Alliyah

She stood in her kitchen, in her boxer shorts and tanktop, merrily whistling, while cooking pancakes for herself and Lamar.

“You’re up early.” Alliyah heard the little boy behind her. She turned her head to look at him and saw that he was also still wearing his pajama.

“I have a meeting today.” She clumsily flipped a pancake.

“You’re cooking breakfast!?” He sounded extremely surprised.

“Heck, yeah!”

“Am I in an alternative universe?!” He frantically looked around.

“I always cook breakfast when I wake up early…”

“You just never wake up early.” He chuckled.

“You’re too smart for my own good.”

After she was done cooking, Alliyah pilled all pancakes in two different plates, and Lamar took them to the table with the silverware and two glasses of cold milk.

“Are you nervous?” Lamar asked while pouring way too much honey on his pancake stack. “Alliyah? Alliyah!”

“What?”

“You’re still asleep! Wake up.”

She chuckled:

“Sorry, I was thinking about something.”

“Your meeting?”

“No. Something else." She got up, flipped her chair around, and straddled it, instead. "Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Alliyah inhaled, glancing around and biting the inside of her cheek.

“Ummh… If you had a job… That you didn’t enjoy much, but it was paying you well, and you were great at it - Some might even say exceptionally skilled at it - and you had someone really cute to take care of… Would you rather keep it or look for a different one?”

Lamar took his time connecting the dots, looking as if he was figuring out an equation.

“Yeah…”

“I didn’t ask you a yes or no question, Little.” Alliyah bit a small chunk of her buttered pancake stack.

“I would look for a job I liked more. People should be doing what they like, not what makes them more money. Well, sometimes what you like can also make you money, anyway.”

“Okay… Thanks, kiddo.” She smiled.

Alliyah finished her breakfast and went to get dressed in the bathroom - she chose a light brown blazer and matching slacks, with a white shirt and matching sneakers. Her left sock was white, and her right one was yellow.

Next, she did her hair, simply giving it a quick comb. She thought about the curling moisture Rayne told her about and smiled fondly at the memory.

“Wow!” Lamar said from the door. He, too, had put on his school clothes. She didn't tell him what to put on anymore.

“The girl who wears overalls can dapper up, uh?”

“Yeah, you look awesome!”

“Alright, you got your backpack?” She said as they walked from the bathroom door to the living room.

“Yup!”

“Snacks?”

“Yup!”

“Cute smile?”

“I got the cute everything! Don’t insult me like that.”

Alliyah didn’t contain her smile:

“We’re ready to go then.”

After dropping Lamar off at school, Alliyah was heading to the place where she and Cliona Pierce agreed to meet up.

Running her fingers nervously through her undercut, feeling the scar that would never disappear from her scalp, she heard an unidentified number was calling her.

“Hello?”

“You were not supposed to pick up.”

“Uh, Rayne? How do you have my number?”

“We have like 5 people in common, Smith.”

“Why are you calling? Is everything okay?”

“Ummh, I wanted to tell you… Good luck with your meeting.”

“You asked for my number just to wish me good luck? You’re so cute!”

“Do not flatter yourself, sunshine. I just- I was just bored and with nothing better to do, okay?”

“Whatever makes you feel tougher, buttercup.”

“Hey there, Disaster Queen Of Detroit!” Alliyah froze in her place when she heard a nickname that was all too familiar calling from behind her.

“Rayne, I’ll call you back later, okay? Sorry.”

“Sure?”

Alliyah reluctantly hung up the phone.

“It… Can’t be.” She mumbled to herself, slowly turning around.

It was.

”Cleo?”

“Alliyah Smith.” A dashing young woman, wearing a mauve suit that made her look more mature than she was, stood before her. Her complexion a warm, light brown tone, glowing even under the shade of the big city buildings. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“You’re… In New York? Since when? What are you doing here?”

You cannot be here.

“Can we at least go in?” Cleo pointed to the coffee shop where they had agreed to meet.

“Actually, I have a meeting.”

Alliyah wanted to turn around but Cleo kept talking:

“Silly Alliyah… The meeting is with me.”

She felt betrayed… By herself. For not recognizing Cleo’s voice on the phone, and for not understanding what was going on earlier.

“I- I can’t do this right now.” Alliyah turned her back and started walking away.

“Why are you being so melodramatic?”

Oh, that tipped her over the edge. The audacity!

Maybe she had too many feelings flowing through her, but that was on Cleo! She knew what she had done…

“Says the one who didn’t mention to me she was in New York and had me working for her for months. Are you even conscious that this is a huge project in my career? Not to mention you lied about your fucking name!”

Some pedestrians side glanced at her, others directly judged her. But, hell, she was in New York, she had sat next to a person wearing a hot dog costume in the subway.

“Well, it’s not for nothing," Cleo calmly chased her down the street. "I still want it done.” Her tone was as cold and emotionless as Alliyah remembered.

“You could’ve just said it was you!” She suddenly stopped, turned around, pointed a finger right in Cleo’s face, and spoke through gritted teeth. “And not played me like a toy. Again.

"Oh, come on, that was so long ago."

Did she truly think, even after all this time, that what she did was acceptable?

Well, eventually, Cleo honeyed her way back into her head and convinced her to go inside the coffee shop.

Alliyah hated to admit it - even if only to herself - but yes, she still had a soft spot for her. She looked so breathtaking, so glamorous standing there in her mother's suit.

Alliyah ordered a warm peppermint milkshake, and Cleo ordered a green tea.

“You’re genuinely an excellent interior designer.” Cleo broke the silence.

“Thanks. I’m thinking of quitting.”

“Because…?”

“No, not because of you. I just… Was asked if it makes me happy and… I realized it doesn’t.” Alliyah shrugged. The milkshake straw in her mouth.

“Sensible. More so than the Alliyah Smith I used to know.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m an immigration lawyer.”

“Now, living in New York?”

“Well, yeah, it’s not like I was expected to live in Detroit forever, right?”

“Tell me about it.”

“The pressure was tremendous for us, uh?”

“Probably why I’m having a midlife crisis in my twenties.”

“It’s why you took off at 18…”

“Not like you were talking to me by then, anyway.”

Cleo shifted in her chair and glanced away, pretending that she was checking out the pastries exhibited.

“Yeah, don’t start something you can’t finish. Again.” Alliyah glared right at her. “Are you still dating the crackhead?”

“He’s not a crackhead anymore, but… We’re engaged.”

In her head, Alliyah gripped the milkshake tall cup so hard it shattered and cut her hand. But in reality, it didn’t. She could hear her blood rushing through her veins and her heart thundering in her chest.

Don’t let it get to you, don’t let it get to you… She repeated it in her cerebrum like a mantra. But, unlike mantras, that did not work.

Alliyah was professional enough to spend the next several days meeting with Cleo to talk about the design. Changed and discussed elements - like the fireplace and the staircase. Although, she admitted - to herself exclusively - that she simply did not care as much about the design as she did before she knew who she was working for.

The return of Cleo had dug up feelings that she had buried in her high school's volleyball court. She called them scars, but they were old wounds.

Following their last meeting at Alliyah’s house, Cleo began:

“Hey… I’ve been thinking… I-”

She kept her eyes trained on the floor, Alliyah, on the other hand, side-glanced at her, with tight lips.

“Spit it out.”

Cleo sighed and slouched:

“Just… Happy birthday.” She removed a box from her bag. “I got you an ugly sweater that I know you’re going to love and wear un-ironically.”

Alliyah raised an eyebrow. Certainly, she hadn’t ‘been thinking’ about her birthday. But she didn’t bother questioning.

“Honestly, it means more to me that you remember it than that you got me a gorgeous sweater.”

Yes, she actually liked it as soon as she saw it. It was in shades of blue and had a hydrangea pattern on the arms.

“Well, I better go." She got up from the couch. "I’ve got plans with Lamar.”

“It’s crazy how you kept D and Janelle’s kid, to be honest.”

“Tell me about it. I couldn’t just... Not, though.”

“I’m not brave like you. I don’t know if I would’ve done the same…” Cleo paused, looked away, and then back at Alliyah. ”It’s weird how different you are now.”

“People grow up.” Alliyah shrugged.

Cleo paused again. Alliyah’s words presumably weighed in her mind.

“Maybe I need to grow a little more, too.”

“I like that you still wear your mom’s clothes.” Alliyah muttered, gripping the sweater in her hands.

“She would’ve liked to see the woman you became.” Cleo subconsciously stroked her own jacket.

“I know.”

Before Alliyah could continue, her phone rang. Cleo quickly said goodbye and happy birthday again before leaving.

Alliyah accepted the call, and instead of getting on her way to pick Lamar up from school, she slumped back down on the couch - exhaustion took over.

“Hey, you’re not allergic to cocoa extract, right?” She was glad Ocean went straight up to the subject.

“Nope.” Was the answer.

“What about… Vanilla?”

“You know I love that shit.”

“Right, sure, I knew that. Of course, I knew that… What about corn?” She could imagine Ocean reading from a recipe.

“No, but I loathe it.”

“You won’t even notice.”

“Are you baking me a corn cake? Please don’t bake me a corn cake.” She dug her fingers into her hair.

“No… But I can’t tell you what we’re baking you.”

“Should I buy something just in case you screw up?”

“No, don’t worry, there’s an expert with us this year.”

“If you say so. I’m meeting Lamar now, then we’ll get dinner, ice skate, and then we’re going home.”

“I know. It’s the same thing every year. Have fun, though.”

“We will. Don’t burn anything… Not two years in a row.”

“Gee, stop living in the past, woman.”

She, indeed, should stop living in the past, but that wasn’t quite the best example of that argument.

Alliyah and Lamar strolled down an avenue after getting their snacks from a street vendor.

“Do you miss Detroit?” Lamar asked, before taking a big bite off of his hot-dog, painted in mustard and hot sauce, which Alliyah could smell from a distance.

“Yeah, every day. Do you remember living there?” She asked, before jumping slightly at the loud noise of a car backfiring.

“I remember my parents…” Lamar didn’t even notice the noise. “And some people, but I don’t know who they were. Just random stuff, you know?”

“Yeah, I don’t remember much from my childhood either.” Alliyah took a bite from her hot-dog, covered in a bit of every topping on the menu.

“So, can I ask about Cleopatra now?”

“She goes by Cleo.” Alliyah chuckled. “But yes, what do you wanna know? One question at a time.”

“How did you meet?”

“She’s from Detroit, too. We were in the same class for a couple of years.”

“She looks too fancy to be from Detroit.” He joked. “Did you date?”

“No.” Alliyah sighed. “She always had this awful, awful boyfriend.”

“Why did she date him if he’s awful?”

Alliyah bit the inside of her cheek before speaking:

“Some people… Don’t know their worth, they’re afraid they can’t do better.”

“Have you ever thought like that?”

“Oh, no. I’ve had my fair share of bad boyfriends, but I didn’t allow them to be like that for long.”

“You’ve not dated anyone since I’m living with you, though, have you?”

Alliyah looked away, to the other side of the street, at graffiti on a wall, a sour smile sketched on her lips.

“You’re too smart for your own good.”

“What is that supposed mean?” Lamar sassed.

“It means… Eat your mustard, Little.”

They continued on their journey to the ice skating rink.