Chapter Thirty-Three
Kwame
Double Life
I’d been annoyed that I’d had to send Sin ahead just to have the wind taken out of her sails. But now that we’re driving away from DC, tie loose, heels in the back seat, I’m glad I got to skip to the good part of the evening.
We haven’t spoken since we agreed to get food from Ben’s Chili Bowl on our way to my car.
I put on the heated seats, cracked open the moon roof, and turned on the radio. The quiet rush of wind and WHUR’s Quiet Storm show serves up the perfect soundtrack for a night that feels, suddenly, full of possibility.
“I love this song,” Sin says quietly, just loud enough to be heard over New Edition’s “Can You Stand the Rain?” She leans forward and turns the small volume knob on the console.
I can’t remember a time that we’ve been together this long without her talking. Titus’ comment about me not being open comes to me as the silence stretches. I’m not used to having to ask what’s on her mind, but maybe I should do more of that. “What’s on your mind, Sin?”
“What?” She turns the music down. “Sorry, I was a million miles away. What’d did you say?”
“I asked what was on your mind.”
“Hmmmm,” she says on a long, heavy sigh. “We’re both living double lives.”
It’s not what I was expecting to hear and even though she’s not wrong, my first reaction is to reject it. I feel exposed and judged. “I see…” I force my hands to relax their grip on the steering wheel.
“I mean, I don’t want to speak for you, but from what I can tell, you’ve got a rich family or a trust fund and friends and interests that you’ve been very deliberate to keep hidden from me.”
“It wasn’t—”
She puts a hand on my wrist and strokes the back of my hand with her thumb. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to have your secrets. Lord knows I have my own.”
I slide my eyes to her. “You do?”
“Doesn’t everyone? Like, I can’t tell you what I’m really working on. Or how old I was when I lost my virginity. It’s okay, and I don’t want you to tell me things you’re not ready to share. I know what that feels like.”
I let out a deep sigh. “Thank you for understanding. I’m not keeping secrets…per se. Just not sharing things that don’t seem relevant.”
“That’s why I called you Superman. Tonight, you look like a different man.
More like the man you were the night we met.
You’ve been showing up to my parents’ looking like Clark Kent and tonight, I saw you and realized I wasn’t sure which one is the disguise and which one is skin you’re most comfortable in. ”
She’s not asking me for an answer and I couldn’t give one if she was. I don’t know.
“I don’t think of it as double life. I wasn’t hiding. I just wasn’t talking.” I glance over and see she’s staring out of the window again.
“Where are we?” she asks as we pull into the parking lot of the small park.
“Theodore Roosevelt Island. This is the best view in DC. At least I think so.”
“Are we allowed to be here this time of night?”
“I hope so.” I put the seats down in the back of the SUV and open the tailgate so we can sit facing the river. We spread out a blanket and sit down and grab our hotdogs.
“I can’t believe I lived here all these years and never realized it was open to the public.”
“We used to drive up here when I was a teenager,” I tell her.
“You went to high school near here?”
“No, I went to a boarding school in New York, but I spent some of my summers here.”
“Wow.” Her mouth is full of food, and she holds up a hand while she chews and swallows. “So, you’ve been rich your whole life?”
I stiffen, still not sure what to say and how. “Yeah. Sin, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“No, I already told you. You don’t have to tell me anything until you want to. I just don’t want to be lied to. No matter what kind of relationship we have. If you tell me something, tell the truth. Okay?”
My heart is beating a hundred miles an hour. “That sounds extremely fair.”
She nods. “I’m very good at brokering solutions. At least for other people.” She laughs and steals my breath. Jesus, I don’t know if it’s pheromones or what but everything about her excites me. She intrigues me and makes me think. And lets me be myself.
She balls up the napkin she spread on her dress to catch crumbs and tosses it over her shoulder. “Okay, so how about this? We introduce the Kwame and Sin that we’d like each other to know. No questions. We do this for as long as it feels good. No expectations. Just friends who also have sex.”
Her expression is so earnest, and the tension I’ve been holding since the Sunday everything started to unravel finally starts to ease.
“I’d like that.”
“Let’s lie down,” she says.
I grab a blanket from the backseat and use my coat as pillow and arrange myself with one arm bent so I can cradle my neck. She lays on her side next to me and puts her head on my shoulder and presses herself into my side.
It feels good.
Safe.
I close my eyes. “I’m Kwame. Born in the UK to Aloyisuis and Constance. My dad is from Ghana. My mom’s parents were American. When I was three, my mom was accepted to a masters’ program in diplomacy at Georgetown, so they decided to settle in Virginia.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that about her.”
“She never worked in her field. She just supported my dad’s career.”
She strokes my chest, and I cover her hand with mine and keep it there while I talk.
“I was taught at home by a tutor until I was twelve and then I went to boarding school. I left for college when I was eighteen.”
“Where’d you go?”
“London School of Economics for undergrad.”
She sits up. “You did? No way. I did my junior year abroad at the School of African and Oriental Studies. I lived in that library on The Aldwych.” She does the math and shakes her head. “That would have been your final year, right?”
I nod. “I wonder how many times our paths crossed before we actually met.” My heart thunders in my chest.
“Timing is everything. So what did you after LSE?”
“I came back to the US and went to law school at UCLA. Went straight from there to the California DOJ.”
“That’s where you were when we met.”
“Yup. I’m spending the year as Of Counsel at a law firm in DC.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like being a partner without an equity stake in the practice. It’s only a temporary position and I mainly do civil litigation work. I’m trying to get back to criminal prosecution because it’s what I love and what I’m good at.”
“So why’d you leave that?”
I take a deep breath. “When my mother died, she left me a letter with a list of requests. One of them was to move back to DC and try to live the life they’d hoped I would. To give my dad a chance to be the father she thought he could be.”
“Wow. That’s a lot.”
“Yeah, but I’m glad she used her last words to steer me. She also left me the bulk of her estate which was worth over a billion dollars.”
She’s silent, and I look down to find her mouth open. “Wow. A billion?”
“Yup, that house was part of the bequest. She wanted me to make it a home. But…I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in DC at first. Being close to my dad wasn’t an exciting prospect.”
“Why not?”
“He wasn’t happy with my decision to go to LSE or law school.
He didn’t like that I didn’t want to use their money and status or step into his shoes.
He basically exiled me when I refused to do what he wanted.
I saw my parents once a year at Christmas in Ghana, and my mother when she came to the US every spring and summer.
They’re kind of public figures but intensely private at the same time and I’ve never publicly associated with them.
We only reconciled right before my mother died. ”
“That recently?” she asks.
“Yeah. My mother and I weren’t ever at odds really.
He wanted a very specific thing for my life, thought he knew best, and I wanted to find out for myself what I was good at.
You would have thought I’d spit in his face.
After she died, we agreed to try to get to know each other.
He lined up this job for me and started introducing me as his son everywhere we went.
Three weeks in he said he had to deal with a crisis on one of his new projects and left. ”
“But you’re on better terms?” she asks with what sounds like hope in her voice.
I shrug. “I don’t know. Kind of. We’re speaking.” I let out a weary sigh. “I guess the fact that this is the first time I’m mentioning him is a clue.”
“Oh, Kwame. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. He tried, but he’s not made for sitting still and I’m not interested in playing golf and constantly working to amass money I don’t need.”
“Wow, is that really how he is?” She sounds horrified, and I feel guilty for speaking so harshly about him.
“Look, he’s not a monster. But he’s not a good man either.
He just…only does what is best for him. He invests in causes he abhors and people he wouldn’t share a meal with if the return is good.
Sadly, for the world, he’s very good at it.
He’s bankrolled some of the biggest brands and products of the century, it’s made him very rich.
But the only time he actually spends with people is when he’s doing business with them.
He doesn’t know what a personal conversation is.
He’s eccentrically private and notorious all at once. ”
This is so hard to talk about, and I feel breathless after that monologue. My heart thuds as I wait for her to respond. I can’t take it back and whatever happens next will be fine. I hope.
She strokes my chest as if she knows my heart needs soothing. “I bet you wish he was just your dad, right?”
“Yeah, I wish that would have been enough for him.”
“You don’t need to be enough for him. You’re enough for yourself. I’m sorry you didn’t have a dad who made you feel like you were important. I’m glad you figured it out for yourself and built your own life. You should be proud of yourself.”