He is here.
SHE’S WALKING TOWARD ME. A couple of hours ago I would’ve said that her face was expressionless, but I’m becoming a Natasha expert, and her face is only trying to be expressionless. If I had to guess, I would say that she’s happy to see me.
“What happened to your interview?” she asks as soon as she’s close enough.
No hug. No “I’m so happy to see you.” Maybe I’m not such a Natasha expert after all.
Do I go with the facts or the truth (curiously, these are not always the same)? The fact is, I postponed. The truth is, I postponed so I could spend more time with her. I go with the truth:
“I postponed so I could spend more time with you.”
“Are you insane? This is your life we’re talking about.”
“I didn’t burn the building to the ground, Tash. I just moved it until later.”
“Who is Tash?” she asks, but there’s a smile at the corner of her lips.
“How did your thing go?” I point my chin in the direction of the elevators. Her smile goes away. Note to self: Do not bring this up again.
“Fine. I have to come back at three-thirty.”
I look at my phone: 11:35 a.m. “Looks like we have more time together,” I say. I expect her to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t. I take it as a small victory.
She shivers a little and rubs her hands down her forearms. I can see the goose bumps on her skin, and now I’ve learned another thing about her: she gets cold easily. I take her jacket and help her into it. She slides one arm in and then the other, and then shrugs to adjust the shoulders. I help her with the collar.
It’s a small thing. I let my hand rest on the back of her neck, and she leans back into me just slightly. Her hair tickles my nose. It’s a small thing, but it feels like something we’ve been doing for a long time now.
She turns, and I have to lift my hands so I don’t touch her more intimately. Wherever we’re going, we’re not there yet.
“Are you sure you’re not jeopardizing—” she begins.
“I don’t actually care.”
“You should care.” She stops talking and looks up at me with restless eyes. “You did it for me?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you so sure I’m worth it?”
“Instinct,” I say. I don’t know what it is about her that makes me fearless with the truth.
Her eyes widen and she shivers slightly. “You’re impossible,” she says.
“It’s possible,” I say.
She laughs, and her black eyes sparkle at me. “What should we do now?” she asks.
I need to get my hair cut and I need to get the pouch and deposit slips to my dad. I want to do neither of these things. What I want to do is find someplace cozy and cozy up with her. But. The pouch needs to be delivered. I ask her if she’s up for a trip to Harlem and she agrees. Really, this is the absolute last thing I should be doing. If there are worse ideas than this, I don’t know what they are. My dad’s just going to freak her out. She’s going to meet him and imagine that he’s what I’ll be like in fifty years, and then she’ll go flying for the hills because that’s what I would do in her place.
My dad’s a weird guy. I say weird but what I mean is epically fucking strange. First, he doesn’t really talk to anyone except customers. This includes me and Charlie. Unless berating counts as talking. If berating counts, then he’s said more to Charlie this past summer and fall than he has in nineteen years. I may be exaggerating, but only slightly.
I don’t know how I’m going to explain Natasha to him or Charlie. Well, Charlie I don’t really care about, but my dad will notice her. He’ll know something’s up in the same way he always knows which customer is going to shoplift or who’s good for an IOU and who’s not.
Later tonight at dinner, he’ll say something to my mom in Korean in the voice he uses to complain about Americans. I don’t really want either of them involved in this yet. We’re not ready for that kind of pressure.
Natasha says that all families are strange, and it’s true. I’ll have to ask her more about her family later after we do this thing. We descend into the subway.
“Get ready,” I say.
HARLEM IS ONLY A TWENTY-FIVE-MINUTE subway ride from where we were, but it’s like we’ve gone to a different country. The skyscrapers have been replaced by small, closely packed stores with bright awnings. The air smells brighter, less like a city and more like a neighborhood. Almost everyone on the street is black.
Daniel doesn’t say anything as we walk along Martin Luther King Boulevard toward his parents’ store. He slows down when we pass by an empty storefront with a huge FOR RENT sign and a pawnshop with a green awning. Finally we stop in front of a black hair care and beauty supply store.
It’s called Black Hair Care. I’ve been into lots of these. “Go down the street to the beauty supply and pick up some relaxer for me,” says my mother every two months or so.
It’s a thing. Everyone knows it’s a thing how all the black hair care places are owned by Koreans and what an injustice that is. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it when Daniel said they owned a store.
I can’t see inside because the windows are covered with old, sun-faded posters of smiling and suited black women all with the same chemically treated hairstyle. Apparently—according to these posters, at least—only certain hairstyles are allowed to attend board meetings. Even my mom is guilty of this kind of sentiment. She wasn’t happy when I decided to wear an Afro, saying that it isn’t professional-looking. But I like my big Afro. I also liked when my hair was longer and relaxed. I’m happy to have choices. They’re mine to make.