Once Ghosted, Twice Shy Read online

  “This feels like a job interview,” Fab said, rolling her eyes. “If the next question is ‘What are your greatest strengths?’ they’re taking perfect selfies and memorizing federal tax codes.”

  She expected another question, but Likotsi just looked at her, that same curious, intent gaze.

  Fab wasn’t unused to being stared at—the way she dressed guaranteed that she at the very least got a passing glance wherever she went. But Likotsi wasn’t looking at the jewelry or the clothing or the makeup. She was looking into Fab’s eyes, her own full of mischief.

  “What?” Fab swiped gently at the corner of each eye, making sure there was no crud.

  “I was just thinking, Goddess, I’m going to regret that swipe.”

  Fab raised her brows and lifted her almost empty glass of seltzer. “Wow. We haven’t even ordered alcoholic beverages yet and you’ve already fallen a little bit in love with me and started regretting it?”

  Fab tried to look cool and unfazed even though the way Likotsi was staring at her—like Fab was the most interesting woman in the world—had her at fazed level: SHOOK.

  “Yes,” Likotsi said firmly. “Because I have one night to learn everything about you, and that isn’t enough time. Not nearly.”

  Fab was a woman used to people spitting game. Men telling her how fine she was, women telling her she was fashion goals. This wasn’t game. Because she understood what Likotsi meant, felt it in the way her heart was beating fast and her dress was suddenly too tight around her chest.

  What in the world?

  This was fun. Fun with a time limit. No need to start thinking about shit like love at first swipe.

  She grinned. “Don’t worry. There’ll be a lot more things to regret, if the night goes well.”

  Likotsi nodded. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  Chapter Three

  Winter

  Likotsi enjoyed the curious cacophony of the large banquet hall housing the dim sum restaurant—round tables filled with people who had nothing in common except a deep desire to eat as many of the small plates being rolled around the room on metal carts as possible.

  Fab waved down the servers with assuredness, pointing out dishes she was clearly well acquainted with, and then handing over her paper menu, a food passport of sorts, to be stamped.

  Likotsi could see why Fab had brought her there. The food was delicious, the tea was abundant, and it was about as public a place as anyone could hope for. One couldn’t exactly have a deep conversation about life—or about heartbreak—while rubbing elbows with strangers and waving down food like it was a competitive sport.

  But one could make polite conversation. Fab maintained a steady raft of surface level talk that kept them safe from the emotional barracudas swarming beneath them.

  “Here, put the soup dumpling on the spoon first. Poke it to let out the steam. Pour this sauce on it and oh! You like hot sauce, get that chili oil. What have you been doing for all these months?”

  “You told me about the porridge in Thesolo. Try this, it’s called congee. Do you still use the app? I deleted mine. Nevermind, don’t tell me. I’ll get us some dessert.”

  She wasn’t sure if this layer of obfuscating noise was a conscious decision on Fab’s part, and was even less sure why she was pleased instead of annoyed when an hour had passed, their bellies were full, and Likotsi still knew nothing about why Fab had abruptly ended their relationship.

  If Likotsi had thought Fab would quickly ease her mind, and then she’d be able to carry on with her day, she’d been mistaken.

  “How did you find this place?” Likotsi asked.

  “My friend in high school used to bring a group of us here sometimes,” she said. “I would bring them to the Haitian spot in Canarsie. Another friend introduced us to the Indian buffets in Jackson Heights, and another to the Central American food trucks in Red Hook. We called ourselves the FF Crew.”

  She said the last part with a snort and a shake of the head.

  “The fast and the furious?” Likotsi ventured.

  “The food and fashion crew,” Fab said. “We met in our school’s fashion club and we liked trying different foods. The name was pretty literal.”

  Likotsi looked at the delicate silver earrings hanging from Fab’s ears and almost reached out to touch one. Almost.

  “Is that a new design?” She pointed toward Fab’s earring, keeping her hand a safe distance away.

  Fab cupped a silver teardrop between her fingertips. “No, this is from last spring. I haven’t made anything new in a couple of months. Busy with work.”

  One of the busboys, a tall handsome man with spiky hair, came and removed their empty teapot and cups, looking pointedly at the crowd gathered in the waiting area as he did so, and Fab grabbed their food passport and stood, not elaborating further.

  “Did you like it?” she asked as Likotsi followed.

  Likotsi kept getting disconcerted that she didn’t have to crane her neck to look up into Fab’s face—Fab wasn’t wearing heels after all. She’d been Amazonian in Likotsi’s memory; maybe the love Likotsi remembered feeling was similarly larger in hindsight than it had been in real life.

  “The food was delicious,” Likotsi said courteously. “I loved trying so many different things, and the chicken feet were surprisingly good.”

  “You passed the chicken feet test!” Fab nodded approvingly.

  Likotsi raised her brow. “Chicken feet test?”

  “Yup. How someone reacts when presented with a new food they’ve never tried before, excluding dietary restrictions, of course.”

  Likotsi remembered their first date, when Fab had ordered several appetizers, explaining the Haitian names for the food. She’d been particularly pleased when Likotsi’s favorite had been a kind of meat pie filled with hot dog, boiled eggs, and spices. Perhaps that had been a chicken feet test, of sorts.

  Fab pulled out cash to pay, they headed toward the escalators, and a few moments later they were on the bustling Chinatown sidewalk.

  Now that they were outside, Likotsi didn’t have the distraction of a new experience to drown out the question she should have been asking herself.

  Why did you follow her? Really?

  They’d eaten and talked, and nothing had changed.

  “I guess that’s that,” Likotsi said to fill the silence between them. “Thanks for your assistance in crossing off an item on my to-do list.”

  “And feeding you,” Fab added as she stepped up to the window of a bakery, examining the items as if it was possible to eat a bite more after all the food they’d shared. She was acting like this was all totally normal, and the fact that it did feel normal, like they could slip back into their old affair like a vintage waistcoat, made it clear what Likotsi needed to do.

  She took one last look at Fab.

  “If that’s all, I’ll be on my way.”

  She didn’t go on her way. She stood there trying to figure out what she’d tried to achieve. A task undertaken without an objective was a waste of time. Her objective, apart from her reconnaissance mission, had been waiting for the moment when she realized she didn’t feel anything for Fab after all.

  No, that wasn’t true—Likotsi hated dishonesty and she wouldn’t lie to herself. Maybe part of her was searching for reasons not to care for Fab, but the most important part in this situation—her heart—was waiting for everything to suddenly be all right.

  She sighed.

  If a goat bites you once, why put your hand back in its mouth? That’s what one of Likotsi’s exes had asked years ago, stubborn pride in her voice as she’d packed her things. But now here Likotsi was, offering her hand out to Fabiola like a novice herder.

  She should have stayed on the train. Goat bites smarted quite a bit.

  “What’s next on your list?” Fab shivered, then shoved her hands in her pockets, doing a little two-step. “It’s brick out here.”

  “Brick?” Likotsi asked, looking at the buildings above the shops that
lined the street.

  Fab shivered out a laugh. “Cold. It means cold.”

  “Right. Well, I’m going to walk. Explore.”

  Fab tilted her head. “I thought you had a list.”

  “I do. But I’m trying to be spontaneous too.”

  Fab grinned. “So your plan is to spontaneously visit a bunch of preplanned places? That’s very . . . you.”

  Likotsi was on the edge of a cliff of indignation that was crumbling away, being eroded by the tides of familiarity. It was so easy, remembering how things had been between them, how they’d stuck to each other like two fashionable nettles and then blown where the winds of love had taken them.

  It was only a few days.

  She hurt you in those few days.

  “Goodbye,” Likotsi said abruptly, trying to save her fingers from the proverbial goat’s teeth.

  Fab exhaled deeply. “That’s it?”

  “It was when you ended things without explanation. This was a brief, random encounter. Now we’ll both continue on with our lives.”

  There. That was closure. She’d spoken the words to Fabiola, and now they would come to fruition. It was like casting a spell, yes? When she clicked her heels and turned on the soles of her still too-tight shoes, she would leave Fab rooted in her past. She’d be able to enjoy dates again instead of comparing them to her, to go days on end without ever thinking of Fab’s laughter or the way the pad of Fab’s index finger felt skimming lightly over Likotsi’s bottom lip.

  Fab took a step closer, hands still in her pockets as she leaned forward to examine Likotsi’s face.

  “What if . . .” Her gaze was guarded, but determined. “What if I walked with you for a while.”

  It wasn’t a question. Likotsi remembered something Fab had said to her as they shared a coffee from the same mug and she’d talked about a difficult manager at her job. Asking permission is giving someone the power to say no.

  “Why would you walk with me?” Likotsi was unable to move away as she should have. She’d fallen for this siren song before, and she’d drowned beneath love’s tempestuous waves. “Why would I want you to?”

  “Because you said you were looking for spontaneity. I can give you that.” Her tongue darted across her lips, pink against the red because her lipstick hadn’t budged despite the dozen different foods they’d eaten. “I want to give you that.”

  Likotsi didn’t know what Fab was playing at. Her job had given her firsthand experience with watching all kinds of liars as they wheeled and dealed with Prince Thabiso or other heads of state, and then dissecting what had been nonsense and why they had spouted the nonsense, the better to advise her prince. She’d thought that maybe she’d been blinded by Fab before, and that was why she hadn’t seen the finishing blow coming.

  But no.

  Likotsi trusted her judgment, and it told her that Fab was being sincere, and that she had been sincere the first time they dated—that’s what had bothered her about the brush-off. Fab had been straightforward, until that last interaction, when she wasn’t. Likotsi didn’t know what to do with that information, though. She didn’t know how someone could seem to care for her, but also be so blasé about having hurt her.

  Fab lowered herself back down onto her heels, eyes wide and mouth an “o” as if a lightbulb had just gone off in her head. “Hey. Hey! Yessssss, come with me.”

  She grabbed Likotsi’s hand and turned, tugging Likotsi along with her. An icy winter wind slammed into them, blowing the hair that hung out from below Fab’s hat back over her shoulders. Fab tightened her grip and looked back, a beckoning smile on her face that shattered Likotsi’s resolve to leave.

  You may ask of the goddess, but you may not dictate her means. Likotsi had prayed to be rid of her feelings for Fab, and it seemed that the only way over was through.

  She didn’t smile back, but she didn’t pull her hand away. She followed the woman who trotted ahead of her, her red-gloved hand beckoning like a spring rose that had confused the seasons and bloomed in winter, bright and beautiful and defiant.

  Fab led Likotsi away from Mott Street, down streets running parallel to Canal to avoid sidewalks clogged with tourists searching for discount bags and five T-shirts for twenty dollars, which Likotsi shuddered to think of.

  They passed seafood shops with tanks crowding the windows, a park pavilion where people practiced tai chi despite the cold, an incongruous whiskey tavern, restaurants and optometrists and bakeries squeezed in between tourist shops.

  A few minutes later, having passed out of Chinatown and into a neighborhood with different stores—trendier shops filled with expensive clothing, which made it all the more confusing when Fab dragged Likotsi into an alleyway that Naledi would have described as “sketchy as hell.”

  “Um.” Likotsi stopped and tugged back on Fab’s hand. “Has this all been an elaborate plot to steal one of my organs? I should warn you that they’re currently being used and I won’t part with them lightly.”

  She looked around at the alley, which wasn’t infested with rats and covered with decaying food matter, but wasn’t inviting either. “I said I wanted spontaneity, not an indecorous ending to my life.”

  Fab laughed loudly, the sound bouncing off the brick walls around them, hopping up the steps of the fire escapes bolted to the alleyway’s walls, as if traveling toward the slate-gray sky above to open up a space of light that would mirror the one that Likotsi felt in her chest.

  “Bloodstains would be way too hard to get out of these boots,” Fab said, gesturing toward her feet.

  “How comforting.” Likotsi glanced around.

  “Look down there. You see that door?” Fab pointed at a large black-painted steel door covered with graffiti that was swung out into the alley. “We’re going there. Just trust—” Fab caught herself and pressed her lips together briefly before starting to walk again. “I think you’ll like it.”

  Likotsi sighed and followed Fab, despite her lingering wariness. When she peeked around the door it didn’t lead into a dark, creepy organ-harvesting factory, as she’d imagined, but a small, clean white room, lined with shelves. There were brief descriptions on crisp white rectangles of paper for each item.

  “It’s a museum,” Likotsi said, delighted wonder filling her.

  “Yes! A freight elevator turned into a museum. Only a few people can fit inside at once. Exclusive, right?”

  “This is wonderful,” Likotsi said. She knew that many people would ask what the point of something like this was, would find it precious or pretentious, but Likotsi adored things that took time and care to produce results that weren’t entirely necessary but added something special to the world.

  Fab stepped in beside her, eyes bright with excitement. “My little cousin told me about it, but I haven’t had time to check it out. Look at this! Oh my God!”

  She raised a gloved hand to her mouth to cover her squeal.

  Each row of the selves was a separately curated exhibit, and Fab was looking at a row entitled “Objects removed from anal cavities during emergency room visits.”

  “Oh dear.” Likotsi leaned forward and then away. “A two-liter bottle? Really?”

  Fab squealed again. “There’s a can of Raid! Why? How?”

  “Perhaps there was an issue with cockroaches?” Likotsi guessed. “They can survive anywhere you know.”

  They looked at each other and burst out laughing, their glee filling the small space. Likotsi’s face was stretched wide with mirth, the tug of her smile almost unfamiliar. It had been so long since she’d felt joyful silliness well up in her like this.

  “This row is a bit more to my tastes,” Likotsi said once they had composed themselves. “‘Single shoes mysteriously found on the MTA subway tracks.’ There’s even a Louboutin!”

  “Where did the other shoes go? How do you lose one shoe on the train tracks?” Fab asked, her arm pushing into Likotsi’s as she leaned in to admire the Louboutin. “I would have jumped onto the tracks for this, deadass.”r />
  “Deadass? I think you’re mixing up your exhibits,” Likotsi said.

  Fab rolled her eyes indulgently. “For real,” she translated.

  They spent the next twenty minutes going over the items in each exhibit, navigating the small space of the refurbished elevator together until they realized people were waiting outside. They reluctantly stepped out.

  “That was great,” Likotsi said. “They fit so much into a small space. Efficient!”

  “I didn’t even know there was a name for that plastic thing that held the bread bag closed,” Fab said. “So it was educational, too.”

  Likotsi looked around them and the irreverent joy that had distracted her from her predicament began to fade. They were standing in an alleyway—the museum had been a temporary escape from reality—one in which Fab was a woman who’d had her fun with Likotsi and then discarded her when it was expedient. She would have jumped onto the tracks for a Louboutin, but hadn’t even seen Likotsi as worthy of a follow-up text.

  Well, that puts things into perspective.

  Likotsi gripped the collar of her coat against the cold breeze that funneled down the alley, kicking up scraps of paper and other detritus. In front of her, Fab executed a little spin, as if imagining herself in the skirt she’d worn on their first date.

  “I haven’t had that much fun since . . .” She stopped spinning, her arms still out and her gaze locked on the sky. “Since the last time you were here.”

  Likotsi sucked her tongue against her chattering teeth. “I find that hard to imagine.”

  Fab’s arms dropped to her sides. “I . . . have a lot going on. Unlike you, some of us don’t have fancy jobs that involve stays at luxury hotels and traveling all over the world, rubbing elbows with the rich and famous.”

  Likotsi mentally pushed up her sleeves in frustration, a measure of how mad she was because she would never treat an item of clothing so cavalierly. “That’s one very narrow way to view my work, one that disregards the fact that I’m nearly always on call and have to put the needs of others before my own.”

  Likotsi expected Fab to say something rude back—maybe this was it, the moment where they would have it out, where she’d find out how Fab could have just ended things—but Fab just heaved a sigh and shook her head. “You’re right. I’m the one who’s new to that club. Hold on a minute.”