Page 12 of Omar

Chapter 5

Asha

The salon was full by ten.

Nene's cousin Tasha ran the place out of the front room of her brownstone. Two chairs, a standing dryer that roared like a jet engine taking off, a kitchen open at the back where she kept the coffee on. It wasn't fancy and it didn't need to be. Three days a week I worked out of there, and those three days were the best ones I had.

I had three clients booked. Tasha had two. Nene was perched on a stool by the window with a notebook on her knees, doing the books for her cousin like she'd been doing them for the last six months, half her attention on the spreadsheet and half on whatever was happening in the chair. She had a bagel in one hand, a pen in the other, her braids tied up in a silk scarf. She'd already given me one long look when I walked in that I'd pretended not to clock.

My first client was Mrs. Anders, a retired teacher who came every other week without fail and tipped me forty dollars cash in an envelope every single time. She had a roller set, she had her stories about everybody's grandchildren in a six-block radius, and I loved her for both.

"You quiet today, baby," Mrs. Anders said as I sectioned her hair.

"Just concentrating, ma'am."

"Mmhm."

I didn't elaborate. Mrs. Anders watched me in the mirror for a long second, then went back to telling me about her granddaughter's wedding plans and a cousin who was trying to claim two seats at the head table that didn't belong to her. I made encouraging sounds at the right moments and got my hands moving.

I'd slept four hours. I lay awake next to Supreme until past three, the ceiling panels burned into my mind in every possible light, my chest tight and restless. Then I dozed off and dreamed the dream, the one I hadn't had in a year and a half. I was sixteen again, standing on a corner in Bed-Stuy, the rain soaking through my jacket, my feet numb on the sidewalk as I waited for a bus that never came. I woke with my throat clenched, Supreme's arm heavy across my waist, the ceiling staring down at me like it already knew.

And then I came to work, because work was always going to be there waiting for me whether I'd slept or not.

I rolled Mrs. Anders' last section, set her under the dryer, brought her a magazine and a fresh cup of coffee, and turned around to find Nene standing in the doorway of the kitchen with her arms crossed.

"Outside," she said.

"I got another client at noon."

"You got fifteen minutes. Come on."

I followed her out.

We stood on Tasha's stoop with our coats pulled around us. Brooklyn was doing that cold gray thing it did where the wind found every gap in your collar, and Nene fished a stick of gum out of her pocket and offered me half before she spoke.

"You look like somebody died."

"Nobody died."

"You sure?"

I took the gum and unwrapped it slowly because I needed something to do with my hands. Nene watched me do it.

"You wanna tell me?" she said.

"Not here."

"At my place after?"

"Maybe."

She tilted her head. Nene was the only person on this earth I could have this kind of conversation with, where things stayed half-said and three-quarters-folded. We'd met when I was twenty in Atlanta at a hair show neither of us belonged at. She'd come over to me at the food table, asked if I wanted to split a plate because the line was too long, and we'd been close ever since. Eight months ago she'd packed up her shop and come north for a man who turned out to be a waste of a flight. She'd stayed because I was here. She'd never said that out loud. She didn't need to.

"Last night was something," I said.

"Something?"

"Yeah."