12. Juliet Echo
Juliet + Echo
Juliet
There were only two rules you followed when going to Sunday's.
One — you took your reservation seriously.
CP time was not a thing. And two — you dressed the part.
No jeans, no head coverings unless for religious purposes, and absolutely no fighting.
Sunday herself would come down and snatch you up with the quickness, reminding you this wasn't the family cookout.
And you definitely didn't want her daughter Ali to come see about you.
Come dressed to impress and on your best behavior. Those were the terms.
"Step back and turn around girl, let me see that ass," Yahya teased from the FaceTime call.
I was so absorbed in my own reflection that I hadn't caught a single word she said.
And no — this wasn't a conceited moment, even though my orange blush and glossy chestnut lip combo was absolutely tea.
Call me crazy, but lately every time I looked in the mirror I saw her.
Not my mother. I know that probably doesn't make a bit of sense, but I believed it was the woman who used to read Shakespeare to me.
I never saw her face — only ever heard her voice, always comforting.
But the older I got, the more she was starting to take shape in my reflection.
Let me make a mental note to bring this up with my therapist.
The house lights began to flash — a precautionary installation because of my disability — signaling someone was at the door.
"Oh shit," I signed, finally catching Yahya's attitude from being ignored this long.
She was still going and that's when I realized my ears had completely checked out.
Between my mother's stand mixer running, my father cursing because Echo had beaten him at chess — "three goddamn times in a row," his words not mine — and Brandy's Never Say Never vinyl spinning in my room, my hearing left.
That and the fact that my nerves were shot because I was secretly meeting Nazir at Sunday's for a date — after Echo had repeatedly said no.
Choo-Choo was worse than my own daddy. I don't know another girl alive more afraid to explore her own free will, let alone be caught being even slightly reckless, because her brother and his people might genuinely make someone disappear.
Echo must have had some kind of quiet understanding with my father because Daddy never — and I mean never — went against anything Echo said.
Not when it came to me. Mylo and Zion were no better.
If Choo-Choo said no, they fell in line. Every single time.
I grabbed my "Birkins" and placed one in each ear. The settling in my eyes and the ease that returned to my shoulders was all Yahya needed to know I could hear her again.
"My bad, Yah — say it again."
"I said give me a three-sixty."
I spun slowly in my lilac off-shoulder mini dress. Long sleeves, ruffled and dramatic. Hair slicked into a sleek ponytail, edges laid like expensive flooring.
"Okay, Ju-Ju. One bend to pick up something you accidentally dropped and Nazir is going to see all of that."
Laughing, I rolled up the front of my dress to reveal the matching shorts strategically sewn into the lining.
She couldn't help but chuckle. "Mm-hmm. Okay, Ms. Prepared. You prepared for that ass whooping Echo has waiting for you when he finds out?"
I responded with my favorite gesture. My middle finger.
"Don't get mad at me because your brother is a walking chastity belt. He is fine as hell though — ole Lance Gross looking ass. I would sure love to get on my knees and—"
I felt my oatmeal threatening to make a reappearance and cut my fast ass friend off before she ruined my entire outfit. "Yah, please. Stop. Eww."
"Whatever, hoe. Ain't nothing eww about old man Echo. You should let me put this young pussy on him — I promise he won't have time to be in your business," she said with full, unbothered confidence.
"Anyways," I rolled my eyes. "I know Choo-Choo means well but I can't keep letting him run my life.
It was cute when I was younger but now it's just annoying.
You know my rose does absolutely nothing for me anymore?
Like I can't even get there on vibration and imagination alone — I need a real man," I whined.
The unusually long silence from my otherwise very vocal friend made me glance at my phone screen. Yahya was in deep thought.
"Choo-Choo, huh." She nodded slowly, absentmindedly grinding in her makeup chair. "Yeah — I would definitely let his chocolate ass conduct all of this. I'll be his personal train car. All aboard, daddy."
"Bye, hoe," I laughed, ending the FaceTime.
Sunday's sat on the west side of Havenbrook, anchored on a corner and extending around the full block.
The outside would put you in mind of Tiana's Place from that Disney movie.
Delicious soul food, jazz music that delivered dopamine directly to your brain, and low lighting kept to maintain a grown and sexy atmosphere.
Tonight was a live music night — which pulled out a very specific kind of energy from a very specific kind of crowd.
"You look so good, Ju," Nazir said, pulling out my chair.
"Thank you — so do you," I returned, taking my seat.
We were seated by the window and between the view of the cobblestone road of the artistic square and the romance already thick in the air, I was almost certain this was the kind of night I'd been wanting for a while.
Nazir was charming and genuinely inquisitive — but not in an invasive way.
He gave the impression that he wanted to know me.
All of me. Don't get me wrong, plenty of men had attempted conversation before, but it always found its way back to one of my superstar brothers eventually. Not tonight though. Not with Nazir.
"So, were you born deaf and had surgery so the aids could help you hear?" he asked.
"No — I was never completely deaf. I have S.A.P.C. My brain essentially tells my ears to shut down when multiple sound sources compete at once. If you were talking to me in the park I could hear you perfectly, until music started playing or a horn beeped — then my hearing would collapse."
"And the aids?" he continued.
"They process the competing sounds so there's no mental overstimulation. With them in, I hear perfectly."
"Is it genetic?" he asked.
"Someone in your family is usually a carrier — doesn't have to be a direct relative like a parent. A great-great-great granduncle could have had it and I inherited it that way. Which is part of why it's so rare."
"So, if I knocked you up — I mean, if we had children together — they could get that shit — S.A... S.A..."
"S.A.P.C," I finished for him.
How quickly did my prince become a frog. Why was this man already concerned about whether our future children could inherit my condition — this fool didn't even have my home address. I'd had to meet him here in secret because my brother would have shot him before he reached the front door.
"And Echo — I heard he dropped serious bag to have some robotic doctor create those aids for you. Was that a family effort or was Echo able to foot that bill himself?" Nazir continued his interrogation without a hint of shame on his face.
"Nigga, you work for the IRS or something?" I signed, too vexed to bother with words.
Nazir, in all his fine ignorance, had no idea what I was saying — but the attitude written all over my face and the aggression in my hands told him something was wrong.
What this idiot failed to understand was that I wasn't having an episode.
I was processing the fact that his questioning had shifted from seemingly genuine interest to flat out rude in the span of one glass of water.
"Ju — is everything okay? Do your ears hurt?" he damn near hollered, standing and leaning across the table to — I don't know — caress my ear apparently.
I swatted his hand away.
"Boy, sit down. Let me tell you something — if you think—" My tongue lashing was cut short by Benji placing my entrée down and the hostess Asia stepping to the microphone to announce the evening's talent.
Both Benji and Asia had the utmost respect for my family and would send word if they felt Nazir was out of pocket — so I quickly aborted my mission, thanked Benji for my food and turned to face the stage.
"Tonight's talent likes to let his music introduce him before he does," Asia said warmly.
"So with that — let the electricity from his guitar and the soul in his DNA send you into an hour of pure, sexy, Black, romantic ecstasy.
And if you're lucky, maybe he'll tell you his name when he's done.
" The audience, myself included, gave her a warm laugh.
"Juliet — if I offended you, I didn't mean to, baby. I really like you and just want to know everything about you," Nazir said.
So, my family's financials are relevant conversation on our secret first date. Yeah, okay. And to think — I was going to make his toes curl tonight.
"Mm-hmm, apology accepted," I said with complete nonchalance, turning my entire body — chair and all — toward the stage. As far as I was concerned, the music was the only thing caressing anything on my body tonight. This date was over.
The instrumental to Joe's "I Wanna Know" began to play and a single spotlight glowed over a lone wooden stool on the stage.
No one appeared for several seconds and it almost felt as though the talent had been cancelled.
The crowd filled the silence the way only a room full of people who know every word can — because who lets a Joe song go to waste.
Then without warning, a sound so electrifying moved through me that I lost my breath entirely.
A guitar — blessed by Oshun herself — played over the original instrumental and the lyrics being sung by the patrons around me faded into the background.
For me, sound was data first and experience second. Processing before feeling. Always.
But this. This was doing something different.