CHAPTER 27

“Fish out, fish it out!” Afu moved his arms as if he was the one holding the net, like he could help steer my hands to catch the slippery shrimp at the bottom of the tank.

“Just give me a damn minute!” I said.

I’d worn a red dress, one Afu had bought for me back when we were an item, and some matching pumps I’d borrowed from Mama. It wasn’t the most ideal attire for bending over any fish tanks, trying to catch our seafood dinner, but I’d forgotten Afu had mentioned it was that type of restaurant. I was better at catching dragons anyway – in any outfit.

Afu had shown up in a blazer, jeans, and solid gray t-shirt. We’d met outside the restaurant, McCaffrey’s Catch ’n’ Fry, because I thought him picking me up would make it too much of a date.

The squirmy shrimp I’d been hunting ran into a corner where I nabbed him with the net. “Gotcha, you little bastard.”

I scooped it out and dropped it into the metal basket the restaurant had provided.

“This might take all night,” Afu said, as I handed him the net. “I can’t eat just one shrimp.”

“Go for a lobster. They’re way slower.”

“Yeah, but they cost way too damn much.”

“Then maybe you should have taken me to McDonald’s.”

He shrugged and began going for one of the bigger lobsters.

After thirty minutes of failing to grab enough food for dinner, we requested the staff do the catching for us and took our seats near the big window overlooking Parthenon’s midtown.

Afu took a sip of water. “How can we catch a phoenix if we can’t even catch a crustacean?”

“Maybe we should have brought the others here, made it a training exercise.”

He reached out and grabbed my hand on top of the table. “I just wanted this to be the two of us.”

Pulling my hand away, I pointed to the black candle on our table. “I like the color choice. Most fancy restaurants like this have white candles. Nice touch.”

“I’m worried about Harribow,” he said.

And I really wished he hadn’t. It was already taking all I had not to feel like shit for having a night out while yet another one of our people lay in a bed surrounded by propellerheads.

“I’m worried about Brannigan,” I said. “And everybody else who had the curate. How do we protect them?”

“By killing the phoenix.”

“Yeah, but how do we do that? We can’t just let everyone burn. We told them the dragon blood would save them. Now, it’s just another thing to wipe us all out.”

“You think that’s really the thing going on?” He stuffed a slice of bread into his mouth and ate the whole thing in one bite. “Is that why we’re not going crazy and bursting into flames. How can that bird make the blood do that?”

This really wasn’t the conversation I wanted to be having.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s like a detonation, I guess. It was only supposed to be for the dragons, but we fucked it all up. I mean, Yolanda has always said we can do what we do because we have a little dragon DNA. I always thought it was bullshit.”

“So… non-smokies don’t have, like, a biological filter?”

“You’re getting too scientific for my pay grade. Either way, we’ll get this figured out.” I grabbed a slice of bread from the basket and dragged a buttered knife across its surface.

“This phoenix has gotten me thinking, though,” he said.

“Hmm?” I kept my eyes on the bread, raking the butter here and there like a Zen garden.

“About new beginnings. Old things being reborn. Like… you and me.”

I dropped my knife.

“You know,” he said. “How things can burn down but come back to life. It’s kind of beautiful.”

Setting the bread aside, I cleared my throat. “I know you’re trying to be sweet or romantic or whatever, but it’s probably not the best analogy to use right now.”

“Oh.” He looked out the window. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“I’m tired, Afu. I was so burnt out with catching dragons. I wanted something more exciting. But like they say, be careful what you wish for, because I got more than I can handle.”

“But you’re doing great. I wouldn’t want any other captain.”

I nodded. “That’s right. I’m your captain. And this…”

Waving my hand over the table, even as the waiter brought over our seafood, I realized had been a mistake.

“I have to go, Afu.”

“Go? Our food just got here. I was going to take you to the arcade.”

A lump formed in my throat. Tears stung at the corners of my eyes. I felt like shit. I wanted to have a good time with Afu. I wanted to be open to raising our relationship from the dead. But I just couldn’t. I suddenly felt the weight of everything, like it had always been there, but I only just figured out that it was suffocating me. Like a frog put in a pot, the heat turning up ever so slowly till the damn thing is boiled.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and left him there at the table.

I slammed the door of my parents’ house and stomped up the stairs to my bedroom.

“Tammy?” My mama called from the living room. “Are you okay?”

No, I wasn’t okay. And I sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it.

I flung myself onto the bed and buried my face into a pillow. Blindly, I grabbed the remote to the holostereo and kept hitting buttons, surfing through music: a smooth jazz R&B groove, a dark rock song about selling your soul for love. Other beats, other melodies, searching for the right tune to drown myself in. None of them fit. They all just pissed me off, so I turned the stereo off and screamed into the pillow until the silence of my room won out.

Three knocks came from my door before it opened.

“Tamerica,” my mama said. “Can I come in?”

I stayed still. After a few seconds, the weight of Mama’s body sank onto the edge of my bed.

“Did your date go bad?”

I turned over, showed Mama my red eyes and wet cheeks.

“Oh, baby,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s too much, Mama. The world is crumbling and everybody expects me to keep going. To lead them. I’m supposed to be strong. I’m supposed to fight the bad stuff. But I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You’re my girl. You can do anything.”

“You’re not helping!”

My daddy called from the first floor. “What the hell is going on up there?”

“Everything’s fine,” Mama called back. “Finish your robot show.”

I closed my eyes and let the tears fall wherever they wanted. Mama didn’t say anything for a long time. But I could hear her breathing. She began rubbing a hand up and down my arm like she used to when I was a little girl.

“I remember when you were in fourth grade,” she said. “You were always a big girl, but always so beautiful and happy. But this one day you came home crying. They were having a field day the next week and some mean little boy told you that you’d never win the footrace because of your weight.”

“Charlie Gunther,” I said. I’d heard the little bastard had grown up to die on E-Day.

“I never remembered his name,” Mama said. “But what I do remember is coming to your room, just like now. I wiped your tears and you told me all about it. Do you remember what I said to you?”

I vaguely remembered. Keeping my mouth shut, so I wouldn’t wail, I lay there waiting for her to tell me.

“I told you that you were the strongest, most resourceful creation on God’s green earth, and that you could do anything that you put your mind to. I told you that giving up would only make that little boy right, and that if you gave it your best, you could have that mean little punk choking on your dust. And do you remember what happened after that?”

“I trained with everything I had, ran every day. When we had the race, I smoked that bastard and everybody else.”

“You came home with the trophy,” Mama said. “And I told you to never, ever forget what you did. And I guess I’m here tonight to remind you. You were born special. You were called to protect people who can’t protect themselves. Nobody said it was going to be easy, baby, but let me tell you something: my daughter, my Tamerica, doesn’t give up.”

I sat up and hugged my mama. I cried some more, but this time it was because a determination had seized me and I told myself I was never going to give in. Not to the phoenix, the dragons, or anybody else. I soaked my mama’s shoulders in tears, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Thank you, Mama.”

“Sink or swim, baby.” She patted my back, the way only mamas can. “Sink or swim.”