If you’ve been wondering why I stopped posting, or if I’m leaving you hanging… well, it just might be a little bit of the latter. I’ve opted to take White (k)Night and turn in into a complete novel; and in embarking upon this, I decided early this year, that I would stop posting any part of the story after Act II, that my readers would have to wait until I got published before they could see Act III. So I am currently crafting the next Intermission/Enter the Mission chapter for the story, which I WILL post here, and then after that, we’ll just have to wait and see if a publisher is willing to take a chance on me.

I promise I’ll do everything in my power not to let you all down, though. I do intend, once I complete writing Kandy Reign in full, to hustle, hustle, hustle out to publishers and try to get this work put out somewhere. In the meantime, hang tight, tell your friends if you can/spread the word about the blog, and thanks so very much. Y’all made it worth every word.
With kindest regards,

Bradford J. Howard, Author

White (k)Night: The Kandy Reign Khronicles

“Why, thank you, baby sister!” I told the voice on the other end of the phone, feeling a huge grin spread across my face for what seemed like the millionth time today. “I surely do appreciate it.”

“Did you get Daddy’s gift?”

“Did I?” I looked over at the vase full of sunflowers that had been delivered to my apartment door earlier this morning and felt my grin expand even more. There was a reason my Daddy was the number one man in my life, even if at times I didn’t feel I was number one in his. I resisted the urge to walk back over and admire my bouquet again; it was probably easier to resist since I had read the card attached to the flowers so many times already that I’d memorized the message written on the inside. “Baby, we have our disagreements, but I am so blessed to have you as a daughter. I am proud every day – not just on your birthday – of the beautiful young woman you have grown into. Happy Birthday, Kandy Cane. I love you! – Dad”

“So what you got planned, anyway?” Koral asked. “I know you’re going OUT for your birthday. Getting your college party on and all!”

“Psh, not even,” I replied. “Well, not tonight, anyway. It’s still a school night, you know. NEVER go out on a Thursday night when you have class Friday morning. Learn from my mistakes sophomore year, young one.”

“Okay, okay,” Koral said, laughing. “I’ll take your word for it. Well, are you doing anything at all?”

“Actually,” I started, “You kind of called me in the middle of my other celebration.”

“Other celebration?” Koral asked. “I thought you said you weren’t partying tonight.”

“Koral, there are other ways of celebrating one’s birthday.”

“Oh, is that so, big sister? Like what?” She paused for a minute as if she was thinking about something, then suddenly gasped in surprise. “Oh my gosh! You must giving that boy of yours some birthday nasty! What was his name again? I know it was the name of a cookie… Chip, maybe?”

“Chip?! Really, Koral?” I almost started to correct her, but decided against it since I was laughing so hard. “And besides… ‘birthday nasty’?! What kind of girl do you take me for? That’s disgusting! I’m not like your fast-ass cheerleader friends, thank you. I’m a grown woman!

“And speaking of which, it’s about that time for me to do some grown-woman things. You wouldn’t know nothing about that!”

“Whatever, Kandyce,” Koral replied, and I could hear the bitterness in her voice. “I’ll be 18 in a few months, finally!”

“And you’ll STILL be my little sister. 18 don’t make you grown, young one. That’s 21!”

“Ugh, you get on my nerves! You’re lucky it’s your birthday, or I’d be capping on you,” she said, though I could hear her laughing through the receiver.

“Um-hum. But it is, so you ain’t! Anyway, I’ll call y’all this weekend, okay? Thanks again for the birthday wishes, Koral!”

“No problem, big sister!” Koral replied. “Love you and enjoy the rest of your birthday! Oh, and use protection, please! Some girl in the freakin’ Honor Society just got pregnant, I found out. I swear it’s a different girl every six months getting knocked up over here. I’m not ready to be Aunt Koral, you know…”

“BYE, Koral!” I was still giggling at my baby sister’s rant even after I’d hung up the phone. She could be so crazy sometimes, I thought, shaking my head. But as much as I hated to admit it, that was why I loved her so much. Immediately after getting off the phone with Koral, I hopped back onto Facebook Mobile, anxious to read and check all the birthday wishes that had been added to my profile since I’d last checked it.

Obviously, it was now Thursday, March 19. On this day 22 years ago, the Lord so loved the world that he blessed it with Kandyce Jasmine White. And so far, my birthday was shaping out to be one of the best ones ever. Looking over all the posts on my facebook page, I felt the love. Even the basic generic “Happy Birthday” posts were making me feel better. That, coupled with my daddy’s flowers and…

“You say you don’t trust him because he been locked up/ You say that he’s trouble ‘cuz he out in the strip club/ But you were young once, so you should under-staaand/ You say that you know, ‘cuz you been a witness…”

The ringtone had interrupted my facebook session and completely caught me off-guard. Well, not completely, because I’d certainly heard it a few times today. But this had to be AT LEAST the fourth time he’d called me today. The ringtone was, of course, Destiny’s Child’s song, “My Man.” Even though he’d really bothered me suggesting that we take that “break,” Graham still WAS my man and I definitely still cared about him and keeping us intact. But I hadn’t really talked to him since he’d left that message on my phone Monday. He didn’t call me at all on Tuesday, which I took as a slap in the face. Perhaps he was just trying to avoid any awkwardness (or, more than likely, me going off on him); but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t taken that some kind of way. It really felt like Graham didn’t give a damn about even working on whatever it was he felt was a problem. He’d wanted some time apart and his actions made it seem like he was taking advantage of our little “break” to go on a vacation of his own.

Needless to say, when he finally did get at me on Wednesday, I wasn’t trying to hear from him. Okay, scratch that. I did want to hear from him, I did want to hear his voice, but I just wasn’t trying to hear him talk. In a sense, it was probably for Graham’s own good. I was still mad at him, and I was certain that I would’ve found something wrong with whatever he might have had to say. But today, Graham had tried to get in touch with me… and he HAD had some random sophomore – no doubt one of the guys they had on Kappa line – “deliver” a chocolate-colored teddy bear holding some Milk Duds to me in Professor Williams’s class earlier. I stared down at the phone for what seemed like forever, the ringtone still blaring throughout the living room. And then I looked up.

Stokely was now standing outside of the kitchen in his apartment, staring at me with an almost worried expression on his face. I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking it, too. We locked eyes, the room quiet except for “My Man” still playing.

“Well, that’s him, right?” Stokely finally said, breaking the silence. I nodded. “Are you going to answer that?” I looked down at the phone, then back up at him. The very last thing I needed was some kind of drama on my birthday, I thought. But still… hearing from Graham was the only thing missing from today, MY day…

I sighed deeply and pressed a button on the phone. And almost immediately after, I regretted my decision.

***

“Hello, you’ve reached Kandyce White. I’m probably busy, but if you leave your name, number, and a message, I promise to return your call as soon as possible. Thanks, and take care!”

“FUCK!” I shouted. I hung up the phone before the answering machine “beep” even finished. “Damn, man! Why the hell isn’t she picking up the phone?”

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me, bro,” Vincent said. “I for damn sure don’t know.”

“Nigga, didn’t I warn your ass?”

“Man, don’t start, Lloyd,” I told him. “This ain’t the time, man.”

“I mean, shit, I hate to say I told you so,” Lloyd replied. “I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t HAVE to. But here we are… Niggas never want to listen until after the fact, until after something bad happens or things don’t go their way.”

“Fine, fine! You’re right, okay?” I gave in. “So I’m listening now. Tell me what I’m supposed to do. I mean, hell, I’m just trying to talk to my girl on her birthday, and she won’t even pick up the damn phone for that? I sent her ass a damn gift today! I’m trying to make it right even though she’s mad at me, and this is the thanks I get?” Lloyd simply looked at me like I was crazy. “What?! It’s true!”

Thursday night. And when I should have been kicking it with my girl on her day, I was instead hanging with my frat at Earl and Lloyd’s apartment, preparing for the big event next week. Lloyd had actually planned for us to work on things Wednesday. But when I’d brought him up to speed about Kandyce’s giving me the “silent treatment,” he decided instead to move things ahead to Thursday. I’d thought he was doing that on purpose, just so I would end up missing her birthday; now, though, it seemed like he’d known something I didn’t, or at least anticipated Kandyce’s actions well.

“Aye, y’all get back on task!” Earl barked. “Shit. This ain’t the Tyra show.”

“The Tyra Show?” Vincent asked with a laugh. “Nigga, you must watch that shit because that was random as hell.”

“Right!” Frankie piped up. “Bird probably be on the sly rooting for those young girls with self-esteem issues. Crying and shit.”

“Hey, cut that out!” Earl lashed out, and we all started laughing at him. “Even if I DO watch Tyra, so what?”

“Dawg, why you so sensitive?” Frankie asked in a mock female voice, reaching out to touch Earl on his shoulder. We cracked up even harder when Earl jerked away from him.

“Man, that ain’t even right!” Earl said, though he was laughing with us by now. “Y’all play too much. Shit. Anyway… Vince, you said you booked the Union, right?”

“Yes, sir. We have the whole area reserved there, as well as outside where the general University Plaza is. It was just backup in case y’all might have wanted to either bring the guys in from outside, or just do the probate outside.”

“Sounds good,” Earl replied. “Sounds good. What about the posters for the event? How are we coming along on that?”

“I’ve been working on it,” I spoke up. Publicity for the event had been my responsibility. “It’s pretty much complete now, I had just wanted to play around with different ideas on photoshop and all. I’ve been distracted for a minute…”

“Clearly,” Frankie mumbled.

“I’ve been distracted for a minute,” I repeated myself, sidestepping Frankie’s comment, “but y’all should have the image tonight. Get me y’all’s feedback early enough and I’ll try to have things at the printer tomorrow afternoon for pick up Saturday.”

“Good,” Earl said. “Good shit! It seems like for the most part, we’re all good to go for next Friday, then.”

“Pretty much,” Lloyd agreed. “I’m admittedly excited about these boys coming in, man. I see a lot of potential in them.”

“Yeah, me too. But hey, hold up, y’all. I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Nigga, you ain’t have to announce that shit!” Vincent said. “I mean, this is your place. You come and go as you please.”

“Man, I’m just saying, youngin, in case y’all start talking about something. I want to be in the loop, too! Shit.” We all chuckled again as Earl left the living room and headed into his bedroom. After a minute or two had passed, I nudged Lloyd.

“What?” he asked, looking at me with an irritated expression on his face.

“Dawg, tell me what I need to do about Kandyce!”

“Man, nigga, let that girl alone, man,” Frankie said. “Didn’t you say y’all were taking a vacation from each other or something? Shit, for right now, you single. Enjoy that shit, man, and stop worrying about Kandyce.”

“See, that’s how you know.” Vincent remarked.

“That’s how you know what?” Frankie asked, looking at him. I was curious to know myself.

“That’s how you know this nigga Frankie never been in a relationship. Not a long one, anyway.”

“Man, I hate yo’ ass, Vincent. Putting my business out there like that.”

“Dawg, when we were on line,” Vincent started, “did you not tell EVERYBODY that the longest you’d ever stayed with a chick was three months?”

“No, nigga, I did not say that at all.” Frankie replied. “You misquoting me and putting words in my mouth. Three months?” He sucked his teeth and looked away from all of us, and for a minute, I thought he was actually offended. “It was more like three weeks.” We all burst out laughing.

“Man, Frankie… you dog-ass nigga,” Vincent said between laughs. “Man… okay, but look, for real, though, Graham. The obvious answer to your question, is to ask her girlfriend.”

“What?!” Lloyd asked.

“I’m telling him he should ask Kandyce’s girlfriend. You know, her best friend. Everybody knows that when a dude is in the dark about why his girl is mad at him, you can count on her best friend to shed some light on the situation.”

“Okay, first, that only works if you’re cool with the girl and her best friend. And second, hell naw, Graham should NOT do that shit.” Lloyd turned to look at me. “I’m telling you, you call ol’ girl and it’s going to do more harm than good.”

“Man, don’t listen to Lloyd’s paranoid, ‘the one that got away’ ass, man,” Vincent said. “Trust me, it’s never failed me. If you had an issue with Kandyce, who’s the first person you would think to go to? Je’Nah, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Yeah, Je’Nah would… actually, Je’Nah would be who I would go to if I thought Kandyce had an issue. Kandyce would probably actually go to… aww, hell.”

“What?” Vincent asked.

“I would probably have to ask Clarity.”

“Okay. So?”

“Man, it’s not that simple, Vincent.” On the sly, I exchanged a knowing glance with Lloyd. “Clarity and I don’t always get along.”

“Dawg, that doesn’t even matter,” Vincent assured me. “It’s not about you and ol’ girl. It’s about you and Kandyce.”

“And you honestly believe how Clarity may feel about Graham, won’t play a role in what she tells him?” Lloyd asked.

“I honestly do. She may not like him, but she knows Kandyce does, right? I know Clarity. She can be a little stubborn and shit, but she’s not like most of the girls on campus that just try to be messy. I’d trust her before I trust Je’Nah’s ass.”

“Man, you still mad at her about that party?” Frankie piped up, chuckling. “Vince, that was a whole year ago, bro.”

“Frankie, I’m telling you! I could see if we all went to different schools or something. But no… not only did we cross on the same campus, but we’re Sandz, we crossed the same damn year… and Je’Nah STILL charged my ass full-price at the door for that damn party after midnight! Hello, Greek discount?! That shit wasn’t cool!”

“Okay, okay,” I broke in. “But back on task. You really think I should call Clarity.”

“Ye-“ “NO.”

“Man, stop blocking his ass, dawg!” Vincent told Lloyd.

“I’m not blocking Graham, I’m trying to save his ass,” Lloyd corrected him. He turned to me again. “Graham, I told your ass the last time and you didn’t listen. You’re going to let history repeat itself?”

“Lloyd,” I started, sighing deeply. “At the least, it’s worth a try.” Lloyd threw his hands in the air in frustration.

“Niggas! Damn… y’all don’t listen for SHIT!”

“Lloyd, calm down, man. It’s not that crucial,” I heard Frankie say. But by that time, I was already up from my place on the living room couch and walking towards the back porch of the apartment. This was a conversation I’d need to have in private, I thought. I unlocked the glass back door and made my way out onto the apartment balcony.

“Oh, so niggas ain’t good enough to cake in front of their friends now?” Vincent cracked, but I waved him off and closed the glass door behind me. I broke out my Blackberry and dialed Clarity’s phone number. I hope she can put her beef with me aside for this, I thought as the phone started ringing. It’s like Vincent said, this ain’t about me and her, this is about me and Kandyce.

The phone rang a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. Then

“You have reached the Georgia Mobile voicemail box of… Clarity Evans.” Man, this is some bullshit! I couldn’t help thinking. Nobody’s answering their phones for me? Really, though? The only other person I could think to call was Stokely, and I didn’t know if he was going to be willing to help me out… My phone suddenly buzzed. I pulled it away from my ear and saw that I had a call waiting. I felt my heart leap into my throat when I saw who it was. I swallowed hard, then answered the call.

“H-Hello?” I asked. I was almost mad at myself for sounding so damn nervous.

“Hey, Graham. You called me, right?”

“Yeah, I did, actually, Clarity. Umm… listen, I was just calling to see if maybe you knew where Kandyce was.”

“That’s a little… I dunno, stalker-ish, don’t you think, Graham?” she asked, and I could detect the sarcasm in her voice. “If I were honest, I’d think she didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Look, we had a falling out,” I admitted. “She just hasn’t been answering her phone, and it’s her birthday and all. I just really wanted to get in touch with her, you know.”

“That’s thoughtful of you.”

“Yeah. So yeah…” I expected her to say something back, but she was silent for a moment. I half-wondered if she had hung up on me. But then

“Well, I wish I could be of more help to you, Graham, but I don’t even know where she is. I haven’t seen her since about 5 PM today. Sorry.” Damn! Part of me wondered if Clarity was lying for her friend, but she certainly sounded genuine.

“She’s not there with you?” I asked again.

“Nope, she’s not with me. I’m not even at my apartment, though,” Clarity admitted. “I’m still on campus, actually. Camped out in the library.” I chuckled at that. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “Just… you’re always in the library. I never really see you out that much.”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“Not at all. I just remember that’s how you were even back a few years ago, always so studious and stuff. I admired that. I don’t know if I ever told you.”

“I don’t think you did. But thanks. I appreciate that. Well, again, I’m in the library, so… probably not a good idea for me to be on the phone while I’m in here.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “Yeah, I’ll let you go.” Just then, a very random thought flashed through my head.

“Clarity?”

“Yep?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Stokely is, would you?” Again, she went silent. I couldn’t blame her, because I knew how random – paranoid even – the question may have seemed. But the thought had suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from Stokes at all today. And since I hadn’t been able to reach Kandyce, either…

“He’s with me.” she said abruptly.

“What?” I asked, not sure if I had heard her right.

“Stokely’s here in the library with me.”

“Well, can I talk to him?”

“He went off somewhere,” she replied. “I promise I’ll have him call you as soon as he comes back.”

“Alright, that’s fine. Thanks again, Clarity.”

“No problem. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” Yeah, I am, too, I couldn’t help thinking.

“It happens,” I told her. “Bye.” She hung up before I did.

Almost immediately on instinct, I wanted to call Stokely. I actually felt bad about it, too, being suspicious of my best friend like that. But there was something I just couldn’t shake. I feel like I’m missing something, I thought. Surely, Stokely could help me figure out what that “something” is… I dialed his number.

“Please leave your message for… Stokely Night!…”

I hung up before the voicemail message even finished. Got damn voicemail! I couldn’t help thinking. That’s the one common thread about everything tonight. What a fucked-up night this was turning out to be. I sighed deeply and shook my head, then slid back open the glass porch door.

“Well, bro?” Vincent asked as soon as I was back inside. There were equally anxious looks on all the guys’ faces.

“Clarity didn’t answer her phone,” I told him with a shrug, and my frat brothers all groaned.

“GSU chicks,” Frankie said, shaking his head. “They’re always on some other stuff.”

I sat back down and joined the guys. I wasn’t sure if I had lied about Clarity for their benefit or mine. But for sure, I felt horrible. I felt something I hadn’t felt in years, like my stomach had just bottomed out and my mouth was dry. Kandyce was really being cold to me, and for no… okay, maybe she had a reason to be that way, but this was going too far. Not even talking to me on her birthday? Not even returning my calls? Kandyce was tripping hard. And here I was, sitting with my frat feeling sick. And for what? A “break.” Not even a break-up…

“Graham!” a voice suddenly called, pulling me out of my thoughts. I blinked, then looked around the room. Again, all my frat brothers were looking at me.

“What?” I asked them.

“Dawg,” Lloyd started. “We’ve been trying to get your attention for a minute. Your phone rang.“

“Huh?” I felt my eyebrows furrow as I tried to process what Lloyd had said. My phone rang? Oh! I didn’t even bother trying to hide my excitement in front of them. I turned to the side and snatched up my phone from beside me on the arm of the couch. I checked my missed call. When I saw who it was, my jaw dropped before I was able to catch it.

The Monday after Spring Break. I had just finished my last class for the day and was now sitting in my car, listening to the The-Dream and Mariah Carey duet, “My Love,” as it played on my radio. I had always bumped The-Dream when I had a lot on my mind, and I was certainly hoping the music might either clear my head or give me a sign of what to do; so far, it wasn’t working. I stared down at my phone, half-hoping it would dial itself and make the call I was still debating.

Between the time Kandyce left Dallas up until yesterday,when I’d returned back to Georgia for school, I’d had a lot on my mind. Kandyce’s revelation had been, to say the least, grounding. It made me feel a lot worse that I had been silent at the dinner. Honestly, I hadn’t been silent because I didn’t want to stand up for Kandyce. It wasn’t that at all. I just… I can’t explain it. But her story had me worried. So worried in fact, that I had broken one of my cardinal Graham-isms: Relationships are partnerships. When you ask people other than your partner about problems in your relationship, the partnership becomes a party. And what that third-party THINKS – as opposed to what you and your partner should KNOW – comes to set the terms for your relationship.

I had needed a truly objective opinion as to where I stood with Kandyce. I couldn’t consult my parents. Pops had pissed me off to no end (in fact, I wouldn’t talk to him for the rest of the week until it was time for me to go), and I knew my mother would spend more time trying to reassure me as opposed to answer any questions I might have about Kandyce. So, on Friday evening, I’d called two people.
***

“Graham, we had this conversation before, dawg.”

“No, bro, we definitely did not,” I had told Lloyd, and I knew I was right. I certainly would have remembered a conversation about me doubting in Kandyce.

“Yeah, bro, we definitely DID.” I heard him suck his teeth on the other end of the line. “Don’t you remember, at McDonald’s that night?I told you not to let distractions fuck up your opportunity with a quality girl. I’m trying to get you to not repeat my history.

“Besides,” he continued, “why are your panties so in a bunch behind this girl, anyway? I thought you and Kandyce were straight now. You brought her down to meet the fam this week, didn’t you?”
***

“Yeah, but… look, we had this family dinner, right? And I love my Pops, I really do, but he did the absolute damn FOOL back at home. He actually invited some girl I knew from high school to family dinner, too.”

“Oooh! That’s scandalous!” she’d said, laughing on the other end of the line.

“That’s not funny. Last I checked, your name was Wendy, not Ashley.” I’d called her Saturday afternoon.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist,” she’d replied. “You know Recess was my cartoon back in the day. The phrase was fitting for this occasion.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I’d said dismissively, trying to get us back on topic. “Anyway, like I was saying… so Pops invited her to family dinner and Kandyce was there, too. So needless to say, my ass was trapped and I’m sure Kandyce was pissed off at some of that. Pops rode her all night, too. I tried to stand up for her as best as I could, but somewhere along the way, I just froze up.”
***

“ ‘Froze up?’ ” Lloyd repeated. “Nigga, you a grown-ass man. If your pops insults your girl, then you need to remind him WHY she’s your girl.”

“I know, I know,” I conceded.

“So she was mad at you, huh?”

“Hell yeah. Even though she didn’t really say it out loud, I could tell. She had that face. You know that face all chicks put on when they’re pissed, with the lip pouting out and their eyes all narrow…”
***

“I don’t have that face!” Wendy had objected. “Or rather, I don’t have that face when I’m mad. I make that face when somebody makes me-”

“Angry,” I cut her off. “You make that face when somebody makes you angry.”

“Among other things.” I heard her giggle like she was up to something on the other end of the phone. “Anyway, where were you? Kandy got mad at you, right?”

“Ah, that’s right. KANDYCE seemed mad at me afterwards when we were in my bedroom.”

“You let her sleep with you in your bedroom? Back home?”

“Why is that so surprising?” I’d asked her, unable to ignore that something extra I’d heard in her voice when she’d asked that question.

“It’s not. Never mind. Go on.”

“Well, I was trying to get through my frustration with my father over the whole dinner thing, and also trying to cheer her up, so I was… you know… but she didn’t want to. She shut me down.”
***

“So that’s what this is about? You mad at her because she didn’t get let you get some?”

“No, Lloyd,” I’d told him. “I mean… I’d be lying if said that didn’t matter. She shut me down that night, and she shut me down last night when I tried to go over her place.”

“Okay, and? Nigga, you can live without a nut. It’s not like she went celibate on your ass, and if it’s that crucial, you can always use your own resources.” He’d laughed at his own joke. “But for real, dawg. You can’t be mad at her just because she didn’t let you smash, what, twice? Did she at least, you know…”
***

“No. Not that, either.”

“Damn! Sucks. No pun intended.” Wendy had laughed her devious giggle again. “I mean, not that it counts for anything, but even if I was mad at you, if you were my man, that wouldn’t have been a problem.” Not the greatest time for her to bring back old memories, I had thought to myself. Stay down, you…

“But really, the sex thing wasn’t that crucial. The biggest thing was what happened the day after, when I took her to the airport.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I brought her to DFW to catch her flight, right? And she still hadn’t been talking to me since the night before. I took her to lunch and everything beforehand, still nothing. So anyway, we get there and just before it’s time for her to go, she tells me this story…”
***

“Well, damn,” Lloyd had replied after I’d recounted to him what Kandyce had told me.

“My sentiments exactly.”

“But it’s…” He had trailed off a moment before continuing. “Okay, wait, wait, correct me if I’m wrong, but what’s the big deal about this? I mean, okay… she dropped a bomb on you about her family life, and this is the second one. But I mean, shit, dawg, that means she trusts you. That’s a good thing.”

“Is it?”
***

“I mean, Graham, honestly,” Wendy had started, “when a girl is opening up to you about something that deep, it’s usually because you mean something to her. Opening up about your parents doing you wrong like that, it’s not something we do on the first date. You have to EARN the right to that.”

“What if…” I’d hesitated before asking the question, trying to make sure that I used the right words. “What if I don’t want to earn the right, though?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Alright, just… hear me out, right? I like Kandyce, a lot. We got real close a lot faster than I expected us to. She and I just FIT. But it’s like… okay, we have a song, right?”

“Oh, Lord…”

“And our song is that Keri Hilson song, ‘Knock You Down.’ There’s a part in that song, right, where Kanye says, ‘tell me now can you make it past your Caspers, so we can finally fly off into NASA?’ That’s how I feel about me and Kandyce. I care about her, Wendy. You know that.”

“I do.”

“But I’m just worried that all the stuff she has going on with her fam… I’m worried that it’s too much baggage. I can’t be trying to get close to her and she’s shutting me out or that she has these family issues going on that’s going to prevent her and me from being something. So I really kind of just want… some time to reflect on how I feel about that.”
***

“So wait, wait… lemme get this straight.” Lloyd had paused on his end of the phone for a minute, as if to go over everything I had said. “So you want to basically step away from Kandyce because the girl has issues.”

“Not because she has issues, because she has baggage,” I corrected him. “Baggage that’s not going to be solved overnight. I mean, hell, her family issues, the whole thing with her dad not looking out for her… her pops may singlehandedly have screwed it up for me whereby she’s not going to trust me because she couldn’t trust him.”

“Nigga, that’s EVERY girl! What the hell? We all got skeletons in our closets, man, things we don’t want people to know for whatever reason. You see it as baggage, but that’s her ass opening up and trusting you. Do you know how hard that shit is, bro? To get a girl to trust you these days?”
***

“I mean, I told you, it’s not like every girl just opens up herself like that to any random nigga. Niggas make it hard to trust them. You think you can’t put up with her baggage, Graham?”

“No, Wendy,” I had said, shaking my head. “It’s not like that at all. I can handle her past and shit, no problem. I’m worried that her past is going to keep her from… I don’t know, not letting me close enough to her or what have you. I mean, she’s told me stories about her family twice, Wendy. This is like shit she’s harbored that clearly bothered her. What if she’s like that with me? What if she harbors shit from me about the way she feels? I don’t think she’s ever even told her father about how she feels about those instances.”
***

“Dawg, that’s even BETTER then,” Lloyd had tried to reassure me. “Look… nigga, stop making excuses. For some reason or another, you want to take a break from what appears to be a damned good girl. A break, nigga, like spending some time apart from her. And why? So you can think about whether or not you can deal with her issues? That’s problematic for you in SO many ways, bro. That’s the perfect time for some nigga to scoop her up or, more than likely, for you to get distracted.”

“I won’t get distracted,” I had assured him. “I know how good of a woman Kandyce is. I just want to be certain that she and I can click in spite of her issues. And besides, this is the last week before the probate, right? I definitely want to make sure I get through this without losing any focus.”

“Man, I’ll tell you one last time. Don’t put yourself in a position to make my mistake. Shit, I’ll be honest with you right now JUST so history doesn’t repeat itself. Clarity was quite possibly one of the best things to happen to me at GSU. If there’s one thing I regret most, it’s what went down with her. And you know why it went down that way? Because I let myself get distracted.”

“Distracted?” I’d asked. “What are you-”
***

“I mean, you have a lot coming at you, right?” Wendy had asked, with what sounded like genuine concern in her voice.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Then maybe this break might be good for you.”

“You would say that…”

“Umm, Graham, who told ME back in February that he was losing this number? Who said we were breaking things off? You. Not me. You’re the one calling me now.”

“Yes, because I want an objective female opinion!” I’d retorted.

“Which I’m trying to give you. Maybe you need some time away to get your thoughts together and wrap your head around what Kandy to-”

“Kandyce.”

“Fine, what Kandyce told you. I mean, it was quite a bomb, and that plus what happened at that dinner, it can be a lot to come at you at once. I feel like Kandyce will understand, if she cares about you, about your need to take a break. Besides, it’s not like you’re breaking up with her, right?”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “I’m not breaking up with her, just trying to mull over what she’s told me.
***

“Nigga, lemme finish. If I had stayed focused on what Clarity and I had had, and not on… things would probably be different. For me, and for her. And at the time, I didn’t think about that. At the time, we always think about what we think is good for the right now. We don’t realize until later just by how slim a margin we could have avoided that fuck-up. Just by an inch or a second.

“So, no, nigga. I don’t think you should do that shit. I think if it bothers you, then you should tell Kandyce that. Work the shit out, don’t dance around it for the sake of ‘clearing your head.’ You’re going to ruin a good thing just because you were afraid to say, ‘Hey, I’m worried a bit about what you have going on at home. Is that going to affect me and you.’ But take a break because of baggage? Psh. When Kandyce has a kid by some Asian dude at U-Georgia and another one on the way from some dude at Morehouse, THEN say she has baggage.”
***

I opened my eyes, not realizing I had closed them while I was recalling my respective conversations with Lloyd and Wendy. I leaned my head back against the headrest of the driver’s seat. I really did care about Kandyce, but I just wasn’t sure what the right course of action was with regards to her. Ask her about issues? Or take a moment to ask myself if her issues might keep me from reaching her? I thought. I looked down at the phone again and sighed deeply.

“… They don’t love me, let them wonder why/ I’m here to stay, and they goin’ ‘bye-bye’/ Who’s, the one callin’ you baby?/ Who’s, in love with your ass like crazy?/ Who, who, who’s tryna flag our ship?/ They’re just tryna get the love you give…”

As Mariah Carey’s verse of “My Love” continued to play in the background, I dialed Kandyce’s number and brought the phone up to my ear. I had reached my decision. I just wasn’t entirely sure if it was a good one or a bad one.

—

“Hey, you!” I didn’t know what to be more surprised about – the cheerfulness in his voice, or the fact that he had called at all.

“Hey, back,” I replied. “Well, this is a nice surprise.” He’d chuckled on the other end of the phone.

“You told me to call, and I said I would. I’m a man of my word.”

“Okay, Stokely,” I replied, rolling my eyes at him but happy he couldn’t see the smile that was spreading across my face. It was Monday evening now, roughly three days since my slip-up with Stokely. I had gotten over getting my feelings hurt. Mostly, anyway. The fact that he’d called me like I asked him to made it easier for me to forget about Friday, too.

“So what’s up?” I asked him.

“Well, honestly, I wanted to talk you about something.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, really,” he’d replied. I heard him take a deep breath on the other end of the line. He didn’t say anything for almost a minute.

“Stokely?” I asked. “You alright over there?” I laughed nervously, though I really was kind of worried since he hadn’t responded.

“Nah, I’m good. It’s just… just trying to figure out how to say what I want to say.”

“How about you just, you know, say it?” I suggested.

“You make it sound so easy, Clare,” Stokely said, the sarcasm in his voice all too apparent. “Alright, I’m just going to come out with it. Look, me and you, we’ve go back, right?”

“To Summer Orientation ’05.” We’d both chuckled at that.

“Yeah, Summer ‘O’ ’05. I’m surprised you remember that.” I remember a lot of things you’ve probably forgotten, I just barely prevented myself from saying aloud.

“Well, this whole time,” Stokely continued, “You’ve been just great to me, you know. I mean, you’ve been around for me longer than even Graham. You were the first person I knew at GSU. You always supported me. When I needed something, I always knew I could count on you to give it or help me get it.”

Wait! I thought to myself. Is this… no way. No, Stokely’s not giving me ‘the speech.’ Is he?

“I couldn’t really have asked for a better friend, Clarity. I probably wouldn’t have made it this far at GSU, and especially not in Black GSU, without you.” Part of me hoped he’d just get to the point. I knew what I wanted him to say. I just wanted to know if he was actually going to say it.

“Well, after all this, I wanted to ask you something.” Uh-oh. “And it’s been on my mind for… well, definitely, since last week. And I knew I had to ask you about it now or I’d feel bad about it later, like I missed out on something. Before I put it out there, I want you to just hear the question first, alright? Like don’t get mad or sad or anything, just hear me out first.” Aww hell. He couldn’t be asking me this, not after what happened Friday.

“Clarity…” Yes, Stokely?

“What do you think I should do for Kandyce’s birthday?”

I don’t know what dropped first: my phone onto my bedroom floor, or my heart into my stomach. My eyebrows furrowed as my mind tried to process what had just happened. Did this nigga, I thought, and yes, this time he IS a nigga, just lead me on to ask me about Kandyce? I just KNEW this shit was going to happen! Clare, you pathetic idiot. I can’t believe you let this happen to your ass twice…

A faint mumbling somewhere pulled me out of my thoughts. I suddenly remembered that Stokely was still on the phone. I took a deep breath to regain my composure, picked up my iPhone and brought it back up to my ears.

“Clarity, you still there?” he asked. Hell no, I’m not there, and I’m not going to be there for you anymore for the rest of my life!

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. Well, you’ve pretty much confirmed my suspicions and broke my heart for the second time in three days, but other than that

“I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said, sighing in what sounded like relief. “Anyway, like I was saying, Kandyce’s birthday is Thursday…”

Stokely’s words faded into the background. I sidestepped his conversation with me to have one with myself. What were you THINKING?! Were you even thinking at all? I mean, I don’t know. I honestly had thought that maybe Friday night was a mistake, that maybe Stokely HAD wanted to kiss me on the lips and was just trying to be a gentleman like always.

I just had really, really hoped there was something there between the two of us. I mean, we can’t have been friends for so long and he didn’t feel even the slightest attraction to me? Didn’t he realize that my being there for him and trying to encourage him the first time he went out for Kappa and coming out to United Nations meetings… didn’t he see those signs? Could boys, especially boys who were supposed to be your close friends, really be THAT oblivious? I mean, damn, I still needed to keep my dignity so wearing a “Hey, you! Yes, you! I like you” sign around my neck wasn’t happening. But could I have been any more obvious?

I accepted in that moment that Stokely and I were only meant to be friends. He would never see me in the way he saw Kandyce White, and I would never understand that. It was SO unfair to me. What had Kandyce done to deserve him? I couldn’t help thinking. But I was through with it, for real this time. I had been down that road before a long time ago, changing myself and doing everything for a guy in the name of feelings and getting hurt in the process. At least with Stokely, we’d always only been friends. He’d hurt me, too, but at least Stokely hadn’t so on purpose. I don’t think… it didn’t matter. I would simply be the friend he’d always relied on, the friend he could always count on, everything but the girlfriend.

“So what do you think, Clarity?” Stokely’s question snapped me back into reality. I shook away my thoughts and wiped away the two silent tears I hadn’t known had been falling from my eyes.

“I think that’s a great idea, Stokely.” It was all I could think to say, because the truth was, I hadn’t heard a word he’d said at all. I’d been too lost in my mind. But I hoped my answer would suffice.

“Clarity, you have NO idea how happy I am to hear that,” he replied, and it was easy to catch the happiness in his voice. “Man, your support is just… you always come through for me when I need it, Clarity. That really means a lot to me.” Apparently, it doesn’t mean enough…

“What was that?” he asked. Oh shit!

“Nothing,” I quickly recovered. “Just thinking aloud.” Damn my mouth-mind coordination! I thought.

“Ah, okay. Well, yeah, I’m going to call Kandyce RIGHT now and ask her. And then I’ll let you know what she tells me. Okay?” Not really.

“Okay.”

“Alright, I’ll talk to you soon. Take care, Cla-”

I hung up the phone before he could finish. That made me feel like I had at least a little bit of power in the situation. It was the seventh rule of war: there is always a price to be paid for friendship. Between Stokely and my feelings for him, and his feelings for Kandyce, and Kandyce and Graham, and my history with Graham that I set aside for Kandyce… I hated feeling like I was the one footing the bill for everyone else. If I had my way, that would change VERY soon.

—

“… And he can’t do this/ and he don’t do that/ Shawty need a refund, needta bring that nigga back/ and like a refund, I make her bring that ass back/ And she bring that ass back… ‘cause I like that…”

I extended my arms behind me, wrapped both of my hands around the pole, and slowly gyrated my way down into a squat in my heels. I leaned back on my arms then, placing my hands flat onto the stage, and lifted my hips, thrusted my pelvis up into the air and moving my legs in a “butterfly” motion in keeping with the rhythm of the song, Lil’ Wayne and Static Major’s banger,“Lollipop.” Dollar bills pelted my body and the stage around me. I rolled over onto my stomach then and slithered to other side of the stage like a snake, keeping my body flat and narrowing my eyes at my target, a somewhat heavy-set guy with a thick black beard. He was holding a huge wad of bills in his hands. I pulled myself up off the ground slightly so that my head was up against his stomach… well, I should say, his gut. But I kept my head down and swayed it left and right, feeling the top of my head rub against his shirt and slightly damp dollar bills cascade on top of my back.

“Shawty want a thugggg/ Bottles in the clubbbbb/ Shawty want to humppp/ And ooh, I like to touch ya’ lovely lady humps/ Call me, so I can make it juicy for ya’/ C-call me, so I can make it juicy for ya…”

I pulled myself up into a squat, then laid flat on my back. I inched my body closer to his across the stage until I was up against him, felt his hardness up against my neon-green thong. I lifted my legs straight up into the air and wrapped my heels around his neck, then proceeded to press myself into him in a slow but hard grind. As the song reached its breakdown, I pumped myself into the man, faster and faster with the song’s beat, watched his eyes shut tight and his face contort as I went to work on him, saw him struggle to to pull single bills out of his wad of cash and drop them beside me until he just plain gave up and let the whole thing fall down to the stage. As disgusted as I was, I forced my lips to form a dirty grin. And then, thankfully, the song ended.

“Ladies and gentlemen, y’all give it up for the beautiful Kandy Reign, y’all,” the DJ announced over the loudspeaker as I gathered up the bills, cheers and applause filling the air and drowning out the transitional music that followed my set. I carried all of the money out with me down the ramp and backstage into the dressing room.

“Well, damn, Kandy! The crowd sounds like you went to WORK with them!” Willow said, smiling as I walked back in. “It’s never sounded that live on a Monday night.”

I tried to return her smile, but I was too tired. It had been such a long Monday, between having to start back up with classes and then come to the Creamy Peaches tonight. I just wanted to go home. I counted through my bills once again, separated the money between what was mine and the cut I’d have to give Antonio, and dropped Antonio’s money into a drop box on the side of one of the dressing room walls. Then I took my jeans out of my locker, pulled my phone out of my jeans so I could check the time. Instead of seeing the clock on the phone display, however, I was met with a message saying I had new voicemail. Curious, I sat down on the bench next to the locker and dialed my voicemail, trying to put on my jeans at the same time.

“Greetings, Kandyce,” the automated voice said. “You have two. New. Messages. First message…”

“Kandyce! Hey, how’s it going? Of course, this is Stokely. It’s kind of been a minute since I actually got to catch up with you and everything, but… well, of course you know, Thursday’s a big day. We have a paper due in Professor Williams’ class then! Ha, no, really, we do, but more importantly, Thursday is your birthday. And I wanted to see if maybe, you know… you’d let me do something special for you. Nothing fancy, really, but if you don’t have any plans with your sorors or anything like that, I talked to Clarity and she said you hadn’t set anything yet, so… I’d like to take you out to dinner. Just me and you. I’m not trying to be disrespectful to you and Graham, but I just wanted to do something special for you. So if you want to, just, you know, hit me back and let me know. Take care, and hit me back!”

I couldn’t help chuckling at Stokely’s message. It was funny because it was kind of random. Stokely, asking ME to dinner? I thought. I didn’t know what to make of it. And it was just MONDAY and he was already thinking about me for my birthday… I was definitely flattered. It was really sweet of him, but I guess we’d have to see. I pressed a button to save Stokely’s message, and the voicemail proceeded on to the next message.

“Hey, baby.” Graham! I thought. Just the person I’d wanted to hear from. “I guess you’re busy right now. Umm, damn… there’s no easy to way to say this, but… look, you know I care about you, right? You know you mean so much to me. But after what happened in Dallas, with my pops and all, and what you told me in the airport, I really think that we should take a breather.” What?!

“WHAT?!” I repeated aloud, accidentally attracting the attention of Willow and Sindee, who had come back into the dressing room and was at one of the vanities.

“I’m not breaking up with you, I promise,” Graham’s voice continued. “It’s just, that put a lot on my mind, you know. So that, plus returning to school, plus the guys, you know we’re bringing em out next week… I’m just concerned, baby, that I may not… I don’t know, I can’t explain it. But I think, if you can give me a week to get myself together, by next week, I’ll be more certain. And I mean, if you want to talk about it, you can call me and we can, but it’s NOT like we’re breaking up. I still want to be with you. And I’m really sorry, but you gotta understand, I just need time to clear my head and get right about me and you. You know? I hope you understand.”

And with that, the message clicked off. I was stunned. Wait, WHAT?! I thought in my head. Take a breather? A week to get himself together? What the hell kinda bullshit was this? And not only that, but the nigga left me a damn voicemail! He couldn’t even tell me one-on-one?! I stared down at my phone for what seemed like forever, convinced that I had just been dreaming or imagining things. I closed my eyes and waited for time to rewind itself, for me to open my eyes and find myself walking off the stage with my set tips bundled up in my arms like nothing after that had ever happened. For good measure, I even clicked my heels three times. But when I opened my eyes, I was indeed still sitting there on the bench looking down at my phone.

“Got damn it!” I exclaimed aloud, again attracting the attention of Sindee  and Willow.

“Kandy, you alright over there, girl?” Willow asked. I looked up at her, and there was a concerned expression on her face. I tried to smile at her.

“I’m fine, Willow,” I told her. “Thanks for asking. Just… the usual. Dude problems.”

“With that Kappa guy you were telling us about a while back?” Sindee piped up, and I nodded slowly. “Man… well, what happened?”

“We just had kind of a fall-out this past week. I went home with him and his parents didn’t like me and he got all frustrated with me.”

“So, wait… you didn’t want to smash with him?” Her question had caught me completely off-guard.

“Wait, what? Where’d that come from, Sindee?” I couldn’t help asking.

“You’re saying he got frustrated, right? Well, most times a dude gets frustrated with a chick, it’s because she didn’t put out when he expected her to.” I’d had to raise a skeptical eyebrow at that.

“I mean, I’m just saying,” Sindee continued. “If my man were frustrated, it would be wanting him to get out of that funk, by whatever means.”

“Okay, Sindee,” I replied. “Not like it’s ANY of your business what I do with my man, but no, he was not frustrated because I wouldn’t have sex with him.” I heard her mumble something from the other side of the room. I couldn’t make it out entirely, but the end of it definitely sounded like “… not what I heard.”

“I’m sorry, Sindee, what was that?” I asked, my voice pretty much laced with my irritation.

“Nothing, I was just talking to myself,” she said dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.” Nah, fuck that! I thought. I got up from the bench and started walking towards Sindee.

“Apparently, it’s more than nothing since you had something to say, though. You’re a grown woman, right? We’re adults, right?”

“Hey!” Willow must have sensed what was about to happen, because she had practically dashed to get to the center of the room between the two of us. “Look, don’t start no shit, y’all. It’s not even that crucial.” But by now, Sindee had gotten up from her seat at the vanity, and I was not a fan of the expression she had on her face.

“Okay,” Sindee spat out. “Fine, Kandy. You asked, and you shall receive. What I said was, ‘Funny, that’s not what I heard.’ You want to come at ME about the problems you’re having with your so-called boyfriend? Ha. It’s funny because fighting me ain’t going to make up for the fact that you’re STILL not doing what you’re supposed to do putting it down on him. I mean, hell, that’s how you keep ‘em once you’ve got ‘em, girl, I don’t have to remind of you of that.

“But you apparently think this nigga is worth fighting for,” she rambled on. “And you know what, that’s okay. That’s a good thing, it means you care about him. Why don’t you apply that same fighting spirit to fucking him?!”

The only reason I didn’t lay Sindee’s ass out right then and there after her tirade was because of Willow. The look in her eyes and the subtle shaking of her head at me as she stood between the two of us, seemed to tell me it wasn’t worth it. And of course, I also couldn’t afford to lose this job, but Sindee… Ooh, shit! If she only KNEW how lucky she was… I retreated back to the locker area and finished getting dressed and packing my stuff up for the night. But I was on fire. I saw Sindee and Willow gesturing like they were arguing, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the sound of the flames burning inside me.

FUCK Graham, then, I thought to myself as I walked out of the Creamy Peaches and out to my car, then drove off onto the main road. Fuck Graham, wanting a ‘break’ the week of my fucking birthday. AND FUCK Sindee’s cocky ass, too. That… Where the fuck did she get off asking me about Graham like that?! Damn near everyone I knew was turning their back on me now, it seemed like. No one seemed to be who I thought they were. I needed to talk to someone, but there was no one for me to talk to. I wasn’t used to this. For the first time in a long time, I felt like Kandy would truly have to Reign alone.

“Eh, it was okay,” Stokely said, though I could see him fighting to keep a smile from spreading across his face as we got out of the car.

“Nightingale, you, sir, are a hater,” I retorted. “You can’t tell me… Zach Snyder is a creative GENIUS. The way he set up Dr. Manhattan… and how Night Owl’s ship was almost just like it was in the comic. And Rorschach! Oh, that tortured soul.”

“I agree with the first part,” Stokely conceded. “Zach Snyder is a creative genius. But 300 was a lot better. Hey, it’s true!” He backed away before I could hit him in the arm.

“Again I say, such a hater,” I told him.

“See, that term is abused these days,” Stokely remarked, dodging another one of my swings. “Any time someone has an opinion, they’re called a hater. That’s not fair at all.”

“Whatever, Nightingale,” I replied, rolling my eyes at him. “Hey, I need to go to the ladies’ room real quick. You mind?”

“Not at all. I’ll be over at the Snack Bar… getting some Milk Duds!”

Silly boy, I thought to myself as I headed into the women’s restroom. I went in, did my business, then washed my hands and took advantage of a moment to check myself in the mirror. Before I even knew it, I had broken some makeup out of my clutch purse and gone to work adding more color to my eyelashes and cheeks. I almost freshened up my lipstick, but I caught myself just as I was bringing the tip to my lips. Clarity, what are you doing? It’s just the movies, girl. I couldn’t help laughing at myself. It WAS just the movies, true. But still…

It was Friday night of Spring Break. Because we were both stuck around GSU for the break, I’d convinced Stokely that it was past time for us to hang out. Stokely had suggested we catch the midnight showing of the new movie Watchmen, based on a comic book of the same name; though I had been a huge fan of the comic, I had wanted to check out the horror movie The Last House on the Left. We’d rock-paper-scissor’ed over it earlier this afternoon, and Stokely won two out of three rounds (all because I’d relied on rock one time too many – veteran mistake). So here we were, at the Starlight Six Drive-In Theater out in Atlanta. It had certainly been a new experience for me, sitting in the car watching the movie as the sound of everything was transmitted through the car radio. But I’d enjoyed every bit of it: the nostalgic feel, the big screen and fresh popcorn… the intimacy that sitting in the car with Stokely allowed. It definitely got a bit interesting when the sex scene in the movie came onscreen and the people in the cars around us were visibly tonguing each other down.

I’d been hesitant to ask him out in the first place. While it was true that I had wanted to do something with Stokely for a minute, I had been worried to even ask. The only reason I’d even asked him to begin with, was because of the conversation I’d had with Ms. Pickens just three days ago on Tuesday.

“Clarity… you’ve been holding all THAT in for the last… what, almost two years now?” she’d asked, almost incredulously, when I’d finished recounting to her the story of what I felt was my downfall in GSU’s Black community. I’d nodded.

“Well, it’s certainly admirable that you were able to go through that and still bounce back. You should give yourself credit for that, you know? Sometimes difficult things happen to us and we get more concerned about what we went through instead of celebrating that we got through it.” I’d continued sipping my Macchiato when she’d said that, unsure if I was supposed to respond or not.

“But as I told you before,” Ms. Pickens continued, “you still can’t let one circumstance scar you for life. You can’t change it, sure… but you HAVE to move past it. You have too bright a future ahead of you to still be concerned about something like this. When’s the last time you talked to Lloyd?”

“Not since back then,” I’d admitted. “I mean, what could I possibly HAVE talked to him about, you know? ‘Hi, Lloyd, I just wanted to let you know that, even though you ruined my undergraduate experience, I’m okay with that now, so let’s hold hands and sing kumbaya?’ No. I knew if I ever saw Lloyd again, I’d want to go off on him.”

“Even now?” Ms. Pickens had prodded.

“Even now. You don’t go through something like that and just walk away from it, Ms. Pickens. That kind of thing sticks with you, and I’m not just talking about in the community. That affects your confidence, that affects how you handle future friendships and relationships. You ask yourself when you’re applying for jobs, ‘what if they find out about this? Will they not hire me behind this? Will my fellow employees think they can take advantage of me behind this?’” Ms. Pickens had nodded solemnly, as though she had understood where I was coming from.

“Clarity,” Ms. Pickens started, “my only concern is that, because of this one instance, you’ll put walls up against people, guys you’re interested in especially, that they’ll never be able to climb over. Young men especially have a hard time dealing with young ladies they can’t get through over a certain amount of time.”

“But how do you know who to trust?” I’d asked. “How CAN you trust anyone when the person you expected to hold you down lets you fall?”

“You leap again. That’s all you can do, Clarity. I’m sure that may seem like a lot, but you won’t know if you don’t try. I mean, shoot.” She’d stopped to chuckle to herself. “If I hadn’t taken a leap on my husband, we’d have never gotten married. I’d been interested in him back in college somewhat, but I wasn’t ready for a relationship. But deep down, I’d always felt some kind of connection to him, always felt like I’d get to be with him at another time when I was more ready. And then years later, I saw him again, at a bar, ironically enough. Now, I hadn’t seen him in years, Clarity. Didn’t know if he was seeing anybody or single or had kids or what. But I just leaped, because he still seemed like the good guy he had been and I refused to let assumptions cloud what I saw as a good thing.

“If something or someone matters to you, you need to take a chance on them, Clarity,” Ms. Pickens had advised me. “You either do or you don’t. You do, and you get your answer… or you don’t, and you get caught asking yourself ‘what if’s’ at 3:30 in the morning when you should be sleeping.”

Armed with Ms. Pickens’ advice, I’d asked Stokely. That took a lot. One, because a lot of guys don’t take well to “aggressive” girls who take the initiative in asking them out, even though this wasn’t a traditional date. And two… well, it wasn’t because Stokely wasn’t a good guy, because he was, because he IS. It was because I knew I couldn’t stand getting my heart broken by someone I cared about again. But maybe that’s getting ahead of myself. I straightened my hair, took a deep breath, and smiled at the beautiful girl in the mirror. Then I headed back out of the bathroom and out of my thoughts into the real world again.

“Well, damn, took you long enough,” Stokely said when I met him back at his car, throwing a handful of Milk Duds in his mouth. “I almost ran in there to see if you were alright. Did you fall in the toilet or something?” I rolled my eyes at him.

“No,” I replied. “I just had to take a dump. Which reminds me…” I reached over to touch him on the arm and he’d jerked away like I was on fire. I burst out laughing.

“I hope you washed your hands!” he told me with a nervous laugh of his own, and I couldn’t stop cracking up.

“Boy, I’m just playing with you, Nightingale! Calm down.” I giggled again. “And I DID wash my hands. See?” I held out my palms and Stokely looked down at both of them, assessing my hands with his nose in the air jokingly.

“Alright… alright,” Stokely conceded. “But for real, though, that was disgusting, Clarity.” I started laughing again, and Stokely started laughing with me, too. “I’m laughing, but I’m serious, though!”

“Well, then, Serious Man, what’s next?” I asked him. “Are we going to call it a night?” Stokely had looked at me curiously, his eyes moving up and down like he was sizing me up. Then a sly grin spread across his face.

“Actually,” he started, “if you still have some free time, I have an idea.”

***

The small tide came in and licked the edges of the sandy shore. The cool water tickled my feet a little bit, causing to flinch at the sensation.

“What?” Stokely asked, rising up slightly from his place next to me on the towel and looking forward for the culprit that had disturbed my peace and, consequently, his own.

“Nothing, nothing,” I assured him. “The water just tickled my feet a little bit. Made me jump.”

“Ah.” With that, Stokely went back to lying down on the long towel. I, on the other hand, was content just resting up on my elbows, taking in the beautiful sight of the moon dancing on top of the water in the late night hours.

I couldn’t tell you if he had premeditated this or what. Part of me sincerely thought he had had this planned all along. But Stokely’s “idea” turned out to be us having a sort of twilight picnic here on the beach on Lake Oconee. We’d stopped through a Canyon’s Burger Company and picked up some burgers and fries, but Stokely had actually had a picnic basket stashed in his car and packed with a beach towel and his “famous butter pound cake.” Then we’d drove out here and snuck through the gates onto the beach, since the beach was usually closed after 10 PM every night. We had eaten and talked underneath the stars.

“Stokely,” I said softly, trying not to disturb the serenity around us, but I got no answer. “Stokely?” I looked over and down at him. He was sleeping on his stomach, his broad shoulders rising and falling in the dusk. Without even realizing it, I had extended a hand and ran a finger over his back muscles, as he’d taken off his shirt in the heat of the night and was just wearing a wife-beater over his jeans now. I traced gentle circles over the area just below his shoulder where the skin was exposed and smiled. Stokely stirred slightly.

“What’s that?” he asked, raising his head slightly but not getting up.

“It’s just me,” I replied softly. “Just running my fingers down your back. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

“No,” he mumbled. “No, it’s alright. You don’t have to stop if you don’t want.” He laid his head back down on the towel and, in keeping with his instructions, I continued to draw gentle circles on his back. It’s funny how life works sometimes. I would have never guessed going out with Stokely, that we’d be right back in the position we were two years ago. Him laying down, me sitting up running my fingers across the tight muscles on his back. Feelings that had once existed but never really died came back up to the surface and flooded my mind.

What’s wrong, Clarity? He’d asked me back then, and I couldn’t stop crying.

Everything, Stokely. Everything’s gone wrong. Patiently, he’d listened to the story. Or maybe he just pretended to listen, I don’t know. All I know, and what’s stuck with me ever since then, is the relief I got from his slow nod and the look in his eyes. When I was done, he’d put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me into him. I’d expected him to push me away or to look at me with disgust. He did neither.

You’re not… you’re not mad at me? I remembered feeling like a little girl when I’d asked him that. But Stokely’s opinion had mattered so much at the time. It was going to let me know whether I was really the victim I thought I was, or whether I was as much to blame for what happened.

No, he’d replied. You deserve better than that, Clarity. Someone who really cares about you wouldn’t make you do something like that. Funny thing is, I wouldn’t put it past Lloyd. Or Graham, even.

You believe me? No one else had back then. I’d needed someone to.

Of course I do. I’d smiled, grinned through what was left of my tears. He had smiled back. Two people betrayed, both of us by something and someone we’d wanted to believe in. Two people seeking safe harbor in a storm. We’d looked in each other’s eyes for a minute, then his eyes got closer and closer to mine. He kissed me gently on the lips and backed away. Smiled at me again. I’d taken that as an invitation. I leaned towards Stokely and pressed my lips upon his, pressed my body against his. Felt his arms wrap around me. The kisses became deep, more intense. Buttons undone. Shirts over heads. Fingers tracing the tapers of his fade. Falling over. Rolling around. Two people seeking safe harbor in a storm by creating a thunder of their own.

When it was all over, he lay down next to me on his stomach. I sat up on my elbows, tracing circles along his back. Then the silent darkness was interrupted. A loud click, then a bright light flooded the room.

Oh shit! The man in the doorway squinted his eyes, trying to confirm his suspicions. I was caught off-guard and didn’t know what to do, so I simply stared at the man in the doorway. But either the light or the man’s voice had woken Stokely up, because he’d immediately rose up and pulled the blanket over me. I listened to them from under the covers.

Well, I’ll be damned.

Nigga, you ain’t got to say nothing to me. I didn’t think you had it in you. But do what you gotta do. I heard the door close. Then the covers had lifted slightly. Stokely’s eyes peered down at mine. No words were needed.

I’d got up and gotten dressed. Stokely had walked me out of the room, down the hallway. Even though I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, my hair was on serious “bedhead” mode, disheveled and everything. We’d walked by the front desk of the residence hall, neither one of us looking at the person working there. It had had all the ingredients of a “walk of shame” at four in the morning: girl wearing the same clothes she’d come in with the night before; guy wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt; heads hung down to avoid awkward or curious stares from anyone in the lobby or at the desk. Stokely led me outside. It had been raining then. Neither of us had thought to consider that, so I grabbed a copy of The Sentinel in the paper rack just outside of the residence hall’s doors to cover my head with. I hugged him goodnight… or good morning. I had held on to him a little longer than I intended to. I went out into the rain and jogged to my own dorm further down campus.

Something wet hit the top of my forehead, pulling me out of my memory. What the hell?! I thought to myself. I blinked a few times, saw the moon out over the water, and remembered where I was. I sighed in relief. For a second there, I really did think I was reliving that night…

Another drop of water hit my arm. Then another. Then another. It was starting to drizzle. Surprisingly, Stokely was still sleeping. I hated to disturb him. This was probably the most rest he’d gotten in a few weeks, I admitted in my head.

“Stokely,” I said, shaking him gently. He didn’t move. “Stokely! Get up, boy, it’s starting to rain.” He groaned loudly.

“Man, this is a shower, Clarity,” he said, groaning again as he got up on his knees. “All I’m missing is soap.”

I rolled my eyes at him, then started packing up the picnic basket and everything. The drizzle began to come down faster. Stokely gathered up the beach towel and held it up over our heads as we dashed across the beach and back through the gate to get to the car. We spent most of the ride back to my apartment in silence. But then Stokely turned on his radio.

“… Wish I could see through/ See deep in-to youuu/ And know, what you’re thinking, now/ And if I were to need it/ I need some kind of sign…”

It was Anthony Hamilton’s song, “Do You Feel Me.” Ironic that THAT song, of all songs, would be playing right now. Before I even realized it, I started singing along with the song on the radio.

“… You play it so cool/ won’t let nothin’, show through/ Won’t show what you’re feeling now, no/ And you like to keep keepin’ me/ keepin’ me here in the dark/ And I can’t see through, into your heart…”

Stokely looked over at me with a half-awed, half-surprised expression on his face. I don’t know why he looked so shocked, I thought as I smiled back at him. After all, I DID sing in the church choir down here. I started rocking my body to the beat of the song now, nudging Stokely from over the armrest with my shoulder whenever I leaned in his direction. Even though he was focused on the road, he gave in to me and started bobbing his head and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in tune with the beat.

Just as the song was going off, the car started coming to a gradual stop. We had reached my apartment. Stokely turned down the radio, so that all that could be heard was the soft tick-tick-tick from the engine and the softer patter of the rain as it beat all over the car.

“So,” Stokely said after a minute. He looked over at me and I looked at him. My eyes melted into his. I wasn’t sure what to say or do. But I didn’t want to ruin the moment. If it even was a moment.

“Clarity, thanks for inviting me out,” he said. “It was just like old times. I hate to admit it, but I probably needed it. It’s the first time I’ve actually hung out with someone since… you know…”

“Since you broke up with No-mi.” I finished for him. It got quiet in the car again for a minute. It seemed like we were just sitting there listening to the rain and the car running. I half-wondered if the soft thump I was hearing outside of those two sounds was Stokely’s heartbeat, or even my own. I took a deep breath, perhaps more loudly than I had intended to, because Stokely looked over at me again.

“You okay?” he asked. Our eyes locked up again. Time stood as still as the cold air around us. I nodded.

“You?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I’m good.” His eyes never left mine.

“Stokely,” I started, then stopped.

“Yep?”

“I really enjoyed tonight, too. Remember when we used to do stuff like this all the time? Just hang out and go off on some random adventure?” I was rambling now. Shut up, Clarity, I told myself, before he thinks you’re crazy. But a small smile of reminiscence spread across Stokely’s face.

“Yeah,” he replied, chuckling softly. “Yeah, I remember. Why don’t we do that anymore?” Because things between us

“-changed.” I jumped when I heard the words coming out of my mouth. Had what I was thinking really just spilled out like that?

“Changed?” Stokely asked. “What changed?” We did. Especially after that night.

And then I felt something warm on the side of my face. It startled me for a moment, but then I realized it was Stokely’s hand on my cheek… which startled me even more so. I tried to find in his eyes the answer I was looking for. What did he want? I thought. Me? No. No, he can’t want me. But his hand never left my cheek. I knew what I wanted to do, I just wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do.

It was the sixth rule of war: Act on instinct… but always anticipate the other person’s reaction before acting. Stokely was too hard to read. I didn’t want to do something we’d both regret. But I didn’t want him to see something in me and think I didn’t see the same in him. Because I did. Suddenly, he leaned in towards me, slowly. I didn’t lean in with him, but I was careful not to jerk back, either. I didn’t trust my emotions, I didn’t trust myself right now.

But slowly, surely, he leaned in closer and closer to me. Still couldn’t tell what the look in his eyes meant. Our noses were practically touching now. I closed my eyes and lifted my head slightly. Please don’t let me regret this, I thought. My lips touched air. I opened my eyes. Stokely had kissed me on the cheek. I thought I had been prepared for everything… everything BUT that. I pulled away from my safe harbor in the storm, tried to mask the sadness and disappointment that I felt in the smile I was giving him.

“Call me next week,” I said, giving him more of a subtle order than a timid request, and he nodded.

“Good night, Nightingale.”

“Good night, Clarity,” he replied softly. He looked away then, and I saw his eyebrows furrow, like he was puzzled or at least thinking hard about something. I got out of the car and walked to my first-floor apartment door, seeing the rain falling all around me but feeling none of it touch me. When I reached the door, I looked back and waved at Stokely to let him know I was okay. He honked his horn twice, then drove off into the night.

It was my mistake. I tried to tell myself that it wouldn’t have been fair to Stokely. He was on the rebound and so he only kissed me on my cheek out of respect. If Stokely was really interested in me, I wanted him to want me because I was a good thing for him, not because I was the best available thing for him when he needed me. But I knew I was just trying to find a reason not to believe what my heart already knew: that even though he seemed to be over his ex, that didn’t mean he was over Kandyce. She would be the biggest hurdle of them all for him. Stokely had covered up for me in telling her he’d slept with me. It hadn’t been a total lie, but part of me wondered if he’d ever tell Kandyce the whole truth.

I stepped back outside of my thoughts and unlocked my apartment door, then went inside. I closed the door and pressed my back up against it. I felt my heart sink all the way down into my stomach; my body followed suit, sliding down to the floor. I buried my head in my arms. How could I have been so foolish? I chastised myself for thinking Stokely could ever see me as more than just a friend, for making the beach picnic and the movie out to be more than they had actually been. That one night changed everything between us, I thought to myself. If not for that night, Stokely and I would be just fine. We’d probably have been friends and a whole lot more. But it HAD happened. And because of that night… it was hard to tell what we were anymore.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean… what are you asking me? Like my feelings or something? What my goals are?”

“I’m asking exactly what I said,” Ms. Pickens posited. “What is it that you want most out of your life right now? Do you want to be happy? Do you want some closure with something? Do you want your degree?”

“I want to be able to laugh again. To laugh with someone or smile at something and not feel suspicious or guarded in doing so.”

“Why do you think you feel guarded?” Ms. Pickens prodded me. I looked away for a minute, let my eyes travel over the other people seated around us on the Starbucks Coffee shop patio. The weather’s nice for a late Tuesday morning, not too hot and not too cold. I ran a hand through the tied back curls of my hair. After my semi-breakdown in the Wal-Mart parking lot yesterday, I’d called Ms. Pickens on the house phone number she’d given me back when I used to go see her for counseling. We’d arranged to meet up today so I could basically talk to her to clear my head and get an idea of where I needed to go mentally.

“Because I’ve come to learn and accept that if I don’t protect me, no one else will,” I said after another moment had passed. “It used to be so easy for me to trust people. That was back when I thought everybody had my back. When I didn’t understand that there was a difference between ‘friends’ and ‘associates.’”

“So you don’t trust people anymore?” she asked. I shook my head “no.”

“Trusting people is overrated. I can keep my secrets knowing that no one else would know them unless I wanted them to. You give people a piece of your heart and they always let you down. It never fails.”

“That’s a rough way to go through life, Clarity,” Ms. Pickens remarked, taking a sip of her coffee at the same time as I did my Macchiato. “Yes, people do let you down. But not being able to trust anyone?”

“Because no one’s proven themselves trustworthy to me.”

“Clarity… I feel like you’re letting what happened to you once affect everybody you come into contact with.”

“Of course I am,” I told her, looking down at the ground now. “That’s what you do – you see your mistakes and you take action to make sure those same mistakes won’t be repeated in the future.”

“That may be, but you aren’t God. There’s no way for ANY of us to be able to predict the future. We can take all kinds of precautions and make all kinds of plans, but at the end of the day, if something is supposed to happen, it’s going to happen.”

“But there’s nothing wrong being prepared.”

“Clarity, there is a fine line between being prepared and being scarred.” Something about the way Ms. Pickens had said that made me look up at her. “I was a young girl once, too, you know. I’ve been there. Definitely had a few occasions where something happened and the people I thought would be there for me were completely AWOL when I needed them. I didn’t change myself, though. I changed my friends. That’s how you’re supposed to respond to something like that. You started doing that, I remember you telling me the last time we talked.”

Ms. Pickens was right. Although it had been almost a year since I’d actually sat down and talked to her like this, I did remember describing to her in one of our last talks how my “recovery process” over the summer after my second year involved cutting certain people out. People like Racquel and Robynne, whom I’d affectionately referred to as “Rock N’Robin” (like the song). That was when they were only just starting to build their “Buckhead clique” legacy. At the time, people like Je’Nah, who had been just as wild as I was our freshman year, and Graham, who had done me so wrong that I still had trouble getting over it.

“I did,” I admitted. “I did take some people out of my equation. Like Racquel and Robynne… at that time, back then, I didn’t realize that you really did get judged by the company you kept. But I’ve tried to be more forgiving even though I’m still selective of the people I call ‘friends.’ Like in terms of Graham- what?”

“What?” Ms. Pickens repeated back to me . I don’t know if she thought I was stupid or if she was trying to play me for a fool… but when I had said Graham’s name, something about her facial expression had changed. Either something flickered in her eyes, or she’d frowned slightly. It had only happened for a brief moment but I was certain my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me. You weren’t imagining it, Clare, I told myself. That really happened!… I think.

“Nothing, never mind. Anyway,” I continued, “like I have to work together with Graham since we’ve started this campaign to get advocacy together for the Office of African-American Student Services and Programs. And you know my history with Graham. It’s difficult, especially since he seems to be half-assing it sometimes. I worry that he puts his fraternity ahead of the work we need to do. But really, just because Graham lies at the center of all this.”

“How so?” Ms. Pickens asked. “I remember you telling me some of this story awhile back, but it’s been almost a year since I last saw you. Would you mind refreshing my memory?” I looked down at my Macchiato, took a sip of it. Lifting my eyes, but not my head, I once again scanned our surroundings outside of that Starbucks, making sure no one I recognized was around. She didn’t need to know the whole story, I reminded myself in my head. Just enough of it. Just enough for her to understand where Graham fits in all of this…

“Well, if I’m really honest with myself, Graham isn’t… maybe Graham isn’t as much to blame… as I’d like him to be.” It hurt to admit that. “Don’t get me wrong, he plays a role in why I feel the way I do now. But if in anything, it began with another Kappa. I know, I know, but let me finish. It began with a guy named Lloyd.”

***

We sat there next to each other in the waiting area of Gate 17, where Southwest Airlines flight 210 from Dallas to Atlanta would be taking off. Neither of us said a word to the other person. It was 1 PM on Tuesday afternoon. Kandyce’s flight was heading out at 1:30 PM and I had been determined not to let her leave me on a sour note, especially after last night.

In retrospect, I felt like I had overreacted. Last night, I had been both frustrated and horny as hell. I had wanted to get it out and had felt Kandyce needed to get her own frustration out, too. Sex would have been the easiest way for us to do that. When she had pushed me off of her… I don’t know. That just made me angrier. Usually, once I started getting her hot with the foreplay, K wouldn’t stop me and we’d go wild together.

I was angry at her and angry at my Pops and angry at Harley for even coming through. So in the middle of the night, I hit the road in the Range Rover to clear my head. Drove out to West End, the club district of downtown Dallas, and parked in one of the parking lots. Climbed onto the hood, leaned back and stared up at the moon and the stars. Searched for what seemed like hours for peace in that night sky. Didn’t find it, so at 4 in the morning, drove back to my parents’ place and crashed on the couch in the den. Woke up at one point with my hip feeling heavy and sore. Looked down and saw Kandyce’s head laying on top of it. Smiled and went back to sleep.

My mom and pops were both at work when Kandyce and I finally got up around 11. When I came out of the shower, I watched her pack up her suitcase, watched her fold every shirt and pair of pants, watched her ball up the outfit she’d worn to the club when we’d gone out Saturday night and set it apart from the rest of the clothes in there. All she said to me was, “Morning.” I returned the sentiment, and walked over to kiss her, but she turned her face away from me. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day.

I opted to take Kandyce out to a quick lunch at the South Dallas Café before bringing her to the airport. I devoured my Chicken and Dumplings and watched Kandyce go in on some Short Ribs, and then we’d shared together some of the Café’s world-famous Peach Cobbler; yet during the whole lunch, Kandyce never talked to me. Then we’d gotten to the airport, and I briefly left Kandyce behind at the Gate 17 waiting area to go to the gift shop. At first, I was going to try to get her a bouquet of flowers, but I cancelled that thought out upon remembering she’d be on a plane for a minute. Instead, I bought her a box of her favorite candy – Milk Duds; and when I brought those back to her, she didn’t even respond. She just took them and nodded.

Now, as we sat there waiting for her flight to board, I didn’t know what else to do. I felt like my Pops at dinner had set things up in a bad way and my actions last night put the nail in the coffin. I looked over at Kandyce, tried to read something, anything, in her blank expression. Damn, man, I thought. This can’t be it. Does this mean when we get back to GSU, Kandyce and I… NO. Don’t think like that, dawg. Don’t think like that.

And it was right when I was thinking that, that Kandyce put a hand on mine. Her lips parted like she had something to say. I waited patiently.

“Last sum-” She stopped abruptly to clear her throat, then continued. “Last summer, I went home for the break. Up until that point, I had been living on campus. I already told you before about my issues with my stepmother, Iris. Well, last summer, I told my parents that I’d be living off-campus and getting an apartment.” She started sniffling. “This is kind of hard.”

“Look, K,” I started, “You don’t have to do this.”

“No,” she said, looking me right in the eyes. “But I want to. And I need to. Where was I?… last summer, right?

“Well, I didn’t really join the family at like ‘family dinner’ at the table since about my sophomore year of high school. Just didn’t want to be in a position where drama or something might pop off between Iris and myself. But that particular day in May, I was really trying to be the bigger person and approach my dad and Iris, just to let them know I still respected them enough to hear their opinion on the matter. So I told them I was going to be getting an apartment, the one I have now, with Je’Nah and Clarity.

“I was on scholarship, but that alone was barely enough to make the monthly rent. In all honesty, I went to my dad and stepmom not only to get their blessing, but to basically say, ‘I’d like y’all’s help with this.’ At first, my dad seemed okay with it. He was like, ‘My little girl’s growing up, this is an excellent time for you to get that real living experience.’ Iris used my dad’s words against me, though.”
***

“This apartment seems to be Kandyce’s idea of ‘growing up,’ like you said, of being independent.” Iris had set her fork down on her plate and smiled at me sweetly. It amazed me to this day how much venom could be hidden in the kindest of faces.

“Well, if she wants to be independent, we should let her be,” Iris had stated simply. She looked at my father then. “I personally think, however, that in order for Kandyce to TRULY get to know what it’s like to be independent, you should cut her off.”

I’m sorry?! I remember thinking. “What?!” is what I actually said aloud. My eyes, as well as Koral’s, darted towards my father.

“Iris, babe, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he’d told her.

“I don’t see why not. Kalvin, you know as well as I do that money is very tight right now for us.”

“Ha, you wonder why,” I mumbled under my breath, and Iris shot daggers at me.

“What was that, Kandyce?” she’d asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I thought so. Anyway… Kalvin, trying to help Kandyce pay for an apartment, MONTHLY, when we have our own bills and house note to pay for, my car note…” Iris tried to draw out damn near everything to make her case. “Think about it. We can’t afford that.” Then she turned to me. “Kandyce, it’s not fair of you to place that extra burden on your father and I. You get a scholarship, don’t you?”

“Yes, but-”

“Not to mention, Kalvin,” Iris had cut me off. “The young lady JUST spent money pledging that sorority earlier this spring. Clearly, she doesn’t care about how she’s spending and she won’t care as long as she feels like someone is there to help bail her out. Well, Kandyce, I say If you’re going to live in an apartment, then you need to find a way to keep things under your scholarship funds and such. If in anything, this will provide an excellent opportunity to teach you money management skills.”

“But, y’all!” I remember pleading. “Man… y’all, I have to buy books for classes, though! I intend on getting some kind of new clothes. And if I’m staying off campus, I’ll have to make groceries and stuff. My scholarship won’t pay for all of that!”

“You should have thought about that before you signed that lease for that apartment,” Iris had chastised me. “Looks to me like you’re going to need to find a job.”

“I- I agree.” I remember the words cutting through like a dagger in my back. In my heart, even. Many, many times, my father had taken Iris’s side over mine. Of all those times, this was probably the one that hurt the most.

“Kandy Cane, Iris is right. I really wish I could be able to help you, but the way our money is now, there’s no room for us to stand to give you anything.”

“Don’t say ‘us’ like that, Daddy! Not when you know damn well Iris doesn’t even work! She doesn’t contribute anything!”

“Kandyce Jasmyne White! You will not use that kind of language in my house, and you will definitely not talk to your stepmother like that!”

I remember my anger. I remember that being one of the few times I let my emotions get the best of me. For a long time after that – in fact, because of that – any time I got angry at something, I simply walked away. Only two times after that, had I actually “gone off” on someone; the most recent time, was when I’d fought with those “Buckhead clique” girls.

“Daddy, it’s true, though! Come on. I never ask y’all for ANYTHING, I’m just asking for y’all’s help this one time.”

“And what happens when the one time becomes a second?” Iris had prodded me. “And the second a third? Whenever there’s a one time, there’s ALWAYS another time. Kalvin, our daughter needs to learn that she can’t rely on us forever.” I remember it taking everything in me not to leap across the table and go after Iris. The only reason I didn’t was because of my dad.

“Kandyce, I’m sorry.” Daddy had said with finality. “I’m proud of you for taking this big step, and I support it in spirit, but I can’t support it financially. I would if I could, sweetheart, I hope you know that. Kandyce? Kandyce!”

“Your father’s talking to you, sweetie…”

I never heard was what said after that because by that time, I had already left the dinner table and was headed back upstairs to my room. I tore it apart since I felt torn apart. Threw my pillows and my bedsheet everywhere, tore down the framed pictures of myself and my friends that I’d had up on my bedroom walls.
***

I ended the story here for Graham’s sake. I was surprised to have gotten through it without crying like I did when I had told him about the childhood incident. Luckily, by that time, the announcement had gone out over the intercom that my flight was boarding.

“Now you know why last night hit so hard for me,” I’d told Graham as we both stood up from our seats in the waiting area. “Even the words y’all used… sounded the same. You wanted me to confront my past. There it is.” I guess Graham didn’t know what to say, so he simply wrapped his arms around me… and that said enough, honestly. I had fallen into his embrace willingly, so happy that the story was no longer mine to keep. He’d kissed me softly and walked me to the boarding ramp; when I’d reached the end of it, I turned back and blew a kiss at him, and he waved back at me. I would certainly miss him until we were reunited next week when school started back up again.

Sitting here on the plane now, though, the part I couldn’t tell Graham replayed itself in my head. I remembered struggling and hunting for a job as soon as school started last fall that would pay enough to support my bills and college expenses. I ran into the job in Ms. Pickens’ office almost immediately when I’d come back to GSU and moved in for summer school, but that was still chump change. I remembered the neon yellow flyer I’d seen on a campus kiosk just last July, the flyer that stood out because of its glaring color but also because of the big words printed on it.

NEED MONEY? WELL, WE NEED YOU! DANCERS NEEDED AT LOCAL NIGHTCLUB. GREAT PAY PLUS TIPS. CALL FOR DETAILS.

Of course, a message as vague as that was bound to have a catch. I wasn’t totally surprised that the number I’d called turned out to be for a strip club on the outskirts of Atlanta called The Creamy Peaches. What had surprised me, was how well I fit into the role. How quickly I learned from my tutor at the time, Willow, how to “work that pole,” how to slide down on it properly and use my body to effectively tease and seduce customers. How quickly the money came, especially counting the tips.. How Fat Joe’s song “Make It Rain” took on a whole new meaning for me personally. How I’d get mad on the slower nights and sometimes wonder if it had less to do with the crowd and more to do with the fact that I just wasn’t attractive.

“Oh, okay, I get it. So basically, the only reason you called me tonight was to get Stokely pity points,” Stokely had told me when I’d called him once last December. “So I could TELL you you’re beautiful since you let that stupid-ass job affect how you feel about yourself.” I’d told him in August, and Clarity later that September, but it was Stokely who I came to with my problems and insecurities about the job. At that point in time, he had still been angry with my decision. “I STILL don’t see why you couldn’t have looked into another job. Everybody’s hiring.”

“Stokely, I’m not working at nobody’s McDonald’s or Burger King, and they’re not going to pay me nearly enough,” I’d told him.

“Man… Kandyce, you could go work in the mall somewhere. Like in a jewelry store or in Hollister or something.”

“Stokely, there is NO way I’d be able to balance school plus three jobs.”

“Exactly. Which is why you quit the stripping one.” I’d laughed that off. “See, that’s what I’m saying. You just see the money right now. Haven’t you ever watched The Player’s Club? You’re going to end up getting caught up and not able to break away from there when you graduate!”

“You’re overreacting. Calm down, nigga.”

“Hey!” I laughed again, knowing I’d pushed his buttons.

Over the course of that semester, last semester, Stokely would get a few more after-work-calls like that from me, just because, yes, I had needed my pride and ego repaired. He would come to understand why I needed the job, although I’m sure to this day, he’d never accepted it. I was sure part of him still judged me for it. But he’d kept my secret. If you’re only as good as the company you keep, and the company you keep is a stripper… well, I wouldn’t go down that road. But there was something to be said about Stokely’s loyalty to me. He may have slept with my best friend, but at least he was always honest and holding me down.

No, I thought, as I reflected on all this while my plane tickled the clouds amidst the bright blue sky. No way Graham would take this as well as Stokely. This part of the story, Graham couldn’t know. In a way, it was funny. I knew my being a stripper, Graham would probably have a hard time getting over. I felt like it was something he’d not only judge me and leave me for, but that he’d also probably have trouble keeping under wraps.

For Stokely, though… I wouldn’t have expected any less. Stokely, I expected to be understanding and remain discreet and still stand by me. I could trust him with things I couldn’t even tell Je’Nah, as my line sister, or even Clarity, as my best girlfriend. My mind detoured.

What are you saying, Kandyce? You’d expect Graham to walk away… but Stokely, you’d expect him to stay?

I know, it doesn’t make sense. I wonder why, though. I wonder why Stokely’s still here. I wasn’t like Naomi, or even Clarity, people I’d consider more “his type.” I was just Kandyce. A stripper with issues.

Maybe a better question to ask, is which would affect you more.

Huh?

If Graham left you, or if Stokely didn’t stay? Which one could you handle? Which one couldn’t you take?

I fell asleep on the plane before I could answer my own question. Maybe that was a good thing.

“About?”

“Her,” I prodded him.

“She’s not bad, son,” he replied. “She’s an attractive young lady. I see you inherited my good taste.” The thunder in his laugh made the birds that had been resting quietly in the trees around us fly away.

Pops and I were perched up against the wooden railing around the back porch, drinking Coronas and keeping a careful watch on the steaks and bratwursts that were grilling on his big BBQ pit out in the yard. It was mid-afternoon on Monday. From where I was standing, I was able to see the kitchen through one of the back windows, within which my moms and Kandyce were hard at work preparing the side dishes. I hadn’t been home in almost half a year, so I appreciated the relaxing setting and the chance to catch up with my folks. The quietness of Plano was a welcome reprieve from the boisterousness of downtown Dallas and Atlanta.

“How’s school, though?” Pops asked. “Everything’s good?”

“Yeah, yeah, things are fine,” I told him. “Midterms were kind of rough, but I made it through them. The frat’s good, too. Lloyd said hi.” Pops smiled at that. He and Lloyd’s father had grown up together in Georgia. Both of them were Kappas, too, making us, the sons, “legacy” members.

“Is that boy finally graduating this year?”

“Yeah,” I replied with a laugh.

“Bout time. I was seriously getting worried about him. I’m serious!” my father said, though he had started chuckling himself by now. “He was at GSU before you got there. It’s been about… damn near seven years, right?” He paused and took a sip from his beer. “What’s so special about this one, though?”

“This one?” I asked, and he tipped his beer in the direction of the kitchen. “Oh, Kandyce?”
—

“Y’all just raised him really well, honestly,” I said, unable to contain a smile as I answered Mrs. Lyons’ question. “He’s a total gentleman with me. And on campus, Graham’s such a great leader. He commands respect wherever he goes. People look up to him.” I looked up at her from the black eyed peas I’d been rinsing in the sink and grinned. “Y’all just really raised him well, Mrs. Lyons.”

“Oh, honey, please,” Mrs. Lyons started, her accent causing her to pronounce words that ended in the letter with “y” or “u,” with an “uh” (“honey,” for example, came out like “hon-uh,” and “you” like “ya-uh”). “Call me Charlene.” She was chopping up potatoes and bits of egg white on kitchen island counter, hard at work on making a potato salad. “By the way, honey, would you mind passing me that jar of mustard from inside the fridge? Thank you, baby.”’

“So, you’re from Houston, right?” Mrs. Lyons asked, and I looked up and nodded at her with a smile again. “Why’d you come all the way out to Georgia for school, if I may ask?”

“I just wanted a change of scenery,” I confessed. “I had spent most of my whole life in Houston and Texas up until college. My family never really traveled outside of the state until my father got re-married, and even then, those trips were always to the West Coast, like to Los Angeles and Seattle. But I’d never been to this part of the country before. So when GSU accepted me and offered me a good scholarship, I had no hesitation.”

“Hmm. A young lady who takes matters into her own hands. I like that.” Mrs. Lyons said, chuckling to herself. “Reminds me of me a little bit. What are your umm…” She stopped mid-sentence and looked up, as if she was literally looking in the air for the right words to say. When she’d found them, she started back up again. “What are your intentions with my son, Kandyce?”

“What do you mean, ma’am?” I asked.

“I mean, do you see yourself being with him for a while? You ARE a senior, right, so that means you’ll be graduating?”
—

“Yep, she’ll be graduating,” I called down to Pops, who had went down into the yard to turn over the steaks and sausages. “But honestly, I hope she sticks around. If it was up to me, hell yeah, Pop, she’d still be with me after May. She’s a good catch.” He looked up at me, a thoughtful expression on his face, then nodded. With his head, he motioned for me to come out into the yard and meet him, and I heeded his request.

“Well, obviously, something’s special about this girl,” Pops said. “I mean, you brought her home to meet us. You haven’t brought a girl to meet us since you were in high school. The selection out there is that bad, son?” I’d had to laugh at that.

“Yes and no, Pop,” I admitted. “It’s some good girls at GSU, but more often than not, even the good girls have a bad side that makes them not worth introducing them to the most important people in your life.”

“Well, son, I know you take after your old man. We talked a little bit about young ladies and such. Are you sure you can commit to her?”

“I’m positive I can,” I told him. “I already am. We’ve been together since Valentine’s Day, Pop. She makes it easy for me not to stray just being herself. She makes me think harder about stuff than I normally would. Every action I take, especially when it’s an action taken around girls, I think second and third thoughts just to make sure I’m not doing something I think would hurt her. We even talked about my bad habits with girls before we got together. Kandyce doesn’t hold my past against me at all.”

“Hmm, well,” Pops began, taking another sip of his Corona, “what about Harley?”

“Man, Pop…”
—

“Harley?” I repeated, unable to keep a confused expression from making its way upon my face. I felt my eyebrow furrow. Graham had never mentioned that name before, I couldn’t help thinking. I wonder why…

“Yes.” Mrs. Lyons took a deep sigh before continuing. “Graham and Harley are childhood friends. They grew up together out here in Plano. Went to the same elementary school and same high school.” In my mind, I exhaled. Okay, so maybe it’s not as big a deal as I thought. I thought I heard her mumble something else, but I didn’t catch it. I tried to remain focused and drained the black-eyed peas, then put them on the stove, turning the oven onto medium-high.

“You seem to know your way around the kitchen,” Mrs. Lyons remarked with a small smile. “That’s a good thing.” I returned her smile.

“Yeah, after my birth mother died, I sort of took it upon myself to learn how to cook. Figured it would come in handy one day, especially since my stepmother couldn’t cook at all.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mrs. Lyons said.

“Don’t be,” I told her. “That was a long time ago, when I was three years old. She lives on in me, and I’m thankful for that.”
—

“I’m merely saying, son,” Pops continued. “Y’all look great together.”

“Kandyce and I?” I asked, more to make a point than out of general inquiry. My dad gave me a chastising look out of the corner of his eye as he drained the last of his beer.

“Y’all look good, too,” Pops conceded, “but not as good as you and Harley did, DO when y’all are together at the same time.”

“Pop, we haven’t been ‘together at the same time’ since senior prom. Which you know, since you’ve conveniently kept the damn picture of us in the foyer.” That shit still annoyed me. High school had been pretty much three years ago, but Pop had wanted to keep that picture on display. Like it actually meant something.

Harley was a good friend, don’t get me wrong. And as is usually the case with friends who grow up together, I had liked her once. But Harley betrayed me and I don’t do forgiveness very well at all. Once your”‘friends” show you their true colors, you adjust your spectrum accordingly. That was another Graham-ism. Harley hadn’t singlehandedly inspired that one, but she’d certainly proved it right. I’d told Pops the story behind her, too, but he still seemed obsessed with the two of us being together. One day, he’d accept that, I thought to myself. Hopefully sooner than later.

“Well, that doesn’t change the fact, again, that y’all DO look good when you are together,” Pops rambled on. “And since you hadn’t been home in so long, I figured Harley would want to see you.” WHAT?! “I was hoping to surprise you, son, but since you’ve brought this girl here, it’s probably better for me to tell you now. Son… I invited Harley over to join us for dinner tonight. I’m sure the two of you will be very happy to see each other. The Kandyce girl might end up liking her, too.”

Somewhere on a porch in Plano, Texas, a Corona beer bottle fell on purpose, literally shattering the peaceful silence.
—

Apprehension.

What the hell is she doing here? Philip, this is not appropriate-

We’ll be fine. Trust me.

Hi, Graham! Man… how long has it been?! And you are-

This is Kandyce White. She’s my girlfriend.

Eating. This sausage is really big but delicious. Not to be taken out of context.

Would you pass me the peas, Charlene?

They’re pretty good, Mama. Gotta admit I missed that home cooking!

Well, I can’t take all the credit. Kandyce certainly helped in preparing the peas.

They’re alright. Say, do you remember, Graham, when you were younger, how Harley used to come over all the time to help your mother bake cakes?

He laughs. Hard to tell if it’s laughter at the memory or laughter in my face. Attempts to turn the conversation in a more positive direction.

So Harley, how’s school going?

Not too bad, sir. I definitely had to step my game up when it came to doing course readings, though.

I could’ve told you that, darling. A Ph.D. program is always substantially challenging.

Ph.D. program?

Kandyce, aren’t you interested in going to pharmacy school, though?

Pharmacy school?! Wow. I couldn’t do it. I’ve never been the best at numbers and organization.

Well, she hasn’t been accepted yet. But she definitely ‘bodied’ her PCAT.

You young people and your slang. I can’t keep up. I remember when I was safe just knowing the difference between “tight” and “bunk.” But there are a lot of people trying to go into the doctoral field right now. Especially with all this discussion regarding President Obama and how he might be trying to get universal healthcare…

Pop.

I’m just putting it out there. The way the economy is right now, isn’t it better to be in a position where you KNOW you can get a job?

With all due respect, sir, a Ph.D. might not guarantee ME a job.

Small talk about the Dallas Mavericks having their best chance yet to win a championship as we ate.

Pop, this shit is real disrespectful. Like, this is not cool and you KNOW it’s not cool…

Maybe I should go.

No, no. Stay, Harley. You’re my invited guest. And if my SON can’t honor that-

Your SON is more worried about honoring his girlfriend! You know, the one I actually have as opposed to the one you’re trying to create for me.

With all due respect, sir, Graham is right. I admit, I still think about it at times, but…

About what? Fucking the running back?

Philip Graham Lyons, the Second!

Why are you still worried about the past, son? The past is passed. You can’t change any of that.

No, but I can learn from it. I’m not going to sit here and let you paint this picture of Harley like she’s perfect or some shit! Kandyce is a damn good girl.

I never said she wasn’t.

I really should go.

You shouldn’t have been here in the first place! And I mean that in the most respectful way possible, Harley, I promise. My Pops is lost in a damned dream world thinking that we’ll get married or something.

Remorse. The look on Harley’s face says what she refuses to. Men being men. Each side so focused on winning the battle that they ignore the casualties.

I invited her here for you, son. You know deep down that Harley is a good girl, too. But don’t think for a second that Kandyce is as innocent as she appears, either. For all you know, she may hurt you one day, too. Worse than Harley did. I’m just saying, don’t be blind, son.

Graham, Mr. and Mrs. Lyons… thank you, and I appreciate the meal, but I’m going to leave now. Kandyce, it was nice meeting you.

Philip, do you realize what you just did?

I told the boy the truth! He doesn’t seem to understand that any girl is capable of doing wrong to you.

Like me, too, Philip? Am I included in that?

Of course not, baby. But these young girls today are on something else. I wouldn’t put it past any of them to do something reckless. And I refuse for my son to be duped in the name of “liking somebody.” Son, I understand you care about this girl, but I just want you to keep an open mind.

Graham, baby, I am so, so sorry this happened tonight, and during this family dinner, too…

Disaster.

—

I open the bathroom door to total darkness, outside of blue streaks that are peeking through the curtains as a result of the moonlight. I slowly slip on my underwear and a bra, then run the towel over my head once again to dry my hair. An hour has passed since the dinner gone wrong, and even though I’ve taken a shower, I still feel like I haven’t washed away the remnants of all that happened. Graham is lying in the bed, hands behind his head, looking out at the curtained window. Remaining true to his form at dinner, Graham doesn’t say anything to me when I sit on the bed. I lay down. There is a small but noticeable space between the two of us; I wonder if it’s as figurative as it is literal.

Without warning, Graham wraps an arm around my shoulder. I don’t pull away because there’s something safe in his touch. It’s ironic. The person who caused me to feel this way is the same person I’m seeking my solace in. He runs his fingers through my hair.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispers.

“For?” I don’t actually want an answer. I just want to see if he can admit to what he did.

“Tonight. My pops… he was out of line.” Just your father? Really, Graham? “He’ll grow to like you. He’s just… he likes to have things his way. I love him, but he’s really a selfish old man.”

“And Harley.” He sighed deeply like he didn’t want to talk about her, but he should have known I’d bring her up. I needed the clarification. I DESERVED the clarification. “What about her?”

“She’s just a friend. We grew up together.”

“I’ve heard that part already.”

“Look, babe, let’s not fight over this, alright? All we ever did was go to prom together. That’s it. You want me to say I liked her? I did. Once. A long time ago.” Seems like you always have a thing for someone “a long time ago.” How long ago is a long time ago? I hated myself for feeling so suspicious about him. All I can say is

“Okay.” His hand travels down from out of my hair and traces a soft line from my shoulder down to my elbow. He leans over and kisses me on my neck once. Twice. He rises up off his side of the bed and closes the distance between us, slowly lifting a leg and lowering it on the other side of me so he’s on top of me. I’m unresponsive, somewhat. My body warms up even though my heart seems to have gone cold.

“I’ma make it up to you,” he whispers in my ear. He bites down softly on it. Against my better judgment, an “hmm” escapes my closed lips. He leans back for a minute and grins at me, the sound having given him evidence that I wasn’t completely oblivious to him. He leans in and kisses me on my cheek. Makes his way over to my lips. Hungry kisses that I struggle in vain against.

“Graham,” I say, finally breaking away from him. “This is your parents’ house.”

“True, but this is my room. And you’re my guest. They won’t mind.” His smile flashes in the darkness. He kisses me deeply once again, then crawls backwards, his fingers tiptoeing down my legs, then tiptoeing back up to my hips. He kisses me in the space between my breasts. Kisses me just below where my bra ends. Kisses, sucking slightly, my pierced navel.

“Graham, stop,” I say softly. Both of his hands are on my hips now. In the darkness, I see him lick his lips. Even as my words voice an objection, my body is all but willing to consent to what he intends to do to me. He crawls back up to me and kisses me deeply again, his hands traveling down my stomach, his fingers playing with my piercing.

“Graham,” I say, more forcefully this time. I reach down and pull his hand away before it reaches its intended destination, knowing that if I had let him start anything, I probably wouldn’t have been able to break away. “No.”

“Damn, baby, come on!” Graham grunts. He tries to pull his hand out of mine, but doesn’t put all his force into it. He must think I’m playing. That thought gives me just enough to strength to push him off of me. He tumbles away to my left side, a look of absolute shock on his face. I’m sorry, but at the same time, I’m not. No way we’re screwing, I think to myself. Not in your parents’ house, and especially not after what happened at dinner.

“So it’s like that?” he asks, the anger apparent in his voice even as he’s laying there still beside me. “Okay, Kandyce. Okay. I was trying to enjoy this last bit of time with you before you leave tomorrow, but apparently, that feeling’s not mutual.” He climbs out of the bed, puts on the robe that was draped across a nearby chair. “I’ll see your stingy ass in the morning.” He leaves the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Kandyce, what have you done? The right thing. Only part of me believes that’s true. In an effort to clear my head, I walk over to my purse and take out my iPod. I expect Lauryn Hill to soothe me and restore some order to this chaotic night. I lean back on the bed and put in the earbuds.

“… You was on the wall/ I was with my crew/You was watching me, ba-by/ I was watching you/ Slowly you walked o-ver/ I main-tained my cool…”

It turned out to be Beyonce’s song “Yes.” My damn iPod betrayed me. But Beyonce’ would have to do. She wouldn’t quiet the storm inside of me by any means, but she would have to do. I felt a lone tear leave my eye as the singer wailed along on the slow beat.

“… I said yes, we can be together/ Yes, you can stay with me/ But when I say not tonight/ You actin’ so ungratefully/ It’s like the first time I said ‘no,’/ It’s like I never said yesss…”

Imagine that the guy you’ve had a crush on for a while confesses to you that he feels the same way. Imagine that with you, he’s the perfect gentleman and a complete contradiction to everything you thought he was, or perhaps, to what everyone else said he was. Imagine that he treats you like a queen. Literally. That he flies you down to his hometown – and first class, at that – to meet his parents and spend the weekend with him. People say that when something is too good to be true, it usually is. As I’m riding in the passenger seat of this car, my eyes taking in all of the downtown area of Dallas, Texas, in its full glory as Lauryn Hill’s song “The Sweetest Thing” plays in the background, it seems like for me, the dream is really real.

It’s Saturday morning, the first real day of Spring Break for Georgia State University students. Some students have headed home for family time and home cooking. Others are off on Spring Break trips with their friends. But all of us are more than thankful to be done with midterms and to have reached the halfway point of the semester. And I, of course, am spending the next couple of days with my baby and his family… perhaps because I know I can’t go home to my own family.

Koral was angry with me. She had expected me to hold true to my word and come back to Houston for Spring Break. I’d told her after my last final on Thursday about my alternative plans.

“Noooo! Kandyce, that’s not fair!” she’d whined.

“I know, I know,” I’d tried to sympathize. “And I’m sorry, little sister. I would have come, but some friends planned out this last minute road trip to Dallas.”

“To Dallas?! ‘Ratchet City’ Dallas?” I’d chuckled a bit at Koral’s phrase.

“I mean, I’m hoping we’ll avoid the ratchet parts. But I guess we’ll see.”

“But, Kandyceee! What about me? What about Dad wanting to see you?”

“Dad doesn’t want to see me,” I had said, as much to her as to myself.

“That’s not true. You know that’s not true.”

“Koral, you don’t understand.”

“But I do, Kandyce!” she tried to reassure me. “I do know why you don’t want to come back, but that’s not important right now, okay? You don’t want to come home because of Mom. I know Mom can be downright evil to you sometimes, Kandle, but that shouldn’t stop from coming to see me and Dad.” To an extent, Koral had had a point. Being able to see the two of them would easily offset any negativity Iris might throw my way. But I was still scarred from last summer, and neither my pride nor my heart would let me move past that.

“I’m sorry, Koral,” I’d told her. “I want to, but right now, I just can’t. I’ll come visit soon, though, I promise.” Koral had mumbled, “You always say that,” and I could hear the disappointment in her voice. It broke my heart a little bit just recalling our conversation. Koral couldn’t understand. She’d never gone through what I’d gone through. Iris would never have done to her what she did to me…

“I get mad when you walk away/ So I tell you leave/ when I mean stay…”

Lauryn Hill’s painfully joyful wail brought me back to reality before I could spiral back into the depression of that moment last summer at the dinner table. I blinked back a tear that threatened to fall from my left eye.

“K?” I looked over at Graham in the driver’s seat, took in the concerned look in his eyes and the way his lips twisted in the way they always were when something was bothering him. “You alright over there, babe?” I couldn’t help smiling at him.

“I’m good,” I told him. “Really, I am. Just thinking.”

“About?” he asked, his eyebrows raised as if to confirm he’d been asking a question, although now he’d returned his attention to the road.

“A few things.”

“Like?” he prodded. He’s really not going to let me make it, I thought to myself. In my mind, I grappled for a topic that might be distracting enough. I drew nothing. Damn you, brain! You chose the perfect time to quit on me…

“Back home,” tumbled out from between my lips. I cursed myself in my mind, but Graham merely looked over at me and nodded before returning his attention to the road.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asked after a minute. I shook my head silently. If I started talking about home, then I’d go on forever. And then I’d eventually my rambling would run into last summer, and then I’d be forced to tell Graham the truth about the Creamy Peaches… which I still hadn’t done. Besides, I didn’t want to ruin the mood or put a damper on all he’d done for me. When my plane had touched down at in Atlanta just over forty minutes ago, he’d been waiting there to pick me up in this beautiful dark grey Range Rover that I was riding in now. I didn’t want to ruin that. We sat there in quietly for a few moments, Graham driving and me observing the rest of the city as Lauryn continued to pour out of the Range’s speakers.

“… Speaking on my mo-ther’s phone/ The touch that makes me/ Think I’m grown (You ain’t grown)/ Sweet prince of the ghetto/ Your kisses taste like amaretto…”

“I feel you on the home situation, though,” Graham suddenly interrupted the silence again. “Sometimes your family annoys the hell out of you. You love them and all, but they do crazy shit that pushes you away.”

“That’s about right,” I replied softly.

“But honestly, Kandyce,” Graham continued, “you can’t run away from home forever. We all have something in our past that we’d like to hide, that we don’t want anyone to know about and that we don’t particularly care to share. Sooner or later, you have to confront that, though. You don’t have to like it, but it made you who you are. You can sit there forever thinking about what happened and what you could have done differently, but that’s not going to change anything. Why spend time being defined and ruled by what you can’t change, right?”

G-Dot was right. There was nothing I could now that would take back what had happened between Iris and I, between my father and I, last summer. Only Stokely knew the whole story. I hadn’t even told Clarity about it because it was so personal. But maybe it was time to let that burden go. Graham had made it so easy to just talk to him and let my guard and my worries down around him, I thought. Could I open up to him about this one, too?

“We’re here.” I’d been so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn’t realized the car had stopped. I blinked a few times to come back to reality. As Graham got out of the car and walked around to my side, I sighed deeply. Well, I guess I have more time.

My eyes took in the fountain that was directly in front of where Graham had parked the Range Rover in the circular gravel driveway. They traveled past the fountain to a towering, Georgian-style brick house with marble columns on a long front porch. It had all the makings of one of those “estates” one might see on TV. The sight was absolutely breathtaking. Graham opened my door and extended a hand to help me out of the car.

“Eh, it’s alright,” Graham said, as if he’d caught sight of the awed expression on my face. “The inside looks a lot better, though. Shall we?” I placed my hand in his, stepped out of the Range Rover, and let him lead me up to the front doors.

***

I looked back through my basket again, trying to make sure I had everything I needed before I proceeded up to the checkout lines. Tilapia? Check. Wine? Check. Strawberries and peaches? Check. Vegetables? Vegetables? I moved around the items in the basket, even lifting out the box of Lucky Charms, trying to find the canned goods that apparently weren’t there at all. Damn. No vegetables. Begrudgingly, I headed back towards the grocery section of the store. I had already been in Wal-Mart long enough; I had come in here for groceries and somehow the Spike Lee movie Inside Man and a nice satin robe and found their way into my basket. Now that I was going back into the shopping area, I just KNEW something else was going to catch my eye that didn’t really need, but that I would easily talk myself into buying because it was “a steal” or “it’ll never be this cheap again.” It never failed in Wal-Mart.

Keeping my eyes on the basket and only glancing up to catch the names on the signs above each section, I hastily turned onto the canned goods aisle and navigated between the other shoppers on the aisle to get to the vegetables. I pulled down a can of sweet peas and a can of beets. My eye fell on the canned fruits further down the aisle. A six-pack of applesauce for $1.29?! Wait, wait. Stay focused, Clare, I told myself. Stay focused! In an effort to avoid further distractions, I decided to just get fresh carrots from the produce section. From there, I made a beeline straight to the registers.

“Ah, shit!” I had actually intended for that to be said IN my head, but what I saw at the registers caused me to say it aloud. It was just my usual luck that the registers, even the self-checkout ones, were all pretty much packed, even though it was the Monday of Spring Break. Not to mention, two people had baskets full of stuff on the damn express lines. That annoyed the hell out of me. You have like a month’s worth of groceries in your basket on the express lane. Did it just not click or did you just blatantly ignore the sign above the register that said “Ten items or less?” The incredulous expression on one of the cashier girls’ faces when she finished one order and turned back to see all those items on her belt – not to mention that the customer was STILL loading stuff onto it – said it all. Selfish bastards, I thought to myself as I sighed deeply and proceeded to one of the regular checkout lines.

“Clarity?!” The voice that had called out behind me had that tone in it of uncertain familiarity, of someone who was guessing but hoping the other person was who they thought they were. I turned my head slightly to the side. I was trying to see who was trying to get my attention out of the corner of my eye, just to ensure the person wasn’t someone whose attention I didn’t want, but it didn’t work. Please, Lord, I pleaded in my head. Please don’t let it be somebody I don’t like. Today is not the day. I turned around and almost jumped when I saw who it was.

“Wow!” the chocolate-complexioned girl exclaimed. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever.” She made a motion like she wanted to hug me, but then backed away as though she’d changed her mind. That was probably a good idea on her part, since the last time I’d seen her, we hadn’t exactly parted on amicable terms. She did extend a hand out to me, though, and I shook it.

“Yeah, it’s been a long time,” I admitted. “How’ve you been, Josephine?”

“Oh, please, call me Joey. You already know the drill, Clarity.” Josephine Gordon – “Joey” to those who knew her and as I once knew her – was this beautiful girl who had established quite a legacy on campus during her time at Georgia State University. Back during my freshman year, Joey had been Student Government vice-president, the first Black girl to be elected to that position since 1991. She’d fought hard to get more administrative budget money allocated to underrepresented student programs and departments, like OAASS&P and the Intercultural Relations Program. Joey had also been selected as an “Inceptor,” one of the people who work with New Student Orientation for incoming freshmen over the summer. But perhaps most importantly, Joey had been President of-

“What are you still doing around here, anyway?” Joey asked, interrupting my train of thought. “Didn’t you graduate?”

“This May,” I corrected her.

“Really? Wow, that’s awesome! I’m proud of you.” A wide smile spread across Joey’s face. “You’ve come a really long way. The only reason I asked was because I remember, back in the day, you were on track to graduate a year early.” She was right: back in my first two years, I had plowed through things academically. Before the drama popped off, I might well have finished and gotten my degree last May.

“What are you still doing here?” I asked. “You did graduate, right?”

“Yep, yep!” she piped up. “I finished up last May. I’m up at Georgia doing graduate school.”

“In what?”

“Student affairs. Couldn’t leave the game alone.”

“That makes sense,” I admitted. “You did put a lot into student life at GSU. I could see you being an administrator or some sort.”

“Thanks,” Joey replied, the smile stretching even further across her face. “Hey, listen, umm… the reason I asked about your graduation was because…” She trailed off for a minute. I could tell she was trying to find the right words to say. I knew it, I thought. I knew it was just a matter of time before she’d be compelled to bring it up.

“It’s fine,” I told her, getting a little anxious now and looking back at the register. Still one more big order before mine. Damn it.

“No, it’s not,” Joey started. “I’ve felt really, really guilty about what happened back then. I want you to know that I DID fight for you, and it wasn’t just me. But the majority of my sisters were more concerned with perception at the time.”

“Yes, because perception is everything, isn’t it?”

“I deserve that,” Joey replied, nodding solemnly as the wide smile on her face faded away. “We deserve that. At the time, we did what we felt was right, Clarity. You have to understand, we had a reputation and a standard to uphold. That standard would have been threatened if we had-“

“No, it would not have,” I cut her off. “That’s the dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard. Josephine, you KNEW me. I looked up to you. Yes, I made poor choices. Who doesn’t? Everybody in your organization has done something they’re not proud of. But you knew in your mind and heart that I wasn’t some ho. You say you fought for me. Apparently, you didn’t fight hard enough.” Before I knew it, tears had welled up in my eyes. I thought I had forgotten about this, I told myself. I thought I had locked this away. I blinked back my years, but was unable to contain a sniffle. Joey put a consoling hand on my shoulder.

“Look,” she began. “In retrospect, what we should have done, what I should have done, was looked into things more. You’re right. I knew you were better than that. Organizations come and go, and so do the people in them. But I’ve always felt you got screwed over. I, umm… I work with the graduate and alumni chapter of Zeta Phi Beta at Georgia. After May, if you want to talk, give me a call.” Joey opened up her purse, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me. “Even if you don’t want to talk, give me a call anyway. I’d want to be there for your graduation.”

I stared at the business card for a moment before looking back up at Joey. She smiled at me again, then walked away. By that time, it was my turn at the register. I watched the cashier ring up my items, saw his lips moving to ask if I found everything okay; but I didn’t hear anything. I saw myself swipe my credit card, carry my bags out of Wal-Mart to the car, but it was like it wasn’t me doing it. It was like I was outside of myself watching everything happen in front of me like a movie, like I was both the actor and the audience.

When I got inside my car, I was myself again. I pulled out Josephine’s business card and looked at it once more. I thought I had locked this away, I thought again. But just talking about it with Joey made me realize that even though I had locked the memory away, the emotions behind it were still very fresh and very raw. You can tell yourself you’ve forgotten about something and it works for so long. But when you’re standing face to face with it, there’s no telling how you’ll react. I was crying. Crying in the got damn car about something I thought I’d long left behind. Crying because of some stupid sorority that hadn’t given a fuck about me back when I was looking for support. No. Scratch that. I was crying because I was remembering the events that led up to that, that cost me everything I had worked so hard for back then. I needed someone to talk to. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I thought I had forgotten.

“Hello?” A deep male voice answered on the third ring.

“Good afternoon,” I greeted, clearing my throat. “Is… is Ms. Pickens there?”