“You knew? You knew? All this time, you knew they were eloping and you didn’t tell me?” Zena had shifted her interrogation to Malak, who sat there buzzing from her second big blue margarita and holding her hands in the air innocently.
“She just told me a few hours ago. Right before we went into the courtroom,” she said. “I didn’t exactly want to tell you before you were walking in to give your closing.”
“But what about after? Why didn’t you tell me after? Immediately after?”
“Because I wanted Zola to tell you herself. I wanted it to be a surprise. And don’t you think you’re kind of missing the point here? The point is that your little sister is getting married? It’s great news. Right?” Malak smiled, though she knew the expression would not be returned.
“Not exactly. This is a big mistake for her right now. They aren’t ready to get married. Yes, they’re in love. But they don’t have enough money. They’re just banking on Alton getting this record deal. This is a recipe for disaster and you know it. We’re in the business of watching marriages fail. And what makes most marriages fail?”
“Money,” Malak reluctantly mumbled.
“Exactly. When money is short, people start changing. They become horrible versions of themselves. And I’m not saying they’ll always be poor. I’m not going to wish doom on Alton’s career or anything, but being a performer has its ups and downs.”
“Alton and Zola have been together forever. They’ll be okay.”
“They have no idea what they’re in for. What’s going to happen to them,” Zola said to herself as if she hadn’t heard anything Malak said. “I just can’t sit back and watch Zola do this—mess everything up that we’ve worked so hard for.”
Malak’s best attempts to placate her friend turned to annoyance. “Why do you do that to Zola? Always act like she has no clue? Like she’s stupid and can’t make any decisions without you?” Malak paused and looked down into her drink. She exhaled and grimaced frankly, as if she was about to say something she might regret. “You know, maybe this isn’t about the wedding—about Alton and Zena getting engaged. Maybe your reaction is about—you know—him. And the fact that he is going to be there in Bali.”
Him and he needed no further explanation. The words bounced from Malak’s mouth like a fireball and landed on the table before Zena. She wanted to pick it up and throw it across the room, get it away from her as soon as possible, but she was also afraid to touch it, afraid to hear it, to think it, to think of him.
“Don’t bring him up,” Zena scoffed, and she sounded like a little girl.
“I have to. Sorry, Z. But there’s no way you haven’t thought about him. His brother is marrying your little sister. That has to matter. Right? Everyone thought you guys would do it first. And now Zola and Alton are getting married and you two will be together for that. It’s been so long. When was the last time you spoke to Ad—”
“Don’t say his name,” Zena cut in. “I don’t want to hear it. And I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t care about him. And I don’t think about him. My opinion of this disaster of a wedding that’s about to take place in two freaking weeks has nothing to do with Adan—” Zena tried to stop her diatribe before she got to the name that was flashing in her head, but out it came.
Malak was right. Zena had thought of Adan, of course. And while she’d done a grand but strategic job of avoiding him and all topics concerning him, when Alton proposed to Zola in DC, Zena knew she’d finally have to see Adan. But then she figured she had at least a year—one year to get her head together. She could even meet a wonderful, well-traveled, well-read man, who was also funny and down-to-earth and rich, and get married—at least engaged—okay, at least committed. She’d arrive at Zola and Alton’s wedding to see Adan and his NYC doctor wife and perfect children, and Zena would have to show for her own life a successful law practice, bombshell body and hot judge husband, with dimples—fiancé—okay, boyfriend. But now everything had changed.
“Okay. I won’t make you talk about Adan. If you say you haven’t thought of him and you don’t want to think of him, then we can move on to something else,” Malak agreed patronizingly, as if she was some kind of barroom therapist. “We can focus on what’s really important. And that’s Zola’s happiness. That girl loves you. She trusts you. She adores you. She admires you. She needs your support. Can you just support her?”
“I’ll support the right decision. That’s what I’ll support.” Zena rolled her eyes and waved to a random waitress who was rushing past their table. She asked her, “Can you have our waitress get our check?”
“No problem, hon,” the woman said, sounding more cheerful than she actually looked. “I’ll actually just get it for you.”
“Thanks,” Zena said as the thought of seeing Adan again suddenly hit her. After so many years of blocking painful memories, she wondered if her heart was strong enough to deal with his actual presence. Zena quietly considered that maybe they would be distant, even mockingly cordial. She’d feel like she was meeting a stranger, a stranger who maybe just happened to look like someone she knew. Someone she’d known for a very long time. But Adan was no stranger. He was once Zena’s everything. He was her past, what she’d hoped would become her future. But that was all gone now. And it was all because of him.
The morning after drowning the news of Zola’s pending Bali wedding in the murky brown liquid of so many shots of reposado tequila she could hardly leave Margarita Town on her feet, Zena awoke to a spinning headache that released her from her morning run. She rolled over in the bed, turning her back to the bedroom window where the late-morning sun was beaming into the room. She was too tired to be fully awake and ready to enter a new day after tossing around in bed through the twilight hours, endlessly replaying worries she had no control over. Problems she’d trained herself to forget, to get away from, but now, there they were right in front of her. While her nighttime thoughts began with Zola, the prickling concern beneath her sister’s future was Zena’s own past.
Malak’s psychic ability—or good sense—had struck gold again at Margarita Town when she boldly shared that maybe much of Zena’s consternation about Alton and Zola getting married wasn’t about them finding love. It was about the love Zena had lost and never forgotten.
Zola wasn’t the only sister to fall in love with a boy who lived up the street. She actually wasn’t even the first.
Lying in bed that night, Zena’s thoughts went back—way back to the time she was a teenager and met Adan Frederick Douglass. He was the first boy to steal her heart away. He was the first man to tear her heart into tiny smithereens. She’d spent too much of her life and good money in therapy trying to pull the pieces back together.
It all started with her parents’ ruined marriage and a popped bicycle chain.
After her father’s second affair with one of the cashiers at the Sutphin Boulevard Burger King where he was a manager, Zena’s mother paid a few hundred to a pimply-faced attorney who promised “quick” divorces in advertisements on subway cars. The couple had no money, property or belongings to split up. Her mother knew there was no way her husband would petition the courts for custody or shared visitation rights for Zena and Zola, fifteen and nine at the time—he had limited funds and no place for his daughters to stay. Zena overheard her mother telling their neighbor who worked on Jamaica Avenue that she just wanted the marriage to be over and to get her girls out of Queens.
Hearing this hurt Zena beyond repair. While her parents’ marriage was mostly rocky, as her father was unreliable and could never keep a long-term job to support them and often stepped out on her mother, Zena loved her father and just wished