7. Asha
Asha
Supreme's phone rang in the bedroom. I was at the kitchen table with a client file open in front of me, going through the product order I needed to place before the weekend. The coffee next to my elbow had gone cold an hour ago.
He answered on the second ring. His voice came through the open door loud enough to reach me.
Yeah. Yo, who's this?
I kept my eyes on the page.
Marlon? Marlon Holt? Where is he?
My pencil stopped moving.
How bad is it? A pause. Cee, I asked you a question. How bad.
I turned a page. The list underneath had nothing new on it but I stared at it anyway.
Baptiste did what? In Crown Heights? His voice dropped lower. And nobody saw a damn thing? He just walked away clean?
I made myself keep my hand on the pencil.
Yeah. Yeah, get him to the place. Have the doctor ready when he gets there. Another pause. One more thing. Find out what Marlon was doing on Nostrand yesterday afternoon. I wanna know who he was meetin' and why.
The call ended. Footsteps crossed the bedroom. I went back to the order list like I'd been reading it the whole time.
Supreme came to the kitchen doorway.
"You sleep alright, baby?"
"Fine. You?"
"Yeah." He came over and stood behind my chair, ran his hand up the back of my neck, kissed the top of my head. "I gotta go handle some business. Be back later."
"Okay."
"You workin' today?"
"Got a client in Carroll Gardens at eleven. Then I'm at the salon."
"Carroll Gardens? That's new."
"Bridal trial. Word of mouth off Tasha."
He was quiet for a second. Then he squeezed my shoulder. "Cee's gonna drive you."
"I can drive myself, Premie."
"Cee's gonna drive you till some things settle. Just for a few days."
"Okay."
He kissed my hair again and walked off. I heard him getting his jacket in the bedroom, heard the front door open and close, heard his footsteps going down the stairs outside and the building door shutting behind him.
I sat at the table with the file still open and the pencil in my hand. I tried to write the next line on the order list and my hand wouldn't move.
Marlon Holt got jumped last night. Someone put him down hard enough that Supreme's people had to take him somewhere with a doctor, and Supreme wanted to know what Holt was doing on Nostrand yesterday afternoon.
The same block where I'd been yesterday afternoon.
The same block where Holt had put his hands on me.
I closed the file and slid it into my bag.
The last time I saw Marlon Holt, I'd come out of Mrs. Diaz's building with my bag over my shoulder and turned left toward where Cee had parked down the block.
He'd come off the barbershop steps before I'd made it five paces.
He'd grabbed my arm above the elbow hard enough to leave a bruise I'd covered with makeup this morning.
He'd yanked me close enough that I'd stumbled half a step.
His other hand had gone to my jaw. His mouth had been at my ear.
Supreme got eyes on you everywhere, mama. Don't be gettin' ideas about bein' a free woman round here.
I'd worked my elbow back into his ribs. Got enough space to breathe. Got two fingers on his wrist and moved it off my jaw. I'd looked him in the eye and told him if he put his hands on me again I'd tell Supreme myself and we'd see how that conversation went.
He'd stepped back. Not far. Just enough.
I'd walked away without looking back. Called Cee from the next block over and told him I was getting the subway instead. Didn't look behind me. Didn't check to see if anyone was watching. Just got myself off that block and kept moving.
I didn't tell Supreme. Telling Supreme would've meant explaining what Holt said and what Holt implied and whether I'd done something to make him think he could say it. I already ran that conversation in my head and decided I wasn't having it.
Now someone had jumped Holt last night and put him down hard enough for a doctor.
I sat at the kitchen table and worked through what that could mean. Holt had enemies. Supreme had enemies. Brooklyn had a thousand reasons for a man like Marlon Holt to end up bleeding somewhere. It didn't have to connect to me. It didn't have to connect to yesterday.
But Supreme had asked what Holt was doing on Nostrand.
I went to finish my makeup in the bathroom.
The bride's name was Jessica. She wanted an updo with loose curls framing her face and baby's breath woven through the back.
It took me two hours to get it right. She tipped me a hundred and fifty dollars in cash, asked three times if I'd come to Atlanta in June for the wedding. I told her I'd think about it.
I packed up my brushes and my hot tools. Did a last check of the kitchen to make sure I hadn't left anything, then went out the front door with my bag on my shoulder.
Omar Baptiste was leaning against a parked car half a block down on the other side of the street, a black sedan with tinted windows. He wasn't standing on the corner or anywhere people would notice him. He'd positioned himself where he could see the door without drawing attention.
I stopped on the top step.
He straightened up when he saw me but didn't wave or call out, just waited where he was.
My feet wanted to turn around and go back inside but I made them take me down the steps. I walked toward him slow enough that I could still change my mind. He stayed where he was with his hands in his jacket pockets and his eyes on me the whole way down the block.
Up close he was taller than the warehouse room had let him look, broader through the shoulders, with lines at the corners of his eyes and weight through his chest and arms that fourteen years had put there. But his face and the way he looked at me hadn't changed at all.
We stood there for a moment without saying anything. A woman walked past us with a stroller. A delivery truck beeped backing into a spot across the street.
"I waited for you," he said. His voice was low. "Two years, Asha. I kept going back to our spot and I waited."
My chest went tight. "Omar."
"I know it's been fourteen years. I know everything's different now. But I waited for you to come back or call or send me somethin' that said you still remembered."
"I never stopped remembering."
"Then how'd you end up with him?" He didn't give me a second to answer. "I saw you in that warehouse. I saw his hands on you." His own hands tightened in his pockets. "How'd that happen?"
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. How was I supposed to explain Ray's debt and Supreme's offer and three years of my life that I couldn't get back. How was I supposed to tell him I'd been traded like property to clear what my father owed.
My phone rang.
I pulled it out of my bag. Cee's name was on the screen.
"I have to take this," I said.
Omar nodded and stepped back to give me space.
I answered. "Hey."
"You good?" Cee's voice was careful. "You been in there a while."
"I'm good. Just finishing up. Give me five more minutes."
"Aight."
I hung up and looked at Omar. He was watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
"That was my driver," I said.
"I know who it was." He glanced down the block. "I can take you wherever you need to go."
"No." The word came out harder than I meant it to. "No, I can't. Cee's waiting for me and if I don't show up he'll tell Supreme and then..." I stopped myself.
"And then what?"
"Thank you," I said quietly, not really answering his question. "For what you did to Holt. For lookin' out for me. But you can't do anything else, Omar. Supreme knows it was a Baptiste. I heard him on the phone this morning. It's dangerous."
"You think I don't know that?"
"So you out here just tryna risk it all then?"
"I'm out here doin' what I gotta be doin'."
He was still the same Omar I remembered. The one that always looked out for me and protected me, but things had changed now.
"You gonna get yourself killed," I said. "I'm not your girl anymore to be doin' shit like this for."
He nodded slowly.
"That's right, you his now."
I didn't like his tone, but I didn't expect him to get it.
"I have to go," I said, backing away from him and putting some distance between us. "Keep out of trouble, okay?"
He watched me, his eyes staying on me. He looked like there was a million things in his mind that he wanted to say, but all that came out was:
"Take care of yourself, Asha."
"You too."
I made myself turn around and walk away. Made my legs do the work even though everything in me wanted to stay right there on that sidewalk with him. I got two blocks down, turned a corner, walked another half block before I had to sit down on a low brick wall in front of someone's brownstone.
I put my bag in my lap and rested my hands on top of it.
I breathed in. Breathed out. Did that until I'd regained composure.
I got my phone out and called Nene.
"Hey, sis," she said.
"Hey."
Her voice changed immediately. "You alright?"
"I'll tell you tonight. I just needed to hear your voice for a minute."
"Where you at?"
"Carroll Gardens. I'm sitting down. I'm okay."
"You need me to come get you?"
"No, Cee's got me and I'll see you tonight at my place when Premie's out."
"I'll bring wine."
"Two bottles, girl."
"You got it."
Nene didn't hang up right away. Her breathing came through steady and quiet on the other end, just being there without needing me to explain anything yet. After a minute she said, "I'm here when you ready to talk."
"I know."
"Love you, sis."
"Love you too."
When I hung up I stayed on the wall for another few minutes. A delivery cyclist went past with a massive backpack strapped to his shoulders. Someone's dog barked inside the brownstone behind me. The sun was warm on the top of my head.
I got up, walked back to where Cee had parked, and got in the back seat. He was looking at me in the rear-view mirror but he didn't say anything, just waited.
"Take me to the salon," I sighed, praying that I didn't catch a glimpse of Omar in the window.
He pulled out into traffic.