chapter 7
seven
. . .
Sunlight desperately tries to battle through thick grey clouds and yet manages to shine brightly enough on the candle lid that Akilah is blinded in her own home. She’s too stubborn to move because if she does, she’ll have an excuse to check her phone and see Tanner hasn’t texted her.
Akilah is grown and could figure out a reason to talk to her, but Tanner left it up to her. If they had taken meeting minutes, Tanner would have been left with the action of setting up something outside the club.
It’s been days. It’s not like Akilah misses her, but she is waiting for the next step. She sits on her couch, feet tucked beneath her as she rereads Emily Dickinson, tries to avoid thinking about whether she should start wearing hats in cold weather and ignores the empty space surrounding her.
There’s being alone, something Akilah is used to.
Something she adores. And there’s being lonely, and Akilah finds she’s not as fond of that.
It’s worse on gloomy days. Not because she misses the sun, but because there’s something about wind battering against the windows that makes her want to crawl under a blanket and watch an awful made-for-television movie with someone.
Most of the time, she avoids the thoughts by doing something.
She’ll go to the club for a stock take, or she’ll bake a cake.
Sometimes, she sits in it. Let’s comfort her like an old friend she doesn’t have and worries about what it will be like when she’s fifty-eight with achy joints and still alone.
Often, she can go for months without the sinking feeling that she’s never going to find someone to love her back.
It’s worse when there’s someone she likes.
Someone she can see so clearly in her day-to-day life.
It might kill her when Tanner leaves, but Akilah is a sucker for a happy ending, so she’ll take whatever she can get from her.
Sure, one day she won’t exist to her. She won’t remember the sound of her voice. But she’ll know that she liked to eat dessert before dinner. She’ll take the reminder that people can adjust slightly to accommodate her. She can live with the reminder that Tanner doesn’t think she’s difficult.
Her phone buzzes next to her, and she almost throws it across the room. Phones are meant to be seen rarely and heard even less. But she figured out how to turn the notifications on the moment she had Akilah’s number.
Tanner: what you doing today
Tanner: Monday is a no office day right
Tanner: can you spend the day with me yes or no
Tanner: no will break my heart btw
Akilah smiles. Tanner isn’t helping. She’s a whirlwind, and Akilah has become fond of chasing storms.
Akilah: Itinerary?
Tanner: possibility for human interaction, quiet places, ice cream and if you’re nice, a gift
Akilah: Is the interaction with you?
Tanner: Yes, and others, but I will protect you
Akilah: Should I pick you up?
Tanner: No, send me a location and I’ll come get you!!!!
Tanner: the thought of telling her she’s beautiful sticks in her throat. It was just going to come out last time. Now Tanner is waiting for her specifically.
“Do you want to know where we’re going, or are surprises okay?
” Tanner asks after a hideously awkward forty-five seconds of silence.
Surprises are the worst thing in the universe, possibly after the way Akilah is ruining their first day out.
They’re made worse by knowing something is coming, but having no idea what.
“I – uhm, is it bad?”
“Not to me,” Tanner replies. “I have two museums for us to go to, but we can do one if you want.”
“Ashmolean?”
“And The Natural History.”
“Oh,” she replies. Interesting. She’s not sure how it links to the club, and if she lingers on that thought, she’ll think Tanner brought her here for another reason. “Okay. I haven’t been there in a while. They have the new Alma Thomas exhibit.”
“Uh-huh, and Natural History finally finished the remodel on the Stone Age, so it’s open again.”
Akilah’s eyebrows raise. “It is?” Exciting.
She could update her rankings, perhaps treat herself to a fridge magnet.
Perhaps she could get Tanner something, and she’d think about her at home and text her random thoughts.
Akilah thinks about her as she sits next to her.
Back to the texts she reread in the six minutes she waited by her front door for her.
“Is the gift if I’m nice, from the gift shop?”
Tanner laughs as she parks. “Yes. Don’t you love a museum gift shop? You look like you want a woolly mammoth teddy.”
“Tanner.”
“An octopus?” Akilah thinks she’s delightful.
“You’re ridiculous.”
Tanner reaches between them to grab her bag from the back. Her chest rubs against Akilah’s arm, and she has the desire to just … hold her.
“At least three notepads,” Tanner says as she runs lip balm over her lips.
Akilah swallows, fingers tapping against her thigh as she looks out the window. The sky is clearing. “I do like notepads.”
“Then it’s settled. One mammoth and four notepads.”
Akilah laughs. They could sit on the ottoman at the edge of her bed. She supposes she wouldn’t die.
Tanner talks the entire time they walk to the museum, and Akilah hangs on to her every word.
She’s researched what to say; that much is clear.
It’s cute. Her face lights up when Akilah agrees with something she said, and she wants to know what Tanner likes to do in her free time, and then she wants to look it up for her, too.
“Museums are unfairly pretty,” Tanner says as they climb the steps. This one is made of limestone and glitters slightly, even though it’s overcast. Akilah wants to tell her when it was built and who the architect was, and that she’s never seen someone who makes her chest thump as much as Tanner.
Akilah donates as they enter the museum and feels the base level excitement that she does whenever the idea of learning something new hits her.