Chapter 5
chapter five
patrice
“Bruh, the school’s paying for the movers? Damn. You stuntin’ for real.”
I smiled at Nesto as we stood in my apartment watching two guys place my new couch in the middle of the living room.
“They told me a set amount I can spend. They don’t give me cash, just reimburse receipts.
So, I figured I might as well spend it and get some professionals instead of trying to bribe you, Jude, and Ari with beer and pizza,” I said after I handed one of them a tip and thanked them for hauling all my stuff for the last couple of hours.
Nesto chuckled and looked over at Ari and Yin, who were in my kitchen unpacking plates and glasses.
My mom had gone a little overboard with getting me stuff for the apartment once I got the job, and before I left New York, I had boxes of housewares from her.
Not that I was complaining—I hated shopping and she had great taste.
Nesto must have guessed what I was thinking, because he grinned at me and started for the kitchen. “Odette really did the most, damn,” he said, as he peered into one of the boxes on the kitchen island. “Are those champagne flutes?”
I nodded as he gently picked up one of my twelve brand-new glasses. “Yep, she got me a dozen. You know how she is.”
My mother. I loved her, but she was a lot.
She was always so preoccupied with appearances.
I knew it was her way of showing people that she was worthy of respect, that she wasn’t relying on the government or whatever.
Her way of making people think twice before they made assumptions about her or me.
It was endless, though. The house had to look perfect, she had to look perfect, son had to be perfect.
She made sure that there was never a reason for someone to look down on her, if she could help it.
Before they could focus on her black skin and make judgments, they’d see her lovely clothes and perfect makeup.
They’d hear about her son, the Cornell professor, and her thriving business.
They’d see her immaculate home.
It was how she coped with everything we’d been through when we first got here. As long as she could shut people up by showing them who she was, she would do it. It was an exhausting way to live and one I still struggled not to fall into.
“Yo, where did you go to, man?”
I snapped my head back and saw Nesto, Ari, and Yin looking at me.
“Sorry Nes. I just started thinking. My mom did get me a lot of stuff,” I said, running my hands over head.
Nesto, whose own mom was not subtle in her protectiveness of her son, was unfazed. “She’s just trying to take care of her baby. So speaking of people that do too much. How’s it going with your landlord?”
I knew that was coming. Nesto was still pretty invested in being matchmaker and it was still annoying.
“If you mean Easton, he’s fine.”
Yin nodded from the kitchen, an impish look on his face. “He sure is.”
Both Nesto and I busted up at that while Yin looked over at Ari with a sassy grin on his face. Ari was trying hard to scowl, but he couldn’t resist for long and after a second bent down to give Yin a quick kiss on the lips. Yin didn’t waste any time and wrapped his skinny arms around Ari’s neck.
They were fucking adorable, and so into each other. Nesto said they’d only started dating over the summer after a year of walking around each other like lovesick puppies. Nesto looked at them, and then at me, and smiled.
Were we ever that young?
It made my heart happy to see those two able to kiss and show their affection for each other freely.
Here, at least. Things were not easy at home for Ari; his uncle was very traditional and would not be ok with Ari having a boyfriend.
Yin, whose sisters were fiercely protective, thankfully didn’t have the same problem.
They had people who were supportive of them and their relationship.
Nesto came over to stand by me and help get books into shelves as Ari and Yin resumed unpacking boxes in the kitchen.
“Should we wipe these down before we put them up?”
I grabbed a couple of old t-shirts I’d been using for cleaning and handed him one.
“Yeah, please. All the boxes are labeled by category. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and all my work and schoolbooks?” I pointed at the two bookcases on the wall behind the couch. “Bookshelf on the right has all the stuff that’s not school or work-related and the other one has everything else.”
Nesto nodded and started pulling books out.
I had a couple dozen boxes full of them.
Some I’d kept in my mother’s house, but most of them I’d just had in stacks all over my tiny apartment.
The thrill of finally having space to display my things hit me by moments.
I’d be unpacking something and it would come to me again that this place was mine.
“Man you look so fucking happy right now,” Nesto said, from where he was shelving books. “I’m so glad it worked out for you to get this place. It is so much nicer than the first one. How is it going with Easton, by the way, don’t think I’m gonna let you get away with not answering.”
I cut open another box of books and made a show of getting a few out of the box and wiped down before I said anything. I looked up after a minute and Nesto was still there, pulling out books and staring at me, waiting for an answer.
“There’s nothing going on, so there’s not much to say.”
“Bullshit.”
I lifted a shoulder and kept working. Nesto was like a dog with a bone with shit like this, but I was just as stubborn.
He, of course, was not done. “I saw the way you were looking at each other the day of the sancocho. There’s something up with you two, it’s only a matter of time.”
There was more than something. Easton and the way he made me feel sometimes felt like this gigantic piece of a puzzle I didn’t even know was missing, but I was not going to get into it right now.
“It’s not like that. I mean yeah, I want him and he’s made it pretty clear that he’s down for whatever, but we decided to keep it at just friends. ”
Nesto was about to say something, but I held up my hand.
“I get it. There is something there, but now I’m living in his building and honestly, it’s too messy.
Now with all this shit happening with the police stops and all that.
I won’t be able to look the other way and let things go, so—” There was just too much in the way. “Nah man, it’s better like this.”
Nesto twisted his mouth to the side, like he was literally forcing himself to stay quiet. After a second, he sagged and exhaled. “I’m not sure why everything needs to be life or death with you, but all right. It’s your life.”
“Everything isn’t life or death, but this specific thing that’s been happening here potentially could be.
You know that. I don’t need to start rattling off names of people who have lost their lives to get my point across.
I’m not saying that Easton is responsible to stop it, because it’s not that simple.
But it’s going to cause tension and I got enough on my plate right now. ”
I had no idea how Easton was handling any of this and to a degree, I almost didn’t want to know. If I began to let things slide because I was involved with Easton, I’d eventually hate myself and him.
It frightened me more that despite knowing all of that, I wanted him anyways.
“This lone wolf shit is a whole lot, P.” Nesto’s exhausted tone made me shake off the overthinking, but I seriously didn’t want to talk about it anymore. The more I did, the less my reasons didn’t seem strong enough to hold me back from getting involved with Easton.
I looked over at Ari and Yin who were now making out more than actually unpacking, then gestured for Nesto to come closer, hoping to get the conversation off of me for a minute.
“So how are things going at Ari’s? He said his uncle was still angry about the texts from Yin he saw on his phone.”
Nesto’s face turned sour at the mention of Ari’s uncle.
“He’s still giving him a hard time. I don’t want to push him to move out, because the only way he can pay for school is by saving on rent, but at this point, I’m almost ready to have him come live with Jude and me for a while.
” Nesto sucked his teeth, clearly upset by the situation.
“It’s fucking ridiculous, but he can’t burn that bridge because the uncle is helping him with his green card shit.
” Nesto’s face hardened at that. “The guy is an asshole and so manipulative.”
I thought about the green card thing for a second.
“I wonder if I can help out with that. I mean I can sponsor him, if that’s the issue.
We made tentative plans to finally get together this weekend.
” Between the move and Ari’s two jobs and school, we hadn’t been able to lock down a time, but we’d settled on dinner Saturday.
Nesto nodded at that. “Good, I was hoping you could get that going.” He looked over again at the two young men and turned back to me.
“I don’t know if you can just switch since his uncle started the process.
It’s better for us to talk to him about it.
” Nesto squeezed my shoulder. “I’m glad that you’re doing this.
The more people he has in his corner, the better. ”
“He’s a good kid.”
Nesto nodded again. “They both are, and they deserve to be fucking carefree and happy after all the shit they’ve lived through. At least Yin’s started going to therapy. Ari needs it, too.”
I almost wanted to go back to talking about Easton, because all of this stuff was heavy and too close to home. As if I conjured him up, I heard a knock on my open apartment door and turned around to see him standing in the hallway outside, holding a bottle of something.
Nesto just chuckled beside me. “What where you saying about the ‘just friends’ plan, P?”
I wasn’t going to answer.
I stood up from the stool I was sitting on and walked over to the door. I probably looked like a slob in cutoff sweats and an old Yankees tank top.