Page 60 of Divine Sense

“Probably smart,” I quipped with a small nod, pulling away from the curb. If I told her, I would’ve had to explain how Iwouldhave been on time to pick her up but Kolbi woke up with other ideas on how we could spend the first few hours of the day together which involved me, him, and a detachable shower head.

“I’m happy you’re happy and everything, but what are you going to do if your parents find out? Youknowthey have a very set picture in their mind about the kind of man you’re supposed to be with and I don’t think it involves someone like him.”

“Margaret, you don’t even know him,” I said defensively. She wasn’t wrong but hearing her say it didn’t make the truth of her words any easier to accept.

“You’re right, Mags, I don’t know him. Beyond the one time outside of barre, I know very little about the guy. I know he makes you happy, I know you’re spending a lot of time with him, but that’s it. I’m your best friend, don’t you think I deserve tomeetyour secret boyfriend? Like, not just when we’re both sporting crotch sweat and standing in the middle of a crowded sidewalk?”

I chewed on her words, knowing in my gut that she was right. Shediddeserve to meet him officially and get the chance to know him more. I’d been able to meet his friends and if they could know about us, then Margaret deserved to know more about us too. It wasn’t right of me to be keeping him from herwhen she had been my best friend since we were in diapers. I reached across the console and grabbed her hand, squeezing it in mine as we made our way down the road towards the club for lunch with my parents.

“You’re right, I’ll talk to him and see if we can’t set something up, okay? I promise.” She looked at me with a hopeful smile and squeezed my hand in return. Then, out of my periphery, I watched as her smile fell and the blood drained from her face.

“Oh my god,” she cried out.

“What? What?” I started to panic, thinking she saw something on the road I hadn’t and we were about to get in an accident.

“You have a hickey! What are you, seventeen and dating an animal?” She gasped, reaching to poke her finger into my neck. She rubbed at the spot he had sunk his teeth into in the shower not even an hour ago. I hadn’t even realized he’d left a mark. She was rifling through her bag again, this time pulling out concealer.

“I swear, Magnolia Sinclair, if it weren’t for me, your parents would have shipped you off a long time ago.” As she scolded me, she smeared concealer over the mark on my neck and worked to rub it in while I continued to drive down the road. “Where would you be without me?”

“Honestly,” I laughed as she worked to cover up the territorial mark, “I’d probably be in some dark room with no windows in the Swiss Alps by now.”

“No freakin’ kidding.”

“And I said to her,we simplycannotuse cotton tablecloths at the Spring Tea. They must be linen and linen only. I mean really,who in their right mind would think to usecottontablecloths in the spring?” My mother waved her hand in front of her face as if using cotton over linen was the greatest sin someone could commit.

I glanced at Margaret across the table and rolled my eyes at her and she coughed to cover up her laugh. Thank god she agreed to come to lunch with me or else I would be left to my own devices as my mother droned on and on about the indecencies of the world. I looked towards my father who had his eyes glued to his phone, only half paying attention to his dutiful wife. Lifting the crystal glass to my lips, I took a sip of the sweet tea I’d ordered with lunch. “You know the sugar will make you fat, right?” my mother had chided after I’d ordered it. Margaret also ordered one in solidarity and I wanted to reach across the table and give her a high five when she did.

“Darling, can you please contact Mr. Vesey and tell him we need more security at the campaign event in July? We are anticipating a larger crowd since we are hosting it with the booster club and they will be inviting their own guests to attend as well.” My eyes flicked towards Margaret when I heard his name slip from my mother’s mouth.

“Mmhmm,” my father agreed, still only half listening.

“It’s a good thing he’s good at what he does and has a good reputation around the city. We never would have hired him otherwise.” She turned her nose up as if she had smelled something foul and wrinkled her eyebrows together. A fork full of mixed greens was halfway to my mouth when I paused, slowly moved my eyes to her, and sat up straight, placing the fork back down on the fine porcelain china plate.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I reacted, trying not to show too much emotion on my face.

“Magnolia, watch your mouth,” she snapped, looking around the dining room to see if any of the well-to-do patrons had heardmy swear. God forbid we act like normal humans here and cuss like normal people do. “I mean that if he hadn’t come highly recommended, he would never have been hired. People like him really can’t be trusted. It was a risk, but after talking to your father’s campaign manager about it, we decided it would look good for your father’s platform if he hired his type.”

I felt my eyes go wide as her words pierced my skin and felt a growing heat behind my rib cage. “I’m sorry,his type?” I pressed.

“You know, someone colored.”

Every muscle in my body felt as if it had been turned to stone. Hearing her confess to only hiring Kolbi because it would look good for my father’s campaign while simultaneously admitting to not trusting him because of the color of his skin made my insides feel like they had just been set on fire. I knew my parents were old fashioned but I hadn’t realized that their beliefs were still so rooted in the past. That, because someone looked different than you, that meant they were less than you in some way. I clenched my jaw together and tried to steady my breathing. Needing to look anywhere but my mother, I turned my eyes to Margaret who was sitting across from me, shaking her head just enough for me to notice. It was as if she could read my mind and knew what I was about to say next and that I shouldn’t say it at all.

“And what does him being Black have to do with anything?” All the fears I had about what they thought about him were coming true but part of me was still hoping I was hearing this wrong. That they weren’t the type of people I’d feared them to be and that, if I told them how happy he made me, they wouldn’t feel the same way.

“Magnolia,” my father spoke this time, looking up from his phone for the first time for the entirety of our lunch. “There are some people in this world who are just lower than others. It’snot their fault, it’s just how things are.” The way he was speaking to me was as if he was having a conversation with a five year old. “People of our caliber must be very specific with who we associate with. Kolbi Vesey, while a good man who has done very well for himself, is simply not the kind of person we will continue to associate ourselves with. Once the campaign is over, he and his team will be let go and we will hire a more suitable match for our family’s needs once I’m in office. The only reason we hired him in the first place was to make a show of support for his people to entice them to vote for our cause.” My father gave me a smile that rivaled the Big Bad Wolf’s.

“Exactly. I mean really, did you know he grew up in atrailerout in the backwoods of West Ashley? I mean, seriously, the only reason he has gotten as far as he has is because of dumb luck and people taking pity on him. We can spot a charity case a mile away, you know?” My mother winked at me as if what she had said was nothing but a funny joke.

I sat in my seat, silently stunned by the conversation that was being had. Margaret sat across from me, lips glued together in a nervous line. I blinked hard, trying to push back the tears that were threatening to spill over as a certain knowingness settled over me.

The knowingness that my parents were more awful than I thought they were. That they were the type of people who were happy to use others for their own personal gain and achievement. The knowingness that they would never be able to accept and approve of my relationship with Kolbi.

And most importantly, the knowledge that if they ever found out about us, I might be cut off just as quickly as they planned to cut Kolbi off as soon as their use for him was over.

39

KOLBI

---