Such a Fun Age(84)

Outside, there was a shuffling of feet. Zara began performing an accelerated rendition of “We Shall Overcome” and she ended every verse with Ayyeee. Emira heard Tamra say, “Girl, get down from there!” and Zara yelled back, “I’m not resisting!” Laney asked everyone to please calm down as Catherine began to cry. Mrs. Chamberlain’s voice said, “Where is Briar?”

Emira placed her head at the side of Briar’s. She kissed her cheek and took in Briar’s scent: baby soap, strawberries, and the tart sweetness of dried yogurt. She sat back on her heels. In what she hoped would be the saddest gesture of her twenties, Emira tickled the side of Briar’s neck and said, “I’ll see you later, okay?” Briar pursed her lips into a smile and dipped her chin into Emira’s fingers. She raised her shoulders up next to her ears as if she didn’t know the answer to a very darling and rhetorical question.

There were quick footsteps and then the bathroom door swung open. Zara was out of breath. She leaned over with her hands on her knees, and between dramatic exhales, she said, “K . . . they mad so . . .”

“Go get an Uber,” Emira instructed. She kissed the top of Briar’s little head, placed her on the ground, and told herself to get out of the house. When she turned to go, Zara’s presence had been replaced by Mrs. Chamberlain’s.

Mrs. Chamberlain’s neck was blemished in red splotches of freckled skin. Her jaw was set strangely forward and only her bottom teeth were showing. She looked at Emira as if Emira were hours late, and she were waiting for her to deliver an apology. “Tamra?” she called. The sound of Tamra’s socks could be heard on the tile as Catherine’s uneven crying came closer. Once she had sufficient backup, Mrs. Chamberlain locked eyes with Emira again. From somewhere deep in her diaphragm, she said, “Emira? Get away from her.”

Emira let an impressed expression slide over her face. This was really how Mrs. Chamberlain wanted to end it, by playing the matchless mom card that she always held so tightly to her chest. This was the most responsive reaction Mrs. Chamberlain had ever expressed concerning the whereabouts of her daughter, in what was, in Emira’s opinion, the safest place Briar could ever be. There’s literally one thing I’m good at, Emira thought, and that’s taking care of your daughter. But still, Emira laughed once and said, “Okay.”

Emira walked past her and Tamra swooped in on Briar as if Emira had just surrendered her last hostage. To her right, the front door was propped open by Zara and her shoe. Mrs. Chamberlain held her ground in the space in front of the guest bathroom, and from there she called Emira’s name with a bold and bitchy authority. “Excuse me, Emira?” With both her hands on the vestibule door frame, Emira looked to the hooks on the wall and said, “Where’s my backpack?” With her phone in her hands, Zara looked to the stairs behind Emira. She winced and said, “Uh-oh.”

“Emira!”

Emira turned around to find Mrs. Chamberlain’s hands in the air in front of her and her fingers splayed wide. Emira took a breath and walked past her to the stairs. She found herself gracelessly crouching down as if doing so would make her less likely to be seen, or as if she were walking in front of a large group of people watching a game on a television screen. Emira saw Tamra patting the back of Briar’s head on the couch as Mrs. Chamberlain took the stairs after her. “Emira, stop,” she said. Emira sped up. She heard Briar ask, “Where does Mira go now?”

She didn’t stop until she spotted her backpack on the floor of the upstairs bathroom. She snatched the strap and stood up, swinging it onto her right shoulder, but Mrs. Chamberlain took advantage of her delay by securing her feet in front of the bathroom door. With her hair around her face and her chest growing pinker by the second, Mrs. Chamberlain closed her eyes and said, “Are you kidding me?”

Emira closed her mouth as Mrs. Chamberlain went on. “Emira, this can’t be real,” she said. “Do you know what you just did? You just humiliated me and my entire business.”

“Ummm . . .” Emira couldn’t believe she was in another white space so soon, trying to keep her cool, and struggling to imply that she could honestly just go. Emira hoisted her backpack farther up on her shoulder. “I’m just grabbing my stuff,” she said.

“Ohmygod, Emira!” Mrs. Chamberlain’s hands were in front of her chest again, and she wrung them as if she were wringing a neck. “Do you think that looked good for you either? Did you honestly seek out the Green Party just to do this to me?”

Emira squinted in confusion. “Umm . . . no?”

“Oh, so I tell you that I’m working with the Clinton campaign and suddenly you want to quit and work for the Green Party?”

“No . . .”

“No?!”

“No,” Emira said louder. “I’ve worked for them longer than I’ve worked for you.”

In the most dramatic reaction Emira had ever seen in real life, Mrs. Chamberlain’s eyes bulged as she said, “What?”

Emira thought about carefully pointing out that the things Mrs. Chamberlain seemed to care about most were whom Emira was dating, or what her favorite cocktail was, or what she was up to on a Friday night. But what was the point of having one more incident of trying to prove a point in the proximity of a three-year-old child who Emira more than liked. So instead, Emira said, “I’m just gonna go.” She inhaled through gritted teeth as she inched past Mrs. Chamberlain and reached out to the stair banister.