Page 96 of Pride and Protest
“Liza, you gotta let the girl live a little. You should go too.”
“No way!” LeDeya shouted. “Liza, let me have those scarves WIC gave you. You’re not modest enough to really pull them off.”
“You’re such a brat, Deya!” Liza retorted. She hated those scarves, but she would rather see them in the trash than on LeDeya.
“You get ready for your lame-ass embassy art show and watch my money stack live on Insta!” LeDeya yelled back.
Liza huffed and slammed her door. As angry as she was at her sister, Liza was too wrapped up in her own self-pity to stand up against both her mother and her grandmother.
TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE
From: [email protected]
Dear Mr. Fitzgerald,
You may have missed our earlier invitations, but we wanted to remind you about the place of prominence the WCO’s work in the Philippines will have at the event at the embassy! We would love for you to accept an award on your mother’s behalf and ask you to RSVP as soon as possible so that we may prepare your VIP spot.
Awaiting your reply,
Roberto Villanueva
Dorsey was ill. At least that was what he kept telling everyone who had asked about him in the past six weeks. He had used the excuse so much that he was getting flowers of condolence. The articles about Liza’s nephew, Janae’s son, raced through his mind. Dead on arrival. It was the same pronouncement for hisparents and brother. He could not imagine losing a child. He had speculated about the poor woman’s mental health. It was a damned miracle she got herself up in the morning. He’d been simply wrong. He was unaccustomed to feeling such clear guilt.
His misunderstanding of Janae was one thing. But he was ashamed of his absolute diarrhea of the mouth trashing Liza’s family and trying to set her up in an apartment and hide her away. Even if he’d meant it to be an oasis for them both, he’d said it like she was a toy he would hide in a hole until he was ready to play. She wasn’t a woman to hide away; he was proud of her, and he should have said that. Dorsey had preached to Liza about decorum after he had propositioned her like a mistress. He had buried the story of Gigi and Isaiah because it was a black mark on the Fitzgerald family—onhim—but now Isaiah was back to scamming people, maybe even the community Liza cared about, because Dorsey held hisownsecrets in such high regard.
I fucked it up.
He’d fucked everything up.
He had driven by Longbourne a few times—he’d even parked and walked around, hoping for acoincidentalrun-in withanyBennett. He saw the neighborhood differently now, the unique two-story cottages with Italianate-style architecture and Queen Anne–style homes. He got his ass handed to him in a few pickup basketball games at the Fort Stanton Rec Center. On the court, they only cared about the skill he brought to the team. He was absolutely haunting her neighborhood trying to feel a fraction of the joy she brought into his life.
He’d even bumped into Maurice on some of his longer walks. Liza’s little brother never even broke his stride and started walking the neighborhood alongside him—quietly and thoughtfully. Maurice took him on a tour of Cedar Hill, the former homeof Frederick Douglass, hidden away in her neighborhood like any other house. He, Maurice, and Gigi had even taken a touristy photo next to that enormous chair. He walked her neighborhood without calculation and saw beauty where before he had only seen ashes. He wanted to love what she loved.
She would be fine without him. And he would be fine during the day. But at night, memories of her chased him around his bedroom. Her lips, the way her body rose to meet him when he kissed her, that hollow in her neck that henowknew smelled like honey and vanilla, the way she’d moaned when he kissed her most sensitive spot—he remembered everything with encyclopedic accuracy. He had taken to drinking at night to ensure dreamless sleep. But when he woke, his heart and his body still ached for her.
She had been quiet on social media. He had typed and erased so many direct messages and texts to her. In the end, what he’d said and done was too much to overcome.
It wasn’t like he would ever see her at any of the events he was turning down. And his sister had done a bang-up job convincing the world that he was lying low in Korea, posting year-old photos of a business trip.
The only event hewantedto attend was a Filipino heritage celebration at the embassy in DC. He knew they would be celebrating his continuation of his mother’s humanitarian work. He wanted to be there to make his mother proud somehow. His middle-class mother had faced so many snobs who thought his father wasslumming. His mother would be ashamed of the way he had treated Liza and the Bennett family.
Dorsey skimmed over images of his mother with messy fingers, eating barbecue and dancing traditional dances with villagers. She was equal parts elegant, untouchable, down-to-earth,and motherly. Liza’s proclamation about communal dancing popped into his mind.There are two types of people in the world.He suddenly understood it so perfectly now. Those that give themselves over to a moment, and those who are too inside their own heads to really experience anything. He had been the latter for far too long.
OUTSIDE THE TENT
Liza was stalling.
“So tell me what else are you planning when the summer comes?”
“Well...” The caller searched for more to say. Liza’s eyes darted from the door to the phone. “I suppose I could buy some new sandals.”
“Oh, I love sandals! Do you like the strappy ones?”
“I guess.” The caller had clearly run out of steam. “Am I caller number nine or not?” she asked.
“Oh, we found caller number nine ages ago—” Liza heard the soft silence of dead air. “Guess we lost her; let’s try to get her back.” But a woman in a pantsuit pushed through the door, and Liza quickly threw it to a cued-up song, dread growing in her stomach.
