Chapter One❖Nadia The morning of the first brunch I threw on broken-in jeans, so broken-in the deni

Chapter One
❖
Nadia

The morning of the first brunch I threw on broken-in jeans, so broken-in the denim started to thin and fray across my inner thighs (not that anyone would notice. I had no plans of sitting with my legs open…or doing anything that would require me to open my legs.), a comfortable t-shirt, a cardigan I was almost positive was large enough to cover most of the problems with my body. I smeared chapstick on my lips, whipped my hair into a messy bun, and jammed my feet into comfortable flats. I checked the time and yelped. I grabbed my purse, heavy with papers from work, hoped I didn’t forget anything important like my wallet and  ran out of my apartment to the parking garage. If I didn’t speed, I would be late.

 I sped. 

 The City was dirty, gritty, stank of polluted water and exhaust, garbage left in the sun, and the unwashed homeless that refused to stay in shelters.  It was well known for its food and its crime and the locals told you that the most dangerous places to be after dark were in the upper class sections of the City because people from the hood finally learned it was dumb to steal from each other. Ferraris were as common as Hondas and if you could survive five years in the City, you could survive anywhere. It was, everyone agreed, where you went to make your dreams come true. 

I wove through the City streets, followed my GPS’s instructions to the restaurant where O’Shea asked me to meet her for brunch. I liked to look at pictures and menus of restaurants I was unfamiliar with before I dined there but I didn’t have time and it didn’t matter. O’Shea and I always went to the same kinds of places. Relaxed. Quiet. Good food. Non-pretentious and full of grungy artists and the people that wanted to be like them. O’Shea might have mentioned something about friends when she invited me but I assumed I misheard. O’Shea didn’t have any friends. O’Shea had employees, a boyfriend, colleagues that she’d done so many favors for it made me dizzy whenever I thought about it. But no friends. I joked that O’Shea and I  were our own little girl gang and we weren’t accepting new members.

I pulled up to the restaurant, handed my keys to the smiling valet, and stood in front of the restaurant. Valet? I touched the hole on the inside sleeve of my cardigan.

The restaurant was all glass, steel, soaring windows, and modernity. The outdoor tables were occupied with women whose diamonds threw more rainbows than the heavy crystal glassware and small dogs who peered out of their owners’ purses and over their shoulders and made more noise than they did. 

I felt my shoulders begin to rise and forced myself to push them back down, forced myself not to lower my head. Don’t shrink. No one paid attention to me. They were busy. They pretended to eat and gossiped about who married who, who got work done, who was on the verge of poverty. 

No one looked at me.

“Excuse me, miss,” one of the valet drivers said. 

My face heated. I was still on the sidewalk by the valet stand, gaped as if I’d never been to a restaurant before. 

I walked into the restaurant and wanted to turn around and walk right back out.  

I knew with one glance what type of restaurant it was. This was a restaurant where billion dollar deals were struck, where political careers were launched, where lives were changed. At least a quarter of the people in the room owned their own planes and I  wore jeans that were paper thin because I couldn’t keep my thighs from rubbing together. I hadn’t bothered to turn on my flat iron and fix my edges.  

But I wasn’t a coward, I waved away the hostess, who had the grace not to let whatever thoughts she had about my outfit show on her face, and sat down to wait for O’Shea. O’Shea who always had paint in her hair and on her loose ripped jeans, who didn’t give a shit about other people’s opinions and refused to remove her septum or lip ring when she was at work, who dyed her long locs to match her mood. O’Shea would come in her combat boots and crop top and I would feel much more-

“What are you wearing?” 

I hopped to my feet and slapped a hand over my mouth. I was an adult. I didn’t just blurt out whatever came into my head first. But the woman that walked through the door wasn’t my O’Shea, wasn’t my best friend since middle school. This woman wore make up so flawless it looked airbrushed. Make up that forced you to look at her brown eyes, almost too large for her face, high cheekbones, button nose, and full lips. Make up that made her pecan colored skin look like it was glowing. This woman’s long dreadlocks flowed down to her waist in loose curls and made the off the shoulder bandage dress look inappropriate. It didn’t matter that it was black and knee-length. This woman looked, with a small hoop hanging from her nose and another curling around the corner of her lip,  like she was on her way to seduce someone. 

“I’m wearing clothes, Nadia,” O’Shea said, in her raspy, dry voice, “It’s what people do when they have to go outside,, and while I don’t agree with the custom the law does dictate-”

“Shut up.” I said. I wouldn’t laugh. “You could have warned me.”

“Warn you about what? Is something terrible about to happen?” O’Shea leaned until she could see past me. She scanned the restaurant and smiled, waved, winked. 

I wanted to turn and see which of the diners O’Shea knew but I couldn’t. I was taller than O’Shea even when she wore four inch heels the way she did then. I couldn’t watch people look at the two of us and decide I was the tall, frumpy, fat friend while O’Shea got to be the bombshell. I sat back down on the bench and jerked O’Shea down with me. 

“Look at me!” I said.

“I did,” O’Shea said. “And while I’m the most judgement free person you know, I really wanted to ask you what you were thinking. Nadi, what are you wearing?”

“I thought we were just getting something to eat,” I said.

“Why are you whispering? It’s a restaurant not the library.”

“You’re not going to make me laugh!”

“I’m not going to make you stop whispering either,” O’Shea pulled out her cellphone and tapped on it. “So I’m going to do us all a favor and cancel brunch. Delia would take one look at your little get up and try to crawl across the table and eat you. We’ll try again next week.”

O’Shea stood.

“Where are you going?” I said. “And who the hell is Delia?”

“I’m going to the bar to grab a drink and flirt with whoever has time for my shit,” O’Shea smoothed a hand down the front of her dress.  “You are going to go home and take a good long time to think about why you would ever want to leave the house in something so tragic.”

“You wear paint splattered jeans and crop tops!”

“Oh, now you want to stop whispering?” 

We burst into laughter.

When she caught her breath, O’Shea held up a finger, “For the record, I wear paint splattered designer jeans, Louis Vuitton boots, and $200 crop tops. Don’t try to play me, Nadia. I look artistic and expensive. You look like you’re on your way to some college internship. Do better. You own a business. I’ve been telling my friends-”

“Friends? You have friends? Who are these friends? When did you get them?”

“Be here next Sunday and find out.”

O’Shea walked down the stairs and moved through the restaurant towards the bar. I watched heads turn and follow her progress. I could have gone with her. O’Shea could make me forget how out of place I looked and felt. She could make me laugh until I cried about things I wouldn’t have thought were funny on my own. Instead, I touched the hole in my cardigan, sighed, and walked out of the restaurant. 

I knew before I left the restaurant that I would do what O’Shea said. I would come back the next Sunday. I didn’t know why. Curiosity? A desire to see who these other friends of O’Shea’s were and determine if they were competition? The opportunity to show people that didn’t notice me and didn’t care about me that I was more than thrift store clothes and fly away edges? 

Continue Reading