Page 2 of Death of the Author

“Zelu! Come on! Where you going?” He was a gorgeous black man in his twenties wearing a very expensive-looking tan suit, but it was all wrinkled up. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who normally did wrinkled suits.

“You for real?” Zelu shouted. “Go away!”

“Who is this?” I asked her.

“Some guy.”

“Baby,” the guy said, “I’ve been waiting for you in the freezing cold!”

“’Cuz they kicked you out! Take a hint! Don’t want you.”

“Just give me another chance.”

He was feet away now, and I turned to face him.

“Are you her girlfriend?” he asked me.

“I’m hersister.”

“Oh, thank goodness. Just tell her I want to talk to her.”

He didn’t seem drunk or high or anything, and that worried me. This was clearheaded distress.

“She can hear you,” I said.

“Go away! We’re done. ’S called... a One. Night. Stand,” Zelu slurred.

“I don’t do those,” he snapped.

“Apparently you do,” I said. “Hey, I’ve got a sleeping infant in the car. Can you just... quiet down and, even better, go away? I’m sure you have my sister’s number—”

“I don’t! She gave me a fake one. I had to follow her here!” he snapped. He stepped closer. “Look, just get out of my way so I can talk some sense into your sister.”

I didn’t move. I had no space to shut the door. He was getting angrier; I could tell. I’d dated a guy when I was in college who... well, let’s just say, this guy’s behavior was familiar to me. I wasn’t sticking around to let him reach what he was working up to. He was nearly in my face. My baby was in the car. That was it for me. I reached into my pocket, grabbed my tiny canister of pepper spray, unlocked it as I brought it out, and aimed it right in his face. I pressed the button and sprayed the hell out of him. Me! I had carried it in my pocket at night, and sometimes during the day, for years. I didn’t even know if the shit worked. Still, it had always made me feel a tiny bit safer. But I’d never really imagined I’d use it. That Icouldbring myself to use it.

While he screeched and clawed at his face, Zelu snickered, and the concerned waitress inside was probably already calling the police. I shut the door, ran to the driver’s side, got in, and drove off. For several minutes, Zelu and I were silent... except for our coughing. When you pepper spray someone, you have to deal with what you’ve done, on a smaller scale. In the back seat, Emeka hadn’t woken up even for all that. None of the fumes reached him, thankfully.

“What did you do to him?” I asked my sister.

She only shrugged. The incident seemed to have sobered her up. “Fucked him. Was a student from one of my classes a few semesters ago. Lawyer trying to be a writer. I just got tired of him by the next morning.”

“And you told him so.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s funny. Guys like that are so entitled. But even more so when you can’t walk. They think you should be soooo grateful.” She giggled again, even harder.

That’s Zelu. She’ll do something, then right after, just let go of it. Zelu puts it all behind her right away. So wrapped up in herself that she doesn’t know when she’s kicked people out of their sense of normalcy. She’ll just leave you there, reeling and wondering why.

Maybe that’s what you all love so much about her.

2

The Wedding

Zelu was thinking about water.

Trinidad and Tobago had the sweetest beaches she’d ever seen. They went on for miles and miles with not a human in sight, and the waters were so warm. The day after she’d arrived, she’d gone with her soon-to-be brother-in-law and three of his local Trini friends. All of them could swim like fish... but none as well as she, of course. Once she put the elastic bands around her legs and ankles, she moved with power and confidence using her powerful arms, her back, shoulders, and abdominal muscles. She’d been swimming since she was five. “Oh, it’s just something I... fell into,” she’d tell people. She rarely explained how literal this was; she’d intentionally fallen into the water one day. Her family thought it was an accident, but it was the only way she could prove to anyone, including herself, that shecouldswim. When the wedding ceremony was over, she planned to go right back to those human-free beaches and swim some more. Preferably alone, this time. For now, she endured all the primping, preening, and perfuming of the bridal suite.

“I lookhot!” Zelu’s younger sister Amarachi proclaimed. She did atwirl and a pose in front of the mirror. Amarachi’s wedding dress was like something from another planet, and Zelu loved it. She’d been there to help her sister choose it, of course. “Zelu, you are a genius.”

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