Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Exactly four hundred and twelve dollars left.
Zena sat in the chair in the motel room, mentally doing the math on her day-to-day expenses. Seventy dollars a day for the room. Food on top of that. Essentials. She had maybe a week before she would end up on the street.
She had sold the house three weeks ago. The closing had taken forty-five minutes.
She’d signed where the attorney told her to sign, initialed where he told her to initial, and walked away with a single cardboard box containing her notebooks, her mother’s camcorder, and a few family photos. Everything else she had let go.
Most of the money from the sale went toward the settlement with Royal Reign Records, and the rest was swallowed by legal fees. She would probably owe Royal Reign for the rest of her life, but at least it was a clean break.
It was less than ideal to live in a motel with the sketchy characters, but for the most part, everyone minded their own business. She kept a table in front of the door, kept her headphones on, and moved through the days one task at a time.
Today’s task was plasma donation.
She opened the Uber app, requested a ride, and waited in the parking lot.
When the clean, silver Nissan Maxima pulled up and double-parked, the driver rolled down the window and leaned over the passenger seat.
“You Zena?”
The girls behind the wheel looked to be about her age, with natural hair pulled up into a neat bun and paired with gold hoops.
They caught each other’s gaze.
Zena recognized her.
“Oh my god,” Zena said.
“Zena?” Amari was already laughing. “Girl, get in this car.”
The smell of citrus permeated her nose as she got in the car.
“Of all the people to get in my car today,” Amari smiled.
“Right. This is crazy.”
“How long have you been back in Richmond?”
“Not long.”
“Last I heard you were down in ATL doing your thing. I hear your song on the radio sometimes –”
Zena groaned. “Please don’t tell me you like it.”
Amari paused. “I mean…. It’s catchy.”
“But it’s not me.”
“I know,” Amari said simply, looking at her through the rear-view mirror.
“How do you know?”
“Because from what I could remember, you never gave pop star.” She tilted her head as if she were trying to find the right word. “You seemed more like an R she was leaving the industry alone for a while.
She still had a hard drive full of unreleased songs that would probably never see the light of day.
“What happened to Tate?” Amari asked, breaking her from her thoughts.
“I don’t know,” Zena replied. “I left, and I haven’t looked back.”
“Good. He tried to talk to me once, you know. The day I was doing Meka’s hair.”
Zena rolled her eyes. “I’m not surprised.”
“I never liked him for you. I just didn’t know you well enough to say it then.”
“I wish someone had said it.”
“Would you have listened?”
Zena thought about the girl she’d been then. The patience she’d once called a superpower. The way she’d built her entire life around the architecture of someone else’s needs and called it love.
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“That’s the thing about that kind of situation,” Amari said, pulling into the plasma center. “You have to arrive at it yourself. No one can take you there.”
She said it without judgment, as if she had learned that lesson the hard way.
Zena’s hand hovered over the door. Just as she pulled it open, Amari stopped her.
“Come to my place,” she said. “I have food. Real food, not whatever you’ve been getting from a vending machine.”
“But I have an appointment.”
“Girl, cancel that shit and come on. I know you want to get away from that funky motel for a little longer.”
Zena laughed. “You’re right.”
Amari pulled out of the park lot and headed toward the north side of Richmond.
Amari’s apartment was small but cozy. It had an open floor plan, A kitchenette with white appliances and brown cabinets, and a combined living and dining area.
She guessed it was only about 600 square feet, but that didn’t matter.
She made the space work for her. This was the most welcoming room Zena had been in since Ms. Lucille’s.
“It ain’t much, but it’s safe and affordable,” Amari explained as she removed her coat and hung it on the back of her barstool, which sat on the wedge of her kitchen island.
The living space contained a TV that sat on the chair in front of a leather sofa that had seen better days.
Amari returned to the room carrying two bottles of water and handed Zena one before sitting down beside her. She found the remote and turned on Tom and Jerry.
“So I lied. I don’t have any food, but I can order from this new pizza place. I can get some of the guys from downstairs to scare the man off before it’s time to pay.”
Zena started laughing but stopped when she noticed Amari wore a serious expression.
“Wait, you’re serious?” Zena asked.
“My apartment building was in a no-delivery zone at many of the local food places, but every now and then, a new place would pop up and still deliver here before getting run off permanently.” Amari shrugged as she pulled out her phone.
Forty-five minutes later, they had full bellies.
They talked for hours after that. Zena filled her in on most of the details of her time in Atlanta and its demise.
“Girl, you should have burned his ass up in that condo. He’s so fucking trifling. I would have taken that car,” Amari said.
Zena laughed. “And I would have been in jail.”
Amari laughed too.
The laughter had been nonstop as if they had been friends for years.
Amari clicked the TV off and moved to the small radio on the kitchen counter. Music flowed through the speakers.
Zena leaned back into the couch, not paying too much attention to the music.
Then the chorus hit. It sounded familiar. She recognized the melodic choice in the hook. She had been the one who made that choice.
And then she heard her voice, but Velvet’s voice was layered over it, so smoothly that the average person wouldn’t hear it.
But she heard it. She remembered recording it four months ago.
A song the label had said wasn’t right for the Princess Z direction, a song she’d written in her notes app at two in the morning about things she’d actually felt.
“That’s my song,” she said, getting up from the couch. “That’s my fucking voice.”
Amari looked at her. “Wait, is this you?” Amari asked.
“Turn it up.”
Amari crossed over to the radio and turned the dial. Velvet’s voice was polished, riding the track Zena helped build.
She stood in the middle of Amari’s living room and listened to the whole thing. This song was personal, and Royal Reign kept it and just sat on it. Handed it to the next girl in line with a release date.
Her hand shook.
The song ended, and Amari walked over to turn it down.
“Zena,” Amari said carefully from the kitchen.
“They told me they weren’t going to use it,” she said, her voice cracking. “They gave my lyrics, my song, to Velvet and had the nerve to keep my voice in the background because they knew it was better than anything she could have done on her own.”
Amari was quiet.
“I wrote that for me. It was mine.” She stopped. Her breathing picked up. “It was mine. My feelings…”
She sat back down on the couch.
The shaking in her hands had slowed, but the rage was still there. She wondered whether she should waste her time fighting it in court.
“You good?” Amari asked intently.
“I don’t know.”
Amari pursed her lips, allowing Zena to get her thoughts in order.
“I guess I should get going. You down for one last ride tonight?” Zena got up off the couch, now in a rush to get home.
“Nope. You’re staying here tonight. I can take the couch if you want the room.” Amari stood in front of her.
Zena let out a breath of relief. “I would love that. I hate going back there.”
Amari bobbed her head. “I was gonna kidnap you if you didn’t say yes.”
“Stop playing.”
Amari shrugged.
The moment made Zena’s heart swell. It’d been a long time since she’d felt truly connected to someone. Zena didn’t have anyone, and from what she’d learned from Amari, she was in the same boat. She didn’t care if she and Amari had to share a cardboard box; they would be together for life.
Three weeks into staying at Amari's place, Zena had learned two things. Amari could not cook. And she did not care at all.
"This is burnt," Zena said, poking at the edges of the grilled cheese sitting on the paper plate in front of her.
"It's golden brown." Amari dropped onto the couch beside her with her own plate. "There's a difference."
"There is no difference."
"Eat the sandwich, Zena."
Zena bit into the sandwich.
Outside the window, the last of the evening light was fading over the rooftops.
The apartment was small enough that they could hear everything the neighbors were doing.
Amari had learned to sleep through all of it.
Zena was still working on that. Most nights, she just lay awake listening to the city, counting the minutes until the sun came up, but Amari never asked why the lights in the front room were still on at three in the morning.
They watched television without really watching it, some home renovation shows that neither of them cared about. Amari had her legs thrown over Zena's lap, the way she always did when she was comfortable, strolling on her phone.
"You were still up when I left for work this morning," Amari said without looking up from her screen.
Zena paused, a piece of crust halfway to her mouth. "I was just waking up."
Amari cut her eyes at her. It wasn't a judgmental look. It was the look of someone who knew better. “The coffee pot was cold, Zena. You hadn't been to bed yet."
"I lost track of time," Zena said, looking back at the TV.
"Doing what?"
She had been sitting by the window writing in her notebook. Three hours had passed without her noticing. She did not know how to explain that without it sounding like either a good thing or a concern, because she was not entirely sure which it was yet. The words were coming back, but in pieces.
"Just writing," she said.
Amari studied her for a second, her expression softening just enough for Zena to see it, then went back to her phone.
"I'll make sure there's food in the fridge you can grab. Some of those protein shakes you like. For the nights you're going to be pacing."
"You don't have to do that."
"I know I don't have to," Amari said, simply, as if it were not a big deal, because to her, it was not.
That was the thing about Amari. She did not make her care feel like a transaction.
The renovation show cut to a commercial. Zena pulled a throw blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over both, tucking it around Amari’s feet.
"I saw a posting today," Zena said after a moment.
"For what?"
"Cleaning company. Commercial buildings, overnight shifts, I think." She kept her eyes on the television. "The pay is decent. Consistent hours."
Amari was quiet for a second. "Okay."
"That's it? Just okay?"
"What do you want me to say?" Amari glanced over at her. "You need money. It's a job. I'm not about to sit here and make you feel some type of way about it. I start cosmetology school in two weeks. We'll both be grinding."
"People are going to talk if they see me scrubbing floors," Zena muttered, the thought tasting bitter in her mouth.
"Let 'em talk," Amari said, nudging Zena's knee with her foot. "They don't pay your rent. They don’t know what you’ve been through. Fuck them."
Zena looked at her.
"What?" Amari said.
"Nothing." Zena turned back to the television, but she squeezed Amari’s ankle under the blanket. "Just. Thank you."
"Stop thanking me and apply for the job."
"I'm going to."
"Tonight."
"Amari."
"The posting might be gone tomorrow. Do it tonight." Amari picked up Zena's phone from the cushion between them and held it out to her. "I'm not moving until you do."
Zena took the phone.
She found the posting. Filled out the short application, then hit submit.
"Done," she said.
"Good." Amari took the phone back and set it face down on the cushion. She leaned her head back against the sofa, her shoulder pressing right into Zena’s. "Now watch this man cry about his open concept kitchen in peace."
Zena laughed.
For the first time in months, Zena felt safe.