She handed me my cup and shook her head. “The beige apology line was disrespectful.”
“It was accurate.”
“It was funny.”
“That too.”
She smiled and took a sip. “You were right, though. The boards looked like nobody wanted Black people to have a good time without apologizing for it.”
I looked at her over the rim of my cup. “Exactly.”
I had been fighting some version of that since I graduated from August Wilson University and started interning at the August Wilson Center. That was where I learned how often people wanted Blackness with the edges filed off. A little mood. A little style. A little language they could dress up and sell back to us. Enough flavor to feel current. Not enough truth to make anybody in a boardroom uncomfortable.
They wanted the look without the weight of what made it real.
I had no patience for that kind of work.
That was another reason I liked Zaria. She learned fast.
She glanced at her watch, then at me. “You ready to head back?”
“In a minute.” I looked toward the bar area just off the lobby, half tucked behind one of those sculptural dividers hotels loved when they wanted you to feel like you’d discovered privacy on your own. “I’m going to sit down and knock out these notes while it’s still fresh. Why don’t you Uber back to the office under the expense card?”
Zaria nodded. “I’m going to grab food before I head back. You want anything?”
“No. I’ll live.”
“That sounds false.”
“It’s a little false.”
She smiled. “Text me when you’re on your way back.”
I held up two fingers in a lazy salute and took my coffee toward a small table near the bar with my laptop tucked under my arm.
The lobby had thinned some since we first came down. A couple checking in. Somebody in a blazer tapping through emails with a vodka soda too early in the day to mean anything good. Low music. Hotel air trying hard to smell expensive. I set my coffee down, pulled my tablet in front of me, and tried tomake myself care about follow-up notes while the rooftop was still sitting in my head in warm tones and bad decisions.
I got through exactly one useful sentence before my phone buzzed beside the keyboard.
Just one message.
Micah: How’s your day, Ms. Community Service?
I smiled at the screen before I could stop myself.
Me. Saving a rooftop from becoming a beige apology. You?
His answer came quick.
Micah: Now I need the full story.
I laughed under my breath and looked around like anybody in the lobby might somehow know how into this man I was.
I lowered my eyes back to the screen and typed:
No, you need to trust that I’m doing the Lord’s work and leave it there.
The dots came up.