CHAPTER 8
TREY
Two weeks later, life became ordinary again.
Ordinary meant Paula worked too much.
Trey taught too much.
Anthony sent unsolicited memes to a group chat he had created without permission and named THE COMMITTEE.
Members:Anthony.Malcolm.Trey.Julian.
Trey had immediately objected to his brother’s inclusion.
Howard's campus always changed Trey's posture.
Even after years on the faculty, he felt the history in the brick, the photographs, the names on doors, the generations of argument embedded in the place.
Walking there with Paula beside him was different now.
She was no longer a student moving through his professional world under rules they both respected.
She had her own credentials, her own clients, her own authority.
He caught himself looking at her and remembering the first time she had challenged him in class, then corrected the memory with the woman beside him now.
Anthony ignored him.
Julian embraced it.
At 8:14 on Thursday morning:
ANTHONY: Dinner Saturday. Bring Paula.
JULIAN: Finally.
TREY: No.
MALCOLM: Is “no” to dinner or bringing Paula?
TREY: Both.
ANTHONY: Reservation for 8.
Trey put his phone down.
Paula looked up from the newspaper.
“What?”
“My friends are irritating.”
“Our friends.”
He looked at her.
She smiled sweetly.
Saturday dinner happened.
Anthony arrived with his daughter Ava long enough for Paula to finally meet her before Camille picked her up. Trey already knew Ava; at eleven, she remained observant and thoroughly unimpressed by adults.
She looked at Trey, then Paula.
“You’re the lady my dad keeps talking about.”
Anthony nearly dropped his drink.
Paula smiled. “What does he say?”
“Ava,” Anthony warned.
“That Uncle Trey finally has a girlfriend.”
Silence.
Trey looked at Anthony.
Anthony looked at the ceiling.
Paula turned slowly toward Trey.
“Girlfriend?”
Ava shrugged. “That’s what he said.”
Camille arrived three minutes later and rescued Anthony from murder.
After Ava left, Paula sat beside Trey.
“Girlfriend?”
“We haven’t labeled it.”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
She took a sip of wine.
Anthony and Malcolm became suddenly fascinated by bread.
Paula looked at Trey.
“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend in front of these fools?”
Anthony objected. “Fools?”
Trey ignored him.
“No.”
“Good.”
“Because I have something better planned.”
Paula stared.
Malcolm groaned. “Of course he does.”
Anthony threw his napkin down. “This is why normal men hate him.”
Paula laughed.
The rest of dinner became easy.
Anthony talked architecture.
Malcolm talked cases.
Julian told childhood stories Trey repeatedly attempted to suppress.
Paula fit.
That was the unnerving part.
Not by shrinking.
Not by performing.
She argued with Malcolm about public messaging in civil-rights cases, challenged Anthony about gentrification and design, and joined Julian in mocking Trey’s childhood seriousness.
At one point Trey sat back and simply watched.
Paula noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Your face.”
Anthony said, “He has a face?”
Paula nodded. “Several.”
Julian laughed. “Thank you.”
Trey sighed.
On the drive home Paula was quiet.
“Too much?” he asked.
“No.”
“What?”
“I liked them.”
“They liked you.”
“I know.”
He smiled.
She nudged him.
Then she said, “I liked seeing you with them.”
“Why?”
“You’re different.”
“How?”
“Lighter.”
Trey considered that.
Paula rested her hand on his thigh.
“Also, your brother has photographs.”
“Absolutely not.”
“He promised me copies.”
“Julian is dead to me.”
Paula laughed.
Trey drove through the city with her hand warm against him.
Real life.
Friends.
Family.
Traffic.
A half-finished argument about labels.
This was the relationship now.
Not a secret tension across a classroom.
A life being assembled in public.