Playing Hard To Get

“Eshu?” Tamia repeated one of the words she could make out. “Eshu? Elegbua?”

“They’re calling for the Orisha, or safe travel,” Kali said, grabbing Tamia’s hand, “of the crossroads.”

This went on for hours. Sweat poured from the men’s heads, but they went on chanting. The wind swept up icy dirt from the fields around them, soiling their white clothes, but they went on chanting. The frigid temperatures sank lower with the moon as it crossed the sky, yet they went on chanting into the night.

And while Tamia had thought of every ill-informed comment she could consider about what she was seeing, watching the men fight so dedicatedly to change, be so connected with a culture she didn’t know or understand that seemed so inextricably connected to other things she knew, her innocent, clear mind was moved, opened in a way a twister of a Rubik’s Cube feels after turning the toy to its final position of completion. There was something about what they were doing, what the people gathered around them to observe, what she was seeing, that seemed more real, more natural, more intelligent than anything she’d ever witnessed in her entire life.

“Ayo,” Malik said and Tamia’s stare was broken by the vision of a woman standing between her and Malik. Kali had left long ago when the crowd encircled the group of men after it was clear the night could hear no more of their chanting. The rite was over.

“Malik,” the woman said, hugging him in a familiar way that showed more than the two had said in their greeting. Ayo’s light brown skin, high cheekbones, and sultry, slanted eyes provided the ingredients of a beauty that usually stunned both men and women into gazing at her before they really saw her. She looked unreal, like the spray painting of a person in a Benetton ad. Even the little golden pin earring that sat on her nose seemed perfectly in place. Not one ginger-colored dreadlock on her head was out of place.

“Tamia,” Malik said like he was introducing his prom date, “this is Ayodele. She teaches poetry arts at the Freedom Project.”

“Poetry arts?” Ayo laughed and playfully plucked Malik. “It’s just poetry. Why do you have to be so dramatic, Malik?” The two laughed at what wasn’t a joke and Tamia realized that she was the third wheel in a conversation. It was like she wasn’t even standing there. “I’m so sorry, my sister,” Ayo said, turning to Tamia and then she was just beside Malik, her skin the perfect contrast to his. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Mine too.” Again, Tamia was pulled into a hug. She noticed that Ayo also smelled of frankincense.

“So, are you a…” Ayo looked from Tamia to Malik. “You two are like…”

“I was invited by Malik,” Tamia said.

“This isn’t her thing,” Malik added. “She’s my attorney. I invited her here so she could learn more about what we do.”

While everything Malik revealed to Ayo was true, Tamia didn’t like the way it sounded. Like she was simple. Uninformed. A visitor. At once, Tamia’s shoes, clothing, purse, hair, earring-less nose were stacked up against everything o

pposite Ayodele was and had.

“Well, many thanks and blessings to you, Sister Tamia, for helping us. Brother Malik is a leader in our community and we couldn’t do what we do without him.”

Malik looked at Ayo like she was reciting marriage vows or giving him a check for $1 million. Tamia thought that she hadn’t ever seen any grown man look at any woman with such respect, such love, such schoolboy wonder.

“Well, I’m going to get inside,” Ayo said. “My toes are freezing in these boots. I know your feet are cold too, sister.” They all looked down at the gold dusting the tips of Tamia’s shoes.

After Ayo hugged both Tamia and Malik and walked off into the crowd, Tamia playfully chided, “You sure you don’t want to go with her?”

“She’s just my friend,” Malik said. “Just someone who works with me.”

?

Hours later, as Tamia lay in bed wondering at how the scent of frankincense and myrrh hadn’t yet left her body and feeling the steady pulse of the African drum still thumping in her stomach, the phone rang and Troy was on the other end.

While some other sisterfriends might have been alarmed by the time of the call, Tamia rolled over and answered as if it was noon and not far after midnight. The friends had never been very good at limitations.

Whispering from her position in the corner of the inside of the bathroom door where she could still see Kyle in bed sleeping, Troy told Tamia about the triumph at the meeting, the pressure on her heart, and the fear she’d been keeping secret for a long time. Both friends cried as Tamia admitted how Troy had been changing and how sometimes she felt the best friend she’d pledged a sorority with in undergrad was absent even when she was present, and she couldn’t understand why.

“I don’t know why he married me,” Troy said. “I just can’t figure out why. This isn’t me. This place. These people. I can’t do this.”

“Kyle loves you, Troy. That’s why he married you.”

“What if his love isn’t enough? What if we can’t make it on that?”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Ms. Lovesong, and say love is always enough to make it. Both of us know that sometimes love can be beat down and look just as ugly as hate,” Tamia said sincerely. “But I do know you have to take the chance. And what makes you think you’re not worth the chance? That Kyle wasn’t lucky to find you?”

Troy looked at Kyle’s sleeping body, watching his chest rise and sink. He reached out to her side of the bed.

“He’s not like me, and I don’t want to change him,” Troy said. “Before he met me, he didn’t know the difference between Polo and Purple Label. He didn’t curse. He didn’t even watch television.”

“People can’t live like that—all shut in from the world,” Tamia said. “Did you ever think that maybe he likes that about you? That you know about the world and can share it with him?”