35. Asha
Asha
Iwoke up to the sound of cabinets opening and closing in the kitchen. Nene's side of the bed was empty, the pillow still dented where her head had been, Omar's oversized t-shirt gone from where she'd draped it over the headboard.
I got up, pulled on a hoodie, and walked out to find Nene standing in front of Omar's open cabinets with her hands on her hips and an expression on her face that I recognized from every apartment she'd ever stayed in.
"Where does this man keep his mugs?" she demanded without turning around. "I found plates, bowls, glasses, a protein shaker, and something that might be a vase. No mugs."
"Top shelf. Behind the cereal."
"Behind the cereal." She reached up, found them, pulled two down. "Who puts mugs behind cereal? That's psychotic behavior."
"He lives alone, Nene."
"That's not an excuse. It's a diagnosis." She filled the kettle, plugged it in, then turned around and leaned against the counter. The t-shirt hung past her knees. Her wrists were still red where the zip ties had been, the marks visible against her skin like bracelets she hadn't chosen.
"How'd you sleep?" I asked.
"Like somebody who spent ten hours tied to a chair.
" She rubbed her left wrist absently. "My shoulders are killing me.
You know they tied my arms behind the chair for the first few hours?
Then one of them came in, looked at the ties, and moved them to the front.
Said 'the boss wants her comfortable.' Comfortable.
Like comfort was even on the table at that point. "
"Nene."
"I'm fine, Ash." She held up her hand. "I'm processing. Let me process."
The kettle clicked. She made coffee for both of us, bringing the mugs to the couch where we sat the way we always sat, facing each other with our legs crossed, mugs in both hands. Morning light was coming through Omar's blinds in thin stripes across the living room floor.
"Tell me what happened," I said. "The whole thing. From the beginning."
"You sure you wanna hear this?"
"I need to hear it."
Nene took a sip of her coffee, set it on the arm of the couch, and looked at me.
"I was coming back from the store. Two blocks from my building.
This black car pulled up next to me, moving slow.
The back door opened and this big dude stepped out.
He didn't say nothing at first, just stood on the sidewalk looking at me.
Then a second one came around from the front and they were on both sides. "
"Did they hurt you?"
"They didn't touch me. The first one said 'We need you to come with us, Miss Denise.' Miss Denise. Like we were at a job interview." She shook her head. "I thought about running but there was nobody on the street and both of them were twice my size. So I got in the car. What else was I gonna do?"
"You could've screamed."
"And then what? They grab me anyway, except now they're angry about it?
Nah. I got in, kept my mouth shut, and paid attention.
" She picked up her coffee again. "They drove me to Crown Heights.
This ground-floor unit, real bare, nothing in it except a chair and a table.
They sat me in the chair, zip-tied my wrists, and left me there. "
"How long were you alone?"
"Hours. Maybe four? Maybe more. I lost track cos there wasn't a clock. One of them came in every now and then to check on me. Asked if I needed water, asked if I needed the bathroom. Real polite about the whole thing, like they were hosting me at a bed and breakfast from hell."
I almost laughed. Almost. "Did they say what they wanted?"
"One of them told me straight up. He said this was about getting you back where you belonged. Said I was just the bait to make it happen." She looked at me over her mug. "They left my phone powered on in the hallway. On purpose. They were counting on you tracking the signal."
"Omar figured that out."
"Good. Cos I was sitting in that chair praying you wouldn't be stupid enough to try."
We were quiet for a moment. The coffee was getting cold in my hands but I didn't care.
"The worst part wasn't being tied up," Nene continued, her voice dropping.
"It wasn't the room or the guards or the zip ties.
The worst part was the hours when nobody came in and I was sitting there alone in the quiet trying not to think about what happens if this goes wrong.
If they decide I'm not useful anymore. If Supreme gets bored of waiting.
" She stopped. "I kept thinking about you.
About what it would do to you if something happened to me cos you left him. "
"Nene, don't."
"I'm not blaming you. I'm telling you what I was thinking.
Cos all I do is worry about you, Ash. That's been the job since Atlanta.
You call me at two in the morning from Supreme's bathroom and I answer.
You tell me you're scared and I talk you down.
You need me to walk you out of a salon with your driver sitting ten feet away and I show up.
" Her eyes were bright. "I do all of that cos you're my person.
You're the closest thing I got to a sister.
But Ash, sitting in that room, I was scared.
For real scared. The kind where your hands shake and your brain starts going to the dark places. "
She put her coffee down. Her hands were shaking now, small tremors she was trying to hold still by pressing them flat against her thighs.
"Come here," I said.
She slid across the couch and I put my arms around her.
She pressed her face into my shoulder and for a minute she wasn't the strong one.
She wasn't the one with the plan, the jokes, the deep conditioner recommendations.
She was a woman who'd been tied to a chair for ten hours because her best friend had left a dangerous man and she'd helped make it happen.
I held her the way she'd held me a hundred times in Atlanta. Through the midnight calls, the bad days, the mornings when I couldn't get out of bed because the weight of performing for Supreme had pressed me flat. She'd always been the one doing the holding. Now it was my turn.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into her hair. "I'm so sorry."
"Stop apologizing." Her voice was muffled against my shoulder.
"I told you already, I made that choice.
I'd make it again tomorrow. I'd make it a hundred times.
" She pulled back and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
"But next time your man comes to rescue me, he better bring snacks.
That cornbread they fed me was from a box, Ash.
A box. I been kidnapped by men who can't cook. "
I laughed. Really laughed, the sound breaking out of me rough and uncontrolled. Nene laughed too, both of us sitting on Omar's couch in the morning light with tears on our faces and cold coffee on the armrest, laughing because the alternative was falling apart.
"You know what I kept thinking about in that room?" Nene said when we'd calmed down.
"What?"
"My mama's biscuits. Like, if I'm about to die, I want my last meal to be Mama Denise's buttermilk biscuits with the honey butter. And instead I'm getting box cornbread from a man with a gun in his waistband." She shook her head. "If that's how I go out, I'm haunting everybody involved."
"You're not going out."
"I know I'm not. Cos your big scary boyfriend came through the door like John Wick with a zip-tie cutter and got me out of there." She looked at me. "He's serious about you, Ash. You know that?"
"Yeah. I'm starting to figure that out."
"Starting? Girl." She picked up her coffee, made a face at how cold it was, and went to the kitchen to reheat it. "The man took down three armed guards to get to me. For you. That ain't starting to figure it out. That's been figured out."
She put her mug in the microwave and leaned against the counter.
Her wrists were still red. Her face was tired.
But she was here, standing in Omar's kitchen in his oversized t-shirt, complaining about his cabinet organization, making jokes about box cornbread.
She was alive and she was herself and that was everything.
"Thank you," I told her from the couch.
"For what?"
"For being here. For helping me get out. For answering the phone at two in the morning for three years. For everything."
"Girl, you getting sentimental on me?" She pulled the mug from the microwave. "You know I don't do sentimental before noon."
"I'm doing it anyway."
"Then do it quietly. I'm trying to drink my coffee." But she was smiling. A real smile, tired around the edges, worn through but still standing.
I picked up my own cold mug and drank it anyway.
Now she was standing in the kitchen with her red wrists, her cold coffee, her box cornbread jokes. I was sitting on the couch with my legs crossed watching her, feeling something I hadn't let myself feel in a long time.
Safe. That was the word. With Nene next to me, Omar out there handling things, Portia's food in the fridge, Kadeem running the operation. For the first time I was surrounded by people who were choosing to be in my corner because they wanted to be there.
I finished my coffee and went to shower. When I came out Nene was already looking through Omar's fridge, holding up a container of something Portia had left.
"This man eats better than I do and he doesn't even cook," she announced. "That's offensive."
"His mama cooks for him."
"Of course she does." Nene put the container on the counter. "We heating this up. I ain't eating box cornbread ever again."
We heated it up. We ate at Omar's kitchen table in the morning light, two women who'd survived something, eating Portia Baptiste's leftovers in a Bed-Stuy apartment that was starting to feel like it belonged to all of us.