“Yas, go!” Isa came up behind me and kept trying to push me toward Tyler. “You can do this!”
I turned around to face her instead. “Isa, look.”
She glanced down at my phone and swiped on the email notification. We both leaned over the screen and read the entire thing together.
To Ms. Yasmeen Kiani,
This letter is to inform you that the Columbia Pike Neighborhood Association has filed a complaint with Arlington County regarding your upcoming opening of a food and beverage establishment. Our goal is to find a resolution that is beneficial to all parties before moving forward with a new business opening. Your provisional license is currently suspended, pending further investigation. Please contact our investigator listed below on Monday morning to set up an appointment to go over the business plans and areas of concern.
Thank you,
Arlington County
“How can they do that?” Isa looked as shocked as I felt. “You are literally opening in two weeks. We just passed out hundreds of flyers with the opening date on it—and we have a sold out opening show!”
Every word out of her mouth was only making me more anxious about the entire situation. Because, yes, we were absolutely screwed if this was true.
“I don’t know,” I said. “They had approved everything. Even at the meeting, they said we were good to go. I mean, not everyone on the board was excited about it, but we got the majority vote.”
“It was provisional, but this still doesn’t make sense. Something had to have changed.” Isa pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to start making some calls.”
I felt completely numb when Tyler walked up to me.
“Are you okay?” She frowned, searching my face.
I didn’t even have the energy to respond, and instead just handed her my phone so that she could read the email for herself. I watched quietly as her eyes scanned back and forth and then went wide.
“What!” She gasped. “They can’t do that!”
“They did,” I replied, taking my phone back. “Something had to have happened. I don’t get it.”
“Should I call my dad?” Tyler asked.
Walter Adams wasn’t exactly the person I thought would save us in this situation. Hell, for all I knew, he was the one who had put us in it to begin with.
“Your dad?” I shook my head. “It would be in his political best interests for this bar to never open in the first place—especially with your name attached to it.”
She took a step back, and a look of hurt crossed her expression. “I know he’s not the biggest fan, but he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, Yas. He knows how much this means to me—because he knows how much you mean to me.”
Frustration was beginning to rage boil in my gut, and I could feel the tension spreading across my limbs. I’d been so close—so freaking close—to my dream, and everything had been perfect this time. I’d failed at business more times than most, but this was supposed to be my saving grace. KiKi wasn’t just another entrepreneurial whim. My entire soul was in this bar and the mission it was aiming to further, the help it was going to provide people, and the safe haven I wanted it to be.
“Tyler, you can’t be that naive. Yeah, he’s your dad, but he’s a lobbyist whose income is dependent on who and what he backs—a queer bar isn’t going to get a nod of approval from Senator McCarty or any of the shit he lobbies for.” I could hear the little voice in my head telling me to shut up, yet, my mouth kept moving. “You can’t keep pretending like he supports you being gay when his entire career is aimed at limiting and removing your rights. He might tolerate your queerness, but he doesn’t support who you are, and you know that.”
She swallowed hard, her gaze dropping to look down at her feet. The golden crown on her head fell slightly to the side.
“Wow.” Her single response was flat in tone. “I guess it’s good to know how you really feel.”
“Tyler...” I didn’t really have anything to follow that up with.
“You know, your family isn’t perfect either.” Tyler lifted her chin, and her words were soft in tone but felt as heavy as a weighted blanket. “This is the first thing you’ve done that your dad has supported at all. Period. My dad isn’t perfect, but he has championed everything I’ve done since I was born. I never had to question that.”
Shit. Now I really didn’t have anything to follow up with. We were miles into Battle of the Dads territory, and neither one of us was going to win that one.
Tyler looked down at her feet again, then slowly shook her head. “I am going to head home. It’s hot, and today’s been a lot.”
I stayed quiet. Honestly, I didn’t want to convince her to stay. I just wanted to burst into flames and punch a weighted bag repeatedly. “Okay.”
There was no goodbye or embrace. Instead, Tyler just turned on her heels and walked away from me.
And I let her.
“It’s not good,” Isa said, walking back to me with her phone still in her hand and pressed against her ear. She’d completely missed the exchange between Tyler and me and I wasn’t about to fill her in on it. “I’m still trying to get more information, but three people on the board who voted in your favor have changed their minds. They held a special vote privately again, and this time, you didn’t get the majority.”
I frowned. “They can do a special vote without even telling us?”
Isa nodded. “It’s in the bylaws. If there is concern for the integrity of the neighborhood, they can revisit previous votes.”
“Now we’re an integrity concern, too?” What the hell was happening? This was absolutely ridiculous and felt targeted.
“Where did Tyler go?” Isa asked, changing the topic as she glanced around. “We should ask her if she can get her father to help.”
I swallowed hard. “Uh, I think that ship might have sailed.”
Isa narrowed her eyes at me…again. “I can’t leave you alone for two minutes without you self-sabotaging something.”
Okay, if Isa was telling me that, then I really needed to take a look at myself because I felt completely unhinged. Like, I wasn’t even in charge of what I was doing anymore.
I was on autopilot and the system was set to self-destruct.
“Let’s get back to KiKi and strategize,” Isa continued. “In reality, we might have to consider changing venues. I’ll have my assistant send us a full list of open retail spots in Arlington, Virginia by the time we get there so we can review.”
Moving locations would be an incredible amount of money out of my pocket. We were already more than halfway done with renovations on the current space, and having to redo those efforts in a new location would double the start-up costs. Not to mention all our business information, legal paperwork, and marketing had been done with that specific address. That would be a bit easier to change but an absolute time-sucking headache for me.
“I can’t.” My feet literally wouldn’t move on the pavement.
Isa turned back to look at me. “What?”
“I can’t strategize right now,” I repeated. “Tomorrow. I’ll meet you at KiKi first thing tomorrow morning, and we’ll hit the ground running figuring all of this shit out. But not tonight. I have to…I have to go.”
She looked slightly concerned, but the trust on her face reminded me why I appreciated her friendship so much. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, Yas. We’re going to figure this out.”
I attempted the smallest of smiles and nodded my head. “See you tomorrow.”
It wasn’t lost on me that Isa had nothing to gain personally or financially by working so hard to help me make KiKi a reality, and that she was using her time and connections to benefit me. I was beginning to realize that her friendship meant a lot more to me than I had ever realized. When Mila had gotten married and had a baby, Rachel and I had both drifted apart a little bit, and I had been very cognizant of the hole both women had left behind.
But Isa had stepped in and filled it seamlessly—not in a way that replaced Mila, no one could do that. And, of course, Rachel was still a part of my life as often as she’d let me. But Isa brought an excitement and security to friendship that felt like an antidote to a nameless period of deep loss in my life.
By the time I arrived on my sister’s doorstep in Oxon Hill, Maryland less than thirty minutes later, tears were streaming down my face, and my contemplative Lyft ride over had me completely lost in my feelings.
Nia opened the front door to her three-bedroom, three-bathroom house that she’d gotten for the same price as a studio in Washington, DC. It was unbelievable how much the landscape could change even in such a short distance, but I’d always been so proud of her for saving up her own money from her job to buy this piece of property all on her own.
My older sister took one look at me and frowned. “Oh, Lord. Get inside.”
Shoulders slumped, I walked past her into the foyer and made my way right to her living room. Nia lived alone except for her long-haired gray male cat with white paws and a black nose that looked like a giant dust bunny and was currently sitting on the arm of her couch. I ignored him and threw myself onto the cushions.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said in the most dramatic fashion I could muster as I buried my face in the couch cushions.
I let out a growl-scream-type sound into the fabric then flopped over onto my back and kicked my feet up on the coffee table in front of me. Nia’s house was a walking advertisement for Home Goods, and as many times as I’d told her a house could only have so many live, laugh, love signs, she wanted no part of my opinion on it.
Nia had followed me more slowly and apparently took a detour to the kitchen because when she sat in the armchair across from me, she suddenly had a large mug of coffee in her hand. “I just brewed a pot. Want any?”
I closed my eyes and crossed my hands over my chest like I was in my own coffin. “Is it Folgers?”
“Maxwell House.”
A loud wail left my mouth. “Could today get any worse?”
Nia laughed. “Listen, I’m glad you’re here. I need some help.”
“Can I do it while not moving from this spot?” I came over to her house for help, and of course she’s got me helping her instead. “My legs are broken after the parade.”
“That’s fine. I only need your hands.”
A loud metallic clanging sound made me open my eyes really quick, and I saw Nia scooting a giant five-gallon water jug in front of me. The entire thing was filled with pennies, however. Not water.
“What the hell is this?” I sat up now and peered over the edge of the couch and into the jug. “Did you rob a bank or something?”
Nia shook her head as she took the seat next to me and reached into the jug. “No, I collect these and then go through them every year to find the coins of value.”
She extracted a penny that looked pretty dirty. “See, this one says 1985. It’s worth nothing. I mean, it’s worth a penny, but nothing more. We’ll put those ones in rolls.”
She handed me a stack of coin-rolling papers. “If you find one that’s from before 1982, put it to the side because that’s worth at least two and a quarter penny. They are mostly copper, but the ones they make since then are majority zinc and nobody wants that.”
I lifted my gaze to Nia’s face and just blinked a few times. “You are a coin collector?”
Had I ever even met my sister before? How did I not know she did this? There were thousands of pennies here—literally.
“Of course not,” she countered, extracting the next coin. “I sell them for a profit. It’s my side hustle.”
“At two and a quarter penny for an hour of sorting?” I reached in and grabbed a handful of coins and flattened them in my palm. “That is the worst side hustle I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Nia shrugged. “That’s rich coming from you.”
She had a point.
For the next thirty minutes, we sat quietly and just sorted through pennies. I actually found one penny that was from 1980, and although I’d never admit it, that was quite thrilling. I could kind of understand why my sister liked doing this—not that I’d ever do this unprompted on my own.
But still…I found one!
“Do you want to keep it?” my sister asked.
I palmed the dirty penny and rolled it over into my other hand. “Are you sure? It’s worth a whole two cents.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Nia replied, taking the coin from me and holding it up between her thumb and index finger. “Another way to look at it is that it’s worth double its value. That’s pretty impressive for something that’s been through so much wear and tear. Even after all these years, not only did it hold on to its worth, but it doubled it.”
I grinned slowly, but I could feel the weight on my chest lightening ever so much. “Is this a big sister teaching moment?”
She shrugged and handed the old penny back to me. “You asked for my two cents.”
I laughed.
There was a whole period in my twenties where I pitied myself for not growing up with my mother in my life. Losing her so young, I’d never even gotten the chance to know her, and that had been a hard pill to swallow when I’d seen friends at college go home to their parents or call their mothers or anything like that.
It wasn’t until I was about to turn thirty and my sister was already forty-one years old that I’d realized a lot of what I’d been grieving missing out on had been in my life, just in the form of Nia, my big sister. It wasn’t her role to be my mother, and she never should have had to fill those shoes. But she had. She mothered me my entire life, and I never said thank you. She never asked me to.
I glanced around her empty house as she kept sorting more pennies, wondering if her giving up so much of her life to take care of me meant that she’d lost the chance to pursue her own. I hoped that wasn’t the case, and that if she still wanted to find a partner one day, she would. I knew if I asked her, she’d cut her eyes at me and tell me I was being stupid.
So instead, I just leaned my shoulder into hers and pressed in slightly. “Thanks for the penny, Nia. I think I’ll keep it.”
She nodded, but didn’t look at me. “The guest room is set up if you want to stay the night. I’m making smothered pork chops for dinner.”
My brows perked up at that. “With your white sauce?”
“Yup.”
Signed, sealed, delivered. “I guess I can stay.”
Nia handed me another fistful of pennies. “Keep sorting. We have a lot to get through if we’re going to finish tonight.”
There was zero chance we were getting through five gallons worth of pennies tonight, but I kept sorting anyway. It was every bit the distraction, and somehow also the reminder, that I needed today.
Tomorrow, I’d go back to the bar and figure out how to move forward with Isa. I’d apologize to Tyler and maybe send a fruit basket or something to her dad—whatever she wanted. This bar was going to happen somehow, even if we hit road bumps like this licensure issue. I’d hit bumps in the road before and let them steer me off track, but not this time.
Because in the end, Nia was right. I was someone who didn’t just hold on to my worth after all this time—I doubled it.