Under the Bali Moon

“Because there is,” Malak said flatly.

“But you just said marriage is a gamble, so how is there something wrong with me if I’m not married? That’s the same crap everyone says to successful, independent black women like me! Maybe there’s nothing wrong with us. Maybe we’re just smarter.”

“Look, I don’t know about all that stuff you done read in some Essence ‘Single in the City’ article, but I know you. I’m your girl and I’ve been studying you more than half my life. I know what’s wrong with you and when something is wrong with you. And I know exactly how you must’ve felt when you saw Adan today at the dress shop. And I know it broke your heart.”

Zena rolled over to snuggle in Malak’s arms and let her tears fall.

“That’s it, girl! Let it out! Let it all out!” Malak said, patting Zena on the back.

The sun had finally set and the room was dim. Blue lights twinkled from electronic devices. Some sad Sade song should’ve been playing on the radio.

“What happened that night you and Adan broke up in Daytona Beach?” Malak asked. “I always wanted to know, but you never said anything. You just said it was over with him, and then you left for law school. When you came back, you made me pinkie promise never to say his name again. So I didn’t, but I always wanted to.”

Zena looked at the pieces of the red satin pillow all over her bedroom floor. The breakup was two weeks before graduation. She was on her third apartment by then. She only had one roommate. The red pillow was still in tow. Adan was giving his philosophical “Eyes on the Prize” speech and had broken up wi

th her before she even realized what was happening. Again, she remembered him saying, “So, we should just be friends” in that fake, nasal “Man of Morehouse” accent he’d picked up on the debate team.

Those words sent Zena into a rage that frightened both her and Adan.

She had jumped up from the kitchen table and started wailing at him, calling him names and sobbing so deeply she wouldn’t be able to stop long after she’d pushed Adan out onto the street without his car keys or his bags or anything and refused to let him back in until he returned with police.

Zena had tried to forget but still remembered all the things she’d said to Adan before she kicked him out—that she always knew he’d do this to her; he was just a liar. He was just like her father. No good. She struggled to slap him, to scratch him, to punch him, but Adan just held Zena down and told her she’d get over this—that she’d be okay without him. That only further infuriated Zena and sent her to a place beyond rage—to pure sorrow, to a real mourning over all of the love Zena had lost in her life that made her knees weak and delivered her to the floor, where Adan knelt down and tried to understand as she wept.

When it seemed as if she was almost calm, Adan had asked what she wanted him to do. How he could make things right?

Zena had cried, “Marry me. Let’s get married. Then we’ll move to Boston together and you can finish law school and I’ll just go to school for paralegal or something. I can be your secretary. Whatever. I don’t care, as long as we’re together. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t!”

Adan had stroked Zena’s hair into place. “No, we can’t,” he said as earnestly as he could. “I can’t let you do that.”

Zena had asked, “Why? Why can’t you?”

“Because I believe in you too much to do that to you. And that’s why I’m doing this. That’s why we’re breaking up. If we stay together, you’ll lose yourself. Lose your dreams. And you losing your dreams, well, that’s not a part of my dream,” Adan had replied.

Zena found the last strength left in her knees and arms to get up and push Adan out the door.

“Malak, I asked that man to marry me,” Zena said, remembering the confused look on Adan’s face when she’d said it. “And he said he couldn’t do it because he wanted us to keep sight of our dreams that apparently didn’t include each other.”

“That’s messed up, Z,” Malak said.

“It’s beyond messed up. And every time I remember it, all I can think is that he was the first man I ever trusted, the first one I loved, and look at what he did. Look how he handled it. And now here he is back in Atlanta talking about how he encouraged his brother to propose to my sister, saying it will be good for them. If that isn’t freaking irony? He has no problem taking my sister’s eyes off the prize, paying for our dresses and God knows what else.”

“He bought her dress?”

Zena ignored this. She popped up and looked around the dark room through newly puffy eyes. She leaned over and flicked on her bedside lamp.

“You know, the more I think about it, the more this thing just doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“What?” Malak sat up slowly and went for a sip of her Hennessy.

“Why is he so game to support this wedding? Is it because his own marriage failed?”

“Well, technically he was never married, so his marriage couldn’t fail,” Malak explained.

“You know what I mean, Malak. Maybe this is about his marriage failing to even exist and me doing perfectly fine without him,” Zena said, adding up details. “I’m saying I made it! I made something of myself. I handled my part of Law: From A to Z. My own agency Z. Shaw Law is blowing up, and he knows it. And he knows that I also managed to pull my little sister up and make something of her—something he’s only halfway done with Alton, the wannabe neo-soul singer. So now he wants to bring me down.”

Malak squinted as she tried to arrive at Zena’s conclusions. “Nah. Sounds kinda crazy to me.”

Zena jumped up from the bed with her thoughts racing to epiphany.