Playing Hard To Get

“Yeeyeeeyeeye

e,” someone cried from the crowd and then Tamia and her sisters did a traditional West African dance that trailed around the base of a tree. It was in honor of the ancestors, of their journey and the sacrifices each of them had made so their daughters could be there.

Though her feet were kicking up the loose earth beneath her bare feet, Tamia cried so many tears the white paint was streaking her cheeks. She was dancing for her mother and prayed that wherever she was in the universe, she could hear her daughter’s heart beating, wild and free.

“You guys came!” Tamia said after being rushed by Tasha and Troy when the ceremony had ended.

“Of course we did, baby,” Tasha said. “Where else would we be?”

“You looked so amazing, Ms. Lovebird!” Troy said, grabbing a hug.

“Now, we must know,” Tasha began, “who were those two other women?”

“Are those your new 2Ts? Are you replacing us?” Troy grimaced playfully.

“Well, those are my new sisters, but they’re one T and an F,” Tamia said, “and until ‘the 2Ts and 1F’ sounds cool, you guys can’t be replaced.”

“So where’s Malcolm X?” Tasha asked.

Tamia frowned. She’d seen Malik in the crowd when she came in, but when Kali came over to congratulate her after everything was done, she said Malik had left early with a headache.

“He wasn’t feeling well,” Tamia said, wondering why he couldn’t have at least stayed to cheer for her. Maybe this was just his way of handling what had happened between the two of them in the library. He was right. If they continued to connect the way they had been, it could ruin everything.

“Dang!” Troy said, feeling her cell phone vibrating in her pocket. “I was ready to take another picture.”

“You and that phone!” Tamia teased.

“Wait a sec,” Troy said, after pulling out her phone and seeing it was Kyle calling. “I have to get this.” She clicked into the call. “Hello?”

“Hey, honey,” Kyle said, his voice tired and weak. “I was just calling you because Myrtle just called here.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Myrtle. She said something about the meeting you’re having. That she’s coming by the house next week.”

“Oh,” Troy said and both Tamia and Tasha saw her face fold.

“You want to call her back? She left her number.”

“No,” Troy answered. “I’ll talk to her in the morning.”

“Hey, I know I haven’t given you credit on this whole thing with her and I thought that after the scene at the church you two would have it out for sure,” Kyle said. “But I’m happy to see you’re trying. That you’re at least trying.”

“Thanks,” Troy said weakly. “I’ll see you tonight when I get home.”

“Tell the other Ts I said hello.”

Troy hung up and looked up at Tamia.

“What happened?” she asked, reaching out to Troy. “Is everything okay?”

“I have to go home,” Troy said. “I have to go home now.”

?

Sometimes, late in the dark night, when even the luminous moon is hidden among clumpy clouds and the wisest people are sleeping behind the silken curtains that keep the pains of the capital of the universe from entering the rectangular openings into their worlds, others aren’t quite so lucky. Awake and without any armor from the black all around, they willingly enter the darkness, and, so, it enters them.

Ever since she was a little girl, Tamia feared the unknown—what she couldn’t understand, explain, and master. With no mother, no soft hand there to kiss her cheek and whisper in her little brown ear, “It’s okay, baby. Take your time” when the girl came across something she didn’t know, any new thing she couldn’t understand became like fire in her eyes. The girl from the prayer group in college, the unruly people on the subway, marriage, love…Anything without boundaries that couldn’t be understood. Altogether, they made her want to run away. Made her want to hide herself behind her own clumpy clouds and silken curtains.