Seven Days in June(15)

“Come on, dress! Come on, body!”

“Honestly, I can’t move,” Eva whispered. She was wearing a black sleeveless Gucci sheath dress with major plunge and scarlet stiletto booties. Her boobs were hiked up to her chin, and her hair was blown out poker-straight.

“You. Did. Not. Come. To. Play. This. Monday. Evening.” Belinda executed a body roll between each word.

Eva fidgeted with her hem. “I feel like the office vixen on a network drama about sultry lawyers.”

“Worked for Meghan Markle. Come on, let’s mingle.”

Belinda linked arms with Eva, and they strolled through the crowd, chatting.

“Girl,” started Eva, “I have someone I wanna set you up with. He’s cute cute. Check his IG, @oralpro.”

Belinda’s mouth dropped open. “What kind of blessing…?”

“Relax, he’s an orthodontist. He did beautiful work on Audre.”

“Pass. I’m already checking for the hot produce guy at my Trader Joe’s. I was there earlier, shopping for my vegan-bakery course. It’s taught by the woman who pioneered vaginal-yeast brioche.”

“Vaginal-yeast brioche,” repeated Eva.

“She’s famous for it.”

“There’s more than zero people famous for making vaginal-yeast brioche?”

“Anyway, stop trying to set me up. You just want to mine my sex life for book inspo. Why don’t you date @oralpro? Get out there! Stop wasting your good legs and youthful complexion.”

“Know why I have nice skin?” Eva winked. “No man stressing me out.”

Just then Cece appeared out of nowhere, popping her head between them. “Ask her about Alone,” she announced. Then she grabbed Eva’s watered-down seltzer, replaced it with a fresh one, and disappeared back into the crowd.

Belinda gasped. “How does she just materialize like that? And what’s she talking about?”

Before Eva could answer, a young girl rocking a dyed-blond ’fro and a tube top launched herself into Belinda’s arms.

“Your poetry is the only thing getting me through my NYU finals! Sign my book?” She thrust a tattered copy at Belinda.

“Of course!” She signed the title page and gestured at Eva with her elbow. “This is Eva Mercy. You must’ve heard of Cursed?”

“My stepmom reads that series,” she said before quickly snapping a selfie with Belinda. “But I avoid texts depicting explicit cisheteropatriarchal sex. Sorry.”

The girl threw up a Black Power fist and bounced. In seconds, Cece materialized again, glaring at her.

“Who let that bleached peasant in here?” Cece was the queen of policing women who had her hairdo. Which was half of Brooklyn. “Is she wearing Walmart denim?”

“Have you ever been in a Walmart?” asked Eva.

“Physically, yes. Spiritually, no.” She spun on her heel. “To the stage! It’s showtime.”

Belinda grabbed Eva’s hand, and they trailed Cece through the crowd, like ducklings.



The stage was intimate: a row of four club chairs for Cece, Eva, Belinda, and Khalil. Khalil didn’t appear until after Cece’s introduction, due to a misunderstanding with his Uber driver. The misunderstanding was that he stole someone else’s Uber and the driver kicked him out.

He was a thirty-seven-year-old cultural studies PhD who favored pastel Ralph Lauren chinos and bow ties. He was famous for writing tomes on systemic racism—and he lived with a sixty-something Swedish heiress, who financed the Ralph Lauren pants and ties.

The summer of Eva’s divorce, when Khalil was a Vibe columnist, he unsuccessfully pursued her over the course of several Clinton Hill rooftop cookouts. The word “mansplainer” hadn’t been invented yet but would’ve been useful.

The packed house was fully engaged in the lively discussion of the panelists—nodding, giggling, and recording IG Lives on their phones. Eva was sitting up pin straight, stilettoed feet crossed at a ladylike angle.

And she was killing it.

Yes, the first couple of times she spoke, a few people eyed her with a who is this again? expression, but slowly she won them over. So much so that she was wondering what she’d been worried about.

As she, Belinda, and Khalil answered Cece’s leading discussion questions, their roles became clear: Belinda was the Tell-It-Like-It-Is Sistafriend, Khalil was the Smug Blowhard, and Eva was Hopelessly Drunk on Unexpected Success.

“And here’s what’s really good,” continued Belinda. “The publishing industry has a hard time processing Black characters unless we’re suffering.”

Nods and murmurs from the audience.

“We’re expected to write about trauma, oppression, or slavery, because those are easily marketable Black tropes. Publishers struggle to see us as having the same banal, funny, whimsical experiences that every human has—”

“Because it’d imply that we are human,” interrupted Khalil. “AMERICAN SOCIETY DEPENDS ON THE NEED TO DEHUMANIZE, DEGRADE, AND DENY THE BLACK MAN.”

Belinda ignored him. “My first novel was about an architect and a chef who witness a murder on a side street during the ’03 blackout—and have hot sex while solving the mystery. It was rejected everywhere. I kept hearing, ‘Cute story, but can we hear more about their struggles as Blacks in mostly white professions?’” Belinda sighed. “Like, damn, there’s no room for fun Black shit? Why can’t I make millions off Girl on the Train or Fifty Shades?”