Page 59 of Shâhzâdeh

“Already?” How she thought I could go from this girl hating me to her marrying me in weeks had to be nothing but a mother’s confidence.

She sat down on the bar stool that Omega held out for her and Midas place the bowl of bademjan he’d prepared for himself. She accepted it and thanked him by kissing him on the cheek. In a room full of killers, my mother was the white oleander: beautiful and just as deadly.

She blessed her food but before she took a bite she looked at me; her face now serious.

“You heard your Uncle X. The entireConsortiumhas been waiting a year for you to get it together. Don’t sully the Cannon name by messing this up. Besides, it has already been written. Your ancestors are waiting on you to win your wife.”

VANYA

“FRANKIE, I NEED you to help me with something.”

I was absolutely going to drive myself crazy thinking about Xerxes and wondering what he was doing. I’d called Frankie and she’d agreed to come hang out at my place because Ms. Safi had her babies and she was home bored. I told her she probably needed a nap, but she was insistent on needing human contact with someone who could hold intellectual conversation. Since I’d never been a mother, I wasn’t about to override what she said she needed. We’d been relaxing since she got here and I felt like a slacker for not being at work, but I didn’t have shit else to do. Xerxes was gone and Navi was running her clients.

“Shit, this sounds serious. Is it about… how you need to slide down on that man’s dick and stop playing?” Her hair was in two long braids and she sat forward far too eagerly for my liking.

I almost choked on the mimosa I’d poured for us at the look on her face. “What? No, I’m not a virgin, I know how to do that if I wanted to.”

She had the nerve to suck her teeth and sit back on the deep rust-colored velvet sofa that was the centerpiece of my apartment. “I mean I doubt you’d know an orgasm from the looks of your ex, but tell me what you need.”

I hesitated thinking back to something I’d seen on One that had started an entire discourse. I’d attempted to fall down the rabbit hole, but kept getting confused because I was missing cultural context. “What’s the cookout?”

It was her turn to choke and she threw a pillow at me as I laughed. “Van — what the hell?”

“I’m serious!” I was giggling because I know I had to sound crazy.

Her coughs turned into laughs as she looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I know you are, but I’m still kinda thrown off.”

“Listen, I’ve done the research, I have tried to do the whole context clues thing and I still don’t think I have it right. I can’t. I would rather know what it means from your perspective than to hear it from an outsider’s point of view. Cause I feel the explanation I read was written by a white person.”

She nodded her head in thatsorry siskinda way as she agreed with me. “Oh, if it was online that’s definitely facts cause most of us wouldn’t be researching it.”

“See! I know there’s invites to the cookout and I get it’s metaphorical. What denotes someone getting an invite to the cookout? I thought it was just a white person acting right but then I saw this whole thing on One where people were saying they could get their invite revoked and they were Black. Help me not fuck up, Frankie!”

Frankie tried to answer me but it just came out as giggles and odd gasps of air.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I promise it’s not at you—”

“Well, I’m not laughing so it’s definitely not with me. Listen, I’m not trying to start an international incident like that girl charging six thousand dollars to line dance at trail rides!” I flopped back dramatically, which didn’t help.

She was waving her hands and catching her breath but I still needed her to get it together.

“Technicality. Okay, listen. The cookout is absolutely metaphorical. It ain’t like everybody is pulling up to one location with their favorite side and somebody’s uncle in leather church sandals is manning the grill.”

I blew out a frustrated breath because I didn’t even know that there were uncle sandals that were designated just for church. “Frankie, this explanation is just bringing up more questions.”

“Sorry, we’ll get to that. It basically means that the Black community as it exists in America is the cookout. The culture essentially. ADOS, those of us who descended from the enslaved were automatically a part of the cookout. That’s our shit. But the people who show themselves to be allies, they get an invite to the cookout.”

“So they get invited into the Black community.”

Frankie started shaking her head again and I was almost sorry I asked her for this clarification. “Not as like a member or a permanent resident. More like someone who’s allowed to eat the food. Because they’ve paid the price of admission. But they can’t spend the night. Do you understand where I’m going?”

I nodded slowly thinking I had it but I wasn’t sure. “So, like the cookout isCarowinds, and they paid the admission fee.”

“Yeah but the price is more like acting like they have fucking sense. Being anti-racist. I mean before if you had rhythm you could get an invitation to the cookout, but America post 2016 shut that shit all the way down.” Frankie gave me a second for her explanation to sink in.

“Okay so that’s why they mad at the line dancing girl. So no more invites to the cookout.” I thought I was good until I looked down at my hand. “Shit, am I invited to the cookout?”

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