“I know where you’re going, and the least you can do is not act excited in front of my face.”
“Huh?” Landon looked at Valerie through their freestanding mirror.
“‘Huh?’” Valerie mimicked him.
“I’m not happy about her or that.”
“Oh? Is there another woman I need to know about? Only novelty can make a man that excited.”
Landon sat on the edge of the bed and placed her feet on his lap. “There may be a new revenue stream coming through here in a matter of months.”
“From where?”
“You just have to trust me. I’m on my way to Josephine’s. I don’t intend on being long.”
“Sure,” she said sarcastically. “Seems like y’all have a lot to talk about, especially since Laila tried to confront her. You check up on her?”
“Denise is not allowing anyone to see her. I can send flowers from the church, and when the time comes, I’ll pray over her.”
Valerie sighed. “I was there in the crowd when she lost her mind outside the Melancons’. I couldn’t stop replaying the image of her crying and snotting and bleeding. Came home that night and got my period early. You have to make sure that she doesn’t keep talking about the Melancon family, what they do, and what we do. It could hurt the business.”
“She won’t. I don’t think Laila’s going to be leaving Denise’s apartment any time soon. Everybody knows her husband left her and her own place is all burned up. She’s got nothing but her grief.”
“She better not say anything.”
Landon leaned over and kissed Valerie on the lips. Her breath always smelled slightly acidic, like citrus wine with a hint of dairy. Valerie’s scent was purposeful; she knew that when Landon would later go to kiss Josephine, she’d detect the smell and be reminded of which woman came first.
His routine was simple yet highly refined over time. He never wore his shoes while walking down the steps to avoid making noise and waking the children. He wore a Knicks hat, tattered sneakers, and a long trench coat. A driver was scheduled to be at the corner of the block where the Thomases lived at eight forty-five p.m. sharp. He would be dropped off at the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and on the nights when Josephine was expecting him, the porch light would be kept off.
The brownstone always smelled of rose and mandarin when Landon came. Maman abhorred the aroma, a conspicuous seduction tactic that led to sex, though Landon and Josephine’s sex never led to children. She abhorred magazines and television just as much, but these were the tools God had given her to distract herself. She rolled her eyes and made herself comfortable.
This time, though, Josephine didn’t greet him at the door or hold his hand as they tiptoed up the stairs like they had always done in the past. He went up the steps to her bedroom and knocked on the door. There was a long pause before Josephine opened the door in a slip and pulled him inside her room. Within a matter of minutes, there was a blur of naked, sweaty bodies, dangling rosary beads that swayed on the nightstand every time the headboard moved, and six dove pendants placed in no particular design on the ceiling. When it was done, Josephine did what she always did: she cried while sitting at her vanity mirror and wiping in between her thighs with a rag. In the midst of her sadness, Landon admired her beauty, the way her coily hair fell lopsided to one side of her head, the discoloration on the back of her neck, her almond-shaped eyes. The candles that would burn in her bedroom softened her. The incandescence made him feel like he was eavesdropping on some ritual that any other man would be forbidden to see and he felt not only lucky but also chosen. There was scut-scut-scuttling on the windowpane that an unseasoned New Yorker might take to be mice in the walls. But it was only the initial outbreak of drizzle.
What spoiled this scene were the shadows on the opposite wall. There were three: his, Josephine’s, and some amorphous figure hanging over Josephine’s body. He checked to his side and behind him, but there was nothing there. He jumped at the prickling sensation of something touching the nape of his neck, but again, nothing was there. And then he noted the holes in the ceiling that seemed bigger from the last time he visited and the chipped cream wallpaper that decayed into a fecal brown.
“You don’t have to do that, you know.”
“What?”
“That.”
She scoffed. “I’m allowed to mourn, aren’t I?”
Landon sighed. “Look, Josephine, we can keep trying if—”
“No, no. I mean. It’s less about me this time. It’s—”
“Laila again?”
Josephine sighed. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d be over it by now, but I’m not. I feel for her because I know what it’s like. We know what it’s like.” Josephine placed a hand on her table and dropped her head. “Can I admit something to you?”
“Sure.”
“I tried as best I could to convince Maman to go through with the deal. We all know Iris is a little touched. That don’t mean what she says doesn’t come true. When you left with Laila, she just kept saying, ‘The brownstone will cave in from that woman. The brownstone will cave in from that woman.’ And you know the police been watching the bodega ever since . . . the incident. I can hardly speak or think about it; it’s too traumatizing. We can’t be too certain, even if I know in my heart she wasn’t some kind of mole and it wasn’t a setup ’cause of you. It’s like . . . we wanted
