Blackout Page 8

  “It’s strange to think how we’re so used to being able to see everything. I bet it was pretty scary for my grandparents to walk all that way in the dark. Especially with looting and everything else that was happening back then.”

  “Oh yeah!” Joss says suddenly. “I never got to hear the rest of the story.” She pushes her glasses up onto her nose and reaches for Ziggy. He goes to her immediately and climbs up into the chair with her. He’s huge and it’s hilarious and adorable to see his big body squished on top of hers. “Will you tell me?”

  I feel suddenly lonely with the two of them in the same chair, and me a short (but impossibly far) three feet away. I nod and look across the alley again.

  “They walked from their building north of Morningside Park all the way to my great-grandmother, who was living in East Harlem, on 116th and Second Ave. And back.”

  “Whoa,” Joss says. I don’t look over to see her expression, but I can hear her bracelets and Ziggy’s panting. I fiddle with my necklace, a rose gold locket Bree got me for my birthday that makes me more acutely aware of my aloneness, that makes the distance from Joss seem even wider. I drop my hand and keep talking.

  “Yeah. But they talked the whole way. She told him stories about growing up in Harlem, because Pop had just moved to New York. He told her what it was like to live in Charlotte, North Carolina, his hometown, and how glad he was to be up north. When they passed the Apollo Theater, Granny told him her mom had taken her to amateur night and they’d gotten strawberry milkshakes after. She told him how sad she was that the theater had stopped having live shows, and only showed movies now. That’s when he told her if the Apollo ever had another amateur night, he hoped she’d let him take her out.”

  “He had to shoot his shot,” Joss says, bracelets singing.

  “He did. And then, when they passed an ice cream truck, he bought her a strawberry cone with sprinkles, and said something like, ‘I guess they were out of shakes.’ I know Granny loved that,” I say, smiling. “And the ice cream must have won her over because a few blocks later, Granny Z reached for Pop’s hand when they passed a store that was on fire, and didn’t let go the rest of the walk. By the time they made it to my great-grandmother’s building, they knew each other’s middle names, hopes and dreams, and as Pop puts it, ‘that our hands were made to fit.’”

  Joss sighs a contented sigh. “What’s your middle name?” she asks.

  “Rose,” I say. “What’s yours?”

  “Mae,” Joss says, and then, “My grandparents met at a baseball game. My grandpa was a player, and my Nan caught his foul ball. She asked him to sign it after the game and he wrote his phone number.”

  I grin. “What about your parents?” I ask.

  “They met in college. She was a Delta, and he was a Q. They met at a step show and swear it was destiny. Yours?”

  “High school sweethearts. They got divorced when I was ten, but they’re still really good friends. It’s weird sometimes. But nice.” I smile to myself thinking about how they both came with me to the Pride parade, decked out in matching rainbow T-shirts and shorts. It was so dorky and adorable. “They’re cute.”

  “Ugh, ugh, ugh,” Joss says. “I hope I get to experience something like that one day. So damn romantic.” And I think sitting here with her, telling love stories, is pretty romantic. I’m about to say as much when my phone vibrates. I pull it out of my pocket and it’s her.

  Power still out? Where are you?

  “Ugh, Zigs, you’re on my bladder,” Joss says, gently pushing Ziggy off her lap. “Be right back, Nella.”

  “Okay,” I say, wondering if she really has to pee or if she saw Bree’s name on my phone’s screen.

  Against my better judgment, I scroll back through my texts with Bree until I get to the good ones. The mushy, sweet ones we sent each other before she rejected me and left for the summer.

  NELLA: I miss your face.

  BREE: Not as much as I miss yours.

  NELLA: You have the best hair on earth.

  BREE: Well your fro is pretty awesome too.

  NELLA: You just get me. How is it that you just get me?

  BREE: I don’t know, boo.

  NELLA: How’d we never meet til now?

  More like: How could I have been so clueless?

  My chest feels tight with something like longing, something like pain. I scroll down and write back.

  NELLA: Yeah, power’s still out but it’s not even dark yet. I’m at Pop’s. I’m good, don’t worry.

  BREE: Call me. I need to hear your voice to know you’re okay.

  NELLA: No.

  BREE: Why?

  NELLA: Because you broke my fucking heart.

  I hear the door slide open and I slide my phone back into my pocket.

  “I got the wallet from Ike. Let’s try this again,” Joss says.

  She holds the wallet out for Ziggy to sniff, and I sniff at the same time. Dammit.

  “Hey,” Joss says. She puts her hand on my shoulder and leans over so she can see my face. “Hey, are you crying?”

  “Only a little,” I say.

  “Wait, what? Why? What happened?”

  “It’s stupid,” I say. I rub my eyes with my arm.

  “Tears are never stupid,” Joss says.

  “It’s just my stupid ex. Or whatever the hell she is. When we were hanging out, I thought she liked me. Like liked me, liked me. This is so embarrassing, but I actually thought we were dating. It turned out she was just being nice. She just wanted to be friends the whole time but I totally thought something else was going on. Now when she checks on me, it just feels so tainted. Like she sees me as this clueless little kid she has to take care of. It drives me nuts, but I miss her so much that I put up with it. I hate it.”

  Joss kneels in front of me and uses her thumbs to wipe my cheeks. Except she kinda pokes me in the eye. “Ow,” I say. And then I’m laughing.

  “Shit, sorry,” she says. “Do you need a hug?” I nod and grab her hands so that we stand up together.

  We hug. It’s nice. She’s soft and she smells sweet and fresh, like baked bread or donuts. And because we’re the same height, I just fit.

  “Now, let’s find that photo,” Joss says.

  Ziggy’s a dog on a mission. He steps back into the kitchen and his nose doesn’t leave the floor. He leads us to the basement door, and when we open it, he charges down the stairs like he was born to do photographic search and rescue.

  “The laundry room,” I say. “Why didn’t we think about checking the laundry room?” If the photo had fallen out of Pop’s wallet and into his pocket, whichever staffer did the laundry would have probably found it before washing his trousers.

  “Ziggy’s a freaking genius,” Joss says.

  There’s a battery-powered lantern at the base of the stairs, which Mimi probably left there just in case she needed to come down here to get anything. I pick it up and click it on, and the three of us head back to the laundry room, convinced we’re close to solving this mystery together.

  I set the lantern on top of the washing machine and we use our flashlights to check the shelving and floor for pocket contents. There are marbles and loose change and keys in little jars all along the shelves beside the washer and dryer. But as we scan each shelf full of receipts and pens and buttons, there’s no photo.

  “Ugh!” I say. “I’m so over this. Where else could it possibly be? This place isn’t that big. Pop doesn’t really go anywhere. It shouldn’t be this hard.”

  Joss is still looking. Her bracelets are making music and Ziggy is following her from one side of the room to the other. She licks her lips, and she’s still wearing that lipstick. I’d forgotten since I was avoiding looking at her, trying so hard not to stare on the balcony.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” I say. I start to worry she’s only helping because she feels bad for me. I think back to everything I’ve told her and I feel really pathetic. My granny died. My best friend didn’t like me back.
I got dumped by someone I wasn’t even officially dating. And then I cried. Jesus.

  “I really don’t mind, Nella.” She finds a laundry basket full of clean clothes and starts lifting the folded shirts and pants, meticulously checking between each article of clothing.

  “Joss, stop.”

  She stops. She looks up at me. Her mouth is so purple.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t have to help me.”

  “I wouldn’t be helping you if I didn’t want to help you.”

  I wince a little.

  “Right. That’s the thing, though. I think there’s something about me that makes people want to help me? Like there’s something kinda pathetic about me. I mean, I thought I was dating a girl for two months and even my family members are always trying to help me with my love life. So people want to help, want to take care of me or whatever, but eventually that neediness is what makes them not want me around anymore.”

  “You don’t need to be taken care of, Nella. You’re not some helpless little kid.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “Do you?” Joss asks, and she sounds kind of mad. “I’m not helping you because you’re pathetic. And to be clear, you’re not pathetic. You’re sensitive. You’re soft. You’re vulnerable and kind.”

  I blink a few quick times, my eyes stinging and damp.

  “I’m helping you because I wanted an excuse to talk to you, to get to know you, to follow you around this house in the dark. You’re . . . kinda amazing. Just like Ike said. But until you realize that, it’s not going to matter what I or anyone else thinks.”

  I’m not sure what to say, so for a long minute, I don’t say anything.

  “That girl, she probably led you on whether it was on purpose or not, because you’re warm and gentle and sweet. She’s probably only realizing her mistake now. You’re like the rose quartz in Queenie’s room: your energy is all love.”

  I swallow hard.

  “I don’t know about that,” I say, and then I’m speaking faster than I want to be. “You’re the amazing one. You trained your dog to help other people. You volunteer at kids’ hospitals and animal shelters and old people’s homes and hospices. You play the piano like a classical musician, and Pop told me you sing! And I mean, look at you. Your whole . . . being is a freaking work of art.”

  I hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud. But it was true. I’d stared enough to know that. I yank at my skirt.

  Joss steps closer to me, and I back away from her until the dryer is right up against my lower back. “Okay,” she says, her voice lowering in a way that makes my face warm. “And you came up with a way to keep your dying grandmother happy. You were brave enough to tell your friend you loved her, and you fought to stay friends even when she didn’t love you back in the same way. You’re still kind to the girl who broke your heart. I saw you texting her. You put out a goddamn fire with nothing but your boot-clad feet! And let’s not talk about people being art because . . .” Joss takes a step back, looks me up and down, and says, “Damn, girl.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing, Nella Rose Jackson.”

  Up this close, I notice again that we’re precisely the same height. And I see that her glasses frames are rose gold, like my necklace.

  We match.

  Her eyes, on the other hand, are the color of the room we’re in—the color of a room with all the lights turned off—but glowing and a little golden in the center like the lantern just beside us. And in here I can see that her skin’s a little lighter brown than mine, like the shell of a hazelnut, or the paper towels in the old movie theater bathroom downtown. I reach out and touch one of her long braids, and it feels soft and substantial, like everything else about her is too.

  “Okay. Jocelyn Mae Williams,” I say. She smiles a little. “Okay. I get it. But the thing is . . .”

  “You’re afraid,” she says. And I nod, thinking about Bree. Thinking about love and how it feels to lose it. Thinking about how much it can hurt.

  “I can be brave enough for both of us, if you need me to be,” she says. “But something about this, about us, feels special.”

  I never kissed Bree because I was too afraid. And it feels unsafe and much too soon to let someone new into my shipwrecked heart. But all at once I decide that you can’t be brave unless you’re at least a little scared.

  I look at Joss’s dark lipstick, her dark hair, her dark eyes. And before she can say anything else, I swallow my fear and close the space between us.

  When we kiss, it’s slow and warm. It’s thickly sweet, like the butterscotch candy we took from Queenie’s bedside table, but there’s something underneath the syrupy flavor that I know must be essentially Joss too. I want to taste more of that. I deepen the kiss and I wonder why we’ve wasted so much time on the opposite sides of rooms, so much time talking, so much time doing anything at all but this.

  The first time we break the kiss, Joss says, “We’re gonna have to work on your pessimism. Don’t you think it’s possible that this could be good? That maybe this won’t lead to disaster at all? What if we find out that we fit together, like your grandparents and their hands? What if you, with your sweetness and your too-soft heart, those pretty eyes and very short skirts, are exactly what I’ve been waiting for?”

  I blush.

  I don’t know. I can’t know. But I kinda think I want to find out.

  I lean in and kiss her more.

  The second time we break the kiss, it’s me who speaks.

  “I cry a lot,” I warn her. And she laughs.

  “I think I can handle it.”

  “I text Bree all the time,” I say.

  “Maybe you should stop texting her and start texting me.”

  “I didn’t want to meet you. I knew this would happen if I did.”

  “I’ve been wanting to meet you since the first time Ike said your name,” Joss says, and then we’re kissing again.

  I reach out and place my hand on the part of her belly that I’ve been staring at since she walked into Althea House. I thank the universe and current fashion trends and God himself for this particular midriff top and the access it affords me. I’m endlessly grateful for whatever lotion she uses because her skin feels smooth and silky. And then she’s touching my thighs and I don’t care how many times I’ve had to tug at the denim strip around my waist, I’m so glad I’m not wearing a longer skirt.

  I want to kiss and touch her ’til morning, but it only lasts until Ziggy nudges his way between us.

  “Not now, Zigs,” Joss says against my lips, trying her hardest not to break the kiss for the third time, but when I open my eyes, I see Pop standing in the doorway of the laundry room.

  “Pop!” I say. I grab Joss’s hand and pull her around so she’s beside me instead of in front of me.

  “We . . . were going to order some pizza,” Pop says, grinning. “Wanted to see if you girls wanted some.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Joss and I both say at the same time.

  “You got a little something,” Pop says, and he smooths his thumb over his own lips.

  The lipstick. It’s probably everywhere.

  I cover my face and Pop and Joss crack up. Then Joss uses her thumb to rub some of the smeared lip color off my face.

  “You still got my wallet, little lady?” Grandpop Ike asks Joss. She tugs it out of her pocket and hands it over. Pop folds it open, and I’m expecting him to take out his credit card or a few bills for the pizza, but he pulls out a small square that can only be . . .

  “The photo?” Joss says.

  “Where’d you find it?” I ask, not getting it until Pop gives me a look.

  “It wasn’t . . . ever missing, was it?” Joss asks.

  Pop shrugs. “You’ve been so low, Nella-Bear. And spending so much time here since Bree left. I just wanted you to get to know a sweet girl your own age. I wanted you to make a friend. I didn’t think it would develop this quickly. But I ain’t mad about it.”
He smiles more.

  I walk over and sock him in the arm. “I don’t believe you,” I say. But I kinda do.

  Ziggy looks from Pop to me to Joss, tail twerking.

  “Thank you,” I say to Pop, then I rub his arm where I’d punched him and hug him.

  “So what kind of pizza do you want?” he asks, turning to head back upstairs. I walk back to the dryer and grab the lantern. I grab Joss’s hand too. And I may be high from the kiss and the dark, but I think something about us . . . fits.

  “I like Hawaiian, and Ziggy will eat anything,” Joss says.

  “Pepperoni’s good,” I say. “But you taste better,” I whisper in Joss’s ear.

  My phone vibrates, and when I pull it out, it’s another text from Twig.

  TWIG: You gonna get the cups or what????

  NELLA: Yeah. Damn. Chill, Twiggy.

  TWIG: Aye, what I tell you bout calling me that?!!

  I smile, sliding my phone back into my pocket. “I have no idea how we’ll get there, but wanna go to my cousin’s block party in Brooklyn with me later?”

  She smirks. “Obviously. Maybe we can walk like your grandparents did. Get some strawberry ice cream on the way?”

  I smile wider, lean over, and kiss her on the cheek.

  When we get back upstairs, the residents are whispering.

  The Montgomery-Allens grin at us.

  Birdie and Pearl lift their eyebrows and then look at each other.

  Miss Sadie mutters something about “young love” to Mimi.

  Queenie glances at our blushy faces and says, “Ummhm.”

  Aida and Mordechai are bickering, completely oblivious to us.

  There’s a gorgeous old lady I’ve never seen before sitting in the center of the sofa in a fur-fringed robe, holding a glass of wine.

  “Well, don’t you two look cozy,” she says.

  “Madame Marie!” Joss shouts, and I say, “Marie? As in the Marie-Jeanne Beauvais?”

  “The one and only, honey.” She squints at us and sips her wine. She pets Ziggy like he’s a cat. “Y’all look just like my son did the first time I caught him kissing a boy.”

  I swallow hard, looking down and away from her. Joss’s fingers go still where they’re laced through mine.