Honey and Spice(16)
On either side of Chioma and Shanti stood loose crowds of their respective squads, conch piercings and culottes versus bundles and body-cons. At some point beyond this place the two cliques might merge, become one, conflate, but for now identities were distinct. They had to be, lest you got lost. At the moment they were just observing, sizing each other up, maybe laughing or rolling their eyes to add wind to jabs thrown, but I could sense the potential of a blowup.
I slid my head to the side. “I don’t know yet. I kind of want to see how it plays out.”
“Malakai, I don’t understand. Honestly, I don’t,” Chi-Chi was saying, “You take me to Root—”
My brows shot up. I was right. The boy did have skills. Root was the only vaguely fancy vegan restaurant in town. They had cloth napkins.
“We vibed, like I genuinely felt like we’d maybe met before in our past life—I told you that—and now I find out that you been taking this one to chicken mortuaries.”
Aminah choked on her drink. “Is she talking about Nandos?”
I didn’t have a chance to reply because Shanti had stepped to Chioma’s face. “Babes, you better send some prayers up to your ancestors right now, tell your girls to burn up some incense or whatever the fuck you witches do, because let me tell you, you’re gonna need their help.”
Chioma laughed. “Cute. Omo, listen. I may be vegan but I eat bitches up for dinner. Don’t get confused.”
The crowd surrounding them erupted. I looked around to notice the audience for this episode of Love and Grime, Whitewell, had broadened out. The ripple effect was widening; it had escalated, was souring. Malakai had still barely said a word, like he wasn’t the one responsible for this mess. It made my blood boil, but I had no time for my wrath to focus and sharpen in his direction. A full-on fight was going to break out on my turf, and if I didn’t stop it no one else was politically neutral enough to.
Aminah turned to me, her big, darkly lined doe eyes made wider. “Now?”
“Yup,” I nodded.
I stepped forward just as Malakai finally deigned to speak. He pushed off against the wall he had been leaning against, put a hand on each of the ladies’ arms, and spoke to them at a decibel level I couldn’t catch. I paused, stepped back, and watched both girls immediately relax, their breathing slowing as Malakai spoke to them with an affable, casual face, as if a minute before the whole ecosystem of the party hadn’t been put into jeopardy. The belligerent looks on both women’s faces faded as they listened to him, their frowns slackening as they began to nod grudgingly, throwing each other wary looks of respect. Eventually, their tight, petty faces loosened enough to release smiles and jocular eye rolls, the three of them engaging in ostensibly friendly conversation for a few more moments before Shanti and Chioma hugged each other, smiled at Malakai, and then migrated to their respective tribes, rejoining the main body of the party.
My jaw almost sagged. That had never happened before. Not in our ecosystem. Crossing two girls? Malakai should have got eaten alive. I had no idea how he had managed to finesse that situation.
“Um,” Aminah’s voice piped up over a new Wizkid song. “What did I just witness? Did he just calm Brandy and Monica down? After his very cute yansh was on the line?”
“Jeez, Aminah—”
Aminah cackled filthily. “What? It’s right there, Kiki, I have eyes. He has bum. Nothing wrong with appreciation. Love the peng, hate the sinner—”
“Not a thing.”
“Totally a thing. As someone from a blended Christian and Muslim home, I am qualified to say it. It’s in the Koran and the Bible.”
I shrugged. “Okay, well. Pretty sure that’s double blasphemous.”
Aminah smiled. “No offense but you’re from a monoreligious background and therefore less cultured than I am. Anyway, how did he do that?”
I held still and sipped my drink as I watched Malakai immediately get distracted by one of his boys coming to greet him, hand claps and back slaps exchanged, palms sliding across each other and punctuated by a click, a universal mandem handshake, all smiling, white teeth glinting in the violet and pink lights. He was quickly joined by another one of his boys. He nodded, playfully squaring up, not missing a beat in the exclusive dance of Cool Boy Social Interactions. You couldn’t be taught the moves; it wasn’t something you learned. It was something that lived in you and was brought forth. He’d only been here about a month and somehow he was alpha of a crew. He was making a statement: he was comfortable, here. He was playing with me.
Malakai was slick, so silken in his movements, that when his gaze snatched in my direction again, it was so casual it took me a moment to realize that it was weird that he was looking at me like he was—the light in his eyes bounding in its deep dark setting, lips curved dangerously. It was a continuation of a conversation.
He mouthed “Hi” through lips that curled into something like a hook that curved into the bottom of my belly and yanked a sharp, searing feeling through it, right up into my chest. The corner of my mouth flicked up despite myself. This was slightly alarming. Was I smiling back? Why was I smiling? How did I stop?
I tore my gaze away from him, the feeling in my belly subsiding to a mere warm tingle, hoping that the break would force my smile to dissolve. When I glanced back again, he was still looking at me. His smile beamed something beautiful, something lethal, as white as the light you probably see when you die. This was apt, because I was sure I was going to. I couldn’t believe he’d caught me doing a double glance at him, like I was interested or something equally heinous. My face felt hot. But then he looked back to his friends, jumping back into conversation with them, like the silent exchange between us had happened in a suspended vacuum that existed outside of reality. Now he was back in his reality, where beautiful girls ran up to him and he smiled easily, politely. It wasn’t the same smile he gave me, though. It wasn’t the R&B smile.