“Not fair, you went stupid over him, too. Every girl with a pulse went stupid over Micah.”
Effie snorted, waving those nails at me as though my accusation had zero merit. “Please. What would I want with some football player? He had nothing between his ears.”
I moved my head slowly, eyes squinted as I watched my friend. “Who the hell cared?” She laughed again, shrugging away her denial. “No one cared if he could quote sonnets. It was that body…”
“True enough.”
A flash of memory circled in my head and it brought me out of the moment. Eyes tight, I tried to block out the voices, the deep, rich sound that I knew I’d never heard but that sounded so familiar. Something I heard only in my dreams. And that face—warm, dark amber eyes with flecks of gold, bright and kind. A mouth that I… that someone I didn’t know… so wanted, dreamed of. My thoughts were complicated with guilt, something I didn’t make a bit of sense. There was no one for me to be unfaithful to and even if there were, the man in my dreams wasn’t real. If he had been once, he would be old by now, older than my parents, because that was the world he lived in. Not mine.
“You need a mantra,” Effie said, lifting up on one elbow to look down at me. “It focuses your thoughts. It’s the center that you concentrate on while your mind bends to the will of the universe. The mantra is key, Will. I’ve only ever…” She paused just then and the silence brought my gaze to her face and the hard set of her mouth as she frowned. “What the hell has you looking all dreamy-eyed and simple?”
“Nothing… it’s…” It was everything—the dream and the emotions that Isaac stirred in me but it was the memory of a man I’d never known. It was Nash, too, and the stupid way he ran—from me, from life, from everything he saw as a complication. “I can’t stop thinking about him, Effie and it’s pissing me off.”
“Girl, please. He’s just a man.”
I blinked at her, unable to make her see reason with that stupid gobsmacked expression I no doubt had plastered on my face. “Honey, he’s not just a man. He’s… Nash is… God is he just…”
“Unavailable?”
“What? No! I’d never move in on someone else's guy.”
“I dunno, Will, sure seems to me like you’re chasing after something you can’t get. You sure that’s not it? That you only want him because he’s one of the few things that has been out of your reach and that scratch you can’t itch is what’s driving you crazy.”
I gave her the skank eye. “Are you crazy? Damn, Effie, you know me better than that.”
“So what, then? He’s hot? How hot can he be, really?” When I cocked an eyebrow my friend’s doubtful frown loosened into a grin. “What? Like Jesse Williams fine?”
“Better.”
“Shemar?”
“Better.”
She held up a hand. “No damn way.”
“It’s not just those eyes or that smile…”
“Liar.” She ducked when I tossed a pillow at her head, laughing at me and the stupid blush I knew she could make out on my cheeks. “So you’re into him? I get that. Bout damn time.”
“I’ve been trying to start a business, you know.”
Effie tilted her head, waving me off like I was a little pathetic. “Yes, tell me how hard that is, Ms. Moneybags.”
“Not fair.” I moved my braid around my shoulder, twisting the ends between my fingers as a habit. “Besides, I’m not using my parents’ money. I got a loan.”
“Will.”
Effie’s gaze shot to me, followed me around the apartment when I slipped into the small kitchen to fill the kettle for tea. “Do me a favor and don’t start in with the ‘you’re being stubborn’ lecture, okay?”
“But you are.”
“Not the point.” I dug the tea tin from the cabinet, ignoring Effie when she stretched, mumbling something under her breath that sounded a lot like judgment. “You and my dad, the pair of you think I should just take advantage of that money, but the business wouldn’t be mine if I did. This way, it is mine. Completely, utterly mine. Plus, this way I know what every small business person feels like when they have to come up with a business plan and try to land capital. Pride and experience. It’s essential, Eff.”
She sat on the sofa, crossing her legs under herself as she watched me. “I wasn’t going to lecture you… except about not finding your mantra.”
The kettle sounded and I dropped two tea bags in each of our mugs, bringing Effie’s hers as she fiddled with the trim along the arm of the sofa, those red nails pushing against the purple fabric.
“Well,” I started, sitting across from her in the plush chair my mom had handed down to me. It was a chevron pattern she’d gotten bored of last summer and the gray color corresponded nicely with the purple and white of the lap blanket I’d draped across its back. “There was one thing that kept cropping up in my head. I think it was something I’d dreamed of and can’t forget, even though I also can't quite remember exactly where it came from.”
“The same dreams you were telling me about? With the redhead and the janitor?”
“No. It’s different, somewhere older, something I can’t remember nearly as well.”
“The dream doesn’t matter, sugar. Just the mantra. What is it?”
When I tried to recall the dream, the details got fuzzy. There were only minute flashes of memory that seemed clear—there’d been a night wind and a purple sky. There’d been a boy, the one whose eyes I was seeing through, and a girl I—he—loved, more than anything, and there had been a promise that stuck, something around which their world—and mine, by extension— pivoted. Over and over, it had planted itself inside my heart.
“With everything I am.” I said that over the rim of my mug. The warmth from the hot liquid heated my skin as Effie looked back at me, waiting for an explanation I wasn’t sure I could give her. “I don’t know what it means.” I took a sip, watched her do the same. “Will it work?”
Effie polished off her tea and smiled, motioning back toward the floor and the assortment of rugs and blankets and throw pillows assembled that made for a comfortable place to focus and meditate. “It’s a start, at least.”
We settled back down on the floor facing each other and at Effie’s urging, I let the words collect in my mind, pushing them past my lips soft but focused.
“With everything I am,” I said under my breath, like a whisper meant only for my ears. Maybe it was remembered hope. Maybe it was a promise made decades before that meant something then. Whatever it was, I took it for my own, not sure who it should be meant for—the man in my dreams or the man who liked to pretend I didn’t matter at all.
“With everything I am,” I thought, letting the silence move around me, letting my breath and energy and the collection of thoughts and moments lull me into another time, another space. I’d found my center and it brought me to the past.
Washington D.C.