Such a Fun Age(56)
“I don’t know . . .” Emira struggled. “Lemme try to say this. You get real fired up when we talk about that night at Market Depot. But I don’t need you to be mad that it happened. I need you to be mad that it just like . . . happens. I’m also not asking you to boycott places or anything. Mrs. Chamberlain makes a big deal about not going to Market Depot anymore and it’s like umm, okay, the other stores are mad far, but it’s your life. But it’s the same thing for you. Like—I don’t want you to change your life because of me. If you wanna go to that bar without me, whatever. Just try to remember that we have different experiences. John Wayne said a lot of fucked-up shit and I’d rather not stare at his face while I have a drink.”
Kelley poked his lips out in a way that let her know he wouldn’t forget. “I can be better about that.”
“Okay.”
“Can I also just say . . .” Kelley added, “I wasn’t trying to act like you can’t get a new job on your own. I know you can.”
“I know . . . well, ha, we’ll see. Maybe I will need your help in case Mrs. Chamberlain fires me or whatever.” Emira shook her head and clicked her phone to dark. “Which she better not. I’m babysitting every day next week ’cause she’ll be out of town till Friday and I need that money like, yesterday.”
“Emira. If I know anything about Alex, it’s that she definitely won’t fire you.”
“She might if she’s as bothered by us dating as you were.”
“No way,” Kelley said. “She would never fire you because it would say more about her than it would about you. Not to mention, now she knows there’s a video of you being mistreated because of where she sent you.”
“Kelley, she’s sent me there about a hundred times. It may have even been my idea. I’m sorry, but I think you’re the only one who sees it that way.”
“Okay, fine. But listen, I obviously think you should start looking in the New Year, but for now, your job is safe. If I were you, I’d take the money and show that kid a really good time before you leave.”
Emira crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the floor. She pictured Briar, hiccuping with each breath, and the way she always pointed to the ceiling when she was about to say something true. Emira pointed her toe on the dark wood floor and said, “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
Kelley swiveled his chair from left to right for a moment. “Do you . . . wanna talk about what I said to you in the bar?”
Emira bit her bottom lip. Kelley made her feel both extremely grown up and consumed with infantile reactions. Her heart could barely handle him remembering her birthday; she wasn’t going to touch the L-word today. “Ummm, nope.” She smiled. “I had three things on my list. So I’m good.”
Nineteen
On Friday morning, Alix woke up before her husband. There was a part of her that marveled that he was still there, in their bed, in their home, as if the previous night’s rift of turbulent envy could have deleted Peter from the equation that was her life. But there he was, very asleep, his face unknowing as it grazed the inside of his armpit. Alix rolled over and stared at her night table piled with books, her iPad, a gold lamp, and a picture of Briar and Catherine in bathing suits, eating watermelon with their hands. Catherine was in a yellow one-piece, but she was too little to sit up on her own, so Peter’s arms were holding her up, his biceps cut off by the frame. Alix’s children looked unbelievably small and innocent, pictured above her resting iPad, particularly because the night before, after her family was asleep, Alix had taken the tablet into the bathroom where she stayed for two hours to search, scroll, and stare at any image of Kelley Copeland she could find.
His Facebook. His Instagram. His LinkedIn. His workplace. When Alix discovered he didn’t have a Twitter account, she crept back out to her bedroom to retrieve her phone so she could thumb through Venmo and try to find his transactions. Alix could remember when Facebook came out with a photo feature—it was 2005—and that was probably the last time she’d gone this hard. But ten years later there was much to behold. Despite what he’d said to her when he’d stepped into her home, it was Kelley who hadn’t changed a bit.
Between pictures from European trips and holiday parties, Alix located all of Kelley’s ex-girlfriends, and—surprise, surprise—none of them were white. Alix wasn’t sure if any of them identified as black (one of them had a black father but this was all she could confirm)—however, they were all ethnically ambiguous looking with names like Tierra and Christina, Jasmine and Gabi. They had light brown skin and curly dark hair or dramatic widow’s peaks and Spanish last names. They went to Black Lives Matter marches and worked for nonprofit start-ups. They did skin care tutorials on Instagram with quirky music in the background. All of Kelley’s exes started their days with intricate smoothie recipes—Alix thought, Is this a thing?—and Alix dug deep enough to see that Kelley had referred to two of them as queens (once in 2014, This queen, and once in 2012, Hey Queen). Of course Kelley was excited to now be dating Emira.
But these girls were different than Emira. They had big passions and light brown skin and punchy, colorful blogs with punny titles. They had decent jobs and vacation photos and one had a few thousand Instagram followers. If Kelley had left these women in the same way he’d left Alix—ruining her reputation, choosing strangers over her, publicly breaking up with her with a horribly pretentious line—they had obviously and easily bounced back. But Emira was different. Alix couldn’t quite explain it, but Emira was different in the same way Claudette had been different; they were extremely special people and while no one deserved poor treatment, they deserved it even less. Back in high school, Kelley wanted status, and at Alix’s expense, that’s what he’d got. But what did Kelley think he was getting from Emira? How many times had he proudly told the story of how they met? Acting performatively flustered and suggesting that he shouldn’t have? As she sat on the ledge of her bathtub, Alix’s iPad became so warm that it started to burn her legs.