Honey and Spice(79)
The tears spilled over from Rianne’s eyes and she squeezed my hand back. “I love you too, K. Can we like . . . start over, maybe?”
“I’d really like that.”
Rianne and I had grown and all the places we used to fit into one another had been filled or had evolved, the gaps sealed. We might not ever be best friends again, but there was potential there. Hope. And now that we’d cleared away the debris of the past, we had access to the memories we’d created together and we could build something new on that foundation.
“I can’t believe we’re dressed as Shangaya and Yoa, sobbing at a convention center coffee shop,” I muttered as I drew a paper napkin from the silver dispenser on the table and dabbed the edges of my eyes with it.
Rianne snorted as she swiped beneath her eyes with her thumbs. “Yeah, I know, man. Although when you think about it, it’s pretty poetic. Also, speaking of coffee, I should have known it was you when I met a guy whose girlfriend had the same order as me. Does your man take the piss out of it too?”
“Yeah. A serious lack of taste.”
“Except when it comes to us.”
I snorted. “Obviously.”
[Untitled_Love.Doc]
Director, producer: Malakai Korede
Consulting Producer/Interviewer: Kiki Banjo
Interviewees: Rianne Tucker and Amari Kamau
Kiki: What drew you to your partner?
Rianne: So, I was about a year out of what I now realize was a pretty emotionally abusive relationship. I lost . . . important things to me. Including myself. I made bad decisions. I was pretty fucked up from it, not gonna lie. I had trust issues, intimacy issues—all of it. I didn’t date for my entire first year of uni. Like, at all. Anyway, I went away to work at this summer school in Kenya. When I got there, all the aunties kept on saying that I needed to meet the other British uni student working there, that we’d get along so well. He was on a short break in South Africa. The kids kept on saying that I was their second favorite teacher after Mr. Kamau. That really pissed me off—I mean, me, second best? I hate competition!
Kiki: I know the feeling. Especially with a man. Gross.
Rianne: Right? And I gave them lollipops!
Amari: That’s bribery, babe. So as soon as I return, everyone’s telling me that I need to meet Rianne. The kids are telling me she looks like a princess, the aunties have already started buying their wedding hats—it’s a lot of pressure, but then I meet her and bruv, I’m done for. Gone. Obviously, she’s gorgeous, but she was also great with the kids, just so kind and patient.
Rianne: Amari came and I’m like okay, fine, fuck, he’s a bit of me. You know my type, K—don’t he look like my type? That other prick wasn’t my type, but Amari?
Kiki: Yeah, it’s like you built him. You always said your type was rap with a dash of R&B and a sprinkle of soul.
Rianne: Exactly. He’s like the embodiment of that. Sweet, sexy, kind. Everyone was happy around him. He brought joy to any room. It’s just that I wasn’t in the right mindset. I went there to work. At first, I barely spoke to him—
Amari: Well, there was that time you said “excuse me” on your way to the bathroom at a bar during a staff social. I remember that because the guys asked me if I needed a glass of water.
Rianne: This is the thing, I knew that if I talked to you, I wouldn’t want to stop. I was scared of that. One day I caught him filling up the cookie jar in the staff room with my favorite kind. I always wondered why we never ran out of them, and then I realized.
Kiki: Why didn’t you initiate conversation, Amari?
Amari: So, I’m usually a confident guy. I never struggled with babes before,
Rianne: Chill.
Amari: But with this situation I just sensed . . . that I should wait. Wait till it felt like she wanted me to speak. But even without speaking, we connected. We made fun of the same things. I know because we would clock things at the same time and immediately find each other’s eyes. You know that feeling? At first, I thought they were trying to hook us up because we’re the only two Brits, right? But it was more than that. Well, we were the only Black Brits. There were a couple white English people but the Kenyans weren’t huge fans. Can I say that on here? They were just doing way too much—you know, one of them was wearing an Africa pendant.
Rianne: That’s actually how we got together. We were just sitting with each other in the staff room while I was scrolling my phone, in silence, when the guy with the Africa pendant came in. It was the first time we’d seen it. He was real posh, on a “gap yah,” talking about how he couldn’t wait to tell his friends back in the UK that he’d found a new spiritual home, and that didn’t we feel so connected to nature out here, like in a real, base, animalistic sense. And the entire time, he kept touching that fucking pendant. It was so bait that he wanted us to say something. To compliment him. Anyway, as soon as he left, we bust out laughing. Like howled. Then, Amari goes—
Amari: “If I steal it for you, would you get a beer with me?”
Rianne: And I go, “He probably sleeps with it on.” Amari says that that just makes things more interesting.
[Rianne grins and plucks a gold necklace out from beneath her neckline]
Amari [grinning back]: Reparations.
Rianne: But honestly, even without him stealing from a man who used to speak in some beg “African accent” that sounded like a hate crime—