11. Celeste
Sunday Evening
Two days after Josiah kissed me in the middle of my half-repaired salon and left my common sense leaning against the wall holding its chest, my little sisters, Calista and Cassia, invaded my bedroom while my big sister Corinne supervised via FaceTime like a parole officer in a bonnet full of discernment.
Calista had been married just long enough to think she was the relationship elder. Cassia was single enough to believe every handsome man was either a blessing or a warning. Leilani sat by the window eating chips like pregnancy had made sharing illegal.
Calista stood in front of my bed, holding one of my black dresses with two fingers like the fabric had personally sinned against her.
Cassia was halfway inside my closet, digging through my shoes with the focus of somebody searching for hidden money or a reason to judge me.
Corinne’s face filled my phone screen from where it leaned against a perfume bottle on my vanity, her eyes narrow and her bonnet sitting crooked enough to let me know she had joined the call prepared for spiritual warfare and fashion correction.
Calista lifted the dress higher. “You’re not wearing this.”
I looked over my shoulder from the vanity mirror. “Why not?”
Corinne leaned closer to the FaceTime camera. “Because you’re going on a date, not testifying before the grief committee.”
Leilani snorted so hard she slapped one hand over her mouth and the other over her belly.
I turned around with my mascara wand in my hand. “First of all, don’t disrespect black. Black is elegant.”
Cassia’s voice came from inside my closet. “Black is elegant. That dress is widow at a zoning meeting.”
Calista dropped the dress on the bed like it needed deliverance. “We’re loving. You just don’t like love with accuracy.”
Corinne nodded through the phone. “Exactly. And accuracy is telling you that dress looks like you’re about to deny a building permit and go home alone.”
Leilani lifted a chip toward me like she was making a toast. “And before you get sensitive, remember we’re doing this because we love you, because you deserve to look good, and because that electrician got them broad-ass shoulders.”
I closed my eyes. “Please don’t start with the shoulders again.”
Leilani leaned forward, her chips forgotten. “Them forearms were forearming. Tattoos sitting there all neat and grown, veins acting like they pay rent, hands looking like they know how to fix a breaker and a bad attitude.”
“Leilani.”
Corinne waved me off. “Be honest. What got you first, his forearms or his biceps? You can rebuke it after you answer the question.”
“I’m not answering that.”
Calista folded her arms. “That means forearms and biceps.”
Cassia nodded. “Definitely. She got that I done saw too much, and now I’m repenting look.”
Leilani fanned herself with one chip. “Lord, cover her. She ain’t been outside in eighteen months, and You done sent a six-six electrician with shoulders, tattoos, and home training.”
I tried to hold my face together, but laughter slipped through before I could stop it.
“I don’t know anything.”
Corinne’s voice sharpened with big-sister authority. “Celly, you know enough to be sitting over there glowing on one side of your face like that man said something to you and your spirit started acting brand new.”
My mascara wand paused. The room erupted so loud I was surprised Kayden didn’t sense disrespect from the gym and call home.
Leilani laughed until she bent forward and squeezed her thighs together. “Y’all need to stop before I pee, and I’m not even playing. I can’t keep risking my dignity because Celly got kissed by Current Events.”
My head snapped toward her. “Who said I got kissed?”
The room went silent for half a breath.
Then all hell broke loose.
Cassia fell against the closet door. “Nobody said kiss but you.”
Corinne pointed at the camera like she was reaching through the phone. “I knew it. I knew it. Look at your face.”
Leilani rocked back in the chair, laughing and rubbing her belly. “I said Current Events, and your mouth filed the kiss paperwork all by itself.”
I covered my face with both hands. “I cannot stand y’all.”
Cassia came closer, grinning like sin had paid her tuition. “Was it good?”
“No.”
Calista narrowed her eyes. “No, it wasn’t good?”
I dropped my hands. “No, I’m not discussing this.”
Leilani nodded slowly. “So it was good enough for privacy. Got it.”
Corinne leaned closer to the screen. “Was it forehead first or mouth first? Because from how you describe him, he sounds like a forehead-first man. Real intentional. Real let-me-check-your-spirit-before-I-ruin-your-lip-gloss.”
I grabbed my perfume bottle and pointed it at the phone. “Corinne, I will hang up on you.”
“You should’ve hung up before you told us that man kissed you.”
“I did not tell y’all that.”
Calista lifted her brows. “Baby, your face testified.”
Cassia nodded. “And the congregation received.”
I turned back to the mirror. Josiah’s kiss still occupied more space in my head than it had any right to.
Calista crossed the room and grabbed the black dress again. “All kissing aside, you’re not wearing this.”
“I picked that because it’s comfortable.”
“Comfortable doesn’t mean defeated.”
Cassia reached inside my closet and came back with another dress, then immediately made a face. “And this one looks like you’re about to host a widow luncheon sponsored by bottled water and unresolved grief.”
Calista tossed both dresses onto the bed. “No, you’re doing too little. You got kissed by a fine, saved-ish, muscular man with tattoos, a trade, and emotional vocabulary, and now you’re trying to dress like a haunted lamp.”
Calista’s face changed first. She set the dress down and looked at me through the mirror. The laughter faded, but my sister’s eyes had gone tender.
“We’re not bullying you,” Calista said. “We’re pulling you out from under all that black fabric before you go outside looking like grief picked your outfit and fear zipped you up.”
Cassia stepped out of the closet, holding the outfit they had apparently chosen without my consent.
A deep-green wrap top lay across her arm with dark wide-leg pants, copper bangles, wedge sandals, and gold hoops.
The green made my skin glow and my red-and-brown locs look like they’d been painted by sunset.
Comfortable, but not hidden. Grown, but not stiff.
Pretty without begging anyone to notice.
Cassia’s mouth softened, though mischief still sat in one corner. “Wear this, Celly.”
I touched the fabric. “Y’all already picked this out?”
Calista rested a hand on her hip. “Of course. We love you too much to let panic dress you.”
The teasing settled into something quieter.
They’d carried me through the worst season of my life.
Calista came behind me and adjusted one of my locs over my shoulder. Her touch was light, but it held me in place when my spirit wanted to run.
“Celly, talk to us.”
I swallowed and looked down at the gloss in my hand until the gold letters blurred. “Kayden has been tripping since Friday. Every yes, ma’am has a grievance attached.”
Calista nodded. “And Josiah doesn’t sound like a man trying to erase anybody.”
“He’s not,” I whispered.
Corinne held my gaze through the phone. “Then don’t punish yourself before the man even gets here. You can honor what was real and still be open to what God is showing you now. Those two things don’t have to fight unless you make them.”
My throat tightened.
Leilani reached for my hand and squeezed it, her palm warm and salty from chips. “You’re not betraying Jamal because you still have a pulse, Celly.” I looked down fast. Her fingers squeezed again. “And you’re not betraying your babies by letting them see you be a woman, not just their mama.”
Calista stepped back and lifted the outfit. “Put this on.”
I looked at her through the mirror. “You bossy for somebody younger than me.”
Calista lifted her chin. “I’m married. That adds seniority in dating foolishness.”
Cassia rolled her eyes. “Girl, please. You’ve been married five minutes and already act like you wrote Proverbs.”
Calista pointed at her. “And you’re single enough to think a man texting good morning counts as leadership.”
Cassia gasped. “First of all, good morning is foundational.”
Leilani nodded. “It is foundational, but it is not a ministry.”
Corinne clapped once through the phone. “Amen.”
My laugh came full and unashamed, surprising me first. My sisters smiled at the sound before they smiled at the joke, and I had to look down because their faces told me something my heart was not ready to name.
They had missed me.
Not the mother moving on fumes.
Not the widow everybody handled carefully.
Me.
By the time I dressed, finished my makeup, fixed my locs, and stepped back into my bedroom, the noise stopped so abruptly I thought something had happened. Calista went still beside the bed. Cassia’s mouth softened. Leilani blinked too fast. Corinne leaned closer to the screen, her teasing gone.
I looked between them. “What?”
Calista smiled first, and it trembled at the edges. “You look like yourself.”
I looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked alive.
I touched the edge of my top. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”
Leilani pushed herself out of the chair and came to stand beside me. “You don’t have to know forever tonight.”
Cassia nodded. “You just need to know whether you want to get in the truck.”
Corinne looked straight into the camera. “Getting in the truck isn’t a marriage license or a pregnancy announcement. It’s just dinner.”
Leilani lifted one finger. “Now, if you want to bust it wide open and tell that man to bring it back, that’s between you, God, and your good knees.”
“Leilani!”
She pressed a hand to her belly and blinked like innocence had ever lived in her body. “I said if. I didn’t say go forth and ride the electrician. I’m still saved.”
I covered my face with both hands. “Get out of my room.”
Calista shook her head. “No. We need to make sure you don’t panic and put that grief committee dress back on.”