Later, outside, he put his hand on her waist. She started to protest, but then surprised herself by kissing him.
On that first night together, she sat nervously on the edge of her bed while he sat beside her, his breathing audible, holding her hand. She stood and went to the kitchen for shots. While there, she decided to take a pill. Then, everything fell into place.
After, he played with her braids, which rested on her shoulders and chest and on the bed. He asked her how her face was the same color as her braids and wondered how she kept that much hair in Houston’s heat. He marveled at how she kept her body so youthful. He spoke to her about his dreams. He spoke to her about rules and how he disliked them.
It was uncanny, their meeting. Moments before she saw him at Fielding Café, she had stood still in this house, imagining standing on a wooden chair. Her head tethered closer to the ceiling, contemplating what it would feel like if her feet were suddenly suspended from the chair.
What a difference time makes, she thought. As she lay on her bed, she thought only of Miles — not of her father, not of her students, and not of all the collective moments prior to Miles.
This continued for days and weeks after. Sometimes she stood at the entrance to the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where she taught ethics and history, watching the kids trickle in, and thought of how good fortune had escaped her most of her life. But now, like a lottery, she had won it back.
She and Miles saw each other during the daytime, but couldn’t let others know about their relationship. Although Miles belonged to her, he lived with another woman. They were cautious. Any attention might delay their plans.
The hours she spent with Miles and the love they had brewed so quickly played and replayed in her head. They relieved the repetitive memories of her father, knocking living and nonliving things out of his way. There were also more recent memories of days spent in Montrose streets and parks, peddling wares.
These memories were stubborn. They sneaked in and transported her to the time before Miles. Sometimes they appeared real in her mind, just as when they’d happened. There was the night she’d sat on her bed, counting her good fortunes, and heard a knock. She slipped on her robe and the knock got louder. A shadowy, tall figure stood at the door. He was not familiar, but his words were clear. A warning. From higher up the supply chain that oversaw the distribution of the pharmaceutical capsules she was given to sell. She tried to close the door. He blocked it with his foot, then pushed it wide open, but made sure to lock it behind him. She ran toward the bed and he followed. He jumped over the bed, narrowly missing her as she made a dash for it. She stumbled, then picked herself up. In the kitchen, she opened the drawer and drew a knife, but he lunged and wrestled it away from her. There was pain. Then the knife plunged too close to her heart, and she became numb as darkness filled the room.
Jennifer had explained to her mother that the attack was because of the cupcakes. Her mother did not believe her, but it was the truth. She’d barely graduated from Lamar High School, but had picked up a few of life’s skills, such as baking, and put them to use. In the morning, she would fluff eggs and mix them with vanilla, flour, and cocoa powder. She kept the mixture waiting in the fridge until she acquired the dried, shredded hemp-leaf powder, the most essential ingredient. It made the cupcakes a hit on Saturday nights by Hyde Park or at Lola’s Depot, the dive on Fairview Street. The distributors lurked around these places, refilling orders and collecting their loot after the peddling. Soon enough, Jennifer graduated to selling their pills. Along the way, she picked up more tricks of the trade, including keeping some of the pills for herself, so she didn’t have to share all the profits.
After her knife wounds healed, she realized she was underqualified for that job and chose the opposite path: enrolling in college. It had been the right choice, because it had changed everything — except the visions.
They were invasive, visiting during the most sacred times. She watched herself step on a chair, next to the rope dangling like a carrot, and saw her feet suspended in the air. She couldn’t have been dangling, really, because she was in her bedroom. With Miles. Between his whispers, she saw herself hanging from the ceiling in various corners of her apartment. She was not present, and Miles felt heavy. His whispers became loud. She moved her head, leaving him to whisper to her arms and then her legs and then her feet, so she could not hear the promises he made her. Not even when he clutched her face between his hands, which were cracked and calloused, probably from too many hours of playing drums. His mouth moved to hers as if in amazement at a new wonder. His breath reeked like Joe’s Crawfish. He moved to her ears.
She could hear his rapid breathing, not in synch with hers. Her tongue refused to form the words in her head, and the fear pressed on her lungs, interrupting her breathing. He was moving fast, as if his life depended on it. Her eyes became blurry and her body could not distinguish who was who. Her mind did, but she could not get them to work together. He pulled her hair ever so gently. The sharp pains sprang from her memory, moving from her head down her body, piercing her insides, and she became paralyzed. When Miles was done, he took a deep breath, rested his hands behind his head, and smiled. Her tears compelled him to pull her in for a hug. This was the part she longed for, actually. His arms wrapped around her faded the memories to the background, sharpened her affection for him. Their breathing finally fell into synch. She held him as he fell asleep. She had to fight to preserve this feeling.
She watched him for thirty minutes, her body folded into the curves of his, because it was almost eight o’clock — time for him to return to the other who loved him. She did not want him to go, but if there was anything she had learned in the world, it was patience and kindness. Patience for the time they would finally exit Montrose together, and kindness for the other woman who cooked for him.
When he was gone, she jumped into the shower and closed her eyes, listening only to the sound of the water. After, she hugged the pillow, searching for his smell. She tried to make new memories that involved moving away from Montrose with Miles, away from judgmental eyes. Life could be filled with an old pickup, rustic furniture, and a slow life, many towns away from Houston.
The months moved fast. The exhaust pipe of her blue Nissan collapsed, eaten up by the rust as the mechanic had explained, and set them back in their aspirations. Miles talked and Jennifer escaped to her memories. The nice ones, about him. She found a way to interrupt her visions of the chair by simply concentrating on the first time she saw him at the club.
She thought about how, in school, he was no different from the others. It was as if, during their nights together, he was transformed from that person in the classroom.
Meanwhile, she was many things to him — his lover, sister, friend, and mother. When he wanted to be careless, she gave him advice. She knew that for things to go well this time, she had to control everything, including his love for her.
Finally, several months later, he insisted on leaving Montrose. He didn’t understand why they couldn’t just drive off and be together. She reminded him that money played a role in their lives. However, this no longer made sense to him. He wanted to know why she was so concerned with her job when he was sacrificing everything for her, including those he loved. He threw a glass at a wall, narrowly missing her, and then he left her apartment, banging the door on his way out and making new promises that did not include her.
The longing that kept her alive began to escape, inviting fear in its place. The vision reappeared, causing spasms that felt like they were pushing her heart out of her body. She clutched her chest and reached for her cell phone. In that moment, she realized that it had been her all along. They could have left anytime. She said this to a voice recording on his phone. Then she waited.