3. The Life I Built #2
They drifted close during a circuit around the bar. Katelyn’s gaze slid over Aniyah, then back again like she was trying to place her.
“Hi,” Aniyah said, because she was raised right.
“Hi. Long time no see!” Katelyn’s smile was swift and cool. “Did you become a doctor?”
“No. I teach.”
“Oh,” Katelyn said, like the word had flavors she did not like. “How sweet.”
The man squeezed Katelyn’s waist and leaned in to say something low. Katelyn’s laugh came out sharp. She offered a nod the way some people tipped at valet, then moved on without another word.
Cold could be beautiful. That was true of the weather and people.
Katelyn fit that description. She wasn’t one to hold a grudge against someone she hasn’t seen since high school, but Katelyn had always rubbed her the wrong way.
It was her attitude and the way she was always smiling condescendingly at the women around her like she was so much better than everyone else.
That may work with folks that didn’t grow up with her, but Aniyah knew the truth.
Katelyn wouldn’t be shit if she didn’t have Trevor Porter and his family.
They literally changed her life, and she had the nerve to talk down on anyone else.
Aniyah told herself to let it go. She had no reason to care who that woman was now or who she was with. The city was full of small collisions that meant nothing.
She did not know yet that their worlds would touch again in a yellow classroom with a reading rug and a wall that said, “You belong here.”
Now thinking about the little girl who was so full of light but still had a sadness hovering not too far behind made Aniyah angry.
Zara was a delight to have in class. She was intelligent, a sweetheart and always helping her peers.
Aniyah felt a fierce protectiveness over Zara and wanted to help shield her from anything that was hurting her.
It was clear that Katelyn was cheating on Trevor and that could possibly be what is triggering Zara’s sadness.
She prayed that they would both be free from that torment, so that they could find the peace that she found in her condo every night.
A week after school started, Mya and Stephanie, Aniyah’s two best friends, decided it was time for her to stop taking herself on dates to the plant nursery in Freeport and get back to dating actual men.
They were her sisters by choice, loud where she was quiet, brave where she was careful.
They did not play about her, and they did not accept her excuses.
“He is normal,” Mya said on the three-way call. “A unicorn. Has a skilled trade that brings in good money. Owns a toolbox. Not allergic to commitment.”
“His name is Robert,” Stephanie added. “He is an HVAC tech. He fixes things for a living. That’s symbolism, Niyah. He’s a good man, Savannah.”
Aniyah laughed, “Kenneth was a terrible fucking man, Steph. You two are ridiculous.”
“You will thank us when he installs a new thermostat for free,” Mya said.
The date was at Yardie Kitchen, the Jamaican spot three blocks from the school where the oxtails fell off the bone and the plantains tasted like sunshine.
Aniyah wore high waisted jeans, a white cropped button up, and small pearl studs.
She left her hair down. Auburn waves fell to her shoulders and made the melanin in her skin glow. .
Robert stood to greet her when she walked in. He had kind eyes, a clean fade, and work strong hands. He also had breath that could kill a plant which instantly killed the little attraction she had felt for him.
Aniyah powered through. She ordered ginger beer and tried not to breathe through her nose when he leaned forward to ask questions.
He was sweet. He told stories about his nieces.
He loved his mother. He had just finished a weeklong job in a brownstone where the radiators were older than he was. He was, by all measures, a good man.
His breath was not.
She nodded and smiled and kept her answers short.
She ate her rice and peas like they were a mission.
She made a joke about the Yankees that landed well enough, then glanced at her phone and lied about an early morning.
When the date ended, she hugged him quickly and promised to text, then slid into the backseat of an Uber with the speed of someone escaping a small, polite fire.
The driver headed toward Long Beach. Aniyah tipped her head back and let the city slip by outside the window. A billboard rose above the expressway, black background, warm gold lettering that looked expensive but felt intimate.
Making Love: The Art of Us.
Directed by Trevor Porter.
The words hit like a tap on her shoulder from a hand she used to know.
Curiosity pulled her forward in the seat.
The name rested heavy and bright at the same time.
Trevor, not the sophomore in high school, but the grown man.
The dad. The man with dark eyes that seemed to follow her every movement in the mornings he dropped off his daughter.
Seeing his name on that billboard made her stomach flutter.
He went after his dream and got it. That brought about a feeling in her that she didn’t want to name.
Trevor was off limits, but she would enjoy the view.
At home, the elevator opened to a wall of glass and water. She kicked her heels off, opened her laptop, and called her girls on FaceTime .
“First of all,” she said when their faces lit the screen, “how dare you.”
Mya threw her head back and laughed. “He was bad?”
“I think his breath is fighting demons.”
Stephanie clapped a hand over her face. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Everything else?”
“Fine,” Aniyah said. “Nice, even. I cannot get past the breath assault. How do you take a woman out with your mouth smelling that bad?! As bad as that shit was, he had to have been able to smell it himself. I should fire y’all from the blind dates.”
Mya wiped tears. “I’m sorry. I really am. Maybe he had a rough day and forgot.”
“Forgot to brush his teeth?!” Stephanie exclaimed.
“A toothbrush would have had a rougher one,” Aniyah said.
They devolved into the kind of laughter that felt like medicine. When it faded, Stephanie sobered first. “You okay for real?”
“I’m okay,” Aniyah said, softer now. “It is just the quiet. Sometimes it is loud. I know I made the right decision to move out here, but every now and then I miss Papa so much I forget how to breathe. For now, I’m okay.”
They nodded. They knew the sorrow she dealt with on a daily basis. They were the only people who did. Aniyah’s grief from her parents and losing her grandfather sometimes made her hate her solitude. It was crazy how her sanctuary could become a prison cell when things got too still.
While they traded stories about work drama and Mya’s auntie who had just discovered how to make Instagram reels, Aniyah typed Trevor Porter into the search bar of her computer.
The screen filled with links to interviews and festival photos.
There was even a clip from Sundance where he stood in the back of a theater, jaw tight and eyes glassy, while a room full of strangers clapped for a love story he made loosely based on his parent’s love story, according to Google.
Porter Brothers Foundation , she read. A cancer foundation owned by Angelou, Jackson and Trevor.
They started it after the passing of their mother.
She clicked through to a foundation site and saw Della’s name on a scholarship.
The press release mentioned her passing in clean, careful language that made grief look tidy.
Aniyah closed her eyes for a second and saw Della as she really was.
A warm spirit who showed up at school field days with a trunk full of juice boxes.
The mom who knew every child’s name by the second week.
A hug and a laugh that made you feel like you had done something right just by being there.
Aniyah scrolled and learned more than she meant to.
The documentary series he is releasing soon following artists all over NYC with his brother and sister-in-law at the forefront.
The artist profiles he’d completed as a new filmmaker.
The photo of Trevor on a rooftop, curls pulled back, holding a camera the way some men held babies.
Aniyah remembered the billboard said “Directed by Trevor Porter” in bold like the billboard.
Success looked good on him. The kind of good that came from hard work and not just luck.
“Okay,” Mya said, narrowing her eyes. “Who are you cyberstalking?”
“No one,” Aniyah said too fast.
Stephanie leaned into the camera. “Do not lie to me, girl. I can see that concentration wrinkle in the middle of your forehead.”
Aniyah sighed and shared her screen so they could see what she was looking at. Their twin gasps made her laugh.
“Trevor?! Those dimples,” Mya groaned. “They survived.”
“Of course they did,” Stephanie said. “The devil made them.”
Aniyah shook her head and closed the tab. “It is nothing really. I saw a billboard on my way home from that disaster of a date that said he has a docuseries dropping. My brain went on a field trip. That is all.”
“Uh huh,” Mya said. “Field trips have chaperones. We are them. Be careful.”
“I’m always careful,” Aniyah said. She looked at the glass, the water beyond, the reflection of herself small in the window. “That is the problem.”
“He’s still with what's-her-face? Katie?” Stephanie asked dead serious.
“Katelyn, girl!” Mya laughed in response. “I hope not, because Niyah and I def saw her at a rooftop party over the summer with Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
“Mya! That man was not Arnold Schwarzenegger! Why would you say that?!” Aniyah was crying laughing at this point.
“Shit, that’s what he looked like. If she is with Trevor, then she’s cheating for sure. Which is crazy because who cheats on fine ass Trevor Porter?”