When You Were Everything Read online

  “I’m just not sure this is the best way to go about things, Cleo. I understand that you’re sad, but new memories don’t just make old ones go away. You were friends with Layla for a long time, and now you just aren’t anymore.”

  “Harsh, Daddy.”

  “I guess what I mean is…It’s not so easy to rewrite history.”

  I shrug, like I don’t want to talk about this anymore, but once my dad’s on a roll it’s hard to stop him.

  “All the world’s a stage, right?” Daddy continues, starting to quote one of his favorite Shakespeare passages. “And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances.” I want to roll my eyes, but begrudgingly, I nod. “I think it was just Layla’s time to exit, honey. And that’s okay. Why don’t you just stay and have dinner here, with me?”

  I want to tell him about my fall and the song that was playing; about hearing Gigi in my head that morning on the platform; about signs and how she always told me to pay attention to the universe. But I don’t want him to know how my chest tightens at the sight of the most random things because of how intertwined my and Layla’s lives had become; how much I now hated her and how much I miss what we used to have.

  I look at his coppery eyes, so like mine. I reach up and straighten my glasses because they’re perpetually crooked.

  “What should I do instead, then?” I ask, crossing my arms.

  “It will just take time,” he insists.

  “No offense, Daddy,” I say, standing up, “but I have to try something.”

  I kiss his cheek and head to Dolly’s on my own.

  DOLLY’S

  When I emerge from the subway station, a few blocks from Dolly’s, the icy layer that covered the city for the last few days is starting to melt, making the streets glisten like they’re covered in a million flecks of glitter. Scaffolding and tree branches are dripping all over pedestrians and parked cars, and a few people even have umbrellas open like it’s raining.

  The diner where Layla and I used to spend so much time is old and completely adorable. I still love the pale blue awning, and the script DOLLY’S that’s painted on the widest front window. I’m obsessed with the food. And I adore the familiar way the door jingles, announcing my arrival as I push it open.

  There are a few cushy booths, a bar with stools, and mismatched café tables near the windows. There used to be a hostess, but no one comes forward as I step inside. I seat myself at one of the smaller tables, under a portrait of Langston Hughes.

  Since the beginning of the winter, the art featured on the walls has been a collection of famous black creatives in the style of classic Italian Renaissance paintings. Zora Neale Hurston rendered in the same pose as the Mona Lisa is over the table next to mine, and James Baldwin is in a gilded frame right beside her lounging like Venus of Urbino, but in a suit and tie. There are two girls sitting in a booth in the corner under Louis Armstrong, who’s leaning against a table like Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man.

  The girls in the booth are splitting a pair of earbuds, connected to one phone, listening to the same song. Layla and I used to do the same thing, and I miss the half sounds of sharing music with her.

  I feel her absence like it’s something physical in moments like these—like a part of me is actually missing; actually gone. It’s all kinds of devastating.

  I swallow hard and force myself to focus. I need to figure out what new memory I can make here all alone.

  I’m drinking my second glass of water, rereading a battered copy of Othello I always keep with me, and I’ve already ordered dinner when I hear a familiar voice say my name.

  “Cleo?”

  When I look up, Dominic Grey is standing at my table, wearing a pale blue apron that reads DOLLY’S across the chest, and the muscles in his arms flutter under his skin as he sets plates and glasses on the table. The small brass key strung around his neck bounces off his chest as he tucks the serving tray under his arm.

  “Hey,” I say. I look behind him like someone might be playing a trick on me. “You…work here?”

  He looks down at himself like he’s forgotten what he’s wearing. Or like he doesn’t know that his abundance of hotness is spilling all over the place.

  “Not exactly,” he says. “This is my grandparents’ joint. I usually stay in the kitchen.” He pauses and scratches his neck. “I like to cook.”

  “Oh,” I say, and I didn’t think I could be more undone by him being in such an unexpected place at such an unexpected time, but then he said that. I’ve seen him around school but I haven’t talked to him, talked to him since before winter break…for a number of reasons. I try to think of something else to ask him but all I can come up with is, “How’s it goin’?”

  He tilts his head. “You’re being mad weird, Shorty.”

  “Weird?” I ask, even though I know exactly what he means. After everything happened with Layla, I kind of dropped out of my whole life. I look at his eyes for a second, but with the sun slanting through the window, they’re the crystal clear brown of iced tea in a glass pitcher—too golden and pretty for me to hold his gaze for long.

  “Mad weird,” he repeats. He lowers himself onto the edge of the chair across from me and frowns.

  “I mean, you’ve been MIA as hell for weeks. Then you skip school on Friday, show up at my grandparents’ diner, and ask me how it’s going, like I’m a stranger?”

  He’s the last person I would have expected to notice my absence. It gives me a little thrill, and it’s almost enough for me to forget about my problems for a minute. I lean forward, my elbows on the table.

  “Aww, did you miss me?” I ask.

  Dom smirks and ducks his head a little. “Maybe,” he says.

  “No one to copy from in AP lit, huh?” I ask.

  He rubs one of his big hands over his short, intricately cut black hair. “Exactly,” he says.

  Another voice forces its way into our conversation as someone new approaches our table. “Where were you on Friday?”

  It’s Sydney Cox, fashion club president and a girl I tutored last semester. She failed her English midterm and needed to do some extra credit, which she aced with my help. She looks at me and tosses her wildly curly hair off her shoulders, revealing bright gold earrings that look like shooting stars. She seems to notice Dom later than she should.

  “Oh, hey,” she says. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

  “Why in the world are there so many Chisholm kids here today? And, I kind of don’t?” he says.

  “You guys short-staffed today or something?” I ask him.

  A pained expression crosses Dom’s face, but he catches himself and smooths out his features quickly.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  Sydney barely waits for him to finish. “Whatever. Listen. Cleo. I was looking for you on Friday. I was wondering if you could read my paper and like, give me some feedback on it.” When I look at her blankly, she adds, “The one for Novak’s class? I tried texting you, but you didn’t text back.”

  “Oh. Yeah, sorry. My mom confiscated my phone after I skipped on Friday. But, like, how did you know I’d be at Dolly’s? You don’t even live around here.”

  “Stalkerrrrr,” Dom whispers. I kind of laugh, but Sydney gives him a look that could melt ice.

  “It was a shot in the dark. You don’t remember bringing me here when you tutored me last semester?” she asks. I shake my head. “You totally did. And you said that you and Layla came here every Sunday. So I took a chance, and here you are!”

  Even hearing Layla’s name makes something inside my chest fracture, and I take a deep breath, trying to shake it off. Sydney must think it’s a sigh of annoyance or something.

  She leans closer. “You gotta help me,” she whispers. “Please. I’m desperate.”

  “Oh, shit,” Dom
says, and we both look at him. “Shit,” he says again, and then he says it a third time. “Are you talking about that Macbeth paper?”

  “Yep,” I say. “It’s due Tuesday.”

  “You didn’t forget about it, did you?” Sydney says next. “It’s worth like, half our grade.”

  “Shit,” Dom says one last time, and at the same time I turn to Sydney.

  “I don’t think he’d be cursing to himself if he’d already sent a perfect draft to Novak.”

  I don’t know why I say what I say next. Maybe because Sydney is already taking out her phone to email me her draft. Maybe because Dom looks terrified and a little pathetic when he was so confident a minute ago.

  It doesn’t hurt that he’s hot.

  “You need help, too?” I offer, and Dom’s deeply brown eyes grow wide.

  “You’d do that?” he asks. “Even right before it’s due?” I shrug, and nod.

  “Can you come by here after school tomorrow?” Dom asks, his whole face brightening.

  “Not until she helps me,” Sydney interjects.

  I put a hand on each of their arms. “Look. I’ll help Sydney today, and you tomorrow, Dom.”

  “That’s right. Me first,” Sydney teases, and her pale blue eyes dart from Dom to me until I promise to send her notes on her paper the second I get home.

  * * *

  —

  Between Sydney asking for my help and Dom coming back and forth to my table all night, my mind is perfectly preoccupied with homework and Shakespeare, with Sydney’s dumb jokes and Dom’s adorable grin.

  As I leave, I smile to myself. This new-memory thing might actually work.

  A WARNING

  Mom hands me my phone without a word Monday morning as we walk down the hallway of our apartment building. It isn’t until we’re outside, standing on the sidewalk where we usually part ways, that she turns to me.

  “I got a call from Layla’s mother on Friday. She’s who told me about you skipping.” She pulls out her phone. “Just so we’re clear, you’re definitely grounded, but I’m working late again tonight,” she says. “And I need to be able to get in touch with you.” I’m all giddy for about five seconds, but when she starts walking in the same direction as me, I realize she’s escorting me to school and I pause on the sidewalk, poised to negotiate.

  “If you keep my phone, do you still have to come with me to school?” I ask, holding it out to her even though I can see a ton of missed texts and calls.

  She doesn’t think the question is funny.

  “I never had to worry about you skipping when you and Layla were taking the train together every day,” she says under her breath but loudly enough that I can hear her. “When is that before-school program of hers going to end, again?” She’s asking about the lie I told her to explain why I don’t meet up with Layla in the morning anymore.

  “Dunno,” I say, lying more, keeping my eyes on my phone so she won’t be able to tell. My mother thinks Layla is the most perfect kid alive, so she’d be devastated if she knew I didn’t have such an “excellent influence” in my life anymore permanently.

  I take mental note of the fact that Mom doesn’t mention the most obvious reason I never used to skip school: that Daddy used to be the school librarian at Chisholm before he started working in the main branch of the New York Public Library, so he’d notice right away if I was absent. She smooths a strand of her thick black hair and tucks it behind her diamond-studded ear. Then she reaches out and does the same to one of my braids.

  Her hair is relaxed and cut into a neat, even bob, while mine is natural—my braids fuzzy and draped all over my shoulders. She’s stopped making me straighten it, but I know she’d still prefer if I did. As soon as she lowers her hand, I shake my head to get a dozen more of the braids in my face again.

  She sighs deeply, like in the last ten minutes she’s gotten her fill of Cleo time for the month. The feeling is mutual.

  Mom and I have never exactly gotten along. Gigi used to be our referee, but since we lost her, we’ve been drifting further and further apart. It probably doesn’t help that the year Gigi died was the same year I got my period, acne, and my first crush; the same year Mom’s PR business really took off. While I cried constantly, losing it over just about everything, Mom threw herself into work. We fractured. And Mom making Daddy move out in December was the final straw. We’ve been a different kind of broken ever since.

  “Can I at least trust you to go into the building, or do I need to get off the train and walk you inside?” she says as we push through the turnstile and onto the platform. I pocket my MetroCard and roll my eyes so hard I see stars. Just as I’m about to respond, her phone rings, probably saving us both from saying something we’d regret. She fishes it out of her bag and says, “Naomi Bell,” in a singsong voice. She was only ever Naomi Baker on her marriage license and her passport.

  “No,” she says into the phone in her “white-lady voice,” as I used to call it. She sounds just a touch more proper whenever she’s on a business call—her gerunds regaining their g’s and her Brooklyn accent ceasing to exist. “No. That is completely and absolutely unacceptable.”

  I take out my own phone and catch up on what I missed. I see Sydney’s desperate messages first.

  Cleo. I need you.

  How do I Shakespeare?

  Where are you even?

  HEEELLLPPP.

  They make me laugh. Next, I see one from Dom. Got your phone back yet, Shorty?

  Right below his message I see a name I haven’t seen in months—a name I thought I’d never see on my phone again. Layla.

  I need to talk to you.

  Something about the message makes me instantly angry. My temperature rises. Just as I’m well on my way to forgetting that she exists, she reinserts herself into my life with a dumb, vague text. I’m tempted to send her something awful back, something like Well, I never want to talk to YOU again, but that’s when my mom’s voice chirps loudly right next to me, her call having ended as abruptly as it started.

  “So, as I was saying. I really need you to take a more active role in your education, Cleo. You’re a sophomore, and you’ll be going off to college soon, but as a young black woman everything is going to be more challenging for you. People will expect less of you just because of the way you look. So if you need me to physically walk you into that building, I will, just so you understand the gravity of the situation. As a matter of fact, I’d like to know why they didn’t call me about your absences. But I’m running late and—”

  “I don’t think I’ll get lost between the station and the four blocks it takes to get to school,” I say darkly, thinking more about Layla than anything else. The school has been calling our landline, but I’ve been deleting the messages before Mom gets home. Her blood-red nails, which have been tapping away at the screen of her cellphone, freeze, and she takes a step closer to me. When I look up, her eyes are shining like the raindrop-shaped black diamonds in her earlobes. Her voice comes out low and fast.

  “Watch your mouth, Cleo Imani. My concern is not unfounded.”

  I want to roll my eyes again, but I’d risk an even more embarrassing public scolding. I look left and right, but the other people on the platform aren’t paying us any attention. Sometimes it feels like my whole life is playing out for whoever is close enough to see it.

  “I know,” I whisper in her direction, hoping my tone is even enough that it won’t earn me a quick, stinging pop across the lips. Naomi Bell brings the same ferocity to everything she does—she is not opposed to making her point by any means necessary, as a publicist or a mother.

  “Okay, then,” she says.

  I straighten my glasses and stand beside her, wishing she were more like Gigi; wishing I could make everything about us better and nicer and easier; wishing that either I were still friends with Layla or I could some
how make every trace of her disappear from my life forever.

  The platform rumbles, and we both take a step back. The train is coming, and it feels like a sign.

  Or a warning.

  then: August

  THE FIRST DAY

  When school started, things were weird almost instantly.

  For one thing, Jase was acting like we were all best friends.

  “Lay!” he said, throwing his arms wide, calling Layla by my nickname for her. Since he and I no longer kissed, he was not allowed to use that, but I didn’t know how to take the term of endearment away from him. Besides, what’s in a name and all that, right?

  I mean, his name means “healer,” but we broke up.

  “Cleo Imani Baker,” he sang next, and though we were cool and everything post-breakup, we weren’t hang-out-in-the-hall-before-class cool. Layla nudged me in the ribs and widened her eyes in Mason’s direction. He was a few feet away from us, and she clearly wanted to go talk to him. I realized then that Jase didn’t really want to talk to me—he was just wingmanning it for Mason. I sighed and slipped my arm out of hers to let her go.

  “Hey, Jase,” I said flatly. “I’m gonna be late.”

  This wasn’t exactly true and Jase knew it, so he was at best undeterred and at worst encouraged. He took a few steps closer to me, and I could smell the sweetness of the product he used in his hair. It made me remember what his collarbone felt like against my lips. It made me want to hide.

  I kept my distance, but Jase didn’t, and when he lifted one of my long braids, I swatted it out of his hand.

  “Jesus, chill, Cleo. I was just going to say, I like this.” He gestured at my hair.

  My braids were fresh; my edges, laid. I was wearing a loosely knitted black sweater over my uniform shirt, and my favorite floral combat boots. It was the first day of school, so of course I looked good.