The Scammer(42)

The suite smells of sweat and incense. The heat of so many bodies stuffed in one place makes it sweltering. Devonte said it would be good for us. The humidity and sauna-like conditions will detox our pores of chemicals.

Kareem is squeezed on the sofa, as the others, none that I recognize, argue over Devonte’s talking points. He looks different. His hair has grown wild, face gaunt, and ashy. I have a hard time tearing my eyes away as I knock on Loren’s door.

She swings it open with a smile. Legacy is lying on her bed, reading one of the books Devonte expects us to memorize.

“Hey girl! Where you been?” Loren says, beaming.

I hold up the vials of insulin. “Isn’t this yours?”

Loren glances at my hand, her smile faltering.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“You’re just going to throw it away,” I snap, shaking her prescription bottles. “Don’t you need them?”

“Not anymore.” She sighs. “They don’t make medicine with Black women in mind, so I’m gonna go organic.”

“Huh?”

She crosses her arms. “When they make medicine, they test it on WHITE lab rats, not black ones. So, how do we know if this stuff really works on us?”

I stand there, waiting for the punch line to her joke. When it doesn’t come, I hear the tinkling of broken glass as my facade crashes around me.

What the fuck am I doing?

“Loren, this is fucking medicine! Science that’s been proven for decades.”

“Proven by who? We’re just supposed to believe whatever they say. That’s like the police policing themselves.”

“You can get really sick! You can die!”

Legacy sits up, worry in his eyes.

“How do you know the medicine isn’t MAKING me sick?” Loren shoots back. “Or sicker than I already am? We don’t know anything about what they do in those labs and what these vaccines and medications are doing to our bodies. So I, at least, have to try a different way. A safer, healthier way of living. People have been curing themselves with diet and herbs for centuries.”

I don’t have to ask where she’s getting this nonsense from.

I shake my head. “This is dangerous.”

“Not as dangerous as those pills,” Loren spits, and walks back into her room, slamming the door shut.

I turn back to the living room, almost forgetting we had an audience.

Vanessa stares from her threshold, worry in her eyes.

“Jordyn, maybe we—”

I don’t wait for her to finish. I walk into my room and slam the door.

This time, Devonte has gone too far.





Fifteen




Rain pummels the windows of the Malcolm Center, thunder rumbling as if it’s right over our heads. A deafening sound.

Loren, Kammy, and I sit in the café with limp pieces of salad on our plates, waiting out the passing storm. Loren’s eyes are sunken, and Kammy’s face is pale, lips chapped. Devonte said the herbs he mixes in our teas should help increase our energy but some days I can barely make it up the hill to class.

I look at the girls across the table with trembling fingers. I’ve been building up the courage all day to have the conversation. I know what I have to do, I’m just not sure if I’m ready to do it. Rather than being an outlier, for the first time in my life, I have friends, a real clique I belong to. And these girls wanted to be my friends, from day one with no hesitation. I never experienced that kind of love and instant loyalty. Yet it’s starting to feel like we’re a family of Black dolls propped up, collected, manipulated, and I can’t seem to stand the idea of cutting the strings that bind us to our puppet master.

Because then I will be alone.

“Hey,” I start, “um, don’t you think that it’s maybe time for Devonte to, like, hold his meetings in his apartment?”

Loren frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he’s been with us for a while now. And our suite is really small. So, I don’t know, maybe it’s time for him to, like . . . leave?”

I pose the concern as a question, using our limited space as an excuse rather than the conditions Devonte has us under. But Loren and Kammy stare blank-faced before sharing a quick nervous glance with each other.

Finally, Kammy speaks first. “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s fine.”

“Yeah, and he’s helping us,” Loren agrees. “It’s easier when he’s close by.”

Loren stretches across the table with a grin. “He says this summer he’s going to introduce me to Jay-Z’s publicist. I can maybe get an internship at his label back in New York.”

“That’s . . . amazing,” I say, trying to sound genuine, falling flat.

“And he’s helping me work out my issues with my family,” Kammy adds. “He’s not really bothering us, right? He said he just has to stay close because we still have a lot of deprogramming to do.”

I swallow, needing a different approach. I can’t come on too strong. But I have to find a way to lure them away from him before it’s too late.

“But . . . like, all the food stuff. The late-night sessions and meetings. It’s just . . . a lot. No other students are going through this.”