Page 12 of Night and Day
“Nope.” She looked him dead in the face.
He let out a sound that came out as a combination of a laugh and sigh. Then, folding his arms on the table, he said in a quiet voice, “He drowned, twenty-two years ago. We were nine, and it happened not long after that picture you saw.”
He swallowed and shifted in the chair. Tamika sensed he wanted to say more and remained silent, letting him continue at his own pace.
“A bunch of us were down at the riverbank goofing around. Me, Ricky, our older brother Pat, and some other kids from the neighborhood. We weren’t supposed to be there because there weren’t any adults, but you know how kids are. Hard-headed. Somehow, Ricky slipped into the water and got pulled along with the current. We’d been horsing around for a while, so he didn’t have much fight in him. Plus, he wasn’t the best swimmer. He got swept downstream, and the whole time I was running along the bank, trying to keep up, screaming and yelling at him with our older brother and six more kids behind me doing the same. We told him to stay strong, to hang on, but we lost him after a while.” A faraway look came into his eyes. “They found his body the next day. I never went back to that spot. Fucking hate being near the water now.” His jaw tightened and his gaze dropped to the table.
Tamika let silence envelope them before she spoke again. “I saw my sister die, too,” she whispered.
That was the hardest part of her memories. She could handle recalling everything else—the phone call that had them rushing to the hospital, the funeral, and going into Camela’s room at home to sit on the bed and reminisce and soak up her energy. But the memory of those last minutes left her painfully raw.
“I was holding her hand in the hospital. Like you did for your brother, I encouraged her to hold on. But… but right before she died, I could almost swear that she said to me, ‘I’m ready.’ Then she left me. I just sat there and cried.” Her voice wobbled.
“I’m sorry.” His eyes filled with sympathy and compassion.
“I’m sorry for you, too.” Tamika released a heavy breath. “My mom passed around the time I became serious about making my own cosmetics. I started out making tinted lip balm and lipstick and then moved into skincare products, making small batches that I shared with friends and then started selling to friends and friends of friends. When I combined my most popular lip color, lip gloss, and lip liner into a lip kit, sales took off, and I saw the potential for my cosmetics business to do well. My mom was so proud and always encouraged me. ‘That’s your talent, Tam Tam,’ she used to say. She was my best friend. We were like this.” She twisted her middle finger around her forefinger. The pain of losing her mother was fresher and expanded in her chest like an inflating balloon.
The waitress’s arrival with the appetizers created a break in the heavy conversation. She asked if they were ready to order their meals, but they both shook their heads. When she left, they stared at the platter of food in silence.
Anton was the one who finally spoke. “We have more in common than I realized. More than two people who got cheated on.”
Tamika managed to smile. “Yeah, we do.”
6
After a lull in the conversation, Anton said, “I decided to go to law school because of my brother.” He picked up a battered cauliflower with his fingers and popped it in his mouth.
“Really?”
He nodded. “One time for career day, one of our friend’s dads came to talk to the class, and he was an attorney. He told us about the different types of attorneys, and Ricky was fascinated by the idea of being an entertainment attorney. He was a cut-up. I guess you could say he was the fun one, and I was the serious one, so I think he imagined himself hanging out with celebrities and famous people. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. One minute, a fireman, the next minute a truck driver, the next minute a chef.”
“Can you cook?” Tamika asked.
“Barely, but I like to eat.” He smiled. “Anyway, I was all over the place, but I was only nine, right, so that’s to be expected. When Ricky died, I became obsessed with becoming an entertainment lawyer. I was going to do it for Ricky. But once I entered law school, I was more interested in contracts and business structures and all that stuff that would have put Ricky to sleep. After talking with my career counselor, I ended up choosing corporate law. At first, that decision was like a weird betrayal, but after a while, I settled into the idea.”
“Because it fit your personality.”
“Yeah. Long hours, though. But… I think Ricky would be proud.”
Tamika studied him across the table and sympathized with the pain he was experiencing. The lines of his face were drawn. “You don’t talk about him much, do you?”
He seemed surprised by her assessment. “No, I don’t.”
“You should talk about him more,” she said gently.
“Why?”
“Because it gets easier the more you do. I promise it does. There was a time when I couldn’t talk about my sister at all because it hurt too much, but now I talk about herallthe time,” she said with a little laugh. “Same with my mom.”
“And that helped?” He sounded and looked skeptical.
“Yes. People grieve differently, but bottling up the pain won’t help you or make the loss any easier. You need to let out your grief. You need to talk about him. Share the memories with people you know.” Tamika reached across the table and covered his fist with her hand.
Anton looked in her eyes, and she smiled. After a while, he smiled back, and that initial attraction she’d experienced with him came flooding back tenfold. She should only be thinking about helping him through the painful memories, but that smile made her notice once again how good-looking he was. The sharp line of his jaw and intense eyes softened, making her stomach contract reflexively as her nipples tightened.
She wondered what he was like in bed. In her experience, quiet men were extremely dangerous. They were the ones who’d have you fiending for them all hours of the day and night. They didn’t brag about their sexual prowess because they didn’t need to. They simply put in the work and let their actions speak louder than words ever could.
“Thanks,” Anton said.
