Page 95 of Seven Days in June

“He’s fine as fuck, though,” said an Alvin Ailey choreographer with a multicolored manicure.

“Name me a fine man who isn’t problematic.”

“True. Pretty women are normal, but pretty men are nightmares.”

“On the low-low,” started the designer, “ever since I started dating unattractive men, I’ve been thriving.”

“Where do you find them?”

“Atlantic Center on a weeknight. Between the DMV, Applebee’s, and Home Depot? Bitch, you’ll leave with a mainanda side.”

Overheard on a couch:

“I can’t believe Shane Hall’s here. He’s so intimidating,” whispered a wide-eyed young author who’d just dropped a smash debut novel,I Sing of Rainbow Children.

“We’re just as talented,” lied her friend, a celeb ghostwriter. “And we’re not hot messes.”

“Somebody said he’s sober now.”

“I don’t believe it. I was at a garden party at the 2010 Frankfurt Book Fair, and I saw this man sniff a rose bush, accidentally inhale a bee, punch himself in the nose, and knock himself out.”

“You a whole liar.”

“On God. I was like, how’d this wreck writeEight?”

“It happens. Look at Mariah. She can’t walk across a stage without assistance from sixteen Puerto Rican male dancers. But she’s the voice of a generation.”

Overheard near the bookcase:

“Khalil. Why’re you wearing a green shirt with pink pants?” asked his ex, a snarky screenwriter. “You an AKA? A tube of Maybelline Great Lash?”

“How dare you? You’re wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat with a lace blouse. You look like Ida B. Wells.”

“You gon’ respect my Great Migration realness.”

“Somebody told me Eva’s dating Shane,” grumbled Khalil. “You think it’s true? Why him? Jerk-off.”

“I’d like to jerk him off,” she muttered. “Theymustbe dating—look at how close they’re standing! Damn, Eva’s glowing. That skin.”

“Yeah,” Khalil reluctantly agreed. “She has the complexion of a wealthy infant.”

“And I heard she just got hit by a dump truck,” she whispered, in awe.

Meanwhile, by Cece and Ken’s Kehinde Wiley portrait…

Shane, after doing the social equivalent of rowing across the Atlantic, was finally standing in front of her. They gazed goofily at each other, the air crackling between them.

“Hi, baby,” said Shane.

Eva’s stomach dropped. She wasn’t ready for “baby.”

“Hi,” she cooed.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Shane leaned toward her and said, “Everybody’s talking about us.”

Eva took a cursory glance around the room. “I know. Is it weird? Do you care?”

He absentmindedly tapped his bottom lip, his expression rascally. “Not in the least.”

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