Page 105 of You've Got a Place Here, Too
“Just admit it,” I say. “You loooovedLiving Single.”
“See, what had happened was, I was tryna help you take notes on how to be like Queen Latifah! Editor in chief of…” He snaps his fingers. “What was it again?”
“Boy, you know good and well Khadijah’s magazine was calledFlavor!”
And while it’s lovely to know we can crackle this way outside of the phone, that Jeremiah can still make me laugh harder than almost anyone else, part of me also feels a creeping panic. As if the moment—whatever moment this reunion is under pressure to produce—is about to wriggle out of my grasp.
“You remember,” says Jeremiah, still chuckling, “how I dropped ten, fifteen pounds every semester when tuition was due?”
“Just skin and bones, living off microwave popcorn and Cup Noodles Shrimp. And too hardheaded to let me slip you a piece of my stipend.”
He protests the same way he did back then, except now I understand it’s sincere: “Nah,” he says, “that was your New York money!”
“Well, that money got gone in a blink, so it was dollar pizza for me every day. Ya girl went to her next gig lactose intolerant!” We are cackling now. “Them publishing folks paid assistants next to nothing. And you think they cared how my Black ass was supposed to afford rent, winter clothes, the damn subway tokens?”
“Seriously, though,” says Jeremiah, “that’s why I’m trying to start a postgrad fellowship here. To help our kids close the gaps. There’s no reason why someone so talented should even thinkabout turning down an opportunity because it’s too expensive to take.” Jeremiah slows his pace and peers down at me. “I know how worried you got, just before you left.”
“Oh,” I say, “then youdoremember.” And my heart’s beating so hard it’s like I can hear it. “The night before I left Tallahassee?”
“Mmm. That was a crazy party you threw…”
“Everything must go!” I hoot, same way we did years ago while passing out flyers around campus, advertising all my junk for sale.
And I sense, in the quiet that falls between us, that each of us is reliving that night. After everyone else had gone home, for whatever reason, Jeremiah decided to stay. I can still feel, under my feet, the divots in that ugly beige carpet where my futon, my coffee table, my bookshelf used to sit. I can still smell the strawberry incense we burned to cover the weed. I can hearATLienspumping on somebody’s boombox, and the two of us giggling in the galley kitchen. I remember us scavenging the boxes of leftover Guthrie’s, finding no chicken but a few handfuls of cold crinkle fries inside, and exactly two pieces of Texas toast. I remember Jeremiah raising his triangle of thick, greasy bread: “A toast!” he declared, and we fell out laughing.
And I remember us mellowing out in the living room later, less high but still happy, and how I stared at this boy who’d become my true best friend—leaning against a wall, twisting his locs, lost inside “Elevators”…The next day, I realized, I’d be speeding toward some giant, terrifying unknown. But right in front of me, right then, was home. Was I crazy to leave?
When OutKast started over again on the boombox, I listened to the swells in the music, inside my heart. I moved toward Jeremiah, easy and languid, and his hands lit me up at the places he touched—his hands so new yet so natural on my hips, his fingers tracing my spine, then caressing my cheek. I looked down to seethe space between our bodies, but there wasn’t any, not anymore. I gazed up into his face. Into that wide-open smile that always assured me I was safe to be whoever I was, wherever I went…It was simultaneous, wasn’t it, the way he leaned down and I stood on tiptoe? Didn’t the rest of the world disappear for a minute, inside the sweetness of our first and last kiss?
“Nia,” Jeremiah says now, and the sound of my name breaks me out of the spell. The noise of the traffic on Wahnish floods back in, and on the sidewalk he and I are divorced middle-agers again. Nervous comrades flirting like fools. He waits for a group of students carrying smoothies to pass before speaking again, and when he does his voice is a whisper: “Do you ever wonder where we might be if…?”
“Yes,” I say, breathless, and the quickness of my answer makes both of us smile.
“Me too,” he says. “And I really wanted more, you know, but we were both kinda lit…”
“I knew exactly what I was doing, J.”
As we reach an intersection, Jeremiah takes my hand to guide me across.Patriarchal,my daughter might note, and maybe she’d be right. When we reach the other side he’s about to let go, but I adjust my grip slightly so he’ll know to lace his fingers with mine. So he’ll know that this is my choice, my desire. We’re still holding hands as we turn onto Osceola, where it’s quieter.
“You had places to fly,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to hold you down.”
I look up to the sky, considering what sassy thing I might say, but we’re much too old now to play these games. Above us, the moon is a fingernail between fast-moving clouds. “Usually I’d edit out a cliché,” I say, “but fuck it, it’s true: Everything happens—or doesn’t—for a reason.” Because while I’ve certainly wondered,I have never regretted. Had Jeremiah and I leaned into thatmore,either down here or up there, I wouldn’t have experienced the other great love of my life. “I’ll admit that lately I feel like I’ve aged out of the city. And every glossy I ever worked for is dying or dead. But the way my path, myexactpath, led to Jossy? To that innate fight and confidence she’s got? I don’t know if this makes sense, but…Sometimes I wonder if all those years I wasn’t dreaming about New York, per se, but dreaming about making a girl like her.”
“Come on, now,” Jeremiah murmurs, like anamen.
I give his fingers a squeeze. “I just want you to know, wherever my baby ends up, we are—Iam—very grateful for the invitation.”
He brings my hand up to his lips, plants a soft peck on the knuckle of my thumb. “You’re welcome, Nia,” he says. “Anytime.”
“Really? Don’t play! Because I’m finna be an empty nester…”
His phone rings then, and I loosen my grip so he can answer. It’s the gastropub calling to confirm our reservation; already, we’re running ten minutes late. I can hear the maître d’ on the other end, sounding harried, shouting over the clamor in the background:Would you like to reschedule to a later slot?
Jeremiah raises an eyebrow at me.
“Sure,” I say, “I’m cool to wait.”
There’s time, then, for Jeremiah to show me one last campus improvement—how they’ve dug a new series of stairs into the hill by my old haunt, the J-School. We take a deep breath and start the trudge up. When we reach the top, when the incline of the walkway finally plateaus, he turns me around by the shoulders to look. The view, for the most part, is unremarkable, especially to the eye of a longtime New Yorker; it’s mostly wide, flat rooftops and a couple parking lots. But to the left, there is brightness,movement, sound…Glory.I can see them now—the Marching 100, dressed out and moving in formation under the lights of the practice field. Their instruments polished and gleaming, swinging to the tempo.
