Such a Fun Age(71)

“Ask me what?” Kelley demanded. “Can I have my phone, please? What is going on?”

“Did you . . .” Emira looked to the ceiling. “Did you share that video?”

She saw him have the same recognition she’d had; remind himself that there was only one video that mattered. To make matters worse, Kelley answered, “No,” but then, “What video?” One of Kelley’s friends laughed and stood with his drink. “Kelley’s got all kinds of drama today.” He stepped past Emira and the other man followed.

“The video from the night we met.” Emira said this with more volume and charge. “Did you share the video from the night we met?”

“Of course I didn’t. I deleted it that night.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

Josefa clicked into her own phone and held the screen toward Kelley. “So why is it going viral right now?”

“Whoa whoa whoa, what is that?” Kelley squinted into the light. “Jesus Christ, how . . . When did this happen?”

“So you don’t have the video at all?” Shaunie was still speaking very calmly. “Not on your phone or your computer or anywhere else?”

“No way, I’ve never even watched it back. Emira, fuck.” Kelley gently lowered Josefa’s arm so he could step closer. “I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t do this.”

Emira breathed. “You deleted it?”

“Yes.”

Zara bent her head around Josefa’s. “You don’t have it anywhere?”

“Absolutely not.”

“K, then what’s this?” Zara flipped his phone around to face the group. There, on Kelley’s phone, was Emira blocking her face. For the third time that night, Emira heard how her voice sounded when she was tired and scared, saying, “Can you step off?” Hearing it for the third time, it was like listening to yourself leave a drunk voicemail, or continuing to sing a song after someone turns the radio off. Zara clicked out of the video, and there was Kelley’s Sent folder. When Emira looked back up at Kelley, she thought, This was just getting good.

“Fuck you,” she whispered.

“No no no. Emira, wait.”

The next moments came together in an organized mess consisting of the logistics of leaving Tropicana 187 and the politics of breaking up. Zara told Shaunie to grab Emira’s stuff and then Josefa declared that she was getting an Uber. Kelley kept begging Emira to stop, to listen to him, to look at his face, but Zara grabbed onto Emira’s hand and steered her through the crowd in a way that felt young and reminded her of college. Somehow Shaunie appeared by the stairs to the street with Emira’s coat and presents, like a boyfriend who had treated his partner to a shopping spree. Outside, it had started to snow.

My boyfriend leaked a video of me? Emira took a tighter grip of Zara’s hand in the fresh layer of white. Kelley was still behind her and saying, “Emira, wait,” to which Zara responded, “You need to back up ’cause I am not the one right now.” Josefa stepped into the street first. A car drove up and asked her, “Hey, are you Molly?” to which she responded, “Do I look like a Molly? Get the fuck outta here.”

Does he really more than like me? Emira made it to the asphalt. Did he more than like me when he sent it? Am I a fucking idiot? Who has seen it? Ohmygod. The thought of Mrs. Chamberlain seeing the video sent a bolt of disgust through Emira’s spine and it landed in between the blades of her shoulders. “I’m making money right now, and I bet I’m making more than you.” “He’s an old white guy so I’m sure everyone will feel better.” “The fuck are you doing? Don’t touch me!” This would be the Emira that existed when Mrs. Chamberlain left her house and children. As Kelley stepped into the street and begged, “Emira, just talk to me, please don’t do this,” Emira looked at him and wondered, Will I say good-bye to Briar on terms that aren’t mine?

“Sefa, Imma need an ETA,” Zara called.

“Derrek and his Honda are two minutes away.”

“Emira, look at me! I didn’t fucking do this!” Kelley said.

“Ohmygod Kelley, stop!” Emira was shivering in the snow as she finally spoke. Shaunie tried to put her jacket on her shoulders, but Emira waved it off. “Literally no one else wanted this but you.”

“Me wanting that and actually sharing a video are two completely different things.”

“Cool, but you still wanted me to share it, right?” When Kelley said nothing, Emira kept going. “Exactly. You want me to be a completely different person. Like . . . you hate that I live in Kensington and you’ve never even been to my apartment.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, you never invite me!”

“You make jokes about me not having health insurance when I’m obviously fucking trying.”

“That’s not true. You make jokes about it!”

“You hate that I babysit for a living, which is fine, it’s whatever. But it’d also be easier if you’d just fucking admit it.”

Kelley dropped his arms to his sides. “Emira, the only person who hates that you still babysit is you.”

Emira took two steps back.

There was a time when she would have accepted this statement from Zara, maybe Kelley if they’d been dating a little bit longer and if she’d been drinking a little bit less. But Zara would have never used the word still, highlighting the fact that yes, Emira was a bit late to adulthood, that she should have moved on to something else, and that she currently held a job that thirteen-year-olds were trusted to do. Underneath a patina of tequila and champagne, seeing herself pull her skirt down on tape, and watching it happen via Kelley’s Sent folder, Emira could see nothing else but Kelley’s doorman, the free basketball tickets he got from work, and the time he said the N-word in front of her, which suddenly didn’t seem so banal. Emira looked Kelley up and down. She stuck out her lips and said, “Cool.”