But what I felt was loss. Not of something we had—we hadn’t had anything yet. It was the ‘yet’ that was the killing part though; the sense that there should be more, and I was blowing it.
“Tianna!” I called.
She heard me. I could tell from the way her shoulders tensed a little. I increased my pace, so I was closer. My armpits felt clammy and my feet ached. My head did as well, probably from mild dehydration. I hadn’t eaten, nor had anything to drink since Kai and I were at that diner.
“Tianna!” I called out again and this time she turned, grudgingly.
She slowed a little so that I was able to catch up to her, and Jah pulled ahead a few paces.
“What?” she asked.
“Where are we going, exactly?”
“To City Hall! Isn’t that what we said?”
“Okay, but what’s the …?”
“If you ask me one more time about a damn plan, Lila … I mean … this is what shit is like, okay? We ride the wave where it takes us. There ain’t no damn plan!”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said, shaking my head.
“The hell does that mean?”
“It means, the lack of a plan is the plan. You’re entertaining, maybe even inviting the idea that things go left once we’re down there.”
“And so what?”
“So what? Then that’s not riding the wave, Tianna, that’s directing it.”
She rolled her eyes. “You shoulda left with ol’ boy then, Lila. Because you want to hear the truth? I don’t give a damn if a few things get broke. That’s not my mission, but I literally do not give a shit. But if you do …”
“I don’t know if I do either! I just don’t like to get …”
“Call your daddy, then, Lila. Call daddy and have him come pick you up. But honestly, I don’t know what you’re worried about because even if you did loot every damn store down there tonight, he would still come when you called. Still be there to pick you up, and pick up the pieces.”
I stopped walking and looked at her. She looked back at me.
But she didn’t stop walking.
Chapter Seven
Kai
Sometimes I have a way of letting my imagination run away with me. That’s what it had to have been. At least, that’s what I was thinking while I made my way, sticky, smelly, tired and feeling like a dumb-ass, back toward my apartment building.
All it was, was that I saw a pretty girl, a literal damsel in distress and told myself that it was kismet when I later saw her again. I spent a day that should have been spent in solidarity with my boy, Lamar, following her around until finally she revealed herself to be on a march of folly.
Now, my only hope was that when I entered my apartment building, someone would be there who could let me into my unit. And maybe, just maybe I would find that my wallet had been sitting there all along, on my coffee table, safe and sound.
After a shower, I would call my pops and offer him a wordless assurance that though the city was about to explode into chaos after dark, his son at least had gotten his Black ass home. And maybe I would even call Brittainy and hold off on the breakup speech because one, we were never even really together, and two, it was useful to have a girl to talk to who would serve as inspiration for a later bout of self-relieving. Except … there was no way I was going to be anywhere in the vicinity of the mood to talk to Brittainy. Not after today spent with a very different kind of girl altogether.
After the walk through the heavy humidity, I got to my apartment and found the outer door locked, and of course—because it was just that kind of day—no one was manning the reception area. I stood there for almost fifteen minutes before someone happened to come out of the elevators and head toward the mailboxes. As bad luck would have it, it was a middle-aged white woman I didn’t know, someone in the demographic least likely to let in a young, Black man she didn’t know.
I waved, I motioned, I did everything but jump up and down but all I got was her glancing in my direction before turning away. Just as she was about to board the elevator with her mail and head back up to the safety of her apartment, she seemed to have another thought and turned to head in the opposite direction, toward the rear left of the reception area where she knocked on the office door.
Pointing me out to someone inside, she finally went back to the elevators, pushed the button, waited then went on her merry way. It took five more minutes for someone to surface from the back office and when they did, I saw that it was Rufi, the grad student who manned the front nights and weekends. Seeing me, his face brightened, and he rushed over to open the door, pulling up his face mask as he approached. I did the same.
“Hey!” he greeted me, looking me up and down. “What happened? Locked out?”
“Yeah, man,” I told him. “And I am hoping to God you can let me in. Because I just had a day that …”
Rufi laughed. “Looks like it. Were you out there? With the protesters?”
“Yeah. It was … intense.”
“I was out earlier as well,” Rufi said, surprising me. “And then it got a little hot, in more ways than one, so I figured it was time for me to come home.”
“Didn’t want to take one for the team?” I asked, laughing, and feeling sweet relief at the cool air of the lobby.
“I did my part,” Rufi said, shaking his head. “And tomorrow, I’ll be out there again. But as for what I think might happen tonight? Well … how is it they say? ‘A man’s got to know his limitations,’ right?”
“True
