Page 22 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
“Nah,” Joy replied. “That’s too basic. How about gold?”
“Ooh, that’s hot.” Feyi would look unreal, which was perfect. “Okay, so I want them to be curly, and dammit, I’m gonna have to dye my hair. I don’t want dark roots, you know?”
“Ah, you don’t like what you have now with the gray?”
“It’s fine, but I just think the gold will look better if there’s no black braided in with it.”
Joy nodded. “Halimat can do it, no problem. When has she ever let you down?” Halimat was a Senegalese friend of theirs who ran a private hair salon out of her Flatbush apartment while going to school at NYU. She’d been braiding Feyi’s hair since Feyi moved to Brooklyn, cycling through colors as they experimented with a new look every six weeks. Everyone had always told Feyi growing up that she should stay away from bright colors, that they would be too garish against her dark skin, so it was a delight to stop listening to all of them, to lean into pastels and neons and metallics, rainbows cascading down her back.
As they walked home, Feyi let herself imagine the trip with Nasir, a version of it that was easy and perfect. The two of them swimming in the ocean, salt in their hair, sand on their skin as they lay out in the sun. Mangoes falling apart in their hands, the wet color of a sunset, the road up the mountain blanketed in green. She took out her phone and texted Nasir. Hey, I’m down for the trip. Thank you again.
He replied within a minute. Fuck yes! Call you later to talk flights?
Sure, she typed. I can’t wait. To her surprise, she meant it.
• • •
A week later, Feyi sat in the back of a cab as reggaeton played over the radio, a comforting beat that wrapped her rib cage with a steady thump. The cabdriver had a stuffed dog perched between the two front seats, light blue with large sparkly eyes, staring endlessly. Feyi smiled and shook her head, lifting her phone to take a video for her Instagram story, the eerie dog and Bad Bunny singing in the background. Gotta love Brooklyn, she captioned it. The car turned onto Nasir’s block and pulled up to his building. Nasir was standing at the curb in jeans and a hoodie with a large duffel bag hooked over his shoulder. He threw it into the trunk of the car, then joined Feyi in the back seat, kissing her on the cheek.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” he said.
She smiled at him as he touched one of the gold pigtails snaking out from under her headwrap. “Oh, you ready ready for the plane,” he teased. “Got that hydration mask on?”
“You know it,” she replied. “You can have your skin dry out if you want, that’s your problem.”
“I’ll take the risk.” He smiled. “I got them natural oils.” Nasir’s eyes were bright with excitement, and Feyi could feel it running through her as well, a quick river of possibility, rapids of anticipation. She’d spent four days packing, trying on every single outfit under Joy’s critical eye, picking out jewelry and sandals and sundresses, makeup and a bottled array of oils, from coconut to coffee to jojoba laced with tea tree for her scalp. They’d gone to get mani-pedis, and Feyi chose a metallic gold polish for both her fingers and toes, a different shade from her hair, but rich brass nonetheless.
“You look expensive,” Joy had said, with a wicked grin, picking out delicate gold chains for her to layer over her collarbone. “Like a goddess dripping in offerings.”
Feyi winked. “As it should be.” She stacked gold circles on her fingers and tried to decide which nipple rings to pack. “Bars or hoops?” she asked Joy, who raised her eyebrows.
“Remind me why it matters? I thought y’all weren’t fucking.”
“We’re not, but you know I don’t like all that padding in my bikini tops, so …” Feyi smirked and held up the options. “Which ones look better through the fabric?”
“Oh, you a tease.”
“Just because we’re going as friends doesn’t mean I can’t stress him out.” Feyi laughed.
Joy put her hands on her hips. “I’m actually impressed. Bars, then. No silver.”
“Obviously. We’re going with consistent opulence for this trip.”
She’d promised Joy pictures every step of the way, so Feyi pulled Nasir in for a selfie in the back of the cab. He pressed his lips to her cheek, and she broke out into a wide smile as she took the picture.
“We look good together,” he said, but there was no suggestion in his words, just a plain statement of fact.
“We look amazing together,” Feyi agreed, turning her head to kiss him. There was always a microsecond of a pause before he kissed her back, as if he couldn’t quite believe she wanted him, as if he needed a moment for it to register. Ever since that night in the foyer of her building, she and Nasir hadn’t gone much further than making out. It was slower than Feyi could ever remember going with a guy since she was a teenager, but with him, it felt right. It felt like they had all the time in the world to discover each other, so they could afford to be languid. Feyi never felt like Nasir was trying to rush her, and quite honestly, that in itself felt like a small miracle. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had been content to just kiss her desperately and then lie in bed breathing each other’s air. No—that was a lie. Jonah was the last time. Sometimes, the terror and guilt leaped up in her and Feyi would pull away from Nasir, break off a kiss or break away from his eyes. He never said anything, thank goodness, because she didn’t want to talk about how it felt to try to learn how to be safe with someone who wasn’t the dead love of her life.
“I feel mad inconsistent,” she’d told Joy. “Like, half the time everything is chill, and I feel fine, but then I remember who he is and that this is so new, and it totally freaks me out.”
Joy had shrugged. “He knew what he was getting into with you, and besides, you’re worth it, Feyi. You can be yourself, as messy and contradictory as you like. He’s lucky to be even near you.”
At the airport, Nasir lifted Feyi’s suitcase from the trunk of the cab and wheeled it into the terminal for her, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. They went through security together, stashing their jackets in the same bin, and Nasir held her hand as they boarded the plane. Feyi settled into the window seat and watched as he cleaned off their screens and seat belts with a disinfecting wipe.
“Hey,” she said, touching the sharp plane of his cheekbone. “Thank you for this. For real. It means a lot to me.”
Nasir took her hand and kissed the scar on her palm. “You deserve more,” he said, and this time his voice was loaded with the outline of promises. A sudden spike of warning shot through Feyi, but just as quickly, Nasir’s face shifted, wiping away the weight with his usual teasing lightness, the incorrigible flirt. Feyi told herself that the glimpse of something else was a glitch, an error. They were just friends, with fairly innocent benefits, true, but just friends.