Keep My Name Out Your Mouth
Sara set her cup down on the small round table between them, her palm sliding off the ceramic and settling flat against the wood,. The café ran narrow between two brick walls, the front window at her shoulder throwing a low slant of sun across the tile, the light landing at an angle that flattened the color out of the sugar caddy and the pastry case at the far end of the counter. Behind them the espresso machine hissed once and cut off, a barista working a shot into a paper cup at the counter, another calling a name out over the bar.
Nicole sat across from her with her own cup between both hands, her thumb rolling along the lip of it in a slow half circle, the steam coming up between her palms. “When’s Caine going back to LA?”
Sara lifted her cup again and held it under her chin for a beat, the coffee’s heat rising against her throat, before she took a sip. “Tomorrow morning. I think their semester is about to start.”
Nicole nodded. “It’s crazy how it seems so much has happened but it hasn’t even been a week since all of that shit blew up in the news.”
Sara let the coffee sit in her mouth. She swallowed and set the cup back down, her hand staying on the handle, her eyes going past Nicole’s shoulder to the window where a man was walking a small dog along the curb, both of their shadows stretched long behind them on the sidewalk. A breath pushed out of her nose, her shoulders lowering.
“I know. That’s the part that has me exhausted if I’m being honest. It’s all these little things that you didn’t know you were signing up for when your kid gets this famous until you have to go through it.” The corner of her mouth pulled down. “Every single thing that happens is a whole event. Whose statement, whose Twitter, whose lawyer, whose booster. I ain’t even seen Caine sit down and eat a whole meal in a week without his phone lighting up.”
Nicole’s head tipped a fraction. “Yeah, I could see that. Especially someone in your shoes because you’re the glue for the family.”
Sara snorted a laugh into her cup. She lifted it the rest of the way to her mouth and took another sip to cover the tail of it. “I think that’s a little bit of an exaggeration.”
Nicole’s hand came off her cup and cut through the air between them. “You know that you are. For Caine, for Mireya, your granddaughters, your brother and sisters, for your mom. Even your nieces and nephews. Whenever something goes wrong, you’re the one there to fix it.”
“I guess, but it still leaves me so worn out. How do you reassure your son when the entire world is against him especially when it’s not even a lie?”
Nicole’s thumb had come back to the lip of her cup and started its half circle again. “Caine has plenty of people in his corner, and he’s gonna be a cultural icon if that agent has anything to say about it.”
Sara shook her head. “Tatum’s an acquired taste.”
Nicole’s laugh came from deep in her chest. She set her cup down and her mouth tipped into a smile. “And besides, now you know that you have the younger, less filtered version of yourself to let loose whenever you can’t say it yourself.”
A laugh pushed up out of Sara, her head tipping back an inch, her hand coming up to her mouth for a second before it dropped back to the table. “Don’t go starting any mess in my son’s relationship by saying that to anyone else. That poor girl has enough on her plate trying to navigate the fucked up family she decided to hop into.”
Nicole’s palm came up between them again. “I’m just saying that Mireya said what a lot of people have been wanting to say for a long time about Jill Babin. The system, too.” Her hand dropped back to her cup. “Half the courthouse would’ve given her a standing ovation if they weren’t worried about their pensions.”
Sara took a sip of her coffee then set it back on the table between them. "She has plenty of her own grievances with the world.”
Nicole’s eyebrow lifted a fraction above the rim of her cup as she brought it to her mouth. “Well, that’s your backup in the family if you ask me.”
“Clearly.”
~~~
Caine sat on the couch with his phone in his palm and his thumb working the screen, Autumn tucked against his ribs, her shoulder pressed into the space under his arm, her own phone angled up in front of her face.
The group chat kept lighting the screen, Cam and Derron running a back and forth in the messages, Angel dropping a voice note, then Rachaad, then Alonzo behind him. He thumbed a reply and slid the phone flat against his thigh. It buzzed again before it had gone dark.
A notification pulled up at the top of the screen with Tatum’s name and a preview of an image. Caine thumbed it open and the screenshot filled the frame, a text thread with Whitfield’s name sitting at the top of the display and three laughing emojis stacked in the last bubble. Under the image, Tatum’s message ran along the bottom of the thread.
I guess SC isn’t too bothered by Mireya’s comments.
A snort pushed out of Caine’s nose. He tilted the phone sideways so Autumn could see the screen without lifting her head off his shoulder.
Autumn read it. Her head shook against his sleeve, her eyes rolling before going back to the screen.
A knock landed on the front door, two quick raps and a third.
Autumn pushed off his side and settled her weight back on the cushion. Caine slid his phone into the front pocket of his sweats and pushed up off the couch. He crossed to the entry and pulled the door open.
Ramon stood outside with his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, Tyree a step behind him with his hood down and a phone in his hand. Caine leaned forward and dapped Ramon up firs, then Tyree over Ramon’s shoulder as Ramon stepped inside.
Tyree came through the doorway and his eyes cut across the entry into the front room. “Damn, nigga. This the kinda of shit you buying your baby mama? You must love her ass for real, for real.”
Ramon’s hand came out of the hoodie pocket and the back of it slapped flat against Tyree’s chest. His head turned toward the living room, where Autumn sat with her legs folded under her on the couch, her eyes still on her phone.
“Stupid ass nigga. Bruh, I swear.”
Caine shook his head.
Tyree lifted a hand up. “My bad, nigga. I ain’t know.”
They moved through the entry and into the living room. Caine dropped back onto the couch next to Autumn, her shoulder pressing back against his arm before he had fully settled. Ramon took the armchair on the far side of the room and sat back, his hands still in the pocket of his hoodie. Tyree crossed to the loveseat opposite him and sat with his elbows on his knees, his weight forward on them.
Autumn’s eyes lifted from her screen, moving across Ramon and Tyree and came back to the side of Caine’s face. “Are you sure you should be hanging out with niggas that were called gang members in an article about you?”
Caine looked at her. His hand had come to rest on her thigh when he sat down. “The shit already out there. I might as well chop it up with my potnas before I head back to LA.”
Ramon nodded. “You ain’t got nothing to worry about. Ain’t nobody checking for us around here. We just another couple niggas.”
Autumn’s eyebrow lifted and her eyes went from Ramon to Caine and back to her screen. “It’s not you that I’m worried about them checking for.”
Tyree’s head came up, a smmile already on his face. “You got some homegirls or something? I like a strong woman like you. Need someone to keep me in check.”
Autumn sucked her teeth. “You can get your own bitches.”
Caine and Ramon both laughed, the two of them shaking their heads.
“It’s crazy how everytime I come out here, this motherfucker still chasing pussy and still letting it outrun him.”
Ramon’s chin lifted a fraction. “That nigga been trying to use being in the paper as a reason for hoes to fuck with him all week.”
Tyree sucked his teeth. “One of my lil’ yeahs stopped fucking with me behind that shit, though.”
Autumn’s eyes came off the screen. “You didn’t tell her that you’re in the streets?”
“Nah, I told her ass. She ain’t know Caine was my potna.”
Caine’s head tipped forward off the cushion. “Fuck that got to do with me?”
Autumn turned her head against his shoulder and looked up at him. “Yeah, what does that have to do with you?”
Tyree’s hand came up, one finger pointing at Caine. “It was this bitch Janae who go to LSU. She talking about she used to fuck with you in high school and you did her dirty.”
Caine sucked his teeth. “Saying I used to fuck with her is dragging it.”
“Sounds like she ain’t lying to me.”
“Man, chill out with that shit.”
Tyree laughed. “You could’ve passed her over my way back then if you ain’t want her.”
Autumn rolled her eyes as she pushed up off the couch, her hand coming off his thigh and her weight lifting away from his side.
“Where you going?”
“To get something to drink and to make sure there aren’t fucking cameras outside taking pictures of you and your hoodrat friends.”
Caine shook his head.
Ramon’s eyes tracked Autumn across the room until she walked into the kitchen. His head turned back to Caine, his hands still in the hoodie pocket. “You good to connect us to that dude in LA now? We’ll fly out before Carnival.”
Caine nodded. “Yeah, that’s cool.”
Tyree leaned back against the cushion behind him. “Just make sure it’s some bitches ready to get fucked when we touch down out there.”
“This motherfucker.”
“This nigga.”
~~~
Mireya lay stretched out on her back on the carpet with her arms loose above her head, her hair fanned out on the pile behind her, Micaela sitting beside her hip. The baby leaned forward with both hands out, her fingers opening and closing at the air an inch off Mireya’s cheek, her mouth already pulled open. Mireya let her get close, then rolled her lips into a shape and blew a puff of air across the pads of Mica’s fingers. The giggle came out fast and high, Mica’s shoulders shaking, her hands pulling back into her chest and pushing out again for another try.
Sena sat in the rocking chair against the far wall behind them with one leg tucked under her and the other planted, her phone in her lap, her thumb moving in slow drags down the screen. Every few seconds her eyes lifted off the phone, moved to Mireya and Mica on the carpet, and dropped back to the screen.
Mireya reached across her body with her free hand and worked her fingers into the soft place under Mica’s ribs. The baby folded forward with a squeal, her hands catching Mireya’s wrist and holding on with both palms, her giggle running out of her .
“Do you want to go to Saint Claire tonight?”
Sena’s thumb kept its rhythm on the screen. “Sure.”
Mireya lifted her hand and covered her own eyes with her palm, held it, then dropped it flat to the carpet. Mica’s eyes came wide and the giggles came back, one small foot kicking against the pile.
“Don’t sound so excited.”
“I just said sure.”
Mireya turned her head on the carpet to look back over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Mireya sucked her teeth. “You the absolute worst fucking person when it comes to hiding your feelings, baby.” She turned her head back and looked up at Mica, who was working her own fist into her mouth. Mireya reached up with one finger and traced the line of her cheek. “Ain’t that right, mi cielito?”
Mica smiled around the fist. Her free hand came out and closed on a strand of Mireya’s hair, her small fingers wrapping the length of it. Mireya let her hold onto the strand until she pulled then she pulled the small fist away.
“Should you be cursing in front of her?”
“Yep, so that way when she starts school she knows how to curse a motherfucker out when they fuck with her.”
Sena shook her head.
Mireya rolled onto her hip and pushed up into a sit, gathering Mica off the carpet as she came up. She settled cross-legged and lifted Mica into her lap, her arm looped loose around the baby’s middle, and rocked her side to side. Mica’s giggle came back up out of her, her head tipping against Mireya’s collarbone. Mireya turned her body a quarter on the carpet, the baby moving with her. Her eyes came up and settled on Sena’s. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”
Sena’s chest lifted and lowered with a breath. Her thumb came off the screen and rested flat against her leg, her eyes dropping to the phone in her lap. “This shit from the other day.”
“You don’t think I should’ve said what I did?”
“It’s not that. It’s that you keep going viral for everything to do with Caine.” Her eyes came up from the phone. “It’s one thing to know there are random guys all over New Orleans who want to fuck you. It’s another thing to know they’re all over the fucking country.”
Mireya’s lips lifted into a smirk. She kept the rock going, Mica’s weight moving with her. “Who’s the one cursing now?”
“I’m serious.”
Mireya let the smile drop. Her hand came up and smoothed a piece of Mica’s hair down flat against her scalp, then followed the crown around to the back. “You don’t need to be bothered by some random fucking dudes online saying that Caine’s lucky to have a ‘ride or die baby mama.’ You know how much I hate being called that shit.”
“So, you read it all?”
Mireya rolled her eyes before bringing her gaze back to Sena. “They talking about me. All my damn notifications are them tagging me in shit they’re saying.”
Sena raised her hand, her fingers cutting through the air. “I just don’t like it. It’s like a constant reminder that you’re—”
“Bi.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Yes, it is.”
Sena’s chest rose again, held, came down. “It’s something I think about, yeah.”
Mireya lifted Mica out of the crook of her arm and sat her up straight in her lap, facing out into the room. She wrapped both arms around the baby’s middle, her hands linking loose in front of Mica’s belly. Mica caught two of Mireya’s fingers and pulled them toward her mouth.
“I love you, Sena. It’s okay that makes you jealous. I was just angry because they made Camila upset, not trying to be ride or die behind my baby daddy as they’re saying. You don’t need to worry about Caine or any other man.”
Sena’s eyebrow lifted. “What about other women?”
“I don’t know I’ve been looking at a few we could have some threesomes with. That’s some shit you ain’t never done, right?”
Sena rolled her eyes as a laugh pushed out of Mireya, causing Mica to giggle as well in her mother’s arms.
~~~
Jill sat on the stool at the corner of the island with the laptop open on the quartz in front of her, her right hand loose around the middle of Victoria’s sippy cup, her left hand on the trackpad pulling the feed upward in short flicks. Asocial monitor filled the screen from edge to edge, columns of posts stacked in her keyword folder, her name pinned at the top with the little red counter climbing every time she blinked. She had opened the tab an hour ago to see if the story had crested. She was mistaken to think it would. Every third or fourth post was a screenshot of the same clip, Mireya Rosas at the podium with the microphone in her hand, the caption underneath running some version of the same joke.
She kept scrolling. A post went by with her face poorly lit and the word cunt stamped across it in red. She kept scrolling. Another went by with her name spelled wrong and a string of laughing emojis running down the side. She kept scrolling. A quote thread with three thousand replies sat under a screenshot of one of her old campaign posts, the top reply calling her a Karen with credentials, the second reply calling her worse. Her jaw tightened . Her thumb kept going.
Her right hand tightened around the cup. The plastic gave against her palm and the lid popped off the top, hit the quartz and rolled across the surface
The next post pulled up under her cursor. A side by side. Mireya on the left, a picture from the press conference, her hair down, her mouth open mid-rant. Jill on the right, a courthouse shot pulled off a wire, a bad angle, the light catching her from below. The text ran across the middle of both frames in white block letters. Black Men, do you want the hot Latina baby mama who is going to defend you or the greasy haired white racist cunt bitch who is going to let you get arrested?
Jill’s palm came down flat on top of the sippy cup body still sitting on the quartz beside the laptop. The plastic cracked under the weight and folded in on itself.
Footsteps crossed the hardwood behind her from the hallway. Paul came around the corner of the island and stopped a step off her shoulder. His eyes went to her face, then down to the laptop, then back up to her face.
“You need to stop looking at all of that.”
“I’m going to make this fucking bitch regret saying that about me.”
“Jill, you’re talking about running for AG. Do you want to turn all of Orleans, all of EBR and all of Caddo against you by going after this girl?”
Jill shook her head. Her chin came up and her eyes came off the screen to find his. “She has a record, too. Battery. Got into a fight with her mother. She got pre-trial diversion and is almost done with it, but I’m sure there’s a way I could make that work for me.”
“Jill.”
“And she’s a nursing student. Her licensure, something. That little bitch thinks just because she got knocked up by her meal ticket in high school that she can say whatever she fucking wants.”
“Jill.”
“And how did she manage to raise a kid on her own if she’s fighting with her mother? If she gotten any money from Caine while he was selling drugs, that’s a slam dunk. Receipt of drug proceeds. That’s what I could push. Take her kids while we investigate. We’ll see how tough she is then, fucking cunt.”
“Jill, stop!”
Her eyes came over to him. Her mouth was already open on the next line. “I’m just working through—”
Paul’s hand came up between them. “You can’t win this. She called you racist. Did you see the picture everyone is using? Her, a Latina, standing in front of her half-Black, half-Latino co-parent while he’s holding their Black and Latina daughter while she dresses down reporters? If you go after that, you’re just proving her point.”
“You know I’m not racist.”
“Well, she beat you to that punch, too. Think about your career. It’s over if you start looking into that girl. Shaw would run, not walk, to the DA, the bar and ethics.”
Jill’s hand came off the sippy cup body and dropped to the edge of the laptop. She pushed the lid down then her hand came up and dragged flat across her eyes, down over her mouth and off her chin.
“You’re right.” Her chest lifted and came back down. “You’re right. I just don’t want our daughter thinking that’s true.”
Paul shrugged. “She didn’t want her daughters thinking what you said about their father was true. The plight of mothers.”
Jill shook her head. She pushed off the stool, turned on the ball of her foot, and walked out of the kitchen.
~~~
Markus lifted his glass off the bar and turned it a quarter in his hand, the ice shifting against the sides, the whiskey catching the light off the neon in the back mirror. The bar ran long and narrow from the front door to the wall of bottles at the far end, the wood polished dark from a hundred thousand elbows, a few afternoon regulars spread across the stools with newspapers folded beside their drinks. A ceiling fan turned slow above the taps and pushed the smell of fryer grease from the kitchen down the length of the room. A TV mounted over the register ran the afternoon sports desk on mute, the ticker crawling along the bottom of the screen. Quentin sat on the stool to Markus’s left with his beer between both hands, his thumb working a line through the sweat on the label, his tie loose at the collar and the top button already open.
Quentin brought the bottle up, took a long pull, and set it back down on the coaster. “You know I was all ready to do this damn interview with the Times-Pic tomorrow and they called me earlier and told me that they weren’t pursuing that story at this time.”
Markus laughed as he brought the whiskey to his mouth and took a sip, "That's because Caine got a gift yesterday.”
“Mireya?”
Markus nodded. He picked the glass up, tipped it a fraction to move the whiskey against the ice, and set it back down without drinking. “I don’t think she knows what she was doing and was just an angry mother mad because her child reacted to everyone shouting at her father, but she’s made the entire thing toxic. Fox News might bring it back up if Caine has a good season, but no one is touching this thing right now. Especially because they won’t have Babin as the prosecutor side.”
Quentin’s head tilted a fraction toward Markus. "I don’t think that much could stop that woman from going after something she wants to win against, especially a young Hispanic woman with a young Black man as the father of her children.”
Markus shook his head. “I called the DA as soon as we walked out of that gym. Either he puts a leash on her or we’re going after her. I still think she steered this story and the Disciplinary Board would be interested in hearing her side of that. That’s not even to talk about how it looks when it comes to all of her charging decisions for Black and brown people if that’s where you want to take it.”
His hand came off the glass and dropped flat against the wood of the bar. The fan above the taps turned another slow rotation. Someone at the far end of the bar laughed at whatever was on the TV.
Quentin turned and looked at Markus. “You always have it all figured out.”
Markus shrugged. “I’ve been dealing with this woman on a damn near weekly basis for the better part of a decade. This is all shit that I’ve thought about plenty of times.”
Quentin lifted the beer again, took a smaller sip this time, and let it sit in his mouth for a beat before he swallowed. “I just hope that she does some soul searching after all of this and decide if she really wants to be the kind of prosecutor who does this kind of thing in a predominantly Black city like New Orleans.”
Markus shook his head. He lifted the whiskey and drank the rest of what was in the glass, the ice hitting his upper lip on the tilt, and set the glass down empty on the bar.
“I doubt it.”
~~~
Caine sat on the edge of Camila’s bed, the mattress dipping under him, the comforter pulled up to her chin and her arms tucked underneath it. Her hair was still damp at the ends from the bath and it had darkened the pillowcase around her head in a small halo. The nightlight in the corner threw a soft blue across the wall behind the headboard and picked out the shapes of the stuffed animals lined up on the shelf above her dresser. Mireya stood in the doorway with her shoulder against the jamb and her arms folded loose across her middle, one bare foot crossed over the other, the light from the hallway coming in around her and pooling on the carpet at the foot of the bed.
Caine reached out and ran his palm from the crown of Camila’s head down along her hair to where it stopped at her shoulder. The strands slid against his fingers cool and clean, the smell of the coconut conditioner coming up off the pillow. “You need to go to sleep, mi vida. I’ll still be here for a while when you wake up before I leave.”
Her head turned on the pillow toward him. Her eyes came to his face, dark and steady, the lashes already heavy. “Why are you leaving again, though? I want you to stay home.”
“I gotta go back to school so you can tell me all about what you learn in school and I can tell you all about what I learn.”
Her chin came up off the comforter and her lips tipped down into a frown. “But I don’t want you to go back.”
Caine let his hand rest against the side of her head. His thumb moved once across her temple. “You know Mardi Gras’ in a few weeks?”
“Yeah.”
“You want me to come back and take you to the parades?”
Her head turned a fraction against his palm, her cheek pressing into it. Her hand came out from under the comforter and rested on top of his where it lay against her hair. “You gonna help me catch the beads?”
“Claro, mi vida. Siempre estaré aquí para ayudarte.”
“Okay, daddy.”
Caine leaned down over her. He kept his hand at the side of her head and pressed his lips to the middle of her forehead and held a beat before he pulled back a few inches so she could see his face.
“Go to sleep now, baby. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Te quiero, daddy.”
“Y yo a ti, mi vida.”
He pushed off his hip and stood, his hand coming off her hair as he came up, her hand sliding off the back of his and settling on the comforter, the mattress rising back to level behind him. He took a half step toward the door and stopped. His weight came back down onto the mattress and he sat again on the same spot at the edge of the bed, his hand finding her shoulder over the comforter, his other hand coming to rest on the covers beside her hip. Her eyes came back open from where they had already begun to close.
“I want you to know you don’t have to worry about the bad people anymore. No one’s going to do anything to me. I promise.”
Her eyes moved across his face. She nodded, slow.
“We Guerras. Ain’t nobody can stop us, right?”
“Yeah.”
Caine smiled. “Right.”
He ran his hand over the top of her head one more time, from her hairline back to the crown, his fingers passing through the damp strands.
He pushed up off the mattress and he crossed the carpet to the door with his bare feet soundless against the pile. Mireya’s eyes tracked him the length of the room, her arms still folded. He stopped a step off her shoulder in the doorway, the hallway light catching the side of his face.
“Where Sena?”
“Downstairs with your girl, telling her about Saint Claire.”
“She got a name.”
Mireya shrugged against the jamb and a smile spread across her face. “Come here, right quick.”
She pushed off the frame and turned into the hallway, her bare feet on the runner, her hair moving against her back as she went. Caine pulled Camila’s door most of the way closed behind him and followed Mireya down the hall to her room. She stepped through the doorway ahead of him and he came in behind her, the room dim past the reach of the hall light, a lamp on the nightstand throwing a warm circle across the bed and the wall above it. She pushed the door closed at his back.
He heard the pull of it in the frame behind him. “You could’ve fucked up the bag with that shit at the press conference.”
“I don’t give a fuck. I’m not pretending to be humble for them. Autumn can do that shit and did that shit.”
“Autumn did what she thought was best.”
Mireya’s eyes moved across his face, slow, from his eyes down to his mouth and back up. “Guess you got unlucky knocking up the gutter bitch instead of a bougie one.”
“Te agradezco que me apoyes.”
Mireya snorted a laugh. She stepped in on him and closed the space between them, her chest coming up close to his, one hand coming up into his locs at the back of his head, the other landing flat on his chest, her palm pressing against the fabric of his shirt over his sternum. Her chin tipped up so she could keep her eyes on his.
“Te dije que soy la única que te entiende, Caine. No una perra rica y malcriada de Los Ángeles. No una mujer blanca casada de Georgia. Solo yo. Somos uno y lo mismo.”
His eyes moved across her face. Her breath was warm against the underside of his chin. “You know what you’re doing.”
Mireya’s chin dipped once against her own chest and came back up. “Reminding you I’m not in competition with your girl.”
Her hand tightened at the back of his head and she pulled him down to her. Her mouth met his, pulled back an inch, met his again, pulled back another inch, met his a third time. The pressure built through the third kiss, her lips parting against his, the hand on his chest sliding up along his sternum toward the base of his throat, her thumb settling in the hollow above his collarbone.
She pulled her head back and let her hand drop off his throat and off his chest and stepped back one full step, turning toward the door as she went. Her hand found the knob and pulled the door open, the hall light coming back in across the carpet between them.
“Go tell Autumn to stop keeping my woman from me. I’m trying to cash in on my date.”
Caine shook his head as a smile crept up on his face. “I guess we both gonna be eating pussy tonight.”
“I’m better at it though.”
A laugh came out of Caine as he stepped past her into the hall.
