Present Day
That meeting with Velvet Marie Rollins turned my life upside down. In a conversation that lasted less than an hour, she offered a job opportunity to create art that was exclusive to Langston Lakes’ history and future, and a chance to be close to her daughter, my heart, for the first time since she broke me.
When Mrs. Rollins reached out about this project, she was tight-lipped about the details. She urged me to meet with her so she could sell me on her vision in person. I knew the recent hurricane hit their vineyard pretty hard, and I also knew my cousin Julius offered to buy the land from them so they could recoup some of their losses. Her email talked about a rebrand and reopening of the vineyard, and that’s where I came in. My curiosity was piqued enough to hear her proposal; it had nothing to do with reconnecting with Marie because she didn’t want me. I wasn’t working with her mother as a pathway to winning her heart.
That’s why I tried my hardest to ignore her presence in that meeting. Despite my heart beating at stroke levels, and my dick doing a constant happy dance at the thought of being next to her, I didn’t speak past a cordial greeting and an exchange of contact information so we could iron out expectations and deadlines. Even if I wanted to say something more, what would I say?
I miss you? I think about you everyday? I wanna break every nigga in half who gets the pleasure of being with you? I immortalize you in my art?
None of that shit even made sense for me to think, let alone say out loud to her. I couldn’t control my thoughts, but I could control my actions, and that meant I wasn’t going to sweat her. Beyond the work her family wanted, she wouldn’t have access to me, no matter how loudly my dick protested. Thankfully, he could be satisfied a lot easier than my heart.
I stepped back from the mid-sized canvas and dropped the paint brush on the tray with the others. Several hues of blue paint ran together into the image of a woman staring at a blank notepad. Her thick, locked hair was pulled into a bun at the top of her head, and the finest details were in her features. The slanted honey eyes, long eyelashes, full lips. The never-ending curiosity shining in her eyes. She was the same woman I’d been painting for years.
When I got back from that meeting, a mixture of negative emotions battled for dominance over my mind and body. I ordered food and started the painting to give those feelings somewhere to go, and as usual, my art served as a reflection for the woman that ruled my universe.
The doorbell and my empty stomach put my mind back on the food. I hustled to the front door and opened it, not expecting the surprise on the other side.
Alondra Bridgewater. My ex stood on my doorstep holding the bag of Ethiopian food I ordered and a separate brown paper bag with a wine bottle sticking out.
“Alondra.”
“Madi.” The joy in her smile and tone were genuine. She held up the bags. “So I’m driving around doing my nightly food deliveries and imagine my surprise when your name and address popped up in my app.”
“Imagine my surprise,” I said, stepping back to let her in. I closed the door and nodded at the other bag. “I assume that’s why you stopped and got wine, because I didn’t order that.”
“I figured we could celebrate this random, unplanned reunion,” she grinned knowingly, and I picked up on the not-so-subtle shit she was putting down. “It’s been too long.” I took the bags from her and walked into the kitchen for wine glasses.
I hadn’t seen her in years, since the last time I was in Langston Lake. Our cycle of bullshit lasted twenty years too long. It started in high school, naïveté and curiosity sparked between us. The sex was good, but I never wanted more than that from Alondra. She knew because I always kept it real with her. Friends with amazing benefits was the name of our game, and we rocked like that until a few years ago.
She popped up pregnant and told me it was mine. We fucked around enough for that to be a real possibility, so I made the necessary moves to transition into fatherhood. I stopped most of my international travel and bought my first home in Langston Lake with several bedrooms and enough space for a playground in my backyard for my seed. I cut furniture commissions short and poured all of my time into building furniture for a baby room, and making my space comfortable enough for Alondra to come live with me. At least for a little while.
We weren’t playing house, but if she was having my baby, then that made her family. She wasn’t wifey, but if she was going to birth my legacy, I wanted her close so I could make sure she and my baby were good. Taking care of them brought a lot of inner peace; a peace that toppled the day a random motherfucker showed up at my door claiming to be my unborn child’s real father.
I dropped Alondra like she was a bad habit, packed up my shit, and jetted off on another world tour. Getting lost in my art again helped me heal from that betrayal, and gave me the courage to approach the woman I did want. The one who ultimately turned me down.
“You look good,” Alondra said when I handed her the wine glass. “Welcome home, Madi.” She raised her glass to mine and then we drank. I sat my glass down and eyed her.
Even in basic jeans and a t-shirt, her body was amazing. Pregnancy and childbirth had only enhanced what was already there. She was still insanely pretty, the kind that made rich niggas pay bills, so I didn’t understand why she was out doing food deliveries every night. But that wasn’t my business.
“You look good, too. The years have been good to you.”
“Ooh, don’t make me blush, Madi,” she said. “I might start to think you mean it.”
I shrugged lightheartedly.
“Do you want some of my food? I’m not going to be able to finish this.” I offered to be polite, and I wasn’t ready for her to leave just yet.
“Nope. I ate before I left the house. So, tell me, how long are you in town for?”
“Indefinitely.” I hadn’t told anyone except Cameryn and Julius, who I bought the building from, about The Artisan Academy.
“Ooh. Are we finally going to see Mr. Amadi Silver the Third settle down and plant real roots?”
Not with you.
Thinking about planting roots sent my mind right back into Marie territory. What was she doing right now? Had she planted roots yet?
“Something like that,” I said. I ignored Alondra’s hopeful tone. Any roots I planted in Langston Lake wouldn’t be in her soil.
“Well, I’m glad you’re home. I miss you,” she said. She put her wine glass on the counter and boldly stepped in between my legs.
We’d arrived at the real reason she was here. If she was going to throw pussy, I’d catch it. She was good at being the kind of freak a lot of women pretended they were too innocent to be; and I needed the distraction.
“Mm. You miss me.” I moved a lock of dark brown hair off her neck and kissed her there. “Or you miss it?” I asked directly. Fuck dinner for now. Time for dessert.
She cocked an eyebrow and turned the side of her mouth up into a devious grin. Alondra didn’t play shy, something I always loved about our encounters.
“Mr. Silver, in my world, there’s enough room for me to miss both.”
“Show me what that means.”
* * *
True to form, Alondra rode my dick like she did miss me. She gave me a release that relaxed my body from the stiffness I’d adopted in that meeting. After several hours of going at it back to back, I struggled to peel Alondra off of me and get her out my house. I didn’t mind the warm body and the cuddling after, but I didn’t want to get any wires crossed with her. Plus, I needed to consult with myself on why the fuck Marie’s face was all I could see while my dick was inside another woman.
After she left, I showered and climbed in bed, looking forward to my mental and physical exhaustion pulling me into dreamless sleep. But my heart won the night’s battle and kept me up thinking about Marie’s pretty face and what I was going to do now that she was back in Langston Lake. I tried to sketch, but the only thing I could put on the page were my visions of her. Images I wanted to be free of, and now, thanks to this new project, I probably never would be.
I glanced at the glowing clock on top of my dresser. It was just past eleven, but I knew the one woman capable of sorting all of this shit out was likely still woke. I took a chance and dialed her number, grateful when she answered on the first ring.
“Madi,” she breathed my name and all the love she felt came with it. My heart warmed. No matter where I was in the world, how physically far away from her, I always felt the love like I was right there in her home.
“Hey Mama.”
“What’s got you up this late? Burning the midnight oil?”
“Something like that.” I tossed the sketchpad aside and got out of the bed. “What are you doing? Painting?”
“Mhm.”
My mother still worked as an elementary school teacher like she’d been doing since before I was born. She was passionate about education, but her natural talent and favorite hobby was painting. People loved my work and my shit had sold to the tune of a few millions at this point, but nothing in my portfolio could hold a candle to anything she painted while sipping coffee, listening to the Blues, and avoiding a regular sleep schedule.
“You finally going to throw something up in one of the gallery shows this Fall or what?” I teased. Mama was a genius with that paint brush, but she wasn’t interested in sharing or facilitating opportunities for people to perceive her work.
“Boy, hush. You know if I do anything, I’m gonna wrap it up and send it to your Aunt Eva.” Mama’s twin sister Aunt Eva lived about fifty miles north and was the only person in this world who owned paintings by Mama.
I nodded like she could see me as I stalked into the kitchen and opened the door to the small wine fridge built into the matte black island in the center. Mama hummed along with the Blues playing in her background and I pulled out a bottle of Chablis. I uncorked and poured a glass and then walked out the stylish French doors to my back patio.
“What’s on your mind, Madi?”
“Nothing much. I thought I’d call my favorite girl since I haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”
“Well, you know you can stop by whenever. Dinner is at the same time it’s always been.”
My stomach rumbled at the mere thought of her collard greens and neckbones. I’d had food from almost every corner of the world and none of it compared to anything from my mother’s kitchen.
“I’ll come over one night this week.”
“Good,” she said, and returned to humming her songs. I drank more of my wine and stared up at the moon, contemplating everything.
My art. My family. Langston Lake. Marie.
When I peeled back the layers even a little bit on either of those thoughts, it was impossible not to connect them. My art, my passion for creating anything with my hands, was in me. I was just another in a long line of Silvers with these talents, but shit ran a little deeper for me. Like one of my cousins somewhere deep in my ancestral tree, I was named after my great-great-great uncle, Amadi Jonathan Silver. He was one of the first construction workers in Langston Lake and responsible for building homes in several of those earlier neighborhoods.
Back then, people loved his work, but that same love and praise never extended to the artist. The Silvers didn’t have the same kind of money as the other families, not then and not now. Art, creativity, crafting, those never paid bills and produced multi-generational wealth. He built houses for the Bridgewaters and the Langstons that he would never be able to afford for himself, and those same people reaping the benefits of his hard work and talent quietly shunned him for that. When it came time for that generation of Bridgewaters, Langstons, Rollins, and Silvers to marry off and start families, nobody saw him as a viable option for their daughters.
It didn’t matter that he created things everyone loved and adored, that didn’t increase his capital, and at that time, you needed capital to get the lady. Hell, you still need that shit. Despite people constantly telling him to focus on his craft, not marriage, he fell in love with Delilah Rollins. They tried to keep their love a secret, mainly from her father, who pushed for her to marry a Bridgewater. But when she got pregnant, everything came to the light. Everybody in town, save for a few family members, basically shut my uncle out of the community. When Delilah gave birth to a stillborn baby, history closed the door on their love story. It ripped him in pieces and he drank himself into an unforgiving addiction, and eventually to his death.
This town that I loved so deeply that its history and culture ran through my veins refused my uncle his happily ever after because they didn’t see him as enough. And I didn’t know shit about any of that until the day I overheard Mrs. Rollins telling her husband the same thing about me.
I was just a senior in high school, hanging around with Alondra, Marie, Emerson, and a few others. Nothing was set in stone for me at that point, but I was sure about two things: Art was going to pay my bills and Marie was the most beautiful girl in the world with the soul to match. I don’t think she knew, and if she did, she played it cool. Besides, Emerson was her boyfriend back then. She wasn’t even checking for a nigga.
At the city-wide art show where my work got me noticed by the people who would provide my full ride scholarship to Basquiat University, Marie made a comment in front of her parents and mine, about me being any girl’s dream man. That shit rocked me to my core and was the highlight of that night. Until I walked past her parents staring at one of my paintings and ear hustled on a sentence that shocked me back to my reality.
“I won’t deny the boy’s talent, but that doesn’t change anything about who he is. He is not enough for a girl like Marie.”
That shit tore through my insides and I didn’t even know why. Later that night, Mama could sense the change in my demeanor and pushed me to talk to her until I broke down and shared what I heard. Then she shared the story of my namesake.
Shit clicked into place for me then. I was motivated to pursue my passion to make my ancestors proud and to make Mrs. Rollins eat her words. I never imagined Marie might feel the same way as her mother, until she showed me.
“I saw Marie at the grocery store today,” Mama said quietly, abruptly snatching me out of my deep thought. My response was nothing because I had nothing to add to that.
“Could that be the reason why you called to sit and listen to me hum the Blues, a genre you claim to hate?”
“I don’t hate the Blues. I just hate the sorrow in the words.”
“A sorrow you can relate to.”
It wasn’t a question because she knew the answer already. When I didn’t immediately respond, she exhaled audibly and then the music stopped.
“Madi, there is no way to both stay and go. The head decision maker in your life is you, and with that power, you can decide to fight for the things you want, or you can release your idea of and desire for them.”
And right there, in a few quick words, was the reason I called her.
“However you choose, don’t allow life’s inevitable crossroads to reduce you to a passive bystander in your existence.”
“I hear you, Mama,” I murmured, cycling her words through my mind.
“I hope you do. When you get to this restless place you’re in tonight and it feels like somebody else is controlling the game, take your watch off and turn it over.”
Her words poured a warmth all over iciness I didn’t even realize I felt. That warmth wrapped me in her love, my constant, and fixed my focus on what mattered.
“Now, go get that rest you’re fighting; I’ll see you later this week. I love you Amadi Silver III, and I am so proud of you.”
“I love you too.”
Our call ended and I stood and stretched my limbs towards the sky. Despite the chill in the night air, I was still warm, wrapped in Mama’s words. In the bedroom, I grabbed my wooden watch off the dresser. It was a Silver heirloom, something my father got from his father, and he got from his father. Before my dad passed away shortly after I left for college, he had it engraved and gifted it to me for Christmas.
I couldn’t really see the small inscription with nothing illuminating my room except the moon shining through my window, but I could feel the tiny grooves in the wood beneath my thumb pad. I ran my finger over the words and let them cement the mantra in my head.
“Be a clock builder, not just a time-teller.”