by Kennedy Ryan
“Aiko’s your wife?” I ask, looking from him to Ezra to Mona. “Where is she tonight?”
His expression freezes and his eyes widen. “Oh. Aiko’s in Tanzania on safari,” he says. “She’s a photographer, but—”
“They’re not married,” Noah interjects. “Mommy says marriage is a social construct like gender and race.”
A tiny startled silence is broken by us three adults laughing. Noah divides a puzzled look between us.
“It’s not funny,” he says, his little face earnest. “It’s fact.”
“Noah’s right,” Ezra says, turning to me. “Aiko and I aren’t married.”
Damn the breathlessness that seizes my lungs. I assumed they were married when I saw the three of them at the funeral and heard Noah call her Mommy. But it doesn’t matter if he’s married or not. He’s taken.
“Just because they’re not married,” Mona says with a smile, “doesn’t mean you aren’t a family, right? Your parents have been together longer than a lot of married couples.”
“I know.” Noah grins, showing a missing tooth. “Mommy doesn’t want Daddy to put a ring on it.”
“And Beyoncé shall teach them the way that they should go.” Mona laughs.
“I didn’t realize you’d started a school,” I say. “That’s amazing, Ezra.”
“Thank you.” He shrugs, a gesture I remember from when we were kids to downplay praise and attention. “Like I said at the funeral, your father convinced me I should when I ran into him.”
“Then it’s only fitting you’d receive an award in his name.” I twist the gold ring on my thumb Daddy gave me years ago. “It sounds incredible, what you’re doing at the school.”
“We’re on summer break.” Ezra hesitates, his glance fixed at some point on the floor, and then lifted to look me directly in the eye. “But you should come by sometime when you’re in town. How long are you here?”
The question probably only feels loaded to me. Maybe the intensity of his stare, the heat generated by his nearness, is my imagination, but I can’t look up when I answer, staring at my fresh manicure.
“Um, a couple of weeks,” I say. “I’m taking some time between campaigns.”
“We have to hang out,” Mona says. “The Three’s Company crew. Can’t we get together for lunch or something?”
“Oh.” I look up to find Ezra watching me closely, waiting. “Sure. That would be great.”
“You used to love barbecue,” she says. “You gotten all bougie on us, or you still okay with getting a little messy with your food?”
“It’s been too long,” I admit. “I’d love some good barbecue.”
“You’re thinking Tips?” Ezra asks Mona.
“Yeah. It’s this new place near Ponce City Market,” she says. “What do you have going on tomorrow?”
“This guy’s got a play date.” Ezra nods to Noah. “He’s leaving me all day to go to Stone Mountain.”
“Yup,” Noah says, his smile wide. “You guys can keep my dad company.”
“What do you ladies say?” Ezra asks us both, but looks at me. “You wanna keep me company?”
It’s like that moment at the funeral when we could’ve exchanged numbers. It felt like a risk then. With this invisible live wire that seems to connect me to him, it still is.
Before I can reply, my mother walks up to join us.
“Ezra Stern,” she says, a slight smile tugging at her lips. “Lord above, it is you. I hadn’t looked at the final list so you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw you and heard your name.”
“It’s me,” Ezra says, his smile tentative. “How are you, Mrs. Allen?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone and got stingy with your hugs,” Mama says, resting her hands on her hips.
“No, ma’am.” Ezra reaches down to squeeze my much shorter mother.
“Who would have thought?” Mama pats his back and then pulls away to peer up at him. “Tall as your daddy. It’s good to see you.”
It is? The last time she saw Ezra was the night of the argument. She did everything in her power to convince me I shouldn’t look for him and seemed satisfied when my defiant efforts to find him proved fruitless.
“Good seeing you, too,” Ezra says.
“How are your parents doing?” Mama asks, her tone polite and only mildly interested in the couple who used to be like family to us.
“My father passed away a few years ago.” Sadness flits through Ezra’s dark blue eyes, making them that near-purple color they’d become when he felt something deeply. Everything else about him may have changed, but at least that is the same. “Mom’s doing well. She remarried last year.”
“I’m so sorry about your father.” Mama squeezes Ezra’s hand. “Please give Ruth my best.”
“I sure will.” He turns to his son. “This is Noah, Mrs. Allen, the only grandchild and subsequently, spoiled rotten. Noah, this is Mrs. Allen, Kimba’s mom.”
“Hi.” He glances up through long lashes at my mother. “My bubbe lives in New York.”
“Ezra, you used to call your grandmother Bubbe, too. Ruth was so devastated when she passed.” Compassion gathers in Mama’s eyes. “Poor Ruth, losing so much.”
“Mrs. Allen.” A slim woman wearing glasses and a semi-anxious expression steps into our circle. “The board wants a few photos with you. You, too, Kimba.”
“Thank you, Brenda,” she says. “We better go. It was so good seeing you again, Ezra and Mona. Lovely meeting you, Noah.”
“What about lunch tomorrow?” Mona says quickly, taking my arm. “We need to hang, girl. Catch up. It’ll be fun.”
Ezra doesn’t speak, but the muscle in his jaw draws tight beneath his skin. He’s looking down at the ground in that deliberate way he used to have. A casual posture that did little to hide his alertness. At least, not from me. Do I still know him?
“Kimba!” Mama says from a few feet away, already lining up for pictures. Something akin to anxiety marks her expression when her glance flicks between Ezra and me. “Come on.”
I hear it again. Our parents’ raised voices. The angry demands that separated me from my best friend. The desolation of watching from my porch as he left, knowing somehow, despite what he said, that it was for good.
“Say noon?” Mona asks. “Give me your number and I’ll text you the address.”
Ezra does glance at me then, and the look in his eyes wills me to say yes, even as Mama’s expression urges me to pull away.
Not again.
“Noon?” I grab Mona’s phone, punching in my number. “I can’t wait.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ezra
“More water, sir?”
The server doesn’t look much older than the girls at YLA, but if I’m not mistaken, she’s checking me out. Mona and Aiko always say I’m bad at picking up on these things, but she’s come to my table four times in five minutes offering water, and every time, the looks are bold enough that even I know what’s up.
“Uh, no.” I give her a polite smile. “I’ll order something when my friends get here.”
“Okay.” She points to her chest…name tag. “Cherise. Just holla if you need me.”
I give her another polite smile, this one a dismissal.
My phone rings and I know it’s Mona before I even look at the screen.
“Let me guess,” I say, already smiling. “You’re running late.”
“You don’t know my life.”
We both laugh because I very much do know her life, and she knows mine. Except I haven’t told her about the breakup. Yet.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“Well, my cousin Alicia and I needed to run by this shop.”
Flea market.
“And we were supposed to start early, but got behind,” she says. “I’ll be there fifteen minutes, tops. Kimba there yet?”
“Not yet.” But if she comes soon, I’ll have fifteen minutes alone with her.
“Some things never cha
nge,” Mona says. “You were always early, I was always late, and Kimba was always—”
“Right on time,” I say as Kimba walks into Tips and surveys the Saturday lunch crowd. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
“K, bye.”
I wave to get Kimba’s attention, smiling in a way I hope is normal. I don’t feel normal. I feel…jittery, like my body resumed the adolescent state from when we were friends before. My palms are sweating. My heart is pounding. I’m this close to shoving my hands in my pockets even though I’m sitting down.
But she’s so damn beautiful.
I’m not the only one who notices. A few men here with their girls cast discreet looks Kimba’s way as she walks by, her stride confident, her generous curves shown off to perfection in the orange dress that stops a little above her knees. Curls riot around her face and brush her shoulders. Her makeup is light, but flawless. She looks…expensive. Even though she’s dressed simply, sophistication clings to her as faithfully as the dress clings to her body. And when she gets close enough, her scent floats around me and makes me want to breathe so deep she’s the only thing I can smell. It’s lemony with something earthier beneath.
Cocoa butter.
She always wore it when we were kids. Her mother practically bathed them in it. Hell, more than once Mrs. Allen said I was ashy and randomly slathered it on me. Detecting the familiar scent beneath the light citrus makes me feel like somewhere under all this sophistication, she’s still the girl I knew.
I stand when she reaches the table, opening my arms like it’s natural, like I get to hold her every day, when it’s actually been so long. Her hesitation is a millisecond before she smiles and steps into the hug.
She feels…womanly. Her breasts, soft and full, give against my chest, a seductive press. She’s wearing flats and doesn’t quite reach my chin, and her soft curls brush my jaw. Of their own accord, my hands slide down her back, trace the deep cinch of her waist and settle at the rounded curve of her hips. We both stiffen and our eyes hold, our breath seemingly suspended between us at the contact.
What the hell are my hands thinking?
I step back immediately, hands in the air. I never touch Mona or the other female teachers at YLA that way. I would never presume, but maybe it’s our history, how close Kimba and I once were, how badly I want to know her again, that tricked me into a familiarity I haven’t earned.
“I’m so sorry. I—”
“It’s okay,” she cuts in with a quick smile. “It’s good to see you, too.”
I laugh in a way that only mocks myself and gesture for her to sit down.
“Let me guess,” she says, her smile wide and white against glowing coppery skin. “Mona’s running late.”
“Got it in one. She’s on her way. She and Alicia hit every flea market within a ten-mile radius on Saturdays in search of their next great treasure.”
“You can find some amazing stuff in flea markets.”
“Somehow, I’m having trouble picturing you there,” I say dryly.
“Don’t be fooled. You can take the girl out of the A, but you can’t take the A out of the girl. I could roll down to College Park right now and rip through a flea market.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“I said I could.” She winks and takes a dainty sip of the water Cherise left on the table. “I’ll leave the flea markets to Mona.”
We laugh, and I turn my attention to Cherise, headed for us with her notepad.
“Y’all ready to order?” she drawls, much more businesslike, but still friendly, now that Kimba has joined me.
“We’re waiting on one more,” I tell her. “But do you still have those fried pickles? I didn’t see them on the menu.”
“Yep.” She gives me a teasing grin. “You must be a regular.”
“Regular enough. We bring our students here sometimes. The school isn’t far.”
“Which school?” She tilts her head and frowns.
“Young Leaders Academy of Atlanta.”
“Oh my God!” Her face lights up. “My cousin Tribbie goes there.”
“I know Tribbie. Seventh grade. She’s in the chorus. Alto. Beautiful voice.”
“And can’t pay her to sing at church on Sundays.” Cherise laughs. “My auntie says it’s been so good for her. She also said you don’t charge and it’s a private school. How y’all manage that?”
“Fundraising.” I shrug. ”Generous donors from the community. Grants.”
“Well, she loves it. Her grades are better and she—” Cherise shoots Kimba a self-conscious glance. “Oh. I’m sorry.” She clears her throat and says, “I’ll get those pickles right out. Did you want something other than water, ma’am?”
“Water’s fine for now,” Kimba replies with a smile, watching me speculatively when Cherise leaves. “Sounds like you’re doing good work. Not that I doubted it. Daddy wouldn’t have selected you if you weren’t.”
“Running into him was such a fluke, but sometimes what we call a fluke is fate, at least I like to think so.”
“What’d you guys talk about? What’d he say?”
The hero worship for her father that so characterized her as a child is still in her eyes. I see that hunger for every detail of a loved one you didn’t get nearly enough time with at the end. That was how I felt when my grandmother died, asking my mom dozens of questions she didn’t want to answer, pouring over photo albums so I could see my bubbe at each stage of her life. Every detail was precious and made me feel closer to her.
“He said exactly what I needed to hear,” I tell her because it’s true. “I wasn’t sure I should start the school—wasn’t sure where to start, but he probed to figure out the things I was most passionate about.” I laugh, the details of that fateful meeting coming back to me with a rush of fondness and respect for the man who was such a huge part of my life when I was a kid, and who was so notably absent after the night of the dance.
“He used to say your mission starts with people.” Kimba brushes the gold ring on her thumb. “And your passions should fit on a napkin.”
“Yup. He asked me about the kinds of students I wanted to help, and he jotted it down on a napkin while I talked.”
“What’d you say?” she asks, her stare a welcome weight on my face. “What’d he write?”
I don’t answer, but reach into my back pocket, pull out my wallet and extract the folded square I rarely take out, handling it like it’s antique and fragile and worth preserving. When I spread it open on the table, she gasps, a smile blossoming on her mouth and her eyes shining with sudden unshed tears.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen his handwriting.” She traces the loops and curves of the brusquely written words with one finger. The ink is faded, but the words are still legible.
Poor. Underserved. At risk. Bright. Ambitious. Capable. Hardworking.
And that’s my kids. Those are the people, the families YLA is reaching, is helping. Even though I rarely take this little slip of vision out, it has guided me the last few years.
“What was on your napkin?” I ask, unable to look anywhere but at the woman seated in front of me. I was bowled over by her beauty when I saw her on television, even at the funeral and at the event the other night, but she was a symbol—almost untouchable. This woman, right now, at my table, sitting so close I can’t escape her scent, impresses me with her heart. She’s tough and smart and takes no shit. You only have to spend a few minutes with her to know that. But she’s also real and soft and warm. I touched her with my hands, and as she discreetly swipes a tear from the corner of her eye, I see I’ve touched her heart.
“Um, let’s see.” She clears her throat, slants a smiling glance at me from beneath long lashes. “What did I write on my napkin? Disenfranchised. Marginalized. Forgotten. Left behind.”
“And your mission?”
“To put leaders in power who care about the people I do; who’ll work hard as hell to make life better for them. I could have done it a h
undred other ways, but when I worked on my first campaign, politics chose me.”
“It’s a tough game.”
“I’m a tough girl.” She drains her glass of water. “Ask all the people who call me a bitch. They’ll tell you.”
“I see more than that.”
“Maybe you see what you want to see.”
“I want to see you.”
The thread of awareness that has been slowly tugging me closer to her pulls taut. She looks up, her eyes widening and then narrowing at my words. I want to answer the questions in her eyes. She knows when someone is attracted to her. She knows about Aiko, about my family. Her unasked question hangs in the air between us. I want to reassure her that I’m no player and explain something to her I haven’t even told Noah or Mona yet.
“So your napkin tells me what you’re doing now,” she says. “What have you been up to the last twenty years or so?” Her dark eyes soften. “After that night, where’d you go, Ezra Stern?”
“Jewish camp.”
“I know that,” she laughs. “And then? Like…everything kind of disintegrated. A few weeks after you and your mom left for New York, your dad left, too. Next thing I know, there’s a For Sale sign in your front yard. You guys disappeared.”
“I went to camp as planned for a few weeks, and then we moved to Italy.”
“Italy? I didn’t expect you to say that.”
“I didn’t expect it either. Dad got that job he’d been wanting, but it took us overseas.”
“How was that?”
“It was hard at first. I missed…”
You.
That one unspoken word lands on the table between us, invisible but completely present. Kimba bites her lip and glances down at her menu.
“I missed everyone,” I continue. “Missed home, but then I realized it was the best thing that could have happened.”
“How so?”
“We moved into this neighborhood where several basketball players lived.”
“Like, American basketball players?”
“Yeah. Guys who never made it to the NBA, used to be in the league, couldn’t get a contract. Whatever. They ended up playing for an Italian team. And guess what?”