One of Our Kind, page 7
“Nonsense,” says Angela Sayles. “I’m so sorry to have embarrassed you. We sometimes forget that not everyone is as comfortable in their own skin as we are.”
Where to even begin with these people? Are they saying she’s not enlightened because she didn’t want to see their pale, naked asses? Jasmyn opens her eyes and steps toward the exit. From behind her, there’s movement and then a hand on her upper arm.
“I’m so sorry again,” says Angela Sayles. “Come with me to the salon? I’d hate for you to leave without knowing why you came.”
Jasmyn looks at her. At least she’s wearing clothes now, a plush white robe with Liberty Wellness Center monogrammed on the lapel. Maybe she should go to the salon and say her piece, just to stay on good terms. Last thing she wants—and, she knows, the last thing King would want in this place that he loves—is to have any sour feelings with their neighbors.
Like the massage room, the salon requires an entrance code. Why do they have security codes on rooms inside their own house? She’d noticed security cameras on the house’s exterior, but this took things to another level. Does paranoia come with the territory when you’re this wealthy?
Angela Sayles pushes the door open with a flourish. “Et voilà,” she says.
Jasmyn steps into a room that seems to be made of light and glass. She feels as if she’s inside a gemstone, a watery blue topaz or aquamarine. The ceiling is covered with dangling crystal objects all refracting light. The smell of lavender is everywhere.
“Welcome to our sanctuary,” says Angela Sayles.
Jasmyn turns in place taking it all in. On the opposite side of the room, there are two plush reclining chairs, the kind you see in high-end luxury spas. Rows of bright blue medicine dropper bottles sit on a shelf behind them. Across from the shelving, two large free-standing claw-foot bathtubs are filled with a milky white liquid.
Since the embarrassment of seeing her naked before, Jasmyn hasn’t really looked at Angela, but she looks at her now. Angela Sayles is the kind of Black woman that white women say is beautiful. To be honest, Black women are guilty of it too. She has “good” 3A hair and the shade of her skin is lighter than a paper bag—she definitely passes the paper bag test. Her features—narrow nose, thin lips—are more stereotypically white than Black. Her eyes are a pale, glassy brown. Some enslaved ancestor of hers had probably been raped by her owner. Jasmyn wonders if Angela knows that America’s history of slavery is written into her pale skin and her “good” hair.
“Do you mind turning around for just a moment?” Angela Sayles asks. She’s standing next to one of the bathtubs.
Jasmyn turns away immediately. She has no desire to see this woman naked again.
A few seconds later, when Angela Sayles says she’s ready, Jasmyn turns to find her almost completely submerged in the bath.
“Now,” says Angela Sayles, “what is it you wanted to discuss?” She tilts her head back and closes her eyes.
Jasmyn can’t remember the last time she’d met people this strange. In fact, she’d never met people this strange. Why hadn’t Angela simply heard her out before getting into the tub? Now Jasmyn has to stand here making her pitch while pretending this scenario is totally normal, like the two of them share an intimacy that they do not.
Is Angela deliberately trying to make her uncomfortable, and if so, why? Jasmyn looks away from the tub and tells herself just to get it over with. The sooner she tells Angela what she came for, the sooner the other woman can turn her down, and the sooner Jasmyn can get the hell out of there and call Keisha so they can have a good long laugh.
Like she’d done with the Wrights two nights before, Jasmyn makes her case for a Liberty chapter of Black Lives Matter. Just as she expects her to, Angela Sayles turns her down, saying much the same thing the Wrights had said. Life gets to be so full. Sometimes you need to let some things go. Jasmyn doesn’t press her, just thanks her for her time.
As she’s leaving, she watches Angela Sayles sink farther down into the bath until all that remains to be seen is her pale brown face, slack with pleasure, floating in a sea of milk.
Later, when Jasmyn tells King and then Keisha about this visit, she’ll leave this part out: how, as she’d stood there watching Angela Sayles marinate, she’d felt a sudden wrongness in the air, diffuse but unmistakable.
And because it didn’t make any rational sense at all, she won’t tell them how she’d felt, for the briefest of moments, afraid.
Excerpt from an interview with Angela and Benjamin Sayles in the “Power Couples” issue of Mahogany Magazine
INTERVIEWER: What do you say to those people who are critical of plastic surgery, who say it shouldn’t matter what a person looks like on the outside?
AS: I’d say please join us adults in the real world.
BS: Please excuse Angela. She sometimes gets a little defensive. First off, I’d just mention that Angela and I do a good amount of pro bono work—reconstructive surgery for victims of traumatic accidents, burn injuries, car accidents, and the like. I don’t think anyone would fault us for those kinds of surgeries. I suppose the issue is that a lot of people out there think only a shallow, self-involved person would choose to have one of our procedures. They think plastic surgery is only about getting a better nose, trimming off a little bit of that thigh fat, making yourself a little more buxom. But it’s about so much more than that. It’s about esteem. We help people to feel better about themselves. We give them outer beauty to match their inner beauty. We give them the tools they need to face a world that can be cruel. Yes, sometimes that means giving them a nicer nose, but where’s the harm in that? Why not make the most of the gifts God gave you? We have the technology and tools to overcome most flaws, why not take advantage of them?
AS: What Benjamin means to say is that a well-wielded scalpel can change the world for the better.
10
Jasmyn talks King out of using the valet at the Downtown LA restaurant where they’re going to meet friends. Why waste money when she has a perfectly good parking spot at the courthouse just six blocks away?
“You’re not really worrying over twenty dollars,” King says after he parks the car.
“What? That used to be a lot for us,” Jasmyn says.
King throws her a knowing look but doesn’t say anything until after he opens her door and helps her out. “I think I understand,” he says, smiling like he has secret knowledge.
Jasmyn bumps his shoulder. “And what is it you think you understand, mister?”
He gives her hand a quick kiss. “Baby, it’s OK that we have money now.”
“Twenty dollars is still twenty dollars,” she says. “Besides, between being in the office and the courthouse, I never get to walk around down here anymore. The fresh air will be nice.”
King laughs. “If it’s fresh air you want, we should go back to Liberty.”
They take the elevator down and exit out onto the street. The evening air is warm, unusually humid, and definitely not fresh.
No doubt about it, Downtown LA smells worse than Liberty. But Jasmyn likes that about it. It smells like a real city, with exhaust and grime and urine and dead and dying things. She loves Liberty but doesn’t want it to make her too soft, too comfortable. The higher up in a tree you go, the farther away you are from your roots.
They turn a corner and spot a small homeless encampment two blocks ahead.
“Jesus, that’s new,” Jasmyn says. She tightens her grip on King’s arm. “It wasn’t here just last week.”
Mixed in with the tents, folding chairs, and sleeping bags, Jasmyn sees piles of garbage with everything from empty fast-food containers to tampons to liquor bottles.
“Come on, we should cross,” King says.
Jasmyn glances over to the other side of the street. It’s deserted except for a couple of homeless men sleeping in storefronts. Looking around some more, she realizes that no one else is walking out here. Maybe King was right. They should’ve valeted. Shame swamps her as soon as she thinks it. What she should be feeling now is compassion, not fear.
She shakes her head at King. “No, it’s fine. Let’s keep going.”
King stops and turns to face her. He takes both her hands in his. “Baby, you don’t have to prove anything—”
“Who says I’m trying to prove something?” she says, as irritated with King as she is with herself. “We need to be helping these people, not crossing the street pretending like they don’t exist.”
King looks at her like she’s naive. “Some of these people are dangerous—”
“It will be fine,” Jasmyn insists.
“All right,” King says, capitulating. “Just stay next to me.”
“OK,” she says, and lets him pull her in close.
Half a block later, King guides her around a smattering of broken glass mingled with something foul-smelling that she can’t identify.
“Jesus, why do we let this happen to people?” It never fails to wound her, the way she can’t save everyone.
“I don’t know, baby,” King says. “I don’t know.”
The sidewalk grows filthier the closer they get to the encampment. Jasmyn studies the ground, picking out a narrow path between the tents and the street where they can walk. Glass crunches beneath her heels.
They’re right on top of the encampment when a voice says, “Evening, folks.”
Jasmyn tightens her grip on King’s arm and tries not to betray how startled she is. Just ahead there’s a man she hadn’t noticed. He’s sitting at the mouth of his tent watching their approach. He’s Black but covered in so much grime he seems gray.
King throws his shoulders back and straightens himself up. He nods at the man. “Evening.”
The man smiles and Jasmyn sees that even his teeth are gray.
“Nice night for a stroll,” he says. His tone is light and easy, like they’re all just being neighborly and enjoying a springtime evening together.
“It sure is,” Jasmyn says, and then immediately feels ridiculous for saying it. She stops walking. “How are you, brother?” she asks.
The man looks at her with glassy eyes. “Can’t complain, my sister,” he says.
Next to her King tenses but doesn’t try to move her along. She pulls a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet and hands it to the man.
“Thank you kindly,” the man says and smiles his gray smile again. “I appreciate you.”
Jasmyn is struck again by his easy peacefulness. “You’re welcome,” she says.
A half a block later King kisses her on the temple. “I’m glad we walked,” he says. “You were right about the valet money.”
When they get to the restaurant, their friends Tricia and Dwight are already there. Tricia barely waits for them to sit down before getting into it. “So, how’s things in bougie-ass Liberty?” she asks.
Jasmyn and Tricia have been friends since college, so Jasmyn knows Tricia is only teasing but still, an embarrassed heat washes over her neck and face. She feels exposed, as if she’s being accused of something.
“It’s not all that bougie,” she says.
Even if it had been an accusation, what is her crime exactly? That she lives someplace safe and beautiful and, yes, expensive? This is America. Safety and beauty cost money. Tricia knows that.
Jasmyn spends a good couple of minutes extolling the virtues of Liberty. She tells both Tricia and Dwight how nice it is to live surrounded by Black people. “Every single teacher, the baristas, the cops.” She leans toward Tricia as if she’s sharing a secret. “Listen, I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be able to relax.” As she’s saying the words, she realizes how much she means them. “I was in our pharmacy the other day and the security guard didn’t follow me around.”
Tricia laughs and shakes her head. “I hate how they do that. Like, what? I’m going to shoplift some cough syrup or some crappy lipstick?”
“Right? It’s ridiculous,” says Jasmyn. “Know what else? I haven’t been mistaken for an employee in any place there yet, either.”
Tricia slaps the table. “Listen. That. Shit. Is. Not. Funny,” she says, punctuating each word with a clap. “I could be wearing a damn wedding dress and some somebody is going to come up to me and ask what aisle they can find the tampons in.”
Jasmyn laughs so hard her face hurts. It’s all so absurd. What else is there to do but laugh? There’s more she could say to Tricia about the benefits of Liberty, too. At the high-end boutiques, no one assumes she can’t afford the items on offer. On the streets, no one clutches their purse just a little tighter when she or Kamau or King walk by. No one locks their car door, either.
Of course, not everything there is perfect. But maybe because she’s still feeling defensive that Tricia had called Liberty bougie, she doesn’t tell her about the imperfections. Jasmyn doesn’t tell her that, after living for six weeks in a town filled with Black people, she’s found only one so far who she actually likes. She doesn’t reveal that neither she nor Keisha had been able to sign a single person up for their Black Lives Matter chapter yet. Keisha had told her she’d asked almost every preschool parent she talked to all week. They all said the same thing: too busy. Even now, Jasmyn wants to shake them, tell them that being busy is no excuse for not getting involved. Not to mention how annoyed she is that they all seemed to find enough time to go to the Wellness Center and do all their self-care nonsense. The image of Angela Sayles sinking into her bathtub flashes in her mind but she quickly dismisses it. For the life of her, Jasmyn can’t imagine why the sight of it had seemed so ominous before. Angela Sayles was just a frivolous rich woman with too much time on her hands.
“I’m just messing with you about it being bougie,” Tricia says. “That all sounds nice.”
Jasmyn hears the little bit of envy in Tricia’s voice and feels guilty for causing it.
“What about you, King? Anything you miss about the city?” Dwight asks.
King sips his beer before answering. Jasmyn has the sense he’s testing out his words, the way you test fruit for ripeness in the supermarket. “Man, it’s not like we on another planet. We still come to the city for work every damn day.”
The way he says it makes Jasmyn wonder if he’d change even that if he could.
The food arrives and she changes the subject. “You see that video of the white woman in the park?” she asks.
Tricia slaps the table and laughs. “Homegirl didn’t even care she was being filmed.”
“Bet she cares now,” Dwight says and laughs too.
They move on from that racist video to two even more racist ones, and then to what the racist president said most recently, and back to another video King had never even heard of. Eventually they come to the Tyrese and Mercy Simpson case.
“They put a bullet in that baby girl’s lung,” Jasmyn says. She still can’t believe the words even as she’s saying them. Again, she flashes to the traffic stop from last spring. What if that had happened to Kamau? She could never survive a thing like that.
“The things they do to us,” Tricia says. Her eyes fill with tears. Jasmyn reaches across the table and squeezes her hand.
“I read today that she’s out of the ICU,” says King. “Looks like she’s going to survive it.”
“Small mercies,” says Tricia. Dwight leans over and kisses her on the forehead.
“You know what else I can’t get over?” Jasmyn asks. “All the news ever talks about is the protests and the ‘looting.’ Swear to God, they care more about property than they care about actual human beings.”
“That’s the truth,” says Tricia.
There’s not much to say after that and they sit in silence until the waitress arrives to take their dessert order.
Jasmyn and Tricia decide to share a slice of chocolate cake. Dwight is too full to eat anything else.
King orders a single glass of port that costs three figures.
Jasmyn pretends not to see the price and then pretends not to see the look Tricia and Dwight share over it. If Tricia didn’t think she was bougie before, she surely does now.
When the bill comes, King insists on paying. Tricia and Dwight don’t protest.
They leave the restaurant and walk two blocks to a hotel bar Dwight had heard about. Except for their waitress, they’re the only Black people there.
As he’s pulling out her chair, King whispers into her ear. “Not like this where we’re from,” he says, proud.
It takes Jasmyn a second to realize he means Liberty. Liberty is where they’re from now.
Drinks start off well. Tricia orders a club soda instead of her usual cosmo and it occurs to Jasmyn that Tricia hasn’t had any alcohol so far.
As per their usual, King and Dwight dive right into sports talk, this time about basketball.
Jasmyn takes the opportunity to shift her chair closer to Tricia. “How are things at work?” she asks. Tricia is a trauma nurse in the ER of a midsize, underfunded, and understaffed hospital in the mid-city area. Most of the patients are either Black or Mexican, and poor.
Tricia pushes out a heavy sigh. “Last week was rough. Family of four got T-boned by a semi. The mom died before we could even get her prepped for surgery. The dad and one of the kids died two days later.”
“Jesus, Trish, I’m sorry,” Jasmyn says. She reaches over and takes Tricia’s hand in her own.
Tricia shakes her head and looks down at the table. “All these years and it still hasn’t gotten any easier,” she says, voice low. “My charge nurse found me crying in the bathroom after the mom passed. For years she’s been telling me that I need to get tougher and build up a hard shell. She says I can’t fall apart after every bullet wound or car crash, but I don’t know how to do that.” She looks up at Jasmyn. “How can I do the job if I don’t care?”
