Playing Hard To Get

For a long time, Malik and his whole world had been the something new in Tamia’s life that she couldn’t understand or explain or master. He was different. Like fire in the middle of a river. New and strange like nighttime. And while the fearful little girl inside of her still wanted to run and hide away her heart, Tamia made a decision she’d never made before—she took her time and stayed to figure him out. To figure it out. So she could save her heart. And have a new brave heart.

All of this had suddenly become clear to her when she rang Malik’s buzzer. He’d been her new, unknown thing and it was okay. She wasn’t hiding. She wasn’t going anywhere. She just wanted him and didn’t care how long it would take her to understand that or if she never did.

This, in a daytime Gotham, full of light and clarity, would’ve been of use. But, again, it was night, and Tamia had no clouds or curtains to shield her heart from the dark.

Over a static-filled speaker, Malik wanted to know why she was downstairs. It was 2 o’clock in morning. He had a headache.

“I want to talk to you,” Tamia said, holding the black button beneath the mesh callbox that connected their wobbly voices.

“Talk…what?” was all she could make out from Malik’s end.

“Yes,” Tamia laughed. “Talk about what happened in the library. I don’t care about the risks. I don’t care about losing everything. Not if I have you.”

“I’ll be down there. Don’t come up. I’m coming downstairs”—this was the clearest message the fifty-year-old intercom system had relayed in years. Crystal clear. Like Malik was standing right beside Tamia. It was easy to understand. Even easier to follow. But when another resident with a resident’s key came crawling out of a cab and stumbled onto the doorstep where Tamia was standing, she quickly misheard every word. Into the building she came, helping a drunken stranger.

No time to rewrap her falling head wrap, she pulled it from her head and wrapped it around her shoulders like a shawl. She wanted him to see her. To really see what she’d become in his world. A beautiful African queen, she poked out her chest and held her head high. Instead of knocking on the door, she simply rapped one time.

“My king,” she called playfully and gently to Malik. “I await.”

Though she was looking high, like some empress basking in the sun over her empire, Tamia saw the door open through a side glance and poked her chest out a bit more. The inside of the apartment was dark and she couldn’t see Malik standing there.

“Nice pose, Tamia,” she heard and turned quickly and ashamedly back to the door. It wasn’t Malik’s voice. It was a woman. One she knew. Her eyes adjusted to the dark before her, and Tamia saw that it was Ayo. Standing there, she was wearing only Malik’s military jacket.

“Ayo?”

“He told you to wait downstairs, didn’t he?” Her voice as placid as an iceberg.

“What are you doing here?”

“He took the stairs. I’m guessing you took the elevator.”

“What are you doing here?” Tamia repeated as her shawl fell to the floor. “Answer me.”

“I knew it would come to this. A strong man is so weak.” The urgency in Ayo’s words was empty in her stance. She leaned heavily against the door frame, making senseless circles on the floor with her nude foot. Suddenly the smell of frankincense and myrrh from Malik’s apartment made Tamia nauseous. She felt silly. So silly standing there in her pieces of patterned cloth, the wooden jewelry around her neck and arms, her head without covering. This was all a joke. She was a joke.

“Malik is my soul mate. My sun,” Ayo continued. “Nothing can change—”

“Tamia,” Malik called, running down the hallway. “I told you to wait—”

“It’s too late,” Tamia screamed, tearing one of the beaded strands from her neck and throwing it to Malik’s feet. “I already see.”

“I—”

“No!” Tamia stopped Malik. “Don’t you dare say you can explain. You can’t. You can’t. You can?

??t fucking explain this!” She was hollering and tearing and throwing beads everywhere.

“Stop it!” Malik grabbed her arm.

“You were supposed to be different!” Tamia got ahold of a few of Malik’s locks with her free hand. “All of this and you’re a liar.”

“It’s not like that,” Malik said and Tamia could feel his heart beating faster even though there was still space between them.

“Then what is it like?” Tamia jumped back and pointed to Ayo. “What is it like? Because it looks pretty clear to me. You know what? Both of you are just common. You’re pretenders. You cover yourselves with all of this bullshit, when really there’s no difference between your shit and everyone else’s. You’re just the same.”

?

As Tamia turned to go down the stairs, Tasha was trying to go in what used to be her front door. Only her key wasn’t working.