She looked up at me.
“Out here,” I added. “In this … you know … because …”
But she was biting back a smile, having peeped a hint of my real meaning.
While we walked, I thought about all that stuff I’d let spill while we were outside the diner. I didn’t talk about my parents much to anyone. Mostly because when I did, the questions were so damned predictable. People skirted around it, danced close to it, but the crux of what they wanted to know was the generally the same—what was different about a Black man who’d been raised by a white woman? What was different about a man who had married one? It’s tough not to get defensive at questions like that and exhausted by them. It’s harder still not to get angry when you know what people are getting at, but just won’t say.
But Lila has a neutral listening face. I couldn’t tell much from watching it as I spoke, except for when she occasionally nodded or made a quiet sound of assent. I think I told her all that because I felt like I was on an accelerated timeline. I mean, we’re in the kind of times where the words ‘tomorrow isn’t promised’ feel like the truest thing ever spoken.
You can go to a corner store for some snacks and booze and wind up having the life crushed out of you by a dickhead with a gun, a badge, and something to prove.
Or you can meet a girl who feels like everything right and let her walk away just because you’re too cool to admit that from the second you saw her, she made your heart quake.
“Who’s Tianna?” I asked, trying to revive the conversation.
“My best friend. She leads the campus racial justice group.”
“Like the Black Student Union president,” I said.
Lila shook her head. “No, she would never be part of the BSU.”
“Oh, for real? Why not?”
“They’re all about respectability, playing it safe. They distribute petitions and stuff.”
I laughed. “What’s wrong with petitions?”
“Nothing. Just … I’ve never seen one that produced sustainable change, have you?”
I thought about it for a second.
“Not sure,” I said. “Can’t say I paid much attention. I mean, if the petition is something I’m all for, then I sign it.”
“And then move on with your life, right?”
I tried to detect judgment in her tone, but there was none.
“I guess.”
“And that, Kai, is what’s wrong with petitions as a strategy.”
I nodded. “Does it gotta be either or though? I mean, you can do … whatever it is your uber-radical group likes to do, and you can have petitions. Both might be effective in their own ways.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Lila said, but her voice sounded a little tight. “But that’s just not our lane. We don’t color between the lines, we disrupt the lines.”
“Sounds like Tianna talking,” I joked.
But from the look she gave me, I knew I was probably at least partly right.
“You don’t even know her,” Lila said. “So …”
“I know. I’m just …”
“People like Tianna,” she continued, “are the people that folks roll their eyes at behind their backs and call ‘social justice warriors’ to be sarcastic. But people like her, they never get caught off guard when things like this happen. They’re the first to mobilize, the first to lead. They’re the ones who can get a thousand people on the streets to march with four hours’ notice.”
“Nah. I mean, yeah. I didn’t mean to …”
“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s … whatever.”
“Hey,” I said. I stopped walking, taking care that the tether didn’t pull us apart. It seemed very important that we not be pulled apart right then.
Lila stopped and looked up at me, but her expression was flat and long-suffering.
“I’m here though, right?” I said. “I’m one of the thousand people that ‘social justice warriors’ like your friend got out here. So, I’m definitely not knocking it. I was being funny. I didn’t mean to …”
Her face softened a little. “It’s fine.” This time it sounded like she meant it.
She sighed and looked around, taking in where we were.
“Maybe I should call my dad real quick,” she said. “D’you wanna call your folks, or …?”
“Probably not,” I said. “Far as they know I’m home studying.”
“Okay, well I’ll just …”
I waited while she pulled out her phone again and we moved closer to the side of a building while Lila placed her call. I watched as her face changed when someone answered.
“Daddy?” she said.
Girls who are older than thirteen and call their fathers ‘daddy’ are a different breed. The ones like Lila, whose faces open into guileless smiles just at the sound of daddy’s voice, are rarer yet. These are the girls who would never call a lover or boyfriend ‘daddy’, because to do that would be like sacrilege.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. Then she listened for a while. “I lost Tee. But I’m with my friend Kai. He promised he’s gonna look after me.” She gave me a wink. “Yes. Tell her I’m okay, really. Love you, too. Bye.”
She heaved a deep sigh once she ended the call, like you do when you complete an important task.
“I’m an only kid,” she said, blushing a little as she stuffed the phone away once again.
“I didn’t say anything.” But I was grinning at her, thinking again how cute she was. How I wanted to wrap a few of those braids around my hand, gently tug her toward me and kiss her.
“Are you?” she asked.
Again, with the distraction technique. Don’t look at me. Let’s look at you instead.
“Am I what?”
“An only.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I have a sister. Younger.”
“Wow, really?”
“Why ‘wow’?”
“You give off strong only-child energy.”
“What’s only-child energy?”
“I don’t know. I just know it when I feel it. Is she much younger than you?”
“Not much.” I started walking again, not really sure I wanted to talk about Taylor.
“Okay, so … where is she?”
“Home. She’s in college too, but in DC.”
“Really, where?”
“Georgetown.”
“And you’re not close.”
“Why d’you
