Mireya pushed through the front door of the studio with her bag on her shoulder, the cold at her neck lifting off as the warm air of the room met her. Kiersten had the class already arranged in front of the mirrored wall, a dozen or so women spread through the floor between the poles. Some of the younger ones sat on mats with their legs out, palms working down their shins. Two of the middle-aged mothers traded turns pulling one arm across the chest, one of them still with damp hair from a shower, a leather tote dropped on the floor next to her sneakers. A pair of the oldest women in the class had pushed a bench up against the side wall and sat on it side by side with stainless bottles between their knees. Kiersten was up front with her weight sunk into a low lunge, her forearm resting on her front knee, her head coming around as the door swept shut behind Mireya.
Kiersten pushed herself up out of the lunge and rolled her shoulders back. “I wasn’t expecting you to come for this session.”
“My class this morning got canceled so I figured I’d come by.”
Kiersten tipped her head toward the women behind her. “You want to watch and learn or you want to dive right in?”
Mireya rolled her eyes. “Learn? How to teach maybe. Ain’t nothing for me to learn about getting on the pole.”
Kiersten laughed. “Alright. Just giving you the option to ease in if you wanted it.”
Mireya shook her head before she dropped her bag off her shoulder to the floor at the base of the wall and leaned back against the mirror behind them, her palms flat against the glass at hip height, one heel crossed over the other.
Kiersten straightened up and clapped her hands twice to bring the room’s attention forward. She turned so she was half facing Mireya and half facing the class, one hand coming up between them.
“Alright, ladies. I got a surprise for everyone today. I met Mireya here a couple weeks ago and she’s agreed to help me out with empowering all of you.”
Mireya raised her hand up in a small wave and let it drop back to her side.
“Mireya’s pretty experienced so you don’t have to worry about her falling on her neck or anything like that. And she’s a nursing student so if any of you fall on your neck while she’s here, she can make sure you don’t move until EMS gets here.”
A ripple of laughs moved through the room.
Kiersten looked back at Mireya. “You want to give them some of your background or you good?”
Mireya shook her head, coming off the mirror. “I’m good. I’ll just show them.”
Kiersten’s eyebrow rose. Mireya walked past her toward the vacant pole at the back of the room and pulled her hoodie off over her head as she went, her tank riding up an inch across her ribs before it settled. Heads turned along the row of poles to track her as she passed, one of the middle-aged mothers letting the arm she’d been stretching drop back to her side, another shifting on her mat to face the back of the room. Mireya dropped the hoodie on the floor at the edge of the mat, kicked her sneakers off with her heels one after the other, and pulled her socks off in the same two motions.
She stopped a couple feet off the pole with her weight on the balls of her feet and dropped into two fast squats to loosen her legs. She stepped back one, then a second time, her arms coming up loose at her sides. She drove forward on the third step and off her right foot on the fourth, her hand coming up to catch the chrome above her head as her body left the ground. The pole took her weight through her palm and her body swung out from it, her legs coming around in a full arc.
She released her outside hand and let her body turn against the rotation of her grip, her free arm extending out through the spin. The chrome moved under her palm. She pulled herself back into the pole to feed the spin, her forearm sliding along it, her shoulder rolling into the metal, one leg hooking around the chrome above her opposite thigh and drawing her weight tight to the pole, her legs winding and unwinding as she snaked her way down through the last three feet. She rolled off the pole into a low squat with one hand still resting on the chrome above her head.
Kiersten clapped. “So, we see she knows a thing or two.”
Mireya stood up out of the squat, her hand coming off the pole and running once through her hair to pull it back off her face. “And I ain’t even pull out a death drop.”
One of the older women on the bench turned her chin toward Kiersten. Blonde bob, pink workout tank. “Death drop?”
Kiersten laughed. “That’s the expert class, Bette. Anyway, let’s get started.”
~~~
“I’m just saying that it doesn’t make any fucking sense for you to keep the story going by using it as a fucking marketing tool.”
Autumn dragged the flat of the knife across the second piece of toast, the avocado spreading in a thick pale-green layer that pushed out to the crusts. The hoodie sat oversized on her, one of Caine’s, the sleeves shoved up to her forearms and the hem dropping near her knees.
Caine’s voice came back from down the corridor. “I ain’t the one figuring that shit out. That’s Tatum and Marissa’s job. Take that shit up with them.”
Autumn set the knife on the board and pulled the small bowl of chopped bacon over. She lifted a pinch between her fingers and scattered it across the avocado in slow strokes, working from one corner of the toast to the other. She did the same to the second piece.
“They don’t fucking care because they’re white and not the ones going through the shit. I don’t care about any metrics saying that you’ve burned your bridges with this group or that group. Even old Black folks are going to turn on you eventually if they think you’re a thug.”
Caine came around the corner into the kitchen with a towel slung over his shoulders and beads of water still sitting on the ridge of his collarbone, a pair of sweats loose on his hips. His locs were pulled back wet, a heavy strand slipping forward off his shoulder and darkening a line down the front of the towel.
“I am a fucking thug. Been one since I jumped off the porch at 13.”
Autumn kept her eyes on the toast. “You don’t have to wear it like the Medal of Honor, nigga. It’s okay to evolve and change as you get older.”
“I been doing plenty of that.”
“Keep doing it and tell them that you’re not doing the shit they’re asking.”
Caine stepped in behind her and let his arms come around her waist, his palms flat over her stomach, pulling her back into his chest. His chin settled on top of her shoulder.
“I gotta get my fucking money back from all that shit last month. I ain’t about to do that switching shit up now. I got places to take my lil’ yeah and shit. The islands, South America, London, Paris, Milan.”
Autumn rolled her eyes, a smile pulling at one corner of her mouth. “Don’t try to be cute now. Tricking and shit.”
“Only broke motherfuckers got a problem with another man tricking. And baby, I ain’t no broke motherfucker.”
Autumn laughed and let her head tip back against his shoulder. She turned her face into him and caught his mouth with hers, held the kiss for a beat, then pulled her chin away and slipped out from under his arms. She picked her plate up and carried it around the island toward the table set in front of the windows.
A knock landed against the front door, three short raps.
Autumn stopped with the plate halfway to the table. Her eyebrow lifted as her head turned back toward Caine. “You didn’t tell me that you were letting someone up.”
Caine reached across the marble and picked his phone up off the far edge of the island. He held it up between them, the screen dark. “That’s why I left this here with you when I went shower. It’s Ramon and Tyree.”
Autumn set the plate on the table without looking down. “You can’t be fucking serious, Caine.”
Caine crossed past her toward the entry and pulled the door open. Ramon stepped through first with a duffel bag riding on the strap over his shoulder, Tyree a half step behind him with a matching one hanging off his own. Ramon dapped Caine up in the doorway, palms meeting and sliding back, Tyree doing the same over Ramon’s shoulder as he came in.
Ramon set his bag down inside the door and looked past Caine into the main room. His eyes moved over the height of the ceiling, along the length of the windows, across the depth of the hardwood running back toward the kitchen. His chin tipped a fraction. “God damn, nigga. I thought you were going to be in a regular ass fucking apartment even with the nigga downstairs.”
Caine pushed the door shut behind them. “I’m the fucking quarterback, brudda.”
Tyree let his own duffel slide down off his shoulder onto the hardwood next to Ramon’s. “I should’ve kept playing ball, man.” His eyes cut across the room and stopped on Autumn at the table, the piece of toast in her hand. His mouth pulled at one corner. “Even got bad bitches up in here like they live here.”
Caine’s hand came off the door. “Autumn does live here, lil’ bitch. Watch your mouth.”
Tyree lifted his hands up between them.
Autumn kept the toast in her hand and watched the three of them cross out of the entry into the main room. Ramon led with his shoulders loose, his eyes still moving across the space, Caine a step behind him, Tyree bringing up the rear with his hands still up until they cleared the hardwood at the edge of the rug.
Ramon dropped onto the couch and sat back into the cushions, his arms coming to rest along the tops of them. “So, you want to talk about the shit now or later?”
Caine shook his head. “Later.” His hand came up and gestured at the couch, then out at the room. “Make y’all selves at home. Got food and shit in there.”
Tyree clapped his hands together and rubbed the palms. He cut back across the hardwood past Caine and headed for the kitchen. Autumn watched him pull the refrigerator open, his head disappearing behind the door.
Caine came over to the table and pulled the chair beside her back to sit down. Her foot came up under the table and pushed the chair away from her, the legs scraping across the wood.
Caine’s eyebrow rose.
“You’re so fucking stupid sometimes.” She lifted the toast and took a bite.
~~~
Sena’s index finger tapped against the outside of her knee, once, then again, the tempo settling into something even. The ring Mireya had bought her sat on her ring finger, rose gold, the weight of it still new at the base of the finger where the band held. She looked down at her lap for a moment. Her thumb came across and turned the ring a quarter around, the metal catching the morning light off the windows behind Celia. She turned it back. The band moved on her finger without much resistance, the fit still loose against her skin.
Sena brought her eyes back up. “Sometimes, I feel like I can’t put a finger on what’s going through Mireya’s mind. A few weeks ago, she’s raging against the system then the next thing you know, she’s buying me a ring. It’s night and day on a damn near hourly basis.”
Celia’s head tipped a fraction. Her hand came off the armrest and made a small open gesture in the air between them before it settled back. “Do you think the reason that she bought you that is because she did something wrong and she’s feeling guilty?”
Sena’s finger stopped tapping. She pressed the pad of her thumb against the side of the band. “I think that’s what most people would say, right? Caine was in town for a week. Those are easy dots to connect even for the most secure person.”
Celia picked her mug up off the table and brought it toward her, both hands going around it. She took a small sip and lowered it to her knee. “But you said that Caine’s girlfriend was with him, too. That would’ve taken some doing to not only avoid you, but also avoid her.”
Sena nodded. “Right. And I don’t think Caine would do that to Autumn. He seems to really like her.”
Celia set the mug back down on the table. “Do you think Mireya would do that to you?”
Sena’s mouth pressed flat. Her eyes went past Celia to the wall behind her, along the row of framed diplomas hung on it, over to the corner where a bookcase held stacked volumes with pale spines, then back down to Celia’s face. Her thumb found the ring again and turned it another quarter, the band moving in small even steps against her skin. Sena drew a breath and let it out through her nose. Her shoulders came off the back of the couch a fraction. Her weight shifted forward toward the edge of the cushion.
“Before, when we first started dating, I think she would’ve. Not that she did, just that it would’ve been a possibility.” Sena’s thumb came off the ring and pressed into the pad of her index finger, then off. “Now? I don’t know. She seems too committed. Constantly telling me she loves me, giving me all this shit, planning trips and stuff for just the two of us.”
“Some people would call that love bombing considering that you two haven’t been together that long.”
“Almost a year now.”
Celia nodded. She uncrossed her ankles and settled her feet flat on the rug in front of her, her weight shifting forward a fraction in the chair. Her hands folded on top of one another in her lap.
“I think that people sometimes get too caught up on timelines and what should happen in a relationship and when that should happen, but everyone operates on their own timeline.” Her chin tipped a fraction. “That said, I do want to caution that you’re talking about a woman that, according to what you’ve said in here, has some attachment issues. Also, a lot of boundary issues. I don’t think her feelings are not real, but that is something that colors her feelings. Does that make sense.”
Sena nodded. She brought her tapping hand back to her knee. Her other thumb worked the ring slightly against the base of her finger, moving it back and forth in a small arc. Her eyes dropped to the ring for a beat before they came back up.
“Yeah, it does. But I won’t lie and say that I don’t think it’s a good thing that she’s not going to be going to Los Angeles every week for a while.”
~~~
Saul followed a step behind the salesman down the middle of the lot, gravel crunching under his boots, his hands stuffed in the front pocket of his hoodie against the cold. The trailers ran down the left side in a line of two- and three-tone paint jobs, wheels tucked up under the frames, tow hitches folded down flat against the ground. The model homes ran down the right side, raised on cinderblock piers with wooden steps set into the front of each one, siding painted in soft browns and grays, small covered porches over the front doors.
The salesman stopped a few feet up from him and turned, one hand coming out of his jacket pocket to point at the trailers on their side of the lot. He was a heavyset white man in his fifties with a Saints cap pushed back on his head and a lanyard swinging against the front of his shirt with the keys clipped to the bottom of it.
“That right there is our luxury class of trailer. We can’t keep them on the lot for more than a few weeks before someone comes and buy one to bring out to French Settlement or Maurepas.”
Saul looked at them. “I don’t think my girl is going to trade living in a house for living in a trailer.”
The salesman lowered his hand and slid it back into his jacket pocket. “Where was it you said y’all were living now?”
“St. Amant.”
The salesman shook his head, a small laugh coming up through his nose. “She’s definitely not gonna be living in a trailer then. Maybe if she was in Sorrento but St. Amant? That’s the rich folks.”
A short laugh came up out of Saul. He rubbed the back of his neck once and let his hand drop back into the hoodie pocket.
The salesman turned toward the models on the right side of the lot, his hand coming out again to point at one of them near the middle of the row. “This is our Acadiana model. It’s got three bedrooms and two baths. 1,064 square foot. You got yourself some property and we’ll deliver this to you in a month or so, move in ready.”
They crossed the gravel toward it. The Acadiana sat a foot higher off the ground than the ones on either side of it, four cinderblock piers holding it up along the front, the wooden steps set into a small landing at the door. The siding was a soft gray with white trim around the two front windows, a black metal handrail running along the side of the steps. The salesman got to the steps first and went up them, his boots knocking against the wood. Saul followed him up, one hand on the handrail.
The salesman turned the handle and pulled the door open, then stepped back onto the landing to let Saul go in ahead of him. Saul ducked his shoulder past the frame and stepped inside.
The floor gave a fraction under his weight before it settled. The air inside carried the smell of new carpet and drywall dust. The living room opened out ahead of him with two windows on the front wall bringing in most of the light, the kitchen off to the right with a small island in the middle of it, the counters wood-look laminate, the appliances in place with protective plastic still stuck to the doors and the corners of the trim. A short hallway ran off the back of the living room and disappeared around a corner.
He turned a slow half-circle at the middle of the room, his eyes moving over the walls, the seams where they met at the corners, the trim along the base of them. “Ain’t gonna lie to you. This is a lot nicer than I was expecting when you were saying this is built in a factory.”
The salesman came in behind him and let the door swing back toward the frame, catching it with his heel before it closed. He laughed. “That’s ’cause everyone thinks trailer when they hear manufactured. With how the housing market is right now, why move into a DSLD house that’s falling apart as soon as you step foot in it for two or three hundred thousand when you can buy this for a fraction of the price?”
Saul moved a few steps deeper into the room, his boots pressing into the fresh pile of the carpet. He ran his knuckles once along the edge of the kitchen island as he passed it, the laminate cool under the back of his fingers. “And how much do these run?”
“They start at one-oh-five.”
Saul let a breath out and gave a small shake of his head. “Not exactly cheap.”
“It’s an investment.” The salesman had his hands back in his jacket pockets, his weight settled on his heels. “One you can pass down to your children for them to live in at an affordable price.”
Saul brought his eyes off the ceiling and back to the salesman. He nodded once. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
The salesman lifted a hand out of his pocket and pointed past Saul toward the hallway at the back. “Let me show you the bedrooms back here. Once you see how big the master bathroom is, your missus will want to move in tomorrow.”
Saul nodded and followed the man down the hall.
~~~
Caine had his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie with Ramon and Tyree standing loose beside him, Ramon a step to his right, Tyree just off Ramon’s shoulder. Nap stood opposite them with four of his guys spread out across the sidewalk in an easy half-circle, all of them in red under jackets, a cup going back and forth between two of them, one of them thumbing at his phone with the screen tilted down against his thigh. Rosecrans ran behind them through the block with the afternoon traffic pulling past in a slow steady beat of engines.
Caine tipped his chin at Ramon and Tyree, then back at Nap. “These my potnas I told you about, big brudda.”
Nap dapped Ramon up, palms hitting and rolling into a brief clasp before they stepped apart. He reached across and did the same with Tyree, then stepped back with his weight settling on his back foot. “The lil’ homie told me that y’all niggas be banging in New Orleans. Y’all cuz or blood?”
Ramon snorted a laugh. “Ain’t no Crips and Bloods in the city like that, my nigga.”
Nap laughed before he jabbed his thumb at Caine. “Yeah, he told me that but I still gotta ask because them crab ass niggas out there. Especially up in Shreveport or whatever.”
Tyree pulled his hand out of the front of his hoodie. “Them niggas basically living in Texas. New Orleans like it’s own state. We do shit our own way.”
Nap grinned then took the cup off the guy nearest him and brought it up for a sip.
“They were working with some dude who supposedly had an in with some Mexicans out here.”
Nap tipped the cup at Ramon. “What happened to that nigga?”
Ramon shrugged. “He was fucking with the other side, too, so that nigga had to go.”
“That was y’all work?”
Tyree’s mouth pulled at one corner. “Neither one of us about assigning no work to another nigga. That nigga on a t-shirt because we put that nigga on it. He had that shit coming.”
Nap’s grin widened.
Caine tipped his chin. “They about their business.”
“So you vouching for these niggas, lil’ homie?”
Caine nodded. “They been my potnas for years now. Going way back to when I was looking at doing a little bid. They solid.”
Tyree waved his hand in Caine’s direction. “We locked in enough with this nigga that I ain’t never even tried to fuck his fine ass baby mama even though he letting her be single back in the city.”
Caine sucked his teeth. “Don’t think I won’t bat the piss out your ass out here, bitch.”
The laugh came up out of the group at the same time. Nap brought his head back level, the laugh trailing off him. “You know a nigga your homie when he ain’t going behind your back fucking on your girl, though.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Tyree said, both hands coming up toward Nap.
Ramon let the laugh finish and dropped his hand back into his hoodie. “We don’t know what that Mexican was getting for that nigga who ain’t with us no more but the OGs in our clique want shit moving coast to coast again like it was before. We ain’t got much reach past Houston.”
Nap nodded, his weight shifting from one leg to the other. He rubbed the underside of his jaw once with the back of his knuckles. “I’ll take it back and discuss it with the homies. I ain’t never been to New Orleans. Maybe me and a couple my homies come out there and sit down with your big homies and sort shit out.”
Ramon’s hand came back out of the pocket and made a small open gesture between them. “That’s all we out here for, my nigga. We ain’t up in rank like that to be making no decisions on the fly. We just knew you knew our potna so asked for the introduction.”
Nap reached out and dapped Ramon up, then leaned across and did the same with Tyree, pulling both of them into a brief half hug in turn. He stepped back and tipped his chin over his shoulder toward the house set back off the sidewalk behind him, the small front yard bare grass to the porch. “We’ll talk some more before y’all head back. We about to get some bitches over here and drink a little. Y’all stick around.”
Tyree rubbed his hands together in front of his stomach. “Been waiting to fuck on some LA bitches.”
Caine shook his head. “Motherfucker gonna be burning when he go back to the city.”
~~~
Mireya sat at the edge of the pool with her feet in the water, her weight leaning back on her palms flat against the concrete of the deck. The lights under the surface pushed a pale blue glow up through the water and caught the ripples that moved across it in a light breeze. She had her t-shirt hanging loose off one shoulder and her legs bare from the panties down, her calves cold where the breeze off the water crossed them.
She turned her head and looked at the baby monitor on the deck beside her hip. She listened for a beat at the static-thin sound of Mica’s breathing coming through the speaker in a slow even rhythm. She turned back and reached for her phone.
The lock screen came alive under her thumb. The red bubble sat on Instagram in the corner of the app tile. She tapped through to the app, moved to her notifications, and hit the mark-all-as-read link at the top of the screen. The red bubble dropped off the corner. It would come back inside the hour. She scrolled down into the feed.
She thumbed like on a couple of the pictures without opening them. She watched a reel of a woman doing something with a Louis bag, someone showing off their nails. She kept scrolling. She stopped.
Angela had posted a picture of her and Paz. The two of them stood in front of a bar with a guy on either side of them, Angela’s guy tall and Black with a fresh line-up, Paz’s guy shaggy-haired and white with his arms wrapped around Paz’s waist from behind. The caption ran along the bottom of the frame: When sisters from other misters start dating brothers from other mothers.
Mireya snorted. Her thumb moved toward the heart at the bottom of the frame. She caught it before it touched the screen and tapped the picture instead. The tags loaded up over the faces in small circles. She tapped the one over the guy behind Paz.
His page came up with shaggy hair in every photo, a couple of shots on a boat, one of him holding a fish out toward the camera, another of him standing as a groomsman at somebody’s wedding. She hit follow then thumbed through to a DM.
Her thumb moved across the keyboard.
Hmu sometime, baby
She tapped the emoji key, scrolled to the devil face, tapped it into the message, and sent it.
She lowered the phone a fraction. Her tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek. “I could take your corny ass guero if I wanted him, puta. No eres mejor que yo.”
She tossed the phone onto the deck next to the baby monitor. She stood up, pulling her feet out of the water, and reached for the hem of her t-shirt. She pulled it up over her head and dropped it on the concrete. She hooked her thumbs into the sides of her panties and pushed them down her legs, stepping out of them one foot and then the other.
She took a step and dove in.
The water swallowed her, cold enough to feel in her sinuses. She came up ten feet out from the wall and pushed her hair back off her face with both hands. She swam a slow front crawl out to the middle of the pool. She turned onto her back, letting her arms open out to the sides and her feet come up, floating with her ears in the water.
The sky sat black above her, dim with the wash of the city up into it, one or two stars visible where a gap ran between clouds. Beyond the fence around the yard, the sound of the city came at her through the water and the air together, sirens threading through the blocks on the other side of the fence, the low continuous hum of the interstate a mile off running under everything else. Her breath came slow and warm up out of her chest into the cold.
Her phone dinged twice on the deck.
She sighed, turned onto her stomach and swam back to the side of the pool. Her hand came up out of the water and flipped the phone over on the deck with the tip of her finger. The lock screen showed the preview.
Von.
U up? Come fuck with me
Mireya shook her head as she unlocked the phone. Her wet fingers left dark prints on the screen as she tapped into the message thread with Von.
Come see me. I’ll send the addy.
She thumbed the attachment button. She lifted the phone off the deck and pushed away from the wall with her free hand, drifting back a few feet into the water. She held the phone up in front of her, angled the front camera at herself, and tapped the shutter. She swam back over to the wall and set the phone on the deck, looking down at it.
She looked at the picture then looked at the message. Her thumb pressed onto the message and she deleted it.
She opened her text thread with Sena instead, her thumb moving across the keyboard.
Should be here with me instead of pretending I distract you too much to study.
She added the image and sent it.
She threw the phone back on the deck and pushed off the wall, gliding back out to the middle of the pool on her back.
“No soy quien tú dices que soy.”
