Page 2 of Death of the Author

2 The Wedding

Zelu was thinking about water.

Trinidad and Tobago had the sweetest beaches she’d ever seen. They went on for miles and miles with not a human in sight,

and the waters were so warm. The day after she’d arrived, she’d gone with her soon-to-be brother-in-law and three of his local

Trini friends. All of them could swim like fish... but none as well as she, of course. Once she put the elastic bands around

her legs and ankles, she moved with power and confidence using her powerful arms, her back, shoulders, and abdominal muscles.

She’d been swimming since she was five. “Oh, it’s just something I... fell into,” she’d tell people. She rarely explained

how literal this was; she’d intentionally fallen into the water one day. Her family thought it was an accident, but it was

the only way she could prove to anyone, including herself, that she could swim. When the wedding ceremony was over, she planned to go right back to those human-free beaches and swim some more. Preferably

alone, this time. For now, she endured all the primping, preening, and perfuming of the bridal suite.

“I look hot !” Zelu’s younger sister Amarachi proclaimed. She did a twirl and a pose in front of the mirror. Amarachi’s wedding dress was like something from another planet, and Zelu loved it. She’d been there to help her sister choose it, of course. “Zelu, you are a genius.”

Zelu flipped some of her braids back and smirked. “I know.” Their sisters—Chinyere, the oldest of them all; Bola, the youngest;

and Uzo, the second youngest—laughed as they perfected their makeup in front of the large mirror. Zelu’s own dress was buttercup

yellow, and it billowed over her wheelchair, making her look somewhat like the flower. She hated it, but this wasn’t her day. Whatever her sister wanted, she would do. Still, she snuck two thin bracelets made of green Ankara cloth onto her left

wrist to maintain her identity. Bola’s dress was a soft carnation pink and Uzo’s was a lilac purple. Zelu had to admit, the

combination of the colors with her sister’s gorgeous Technicolor sci-fi-looking wedding dress was stunning.

“Zelu, want me to help you with your makeup?” Bola asked.

“Nope,” Zelu said. “Don’t need any.”

“You’ll be sorry when you see the photos,” Uzo said, patting her already perfect midsized ’fro. She’d placed a lavender butterfly

pin in it. “They’ll be all over our social media.”

“Meh, I’m not the one getting married. Today isn’t about me. And social media can deal with me looking like myself.”

“Zelu radiates an inner beauty that makeup cannot enhance, don’t you know?” Chinyere said.

They all laughed. Of course, Chinyere’s makeup was flawless and already done. Her sky-blue dress was nearly as magnificent

as Amarachi’s, but it was more how she wore it. It was Amarachi’s day, but Chinyere was and always would be queen.

“Well, I think that’s a weak excuse for looking plain, Zelu,” Amarachi said.

“You’ll be all right,” she said, grinning. “Marriage isn’t my thing, so I don’t have to suffer it. But I can have fun watching you.” This was her naked truth. Marriage had never been in her cards. She enjoyed her freedom and autonomy too much, and she loathed the idea of someone calling her his “wife.” It just seemed ridiculous. Not that she hadn’t had the option; so far, she’d had two wonderful men propose to her: one who was named Zelu, just like her, and one named Obi, who had been her creative twin; they’d passionately dated for three years... until he got the idea of marriage into his head and ruined everything.

“Ugh,” Chinyere said. “Spare us your lecture, Zelu. Today’s a day of marriage. Deal with it.”

Their mother, Omoshalewa, came in with a large box. Inside it was a thick orange coral bead necklace and matching earrings.

“Oh boy,” Zelu said. “Here we go.”

The necklace was worth a small fortune. The others gathered around as their mother put the necklace around Amarachi’s neck.

“NOW you look like the true princess you are,” Omoshalewa said. It totally threw off Amarachi’s sci-fi dress. Zelu rolled

her eyes, annoyed.

“This type of coral is the finest,” their mother said. “ Only the most powerful people in the palace can wear it.”

Zelu flared her nostrils, fighting to keep her mouth shut. It was a horrible fact: their mother was indeed a princess from

a long, strong line of proud (and useless, according to her father) Yoruba royalty. This made Zelu and her sisters also princesses

and their brother, Tolu, a prince, something Zelu preferred to never tell anyone, despite her mother insisting they go by

“princess” and “prince” whenever they visited Omoshalewa’s hometown or spent time with their maternal relatives. Being a Nigerian

American in Nigeria, and imposing the privilege of royalty on top of that, disgusted Zelu.

Today, her mother was going to be really crazy with it. Which meant there was going to be drama, because their father was

from a very proud Igbo family that spat on any idea of entitled predestination and opted for embracing education and capitalism

and the Lord Jesus Christ. In her father’s family, everyone did their own thing, but it was all for the family. Thus, every single one of her father’s siblings had earned a PhD or the equivalent and was wealthy. If they heard any of this talk of princesses and princes and kings and queens, they’d make sure to loudly point out that it was total bullshit.

“It’s super heavy.” Amarachi laughed, adjusting the humongous necklace hanging around her neck.

“A princess can carry it,” their mother said. “Remember how Chinyere wore it.”

“ I certainly do,” Chinyere said.

“Like a pink-orange tire,” Amarachi muttered.

“We are royalty,” their mother proclaimed.

Zelu frowned and looked away. Her eyes fell on her phone. She’d silenced it and put it on the table beside her. For once,

she’d completely forgotten about it. Until now. And it was vibrating. She picked it up and wheeled herself toward the window

on the far side of the room. It was her boss, Brittany Burke, head of the university’s English Department.

“Hello?” she answered with a frown.

“Hi, Zelu. I know you’re in Trinidad.”

“Tobago.”

“Oh. Yeah. I get them mixed up.”

“The country is Trinidad and Tobago, but I’m on the island of Tobago,” she said. She sighed, pushing back her irritation.

What did Brittany want?

“Hell, I’m surprised I can even reach you.”

“A good international package is part of my phone contract.”

“Heh, smart.” Silence.

“Um... everything all right?”

As Brittany spoke, Zelu gazed out the window, over the hills covered with lush trees and bushes. In the opposite direction,

just behind the hotel, was the ocean. Zelu giggled, because it was all she could do to not smash her phone on the windowsill

and potentially mess up her sister’s big day. There was a ringing in her ears, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out this

woman’s fucking voice spewing bile all the way from the United fucking States.

It was surreal, but not surprising. Adjuncting was a shit job that treated you like shit. Her creative writing students always deeply annoyed her, but this semester had been especially brutal. She’d come to every class with a false smile plastered on her face and fantasies of smacking each of them upside the head with a copy of Infinite Jest —the hardcover, of course. This semester, she had a class full of creative writing PhD students who’d all convinced themselves

and one another that the best type of storytelling was plotless, self-indulgent, and full of whiny characters who lived mostly

in their minds.

Four days ago, she’d come to class full of rage because the student whose “story” they were workshopping that day had written

twenty-five pages in which none of the sentences related to one another. There was no system or logic to the sentences. Nothing.

Just gibberish. Like a robot attempting to be creative and getting the very concept of what that means all wrong. And she’d

had to read it closely enough to give this student proper feedback. On top of this, the student was an entitled white boy

who had been questioning her authority since the beginning of the semester, far more than anyone else. Oh, she detested him

already, but this story was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

After her students had each gone around the room and said what they thought (“This is really ambitious,” “I felt stretched

by this piece,” “It’s brilliant! I wish I’d written it!,” etc.), Zelu had tried her best to give him useful feedback. But

when she finally just asked him what he believed the story meant, he’d said, “Why don’t you tell me ? What I think of my own work doesn’t matter. The reader decides what it’s about, right? Isn’t that what you said ‘death of

the author’ meant?” Then he’d smiled a very annoying and smug smile.

This motherfucker , Zelu thought. She’d paused, trying to collect herself, to stop herself. But she couldn’t. Not at that point. And so she’d told him what she thought his story meant. Since he’d asked. “This

is twenty-five pages of self-indulgent drivel. You’ve just wasted your reader’s time. Throw this away, and when you’re ready

to stop fucking around and actually tell a story, start over and have some confidence in the power of storytelling. You’ve only had the privilege of torturing your readers with this because this is a class and we all have to read what you’ve given us.”

Silence.

Students exchanging glances. Wide eyes. Pursed yet buttoned lips. Fidgeting. More silence.

Then this student, who had looked at her with such ire and arrogance all semester, who had even refused to participate in

one of her writing exercises because he thought it “below” him, had burst into sloppy tears. Now, days later, while she was

out of the country, the entire class had shown up at the department head’s office to complain about this “traumatic” incident

and how “insensitive,” “toxic,” “verbally violent,” “unprofessional,” “problematic,” and “rude” Zelu was as a person.

All this Brittany told her now on the phone. She also mentioned that these students had complained about how twice this semester

Zelu had ended class early so she could work on her own novel. Zelu had been a dumbass and thought that telling them the reason

would get her empathy. They were all aspiring authors, right? They’d understand.

Then Brittany told her she was fired, effective immediately.

“Does my being faculty for five years count for anything?”

“Faculty, but adjunct. And do I need to bring out your files? We’ve held on to you despite so many complaints—”

“Because I’m a good writer who is good at teaching; you all benefit!” she snapped. “And that’s also made clear in my files.”

“Be that as it may, Zelu, the department has decided—”

“Ah, fuck you.” She hung up. “Asshole. And when did students become such entitled snitches, anyway?!”

“Everything all right?” Chinyere asked from the other side of the room.

Zelu looked over her shoulder. “I’m cool. Just university stuff.” She wheeled to the door. “I’m gonna go to the... I’ll

be right back. Need some air.”

The hallway smelled sweet with incense. The wallpaper was a bright pattern of fuchsia flowers and vibrant olive leaves, and the lush, dark green carpet was a bitch to wheel across. Regardless, getting away from the others made her feel a little better. She squinted, wiped away her tears, and flared her nostrils. Holding up a fist as if to threaten someone, she took in a deep incense-scented breath.

“Okay,” she whispered, clenching and unclenching her fists. “Fucking fuckery.” She wheeled down the hall.

This was her first time in Trinidad and Tobago, but it was definitely not going to be her last. And this beach hotel, with

its old, bright orange colonial-style exterior would stay on her list. It was small and cheap enough that Amarachi and her

fiancé could afford to rent it out completely for three days. Zelu was about to exit the front doors when she heard raised

voices coming from a room to her right. She smiled. Raised voices among Nigerians were usually not a bad thing. Her suspicions

were verified when she heard laughter woven through the shouting.

She peeked inside the ajar door. Inside was a conference room, and it seemed that just about all the men attending the wedding

were in here, from the teenaged to the elderly, Nigerian to South African, Igbos and Yorubas to Zulus. They were all crowded

around her sister’s fiancé, Jackie, who was standing next to his father, her father, and several of the elders. They stood

before a table. The oldest-looking elder was a tall, thin man with dark skin wearing a richly embroidered white kaftan and

pants. He held a handful of straws. Jackie’s father took two of the straws and put them on the table, and everyone in the

room exclaimed.

“Ah! Now the pot is adequate ,” Zelu’s father shouted, “but not full!”

The men laughed.

Jackie’s father huddled with the elders, and they whispered and waved their hands and stamped their feet. When they turned

back to her father, one of the elders handed Jackie’s father several more straws. The sound of everyone exclaiming “ Ooh ” rippled through the room. Her father clapped his hands, pleased as punch. Zelu chuckled wryly. Whether it was bags of palm

wine, yams, cattle, or symbolic straws, the deciding of the bride price and the joy men took in doing the deciding was yet

more bullshit.

“African men,” Zelu muttered, rolling her eyes. She wheeled outside and was thankful when she hit the concrete of the front area. Smooth. And she was glad she wasn’t wearing any makeup because it was hot and humid out here. She went to the side of the building, where the ceremony area was set up. The center-aisle chairs were connected with woven flowers and Ankara cloth, leading toward the platform where Amarachi and Jackie would take their vows. Some of the guests were already seated and waiting.

Behind the ceremony area, the ocean stretched dark and blue into the horizon. She paused, listening to the rhythmic crash

of waves in the distance. “Magnificent friend,” she whispered. “One of the world’s greatest storytellers.” She wheeled backward,

mashing the foot of a man she didn’t realize was right behind her.

“Aye!” he hissed.

She didn’t have to turn around to know who he was. Uncle Vincent always wore that distinctive woody-spicy smell that she kind

of loved, Tom Ford Tobacco Oud. “Oh, sorry, Uncle Vincent!”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he said, waving her off. He pointed to where the chairs were set up. “That’s where it’s going

to be?”

“Yeah.”

He began to step around her. He paused. “How are you doing?” he asked, a small smile on his face. His gray beard was always

perfectly trimmed.

Zelu bit her lip. His question brought back the department head’s bullshit. “Oh, I’m fine, heh.”

“You still teaching writing at that university?”

“I’m getting by,” she said, clenching a fist.

“Good, good. Will we see you wheeling down the aisle one of these days?”

She laughed. “Nah. I don’t believe in marriage. Not for myself.”

“You just need to find the right man,” he said.

No, I simply don’t believe in marriage , she thought. She smiled and shrugged.

“You like to swim,” he said. “Have you been in the ocean?”

She perked up. Her favorite subject. “Oh, yes! This place is magical. The water just carries you! And it’s so warm!”

“Indeed, like something alive,” he said. “I went swimming this morning. Chey! Your father and I used to swim the rivers in the village, the streams, too, even the ocean near Port Harcourt. None were

calm like it is here. Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one enjoying.” He tugged at his short beard as he looked at her. “You

don’t have to be so tough, Zelu,” he said. “And smile more. A man likes some softness. You’re a beautiful girl.”

She forced her lips into a smile. “Gonna get back to my sister.”

“Yes! She needs you in her finest hour.” He turned and went to the ceremony area.

Her finest hour? The way people talk, like it’s all downhill after the wedding , she thought.

By the time she returned to the bridal suite, all her sisters’ heavy makeup was complete and the room reeked of expensive

perfume, powder, and anxiety.

“Zelu!” Amarachi said. Her face now sparkled and shimmered in its flawlessness. “Get over here. Let’s at least put some eyeliner

on you. Please .”

Zelu submitted to their torture for the next ten minutes. It was unpleasant, but it could have been worse. She took comfort

in the knowledge that when the wedding was over, she would scrub it all off her face. There was a knock on the door and their

father peeked into the room. “Ready?”

Amarachi looked at the four of them. “Are we ready?”

“Always,” Chinyere said.

“Yep!” Bola said.

“You’re beautiful,” Uzo said, laughing.

“I am!” Amarachi agreed.

Zelu’s phone buzzed in her hand as everyone moved toward the door. She turned back to the window, squeezing her eyes shut

as thoughts of the phone call from the department head seeped in again. Her eyes began to water. “Shit,” she whispered.

“Want some help?” her father asked.

Normally she’d say no—she hated receiving help—but she could barely breathe. “Yeah,” she managed. Her father was too preoccupied to ask about her unusual acceptance, and she was glad. He pushed her swiftly with his strong arms and his long legs. They caught up with the others quickly. As they moved, Zelu took the moment to glance at her phone. A notification alerted her of a new email from her literary agent. She swiped it open. Her novel had gotten its tenth rejection. This one from some small publisher who couldn’t be bothered to speak directly to her agent or even write a personal rejection letter. A form letter? To her agent? Seriously?

A wave of nausea churned in her belly, and she leaned to the side to catch her breath, glad that all attention was on her

sister.

There was so much going on that for a while, Zelu did forget about her personal problems. Amarachi and Jackie liked to do things big. Jackie was a South African–born physician who was proudly Zulu and atheist and had deep African National Congress roots.

Amarachi was a Christian neurology resident physician who was the child of Nigerian immigrants with deep Yoruba royal and

Biafran roots. Amarachi and Jackie loved each other, and each other’s families, but there was strong, proud, dominating culture

on both sides. Having everyone together like this, full force, was going to be a battle over who could be the showiest. Yet

Amarachi and Jackie wanted to do only one wedding, have it all be just one thing, no matter how multiheaded that thing was.

Thus, a priest, a judge, and two elders all presided over the ceremony to bond the two forever.

Zelu had never seen anything like it, and she loved it. As they moved from the ceremony outside to the lavishly decorated banquet hall, she looked over the attendees who’d come to Trinidad and Tobago from all over the world, mainly from Africa, to celebrate the union. The space was grand and opulent with sparkling chandeliers, peach-colored wall sconces with red LED lights, and rows of round tables with crisp tablecloths and enormous bouquets of roses in the centers. But there were also African masks hanging on the walls overlooking everything; Zulu baskets sat in corners, and colorful Zulu textiles were draped on the tables.

As everyone filled the reception area, Zelu was pulled from her joy by more of her family’s thoughtlessness. “You are truly

blessed to have a sister like that, so plump and fine,” her uncle Jonah said to her. “Maybe now that she is wedded, someone

will see past you being crippled, eh?” He grinned and tapped her on the shoulder as he walked on.

Zelu only smile-sneered at him. She had been born and raised in the United States, but she’d been to Nigeria so many times,

she’d lost count. She knew her people. They were blunt, and though they might say some shit, it usually wasn’t from ill will.

Also, she knew it was useless to argue with them when the time wasn’t right. Like now. She watched her uncle Jonah strut off

in the confident way he always did, laughing and slapping hands with everyone around him and complimenting women’s dresses.

As she wheeled her way through the crowd, she settled into the familiar invisibility she always felt when among most of her

relatives.

Nigerians never knew how to deal with abnormalities, and Zelu had plenty of those. She was a thirty-two-year-old paraplegic

woman with an MFA in creative writing. Her father was a retired engineer and her mother a retired nurse, and her siblings

were a surgeon, a soon-to-be neurologist, an engineer, a lawyer, and a med school student. But not much had ever been expected

of her. This was mainly due to her disability. She’d endured her share of theories about family curses, juju, and charms.

Her relatives were more interested in who was to blame than they were in how she lived her life. At events like this, people

preferred to look away. When they did talk to her, they treated her like she was of lesser intelligence, and some had even

unintentionally told her they thought so. Others would apologize to her constantly. And many prayed for her.

However, every so often, she caught an eye and a mind. Like the young man to her left in the blue-and-white Ankara suit. He was standing with two of her male cousins, but she was certain he wasn’t from her side of the family. She chuckled to herself, holding his gaze for longer than he probably was comfortable with. Then she rolled toward her table.

She sat with her siblings and their spouses and boyfriends. Of all of them, she was the only one who hadn’t bothered to bring

anyone.

Her only brother, Tolu, Bola’s twin, was gazing at the dance floor. Tall, beautiful, and an excellent dancer, he never missed

a chance to put himself on display. And his wife, Folashade, was the same. “I hope they play some dancehall!” Folashade said.

“They better,” Tolu said. “We’re in Tobago!” They bumped fists, pleased with each other.

“Not until they play ‘Sweet Mother’ like ten times,” Bola said.

“And some token Miriam Makeba, because Jackie loves her so much,” Zelu added.

“Where’s the puff puff? I’m starving,” Uzo whined, raising her phone up to take yet another photo of herself.

They all quieted as they thought about food. Zelu was hungry, too. She’d barely eaten a thing since the morning, so apprehensive

had she been about the wedding.

“I hope they have Trini food mixed in with the South African and Nigerian, man,” Chinyere’s husband, Arinze, said. “I had

this thing called callaloo and dumplings last night, holy shit . There was no meat in the thing and it was still delicious. Can you imagine?”

“Sounds good, but they better have plenty of jollof rice and beef,” Tolu said.

“And plantain,” Arinze added.

“No goat!” all the siblings said at the same time. They laughed hard.

“Ugba,” Zelu added. She sniffed the air. “Though I don’t smell it, so, doubtful.”

“You think they shipped all that here?” Uzo asked. “Madness.”

“Who says they have to ship it?” Zelu said. “I’m sure there are plenty of Nigerians who’ve set up shop in Trinidad and Tobago.”

“Definitely,” Bola said, slapping hands with her.

Zelu cocked her head, looking at Shawn, Bola’s boyfriend, who was African American. “What about you, Shawn?” she asked.

“Oh, I’ll eat whatever y’all got,” he said with a shrug. “All sounds good to me.”

There was a loud clang from somewhere and they all sat up straight. A flute began to play a spooky melody; it was amplified

in a way that made it sound like it was coming from all around the room. Tolu grinned and jumped up, shouting, “Yessss! Come

through!”

Uzo got up and dashed to Bola, giggling. She held up her phone, getting ready to record. Zelu looked around, wondering how

it would make its grand entrance. Everyone in the reception hall was peering around and whispering. But you could barely hear

anything over the pulsing notes of the flute. Then Zelu saw it.

“Holy shit!” she shouted. “That’s a big one!”

The great masquerade danced, shook, and undulated its way from the banquet hall’s entrance. It looked like a giant bale of

raffia, yellow and spiky, and was covered in lengths of soft, colorful cloth that floated down on all sides. It danced to

the flute music and then suddenly lay flat. It leaped up, wide and billowing again, and continued dancing through the reception.

Behind it, five men with thick ropes restrained it from attacking people. Walking behind them, three men played drums and

one man played his reed flute into a microphone.

It arrived at the first few tables in the back. Most of the people sitting there had already gotten up and run to the other

side of the room. Some of the men, however, remained and danced with the giant masquerade, unafraid. As it moved through the

hall, it lunged at any woman standing too close, held back only by the ropes. The women quickly rushed to a safer distance,

laughing to one another nervously. When there were no women to lunge at, it would occasionally dive at a man of its choosing.

As it made its way to the front of the room, everyone else got up from Zelu’s table. Zelu, however, didn’t want to wheel back.

She didn’t think the masquerade would pass too close, anyway, so why go to the trouble of moving? She stayed where she was.

She watched the flute player and drummers pass by her table. The flute player gave her a look she didn’t like—a sort of “Are you stupid?” frown. She felt a ping of discomfort, but he would be beyond her any minute, right? Wrong. The man stopped. Shit. He turned to her. Dammit. He played the flute in a way that made it clear he was calling her out, pushing the creature’s attention toward her. The masquerade,

which had been nearly past her table, stopped. It turned.

Zelu felt her heart leap. Whyyyyyyy? Masquerades always made her nervous. Sure, there were just men inside these crazy, monstrous costumes, but something about

them always felt unpredictable. It was said that the wearer became the spirit or ancestor the costume represented. Women were

never allowed to don the costume of a masquerade (unless you counted the few female masquerade secret societies, which Zelu

did not). This one twitched and then undulated as the flute player urged it on. And now the drummers were urging it on, too.

Zelu’s hands went to her wheelchair tires as it rushed at her. The men holding it were straining. Actually straining !

“Ah!” she said, moving back from the table. Laughter rolled across the party. This seemed to satisfy the masquerade and the

flute player. They retreated and moved on. Zelu was furious. She’d been so startled and humiliated that a tear escaped her

left eye. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t control it. Zelu glared at the creature and imagined setting the wretched

thing on fire.

“Damn, you’re brave,” Uzo said from behind her, returning to her seat. “I’m totally going to post this. All the Naija guys

who follow me are going to call you a witch.”

Zelu kept her back to Uzo so her sister couldn’t see her quickly wipe away the tear. “Won’t be the first or last time,” Zelu

muttered.

“You have no respect, Zelu,” Tolu said, sitting back down. But he was smiling.

“Always trying to be a badass,” Chinyere said.

“Foolish, though,” Arinze said.

Zelu only kissed her teeth, watching as the masquerade continued its dance for her sister and new brother-in-law, and then for the bride’s and groom’s parents. Fucking spirit , Zelu thought.

“Where’s the bar?” Shawn asked, standing behind his chair, totally uninterested in any of the conversation.

Chinyere suddenly got up. “I’ll go with you.” Arinze looked at her with a frown but said nothing.

“Cool. You want anything, Bola?” he asked.

“If there’s champagne, get me that,” she replied, excited.

“Me too,” Zelu said.

“And me,” Uzo added.

Shawn chuckled. “You all are so...” He shook his head. “Let’s go, Chinyere.”

Zelu felt for Chinyere ’s husband. They all knew what was coming. And by the time the reception had really gotten started,

it wasn’t just Tolu and his wife on the dance floor getting down to the thumping beat of dancehall, it was an eye-catching,

bootylicious Bola... and a very drunk Chinyere as well. Chinyere took it further than dancing as she wined her body, twerked

her backside, and rubbed up against any man dancing too close to her, including her sister’s new husband. Chinyere was usually

wound very tightly. She drank only at weddings, and the alcohol freed her of all she imposed on herself. In moments like these,

Chinyere was a hurricane no one could stop, so no one bothered to try. Everyone just weathered her. Zelu wished her sister

would give herself permission to be free more often.

Zelu, on the other hand, just wanted to go to bed, her belly way too full of jollof rice, pepper soup, fried chicken, and samplings from a variety of other heavy African and Caribbean dishes. She’d also had several glasses of champagne, missed the bouquet because she hadn’t tried, taken a thousand photos with Amarachi and her other siblings, sung old Yoruba songs with the elders, and gotten into a heated argument with Shawn about why she believed one of America’s worst yet quietest problems was white guilt. And there was all the catching-up gossip. She didn’t have to do much to hear it. She was sitting beside her mother, watching people on the dance floor, when she overheard one such conversation by chance. Omoshalewa was talking to a cousin from home, and Zelu was only half listening. Her mother had been in high spirits the entire night, so proud of yet another of her “princesses” being married off and becoming a “queen.”

“Eh, Funmilayo! Where is she? Is she here?” her mother asked.

Her mother’s cousin Richard stepped closer before he responded, and that’s what caught Zelu’s attention. People in her family

were always so secretive, so she’d learned early how to notice when a secret was about to be revealed. “You haven’t heard?”

Richard said.

“Heard what?” her mother asked. “Where is she?”

“Not here.”

“Why? I know my daughter invited her and her husband.”

“When is the last time you heard from Funmilayo?” Richard asked.

Her mother paused, thinking. “I don’t know. It’s been a while. I tried calling her; I think she was in Lagos. Left messages.

Maybe a few months ago.”

Richard nodded. “Her husband died. It was sudden.”

“What!?”

“They were living in that house, eh, you know. Her husband lost his job at the plant. She’s been avoiding everyone since.”

“Oh, no!”

“They buried him very quickly. But people there, they still want to act like village people. You see Funmilayo now, she looks

like a woman of the dirt. She shaved all her hair away, looks malnourished, walks around in a daze. Chey! ”

Zelu’s mother stared at her cousin in disbelief. Zelu shook her head and wheeled away to get more champagne. She. Was. Tired. And then she spotted the guy she’d seen before. And again he looked deeply into her eyes, and she looked deeply into his. Short, slim, and light-skinned, with high cheekbones and knowing eyes, he appeared to be in his midtwenties, and judging from the leopard-print collar-vest thing he wore over his suit jacket, he was from Jackie’s side of the family. Zelu and the guy met halfway between their respective tables. He knelt down to her level, which wasn’t hard for him, and grinned. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You look like your sister.”

She laughed, impressed by his nuance. On any other day, this statement would have been odd because she actually didn’t look

much like Amarachi, but today was her sister’s wedding day, which meant her sister was the most beautiful woman in the room...

and he’d just said Zelu looked like her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Are you one of Jackie’s cousins?”

“Of course I am.” He laughed.

“It’s so obvious,” she said.

“Why’d you even bother?”

She was grinning. “Small talk is a shitty ritual.”

“I’m Msizi.”

“Zelu.”

She shook his hand and he didn’t let go.

“Want to go see the water?” he asked.

Of course she did.

She let him wheel her onto the expanse of beach behind the hotel, and when the going got too difficult, she allowed him to

carry her so they could be near the water. Several guests had left the reception to walk along the beach, so they weren’t

alone. But in the darkness of night, they might as well have been. When the two of them had gone far enough to escape the

sightline of the venue and were close to the water, they lay on the cool sand, neither of them worried about their clothes.

“I’m never wearing this damn dress again, anyway,” she said.

“I’ll definitely wear this suit again, but sand will not destroy it,” he said.

He had soft lips and strong hands, and he wasn’t timid when he touched her. In the darkness, there was privacy, so Zelu relaxed

and for a while, she went somewhere else. It was good. He was good. And he went somewhere else, too. She always knew how to

make them see galaxies.

“Can you feel that?” he asked breathily in her ear.

She hated that question so much. Not the sentiment—the question. Because she couldn’t feel it. Not on a physical level. There was nothing. Just flesh, disconnected from her in a way that she still hotly resented,

even after twenty years. She closed her eyes and traveled deeper into her mind while her muscles relaxed. Usually, her body

could still respond, in its disconnected way, and she’d learned how to navigate this over the years. Even when it didn’t,

the men she had sex with never complained. There were other ways. But tonight, according to him, her body was responding.

It liked him... and so did she.

“Shush,” she said, concentrating. On his shallow breath, on the roughness of the short hairs on his head, on his name, on

the sand he allowed into his suit, on his quickening heartbeat, on his full lips, on his firm chest. She sighed and he moaned.

Yes, Msizi.

Afterward, they sat and gazed at the stars for a while. Both quiet. Comfortable with each other. Listening to the water and

the sound of laughter and splashing farther along the dark beach. Somewhere behind them, the dancing continued at the reception,

people cheering for the DJ when he put on some Fela.

“I used to want to be an astronaut,” she said. She touched the necklace he wore, a simple tooth-shaped piece of obsidian.

“Used to?”

“Look at me,” she said, motioning to her legs.

He shrugged. “Never too late.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “A dolphin should not seek to be a leopard.”

He looked at her hard and Zelu waited, expecting.

“I think I like the Caribbean,” he said.

She smiled, pleased that he’d changed the subject. Smart man. “Me too,” she said. “Especially here.”

“I’ve never been outside of South Africa until three days ago.” He rubbed his temples and shook his head. “What have I been

doing with my life?”

“Any specific reason?”

“Yeah, it’s expensive,” he said. “Jackie paid for my ticket here. I just launched a tech start-up and I’m just finishing grad school. Couldn’t afford coming here, otherwise.”

“Jackie’s such a good person.”

“Yeah, he is.”

It was in the following silence that things started to go wrong. There was no reason for it, really. Nothing negative. They

were outside beneath an open, clear sky, the stars above pulling at her, pulling her to them. It was pure exactly as it was.

She inhaled the air into her lungs as she rose. However, in this moment, she made the mistake of looking at herself from her

heightened perspective, which was sharp and unflinching. And the fragile part of her that had been flying in the sky came

crashing down when she was least prepared. She twitched.

“Are you all right?” he asked. Msizi, she could tell, was a man free of pretense and judgment.

Her chest felt as if someone were standing on it; her throat was tight. Somehow she managed to say, “Can we go back?”

He took out his cell phone and turned on the light to see her better. Yet again Zelu was struck by how far this man she barely

knew could see into her. Her sister’s now-husband Jackie was the same way. Yes, Msizi was definitely one of Jackie’s relatives.

They were simply kind people. “Okay,” he said. And that was it. He carried her to her chair. The entire time, she had to concentrate

on not shrieking. She was holding back a tsunami.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“You done for the night?”

“Yeah.”

“What room are you in?”

He walked her back inside the hotel. When they reached the door to her room, he asked if he could put his contact information

in her phone. She handed it to him. “I’m going back to the reception,” he said when he returned it. “Call if you need me.”

Then he kissed her good-bye.

When he was gone, she shut the door, threw off her jacket, and wheeled toward her bed. Then she stopped and just sat in her chair in front of it. And there, the tsunami finally fell on her. She’d been fired. She wasn’t even a “real professor,” despite her MFA. Yet, still. Fired. Rejection. And ten years working on that fucking novel. Building those characters, those ideas. Researching everything: paintings, architecture, city maps, even the trees. Editing. Editing. And editing. Breaking. Rewriting. Editing some more. She’d channeled Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, Audre Lorde. At least, she thought she had. It seemed right in line. Yet it was rejected. That novel was all she had.

Her sister had been so beautiful tonight.

She felt another wall crumble, her foundation cracking. She was a “spinster,” “manless,” “leg-less,” “crippled.” Why? Because

of her own stupidity. Maybe she’d been cursed by the gods, the result of a charm enacted against her mother by her uncle,

a king. Did it matter? She was a broken princess, disconnected from the world. Untethered.

She was falling. The ground was coming at a speed she knew would destroy her. She imagined a branch slapping her face. She

whimpered, tears flying from her eyes. “Oh God, no.” In her mind, she hit the ground. There, in pain, she wallowed in the

sticky, weighted darkness. Her eyes were heavy, but she kept them open. The world swam before her, and she coughed, salty

tears running from her eyes into the corners of her mouth.

“Fuck,” she hissed. “Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.”

Self-pity was all this was. She fought back the beast. And gradually, her chest loosened; her throat relaxed. The weight diminished. Her mind cleared. The world was not so bad. Humanity still existed. And she was strong. “I am strong,” she whispered. She still wept and her hands still shook. She still sat on the edge of an abyss. All she had to do was lean a little bit forward and that would be that. She shuddered again and wondered if she should call Jackie, whose lovely singing could always soothe her panic attacks... But he would be at the party still. Preoccupied with joy. Maybe she should call her mother. Someone. Instead, her eyes slid to her green -and-white Ankara jacket, crumpled on the floor. She fished in the inner pocket and brought out the last of her weed. On her hotel room counter, she rolled a well-crafted blunt. Then she wheeled to the window and opened it. She planned to smoke the entire thing.

She stared into the night for a while, the inky blacks of sky and ocean that melted and melded. She chuckled to herself. “What

a life,” she muttered, her voice heavy with smoke. “Such a mess.”

At least I’m high as fuck right now , she thought. She had no job anymore, so why not enjoy smoking the last weed she’d be able to afford for a while? She laughed,

tears falling from her eyes.

Eventually, she turned away from the window. Her gaze fell on her laptop, sitting closed on her bed.

She wheeled to it and took it to the desk on the far side of the room. The world was still softly undulating around her. The

weed they sold in Tobago was sticky, pure, fresh. She put the laptop on the desk and opened it up. She typed in her password,

Conan (a character she loved for his brawny senselessness and power), and her screen filled with a view of the Tobago beach, her

background picture. She’d taken this photo yesterday.

Her face was crusty and itchy with dried tears, her mouth cottony from the weed she’d smoked and sour with the aftertaste

of rejection, her mind cracked so wide open that all her demons had flown in. Zelu began writing.

This time, it was different. She didn’t want to write about normal people having normal problems, just to be told all over

again that her characters weren’t relatable. She didn’t want to research a world for years just to watch it burn. So she didn’t.

She wrote about those who weren’t human. She wrote a world that she’d like to play in when things got to be too much, but

which didn’t exist yet. She wrote something else, something new.

She wrote about rusted robots.