A Chorus Rises Read online

  When she hasn’t spoken, and Courtney can only make so many awkward expressions with his mouth, I finally look up at her reflection. I lift my eyebrows like a continuation of the conversation, like I’m waiting expectantly and, above all, innocently for her to answer my totally uncomplicated question.

  “I don’t think so,” Tavia finally answers. “No, probably not. I’m happy she has somewhere else that’s home.”

  I nod because I don’t want somewhere else, but I get it.

  We arrive at the Blake house, and I pull into the circular driveway.

  “I’ll be right there,” I say, expecting the two of them to get out of the car ahead of me. Which is just ridiculous on my part because while I’m sure I’m not some great comfort to Tavia, there is no way she’s going up to Priam’s door without me. So after Courtney opens the passenger door and realizes he’s the only one who did, he slowly pulls it closed, but not hard enough for it to latch. Whatever smooth he had, Tavia and I are seriously dampening it.

  I put the phone on Speaker since everybody’s staying, and when Leona answers, she sounds as surprised as Tavia did. Folks are just not ready for the gift of my attention. I get it.

  “Naema, I’m so glad you ca—”

  “I know you’re in Portland.” All the eyes in the car exchange looks, and wait for her to deny it. But despite all of Leona’s foolishment, she’s no fool. She’ll assume I’ve seen her, if I’m accusing her of being in town, or that someone I know has. So I know what she’s going to ask next.

  “Are you?” Even with her rasp, which is still dope by the way, she manages to make the question sound light and innocent, like we weren’t just together at a posh restaurant in a different state yesterday. If she’s smart, she’ll think about why she’s here, and then wonder what equally compelling reason I could possibly have to come to the same place in the same time frame. And I know she’s smart.

  “Let’s get lunch. The BV on MLK in two hours.”

  “The—”

  “Burgerville.” And I hang up, like it’s a TV show and people don’t use salutations, or like it’s a movie and I’ve just arranged The Drop. Anyway, I expect my companions to comment on how badass I sounded, and am immediately disappointed.

  “Yeah, ’cause we’ve been here for hours and ain’t nobody fed me yet,” Courtney says. “Y’all ain’t got no hospitality up north, I know that.”

  “You haven’t eaten?” Tavia asks, like he’s gonna keel over and die.

  “He’s fine, can we get out of the car?” I ask and just do it, walking up to Priam’s Craftsman bungalow, and then bypassing the front door for another door on the long porch. It’s almost hidden, since there’s an unexpected corner that you don’t notice on approach. I guess Tavia didn’t come here often, or she’d know the Blakes never lock this and no one ever uses the front door.

  I knock and open the door at the same time.

  “Hello?” When I don’t feel anyone behind me, I turn and find that Tavia and Courtney are still on the porch. When I motion them into the house, neither moves.

  “You said an Officer Blake lives here?” Courtney asks, both hands in his pockets like he refuses to touch anything. If he could hover above the porch, he would. “Yeah, I’m good. Imma hold down the porch. Out here.”

  Tavia doesn’t say anything, but she’s got her lips pulled into her mouth and her hands are behind her back again.

  “I’m not the kinda Black that goes into police officers’ houses unannounced,” Courtney continues.

  “Shut up,” I say, and roll my eyes. “It’s my boyfriend’s house.”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” he says, and I cock my eyebrow at him just as Tavia’s eyes get momentarily wide and then look away.

  “See, this is why I don’t tell you anything.” When I turn around, Priam’s jogging down the stairs across the room from the nook through which I’m trying to get everyone to enter.

  He says my name under his breath, and pauses on the bottom step like I’m an apparition, which is fair. If I were back on LOVE, I totally would’ve captured this Surprising My Boyfriend Who Doesn’t Know I’m Coming To Town moment because those videos do serious numbers.

  “Hiya,” I say, and wave, grateful that the other two are still behind me and can’t see the completely idiotic smile I’m wearing. He looks so disbelieving, like seeing me is too amazing a prospect to be real.

  One minute he’s across the room and the next, he’s almost to me. Too greedy to make it all the way there, he grabs my arm and pulls me into a kiss, one hand immediately holding my cheek.

  “You’re home,” he says when he releases my lips, our foreheads still resting against each other’s.

  “Is your dad?” I ask, which, admittedly, is a weird way to reply.

  “What?”

  Before I can explain, Courtney finally comes inside.

  “Hey, Priam, what’s up, man?”

  “Hey, Courtney, that’s so cool you came up—”

  “Is this the kitchen?” Courtney slaps hands but never stops walking in the direction he’s guessed houses the food. “This way?”

  “Yeah, that’s—”

  “Oh, now you’re fine to come inside.”

  “Yes, Naema, now that a legal resident of the home is present and aware of my entry, I’m fine to come inside, geez.” He’s in the other room before he finishes, and Priam looks back at me for an explanation.

  “We just came for the day. Like you did.” I poke his stomach through the striped T-shirt he’s wearing.

  “So you do miss me.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me tight before dropping his nose into my hair and breathing deep.

  “Yes, and that’s not why we’re here, but I do absolutely miss you.” My conjunction does not have the desired effect and he pulls back, quizzically.

  Which is when there’s another, timid knock on the already open side door. And I’m about to tell him who else is here, but when I open my mouth, he’s already looking around me, and I can tell precisely when he sees her. I don’t know if there’s a hitch in his breath or whether I’m imagining it because I’m holding mine.

  “I’m lost,” he says, and looks back at me for a moment.

  “Tavia, come in already, gawd.” I really did not think it would be this awkward for anybody but me, and then I remember that I finally know what happened between them. “Since we’re doing apologies now, Priam do you wanna apologize to Tavia for biting her and then dumping her like it was her fault?”

  “And maybe for saying you wish you’d never met me,” she offers.

  I look back at Priam with a half grimace, half cringe.

  “Yipes. Okay, I didn’t know you told her that. I thought you were supposed to be the nice one.”

  “This is a really interesting visit, getting ganged up on in my own house.” But when no one caves to his defensive pity party, Priam nods. “And yes. I do want to apologize. That had nothing to do with you, Tavia. I just didn’t want being Eloko to suddenly change, which I get was irrational since no one cared about our lore until now. I also didn’t know you were a siren at the time. So I get it if you can’t forgive me.”

  “I pretty much forgave you immediately,” she says, gently. “I’m living what you were scared of.”

  Okay, that was a boss line, I’ll give it to her.

  “Cool, that was my good deed for the day,” I say, turning back to Priam with steepled fingers. “For real this time: Is your father home?”

  * * *

  Officer Blake takes a full twenty minutes to arrive, and that time passes much more enjoyably when the four of us just incidentally pair off, and Priam and I escape to his room, while Courtney and Tavia do whatever I interrupted at my house. I just assume.

  “You’re really not gonna text Jamie?” Priam asks once we’re cuddling on his cushioned window seat.

  “I am, Prism—”

  “Oh, I like that one.”

  “I’m just not gonna text her until I can afford to be pounced on. D
on’t insinuate that I don’t miss my friends.”

  “I’m insinuating nothing,” he says, and draws his fingers through my hair as I lay against his chest. “You’ve just been extremely missed, and as much as I’d like to keep you to myself, it doesn’t feel fair.”

  “You mean, you got in a lot of trouble when you got back from visiting me, and you’re trying to avoid that happening again.”

  “That’s basically what I said.”

  “Right,” I say, but I’m smiling. The sunlight is falling across our legs, and there are little particles in the rays, falling or floating in slow motion. I can feel Priam’s chest rising and falling behind me, and it’s making my breaths fall into sync with his. He keeps smelling my hair, and it’s just very good to be home. Even if it is already a little louder, but I don’t have a second world oasis like Effie does, so I’m going to have to learn to balance the cacophony of my city and the voices of my Ancestors.

  “And you’re not gonna tell me why you need to see my dad?”

  “Ugh.” I let my head fall to the side, and pull his arms around me. “It’ll be bad enough repeating it a second time, don’t make me do it three times.”

  “Who’d you tell?” he asks, and I hesitate. I know he knows about the network already, but I’m almost hoping he’s forgotten. “Ny?”

  “Remember how I said normal was gonna be different now?” I ask, lacing my fingers through his.

  “Yeah. If that still stands, this is really confusing, Naema,” he says.

  “Okay, so obviously, the different isn’t gonna be us, because clearly that’s not what I want.”

  “Okay.” He breathes. “So what then? Are you and Tavia gonna be friends now or something? Because that’s really confusing, too. Showing up with her when the last thing you asked me was whether I have a problem with you exposing her to the world.”

  “I could just tell you if you’d shut up for a minute.” I close my eyes, and bite my lip. “Sorry.”

  “Please tell me that’s not the new normal.”

  “What.”

  “You and this apology tour,” he snarks.

  “Wow,” I say through a laugh. “And you didn’t even hear the big one.”

  “I’m assuming yours was to Tavia, too?”

  For some reason I freeze up. Like my knowing about my regret, confessing it to the Ancestors and Courtney, is bad enough, but thinking that maybe Priam knows that what I did requires apology will be the embarrassment that breaks the camel’s back.

  “Yeah,” I finally say.

  “Does she at least know the collar wasn’t real?” he asks, and I hesitate.

  “I don’t think that matters.”

  “I mean. It kinda does, if she still thinks you got it from me or my dad,” he says. “Seems like you should tell her my dad didn’t actually give you one. If you’re going for New and Improved Naema.”

  There’s a swell in my abdomen, and I already know what it is. They’re present but calm most of the time, but the Ancestor chorus swirls around until I can hear them.

  I shift in Priam’s arms.

  “I’m a work in progress,” I tell them all. “And anyway, that wasn’t my point. My point was that the new normal isn’t about Tavia. It’s that I’m not Portland’s idea of Eloko anymore. I don’t wanna be.”

  This time it’s Priam who freezes up. “What does that mean?”

  Part of me is glad we’re not facing each other. It wouldn’t change what I’m saying, but I’m pretty sure I would’ve just seen my Eloko boyfriend wince.

  “Don’t sound so hurt. We both know I’m not what Portland wants in an Eloko anyway. Shallow, Prom Queen, Influencer types—”

  “Naema, you’re literally all of those things.”

  “What I’m saying,” I sing, because it sounds sweeter that way. “Is that those things aren’t even what Eloko are, Priam, they’re things we get because we’re Eloko.”

  “You sound like that professor,” he says. Which means he’s been paying attention. Not like we have a choice when all we’ve ever known is Portland; the city and its celebrity are deafening—or at least they used to be.

  “Anyway,” I say. “It’s ridiculous, and it’s fake af. If we’re gonna be envied, shouldn’t it be for what we actually are?”

  “We’re Eloko,” he says, exasperated.

  “Right, and what does that mean? We have a melody, and we’re charming, and we get good grades without trying.” I know that what I’m saying sounds like enough because it was, all my life. “And we chalk it up to Ancestral Wisdom, but we don’t actually hear the Ancestors?”

  “Maybe that’s not a real thing,” he says, and I feel him shrug behind me.

  “It’s a real thing,” I say. “And it’s…”

  I don’t have the words.

  It’s stabilizing. It’s invigorating. It’s humbling. It’s comforting.

  It’s healing.

  “It’s everything,” I say, quietly. “It’s transforming.”

  “So, what, are you gonna be a different person now?”

  “If anything, Priam, I’m more myself—”

  “And if I can’t hear the Ancestors, am I not Eloko then?”

  Now I turn on the window seat and he has to move one leg, put one foot on the ground to make room.

  “Am I not Eloko enough?”

  “Hey.” I stop him. “That’s not what this is about. I wouldn’t do that. I know what it’s like for people to treat you like you’re doing your identity wrong, okay?” I smooth his brow with my finger, and kiss him. “I’m just saying, we’ve been missing something we didn’t even know exists. And when I heard it, it wasn’t just about one piece of me. It was about all of me.” I think of the forum, and have to fight not to grimace. “I’m never gonna be okay with people trying to erase the rest of who I am,” I tell him. “Never again.”

  “That’s not too much to ask,” he answers, and I smile.

  “I know,” and I kiss his nose. Below Priam’s bedroom window, his dad’s patrol car pulls behind my Fiat in the drive, and I part the blinds to watch him. “Fuggin’ finally.”

  And then I remember that if Officer Blake gets inside before we get downstairs, Courtney’s gonna have a heart attack, and I hurry Priam down to the living room. Which means when we meet his dad in the nook, it absolutely looks like we were fooling around. Not that his dad would ever say anything to us about it.

  “Hey, Priam, what’s up, buddy.” Officer Blake is reading his phone and hasn’t looked up. “I’ve got about an hour and then—Naema!”

  I shove Priam out of the way and smile.

  “When did you get back?” He gives me one of his Dad Side Hugs. “Thank God, too, because this kid was killing me with the moping and the broken heart.”

  I laugh, and we both look back at Priam, who would never survive my family given how red his face has gotten already. And we both know his dad’s not saying anything that isn’t true.

  “I’m just visiting. And I brought some people with me,” I tell him, and with a look of intrigue, he follows me into his own kitchen, where Courtney and Tavia immediately jolt upright from their previously relaxed position eating grapes at the farm-style table with chairs on one side and a bench on the other.

  “This feels like a really weird surprise party,” Officer Blake mutters, and when I turn to face him, he’s looking just at Tavia. “Ms. Philips. Is it safe to assume you kids had Priam call me home because something’s wrong?” He nods along with me. “Is this something we should do at the station? If you need help—”

  “We need your help,” Tavia blurts. “Because we already know we can trust you.”

  “I’m not the only police officer you can trust, Tavia.” And I have to assume everybody but Priam rolls their eyes with me.

  “Okay, we don’t need to have a whole discussion about the obvious,” I say, making the universal and universally annoying gesture for Let’s All Calm Down with my hands, fingers splayed. “But this involves unsavory whi
te guys, and we all know the Portland PD has a habit of helping them avoid arrest, so. Yeah, we just need to talk to you.”

  “Hi, I’m Courtney, by the way.” Everyone looks at my knucklehead cousin. “It just feels like everybody knows everybody. And I ate some of your grapes, I hope that’s cool.”

  “Do you have an office?” I ask Priam’s dad without waiting for anyone to respond to Courtney. “And a laptop I can use?”

  * * *

  There’s nothing new on the Knights of Naema forum, or it’s subforums, and what’s terrifying, I’ve already seen. When I pull up the site, and ignore both Priam and Tavia’s not exactly subtle expressions of WTFery, it’s just the same brand of obsession. Sharing photos I’ve shared somewhere before. Polling on topics they can’t possibly verify. Fan fiction.

  Shields, and points.

  The only difference is that now it makes my stomach hurt. It’s not the Ancestors or their wind, either. It’s just a combination of anger and disgust.

  I don’t check in on anyone’s reactions until after I’ve scrolled through the Secret Sirens page. My stomach is in anxious knots hoping there aren’t any new women or girls listed, and there aren’t. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.

  When I turn to look at Officer Blake, his face is blank. Priam looks like he wishes he hadn’t heard it all, but his dad looks like he already has.

  “This isn’t news to you,” I say.

  “I was debating whether or not I should let you know this website exists, but then you left town, and I thought I’d wait at least until you came back. I know how hard this past year has been for you.”

  I don’t look at Tavia, but I’m sure that doesn’t make it any easier for her to be in the room right now. She is, after all, the reason this past year has been the worst. Even with how quickly I tried to move between posts and pages, it’s really unlikely she hasn’t noticed the siren bashing, and mentions of taking action.