Page 42 of Pride and Protest
“Not...”
“Did you tell him?” His voice had an edge of impatience.
“I’ll get to it. Do you want to go?”
He let out a muffled yes, and Liza smiled.
“What will you be wearing?” she said over the background noise. “I want to match—
“I’m sorry, the train is coming,” WIC said tersely.
The phone hung up abruptly, and Liza shrugged.Must be underground.Now this party wouldn’t feel like so much of a drag.
WIC sounded confident, and Liza wanted to feel hopeful with him. He was wary of being seen with Dorsey, she could tell, because he was a revolutionary down to his bones. This is what it looked like to want the same things. It wasn’t a drink for a moment; it was justice for all.
PLUS-ONE
How you doing, DC? We’re heading into the Christmas season. Who’s alone out there? Are you thinking about someone tonight?” Liza played the Jazzy Jingle Bells snippet.
“Call me on the loveline, and I’ll send a special song their way. I’m getting a request from a Datu Ramos online. He wants to hear some soulful Sam Smith, ‘Lay Me Down.’ Goodness, I wish somebody wanted me the way Sam Smith wants whoever they’re singing to.” Liza pressed the dials. “Coming right up for you, Datu. I hope she’s listening tonight.”
“You are sprung, girl,” Chicho teased two days later. It was the week after Thanksgiving, and the women were seated around the large faux-leather sectional in the Bennetts’ apartment. It was a nice-enough evening that Granny wanted everyone’s help putting up the Christmas tree. Janae had sheepishly admitted that David had bought a tree for them and wanted to bring it over. David had pursued her, even when she lost heart,so Liza supposed she could grow to like him for her sister. But she was unsure if Janae had shared every part of her life with David yet. Liza hoped that David’s heart was big enough to see all of Janae, not just her beauty.
Beverly kept asking if David had “hit it” yet, and Janae deflected with the skill of a used-car salesperson. Beverly kept suggesting she and David be alone and “let whatever happens happen.”
Liza continued to alternatively string popcorn with a needle onto her Granny’s red embroidery floss and eat it out of the bowl.
“Liza, that popcorn is for the garland, not your stomach,” Granny said as she smacked at Liza’s hands.
“Then why pop the movie theatre butter flavor?” Liza shot back.
Janae tapped her phone and announced, “He’s downstairs.”
Liza and Janae began to frantically clean the living space. Bev opened her mouth to protest but begrudgingly fluffed the couch pillows and threw away LeDeya’s colony of Doritos bags. Liza finally stopped cleaning when she smelled the Glade PlugIn kick in. Country Lemon could cover a multitude of sins. The knock at the door came quickly, and the entire family including Chicho jumped into some sort of stage setting of Bennett family life.
Beverly went to the door and let out a dissatisfied grunt when she saw who was on the other side. Liza nearly choked on the popcorn kernel in her mouth. Taking up the whole doorway, dark and lean, fully bearded now and still bunned, was Dorsey Fitzgerald. He was holding the top branches of a bushy evergreen tree and returned her mother’s look of slight disappointment.
Liza smoothed her hair and turned to fake a cough and put ChapStick on. Nothing she could do about being dressed like a hobo, though. He, however, looked like a full-course meal. Liza snatched her eyes away from his strong thighs in the slim jeans, but then made the mistake of looking up into the full force of his gaze. How was no one else pinned to the floor like a butterfly specimen? A low-voltage current buzzed from her center out to the tips of her fingers and toes.Okay, avoid eyes.But then she would be forced to focus on the outline of his abs in the thin black sweater, or that damned messy man bun that she wanted to braid then mess up again. There was no place on that body safe for Liza to look. But she had to admit that—scratch that, she didn’thaveto admit anything.
She scanned for faults. She supposed this was his attempt at casual. But the worn leather jacket was so soft and buttery-looking that she knew it had to be Italian. His shoes looked like simple high-tops, but she had dated a sneakerhead once and knew those were Rick Owens Geobasket shoes in some type of animal skin. Liza was pleased to find something she could scorn. Those shoes cost about the same as a used Honda Civic, and he was walking around Merrytown in them?
“Do you have it?” David, ever cheery, was holding up the tree’s trunk as he pushed Dorsey through the door. The crisp smell of evergreen flooded the apartment. They obviously should have calledsomeoneto get a sense of the apartment dimensions before they purchased this Rockefeller Center tree.
Granny grinned. “I always wanted a real tree,” she said. “You can put it here.” She motioned toward a worn-out tree skirt and a tree stand. David made a funny show of grunting, gaining laughs from the women in the room, while Dorsey’s face was flat and impassive. David let the top of the tree drop to hugeveryone. Dorsey grunted as the weight of the tree tipped him forward. Wide-eyed, David touched ceramic Precious Moments figurines and examined Liza’s moving boxes and the plastic-covered carpet like he was touring the Vatican.
“You guys want to stay to help us decorate it?” Granny pointed toward her boxes of ribbon ornaments and tinsel. Granny’s voice must have knocked David out of his poverty tour because he dropped a faded doily into the hanging ferns.
Dorsey blustered, “No,” at the same time David said, “Yes.”
“Yes,” David repeated firmly. “We would love to. Let’s water this bad boy and get started.” David completely abandoned his friend and the tree and moved into the kitchen, leaving Dorsey to lift the whole thing inside the apartment. His shoulders flexed, and the soft material of his sweater lifted to expose a smooth abdomen with deep V cuts.Lord have mercy, this man comes with penis arrows?Liza looked around, but everyone was huddled around David as he rummaged in a messenger bag.
Granny offered David and Dorsey some leftover oxtails. David nodded and Granny shoved two plates on the table. “For you and your friend.”
But Dorsey was busy pulling the gigantic tree into the small living room. Everyone hovered over David eating oxtails, but the fools were missing the show of the century: Dorsey single-handedly dominating that immense tree and flashing those Olympic swimmer’s abs. Nothing was more interesting than this.
When the tree teetered, Liza rushed to steady it as Dorsey closed the clamps on the tree stand. The top branches of the tree bent under the low, yellowing ceiling and the fat branches obscured the television. But it was glorious. A bit grander than the surroundings, but so the fuck was she.
David cleared his plate of oxtails. “And before I forget, hereare your formal tickets to the Pemberley anniversary ball, your plane tickets, and your hotel accommodations.” David handed everyone a ticket. “Yours was truly an excellent garden, Granny.”
