Page 44 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
“Do you have anything stronger than this?” she asked.
“Of course,” he replied. “It’s an open bar. What would you like?”
“Tequila, neat.”
He was back with the drink within three minutes, and Feyi took it like a shot, wincing as it burned down her throat. This was stupid —she knew the feeling only too well, how to try and chase away sadness with drink on top of drink, and she knew it wouldn’t work, not in the end, but Feyi wasn’t sure what else to do. She wanted Joy to be there. She wanted to be back in their living room in Brooklyn, eating pasta and watching a baking show. She wanted to be in Cambridge eating efo and pounded yam at her mother’s kitchen table. She wanted to be someone she could recognize.
The guests were invited in for dinner, and Feyi decided to be someone else entirely, just for that night. It would be easier this way. She threw her shoulders back, asked the waiter for another tequila, and followed everyone into the dining room.
The slab table fit at least twenty people around it, and Feyi was seated between Nasir and Rebecca. Alim came in only to introduce each course as it was served, and Feyi tried not to look at him when he was there, but she missed his presence as soon as he left. The guests around her were chattering about Alim’s art collection, the menu for the dinner, and the exhibit they’d just seen, which Feyi was grateful for because she could autopilot her way through most of it. The room hushed as Alim introduced the first course, and everyone cooed over their plates—fresh oysters in a pool of black squid ink bouillon, served on stark-white china with a sliver of pickled onion and a bright strip of shaved Scotch bonnet on top. There was a dash of the black bouillon inside the oyster shell and a rocket flower on the side, delicate and white. Feyi sipped at the accompanying drink, an expensive champagne with pomegranate seeds in it. Rebecca was talking to her about the show, and Feyi made whatever the appropriate responses were, her mask moving independent of her. The evening felt as surreal as a dream, and every bite she took just reinforced that feeling. She wasn’t really here; she was living in someone else’s fantasy, and to be fair, it was designed beautifully. It had Michelin-star food and gorgeous powerful people gathering at an exclusive celebrity’s house on a tropical island.
It had the second course—poached shrimp with grilled jicama, mango, and red bell pepper, a pineapple vinaigrette and micro coriander leaves spotting green in the bowl. Feyi kept getting emotional as she tasted the food, trying not to think about if Alim had really made all this for her, his work in appreciation of hers. She told herself it was for his guests, for his reputation, but whenever his eyes met hers, it felt as if everyone else in the room had fallen off the earth. Feyi looked away and tossed down the aqua pearl cocktail that came with her shrimp. At this point, she knew damn well that the tequila from earlier had been a terrible idea, but Feyi had already decided to be someone else, someone decidedly not sober, and she was nothing if not committed.
When the third course came in, a lionfish ceviche in a coconut-and-lime sauce, garnished with toasted coconut and kaffir lime leaves, Alim glanced at Feyi as he introduced it.
“Since its introduction to our waters, the lionfish has posed an enormous ecological threat to our marine life,” he was saying. “It preys on more than fifty different species of fish and has no native predators, so quite frankly, all murderous tendencies are deeply welcome when it comes to this fish.”
His guests laughed, and Alim’s eyes crinkled as he looked around the table. “Now, the lionfish reciprocates this sentiment by being severely venomous to humans.”
Feyi flinched away from her plate and Nasir suppressed a laugh next to her.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered.
“However, the venom is only found in its spikes, none of which have made their way to your plates tonight.”
Half the table sighed in relief, and amusement ghosted across Alim’s face.
“The devastation the lionfish wreaks reminds me of grief,” he said, his voice curling into Feyi’s skin. “The way it destroys so much around us. The way it feels like a lifetime of venom, spikes piercing through us.”
The table was silent now, almost reverent. Some of the guests seemed stunned at hearing Alim speaking so personally. When he looked directly at Feyi, this time she didn’t lower her gaze because it was so brazenly clear that this was for her, about her. Alim dipped his head in a small bow, and Feyi’s breath caught at the public recognition.
“Tonight, we are celebrating Feyi and the art she makes, work that reminds me that grief can also be the softness when the spikes are removed, something that gives your palate joy, something that can fill your belly. And for that, Feyi, I thank you.”
As the guests burst into gentle applause, Alim gave Feyi a smile that was both sweet and sad, tied to midnight gardens and their widowed hearts. She felt tears start in her eyes, and Nasir’s hand at her elbow as he whispered more congratulations. Everyone was looking at her and saying lovely things as Alim left the room, and Feyi struggled to keep her composure. It was a low blow, him saying things like that in front of people, things that sounded so innocent if you didn’t know about the peak of a mountain at sunrise or what sweetness tasted like on the pads of his fingers. She tried to eat her food, only to be hit with another wave of feeling when she realized the coconut-lime sauce was the same one Alim had been working on in his kitchen when Buika was playing.
“This margarita is phenomenal,” Rebecca was saying as she tried the next drink. “You have to try it, Feyi, it’s got coconut and jalapeno.”
“I might need to slow down on the drinks,” Feyi confessed. She was feeling more out of control every second, and with Nasir right beside her, she couldn’t afford for him to get even a hint of what she was feeling for Alim. Anything could betray her—a glance held too long, a blush, a break in her voice.
“Perfect,” Nasir was saying. “I’ma take yours, then.” He grinned at her, and Feyi smiled back, scaffolding her mask as the rest of the courses came out, one after the other. Guava-stuffed chicken with caramelized mango and a spicy mango mojito sauce. Alim had ruined mango for her, but every time Feyi remembered how shocked and open his face looked with desire, she wasn’t sure she minded. There was a lemon-grass-and-pineapple-glazed pork belly with Zanzibari spiced octopus, grilled jerk watermelon with couscous and a basil oil, and finally, a banana cream parfait with coconut shortbread alongside broiled pineapple with macadamia toffee, drizzled with rum caramel.
When the meal was over, everyone retired to the living room with fresh cocktails, and the music got louder, the air seemed warmer. Feyi found herself on a divan with Nasir, who was quietly feeding her gossip about the guests, a rum and Coke sloshing in his crystal tumbler.
“So apparently Chatterjee’s husband has a lover in T&T. No one knows if she knows about it for sure, though, but I think she has to. It would be too fucking wild if she didn’t, you feel me?” He tugged on one of Feyi’s braids lightly. “You gonna take her up on that commission?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling full and a little drunk. “Dunno yet. Could take anything from a few weeks to a couple of months to finish a piece, depending on what she wants.”
“What do you want to give her, that’s the question. Fuck what she wants. You decide what you wanna make, and that’s what she’s gonna get.”
Feyi giggled. “You’d make a great manager.”
“Of course I would.” Nasir grinned at her, and Feyi smiled back.
“I don’t want to overstay my welcome here, though,” she added. “Pooja offered to put me up in the Hilton.” Reaching for Nasir’s glass, she took a sip of his rum and Coke. “How much longer do you think you’re going to stay here before you head back to the city?”
Nasir leaned back and ran a hand over his hair. “Shit, I forgot to tell you. Boss wants me to fly to Antigua tomorrow, handle some business there.”
Feyi sat up, her head spinning a little. “You’re leaving?”