“I was trying to say I was sorry,” Dante said. “But you wouldn’t take my calls.”
“What you sorry for?” Her voice was harsh.
“For not acting like a gentleman. I knew I was wrong already, and then my mama, she was so mad when you left. She told me she’d raised me better than that. I thought she was gone whip me. I really did, and the last time I got a whipping, Lydia, I was five foot three and in the seventh grade.”
Lydia wasn’t going to forgive him that easy, but she sat on the couch beside him. They said nothing, until it was dinnertime, and then she stood. She held out her hand.
“Come on. Let’s get some chicken. I know a place.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. “You drive.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I trust you.”
On the way out of the dorm, there was her roommate. It was a warm day, but Niecy wore her Beta jacket. Lydia tensed and then slowed. She told Niecy this was her homeboy, Dante. She’d known him for a long time, and Niecy held out her hand. Any friend of her soror was a friend of hers.
Dante’s car was an old one, a metallic green deuce and a quarter, but it was clean. The seats were uncracked, and he’d replaced the radio with a cassette deck. A fragrance card in the shape of a Christmas tree hung from the rearview mirror. He wedged against the passenger door, watching as she drove, then rolled down the glass. Gusts of warmth touched Lydia’s face as she headed toward Chicasetta.
At the Cluck-Cluck Hut, he insisted on paying for their dinner. No, he had it. They sat at the only picnic table in front of the stand, and every minute or two, somebody stopped to speak to Lydia. She returned their greetings: Hey, y’all. What you know good? How your people doing? She introduced Dante to each person who approached the table. This was her friend. She didn’t know why she wasn’t afraid. Soon, her granny would hear the news that Lydia had been eating fried chicken with hot sauce, biscuits, and French fries with a handsome young man, though he shole was skinny. Looked like he needed some home-cooked meals, or at least more dark meat in that chicken box. Or maybe, the boy hadn’t yet put on his “man weight.” And then Miss Rose would call Mama in the City, and tell her, you know your daughter is courting.
Yet Lydia sat there and kept raising her hand as people approached. She laughed and let her proper grammar slide away. She’d never let a male see her as she truly was. That it didn’t matter how light her skin was or how shiny her hair, she wasn’t really siddity, and Chicasetta was her town. These were her folks, and anybody who wanted to know her, needed to know that. But because she hadn’t planned this afternoon, she wasn’t ready to take him the few blocks to the house of her mother’s great-uncle or on the longer drive out to her granny’s farm.
Lydia didn’t know why she didn’t drive back to campus, why she drove to a motel instead. It had been an afternoon of surprises and lessons, but here she was ruining a perfect day. It was twilight when she pulled into the parking lot. She told him, wait, and Dante touched her hand. If she was sure, if this was what she wanted, he had the money. They bantered back and forth about who would pay, and underneath the teasing was the knowledge that this would lead to a change. They didn’t speak about what was to come, and finally, Lydia said she would compromise. Dante could give her the money, but she would go get the key.
At the door to the room, he said they didn’t have to do nothing, but she thought he was lying. That she would rest underneath him, making false sounds to speed him along, but she wanted to get this out of the way. To see if what she hoped for would come after, but when she took off her clothes, Dante stopped her from unhooking her bra. He had taken off his shirt and pants but left on his underwear and T-shirt. Let’s slow this thing way down, he said. They slid underneath the covers and he held her, her head to his chest.
“Lydia, I love you.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, woman, and I’m scared.”
She shifted away, and then sat up. Put her feet on the carpet. She didn’t know why she started talking about Gandee, what he’d done to her in the bathtub when she was little. She didn’t like to think about it, how it made her bear crawl back into its cave. It weakened her to return to the memory, when everything she’d done afterward was about trying to be strong. Lydia started crying. Her arms and legs went numb. Even her blood was too tired to crawl through her veins, and she couldn’t tell Dante the rest. There was too much: Tony and the abortion. All those other guys, how she couldn’t remember most of their names. She was afraid that if she confessed everything, Dante would make her feel even worse.