Page 16 of Seven Days in June

She’d fallen in instant love with Belinda years ago, when they were seated together at one of Cece’s exclusive parties. Raised by humble hairdresser parents in Silver Spring, Maryland, Belinda had attended Sidwell Friends School on scholarship during the Chelsea Clinton years and had been a dialect consultant for ten years’ worth of films featuring enslaved or Jim Crow–era Black people (suffice it to say, she was rarely out of work). As prestigious as her résumé was, her vibe was a charming, accessible blend of earth mama and around-the-way girl. She enjoyed Reiki healing and shamanic readings—but also raunchy memes and seducing young men who worked in the service industry. She’d just broken up with a Chilean stunner she’d met while he was passing out flyers in front of a MetroPCS store.

“Heyyy, Belinda.” Eva hugged her gently so as not to disturb her cluster of street-fair necklaces. Belinda’s signature box braids spilled out of her tribal-print headwrap, falling to her peach-shaped ass. She looked like a sexy doula.

“Come on, dress! Come on, body!”

“Honestly, I can’t move,” Eva whispered. She was wearing a black sleeveless Gucci sheath dress with major plunge and scarlet stiletto booties. Her boobs were hiked up to her chin, and her hair was blown out poker-straight.

“You. Did. Not. Come. To. Play. This. Monday. Evening.” Belinda executed a body roll between each word.

Eva fidgeted with her hem. “I feel like the office vixen on a network drama about sultry lawyers.”

“Worked for Meghan Markle. Come on, let’s mingle.”

Belinda linked arms with Eva, and they strolled through the crowd, chatting.

“Girl,” started Eva, “I have someone I wanna set you up with. He’scutecute. Check his IG, @oralpro.”

Belinda’s mouth dropped open. “What kind of blessing…?”

“Relax, he’s an orthodontist. He did beautiful work on Audre.”

“Pass. I’m already checking for the hot produce guy at my Trader Joe’s. I was there earlier, shopping for my vegan-bakery course. It’s taught by the woman who pioneered vaginal-yeast brioche.”

“Vaginal-yeast brioche,” repeated Eva.

“She’s famous for it.”

“There’s more than zero people famous for making vaginal-yeast brioche?”

“Anyway, stop trying to set me up. You just want to mine my sex life for book inspo. Why don’tyoudate @oralpro? Get out there! Stop wasting your good legs and youthful complexion.”

“Know why I have nice skin?” Eva winked. “No man stressing me out.”

Just then Cece appeared out of nowhere, popping her head between them. “Ask her aboutAlone,” she announced. Then she grabbed Eva’s watered-down seltzer, replaced it with a fresh one, and disappeared back into the crowd.

Belinda gasped. “How does she justmaterializelike that? And what’s she talking about?”

Before Eva could answer, a young girl rocking a dyed-blond ’fro and a tube top launched herself into Belinda’s arms.

“Your poetry is the only thing getting me through my NYU finals! Sign my book?” She thrust a tattered copy at Belinda.

“Of course!” She signed the title page and gestured at Eva with her elbow. “This is Eva Mercy. You must’ve heard ofCursed?”

“My stepmom reads that series,” she said before quickly snapping a selfie with Belinda. “But I avoid texts depicting explicit cisheteropatriarchal sex. Sorry.”

The girl threw up a Black Power fist and bounced. In seconds, Cece materialized again, glaring at her.

“Who let that bleached peasant in here?” Cece was the queen of policing women who had her hairdo. Which was half of Brooklyn. “Is she wearing Walmart denim?”

“Have you ever been in a Walmart?” asked Eva.

“Physically, yes. Spiritually, no.” She spun on her heel. “To the stage! It’s showtime.”

Belinda grabbed Eva’s hand, and they trailed Cece through the crowd, like ducklings.

The stage was intimate: a row of four club chairs for Cece, Eva, Belinda, and Khalil. Khalil didn’t appear until after Cece’s introduction, due to a misunderstanding with his Uber driver. The misunderstanding was that he stole someone else’s Uber and the driver kicked him out.

He was a thirty-seven-year-old cultural studies PhD who favored pastel Ralph Lauren chinos and bow ties. He was famous for writing tomes on systemic racism—and he lived with a sixty-something Swedish heiress, who financed the Ralph Lauren pants and ties.

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