Free Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White by Claudia Mair Burney Page B

weirdo lady you been going to Bible study with. She’s influencing you, isn’t she? Her and her skirts to the ankles. No makeup. Does she even comb her hair or use deodorant?”
    “Yeah. She combs her hair and uses deodorant, Pete.”
    “That your type now, Nick? Untouched for a reason, yo?”
    “I don’t appreciate you talking about Zora or Linda. Okay? Say another thing about either one of them and I’m gonna bust you up. Say ‘yo’ again and I bust you up. I mean it, Pete.”
    He shrugs. “Whatever. I don’t know why you’re so sensitive. Looks to me like Zora is like any other sistah .”
    I don’t like how he says sistah . It feels wrong. Like he hasn’t earned the right to say that word. “What do you mean she’s like any other one?”
    “She’s got the tight jeans showing off all that tail, because she wants the world to see it. She loves it. And she loves me lovin’ it. Just look at the videos. Black chicks are totally into showing their stuff.”
    I want to hit Pete much harder than our usual horseplay allows. “What kind of racist crap is that, man? What? White women don’t wear tight clothes? Why are you singling out black women?”
    “C’mon, Nicky. The videos on BET and the ones on MTV are totally different. It’s the culture, man. They give it up more than white women. They do. It wasn’t a white girl that made up the bootylicious song. And personally, I like that. And I like that song. And I like Beyoncé. And I like Zora. You got her phone number? Because if you’re not interest in hittin’ that, I am. I hear sistahs are wild in bed.”
    Hittin ’ that? He’s with a black person for an hour and he wants to throw around the vernacular. “You’re a Christian, Pete.”
    He laughs. “Oh, you can judge? What were you when you talked all those sweet sisters in the Lord into your bed? What were they ? You nailed, like, half the youth choir when we were in high school, man. And the cherry on the top, no pun intended, was your declaration, ‘Once saved, always saved.’ Didn’t tell Reverend Parker about that, did you? But I said then, and I say now, ‘Amen, Nicky!’ ”
    I don’t say another word to Pete, because everything I want to say is so angry that I honestly believe we’ll come to blows and it’ll end our lifelong friendship. I sit there, stewing in my own juices, until he finally pulls up in front of my building, and I storm out of the truck, slamming the door behind me.
    But in all truth, Pete is holding up a full-length Nicky mirror, and I see myself with such startling clarity that it shocks me. I hate the self I see in Pete.
    He yells something to me. I don’t listen. I just keep going, trying to run as far away from myself as possible. By some mercy he doesn’t follow me.
    ZORA
     
    MacKenzie puts me in a headlock that I think she mistakes for a hug. Before Nicky’s even walked away she’s whispering, “ Giiiiiiiiiiiiirl, ” in my ear. “Where you get Halle Berry’s white boyfriend?”
    I chuckle. He does sort of look like that Versace model Halle’s been seen with. What’s his name, Gabriel Autrey, Aubrey? Who knows? He’s fine—and so is Nicky “Save the Negro” Parker.
    Okay. That was uncalled for, like most of my attitude these days. When Nicky walks away, Mac lets me breathe again.
    “He’s just some guy I know.”
    “Girl, that white boy looks good enough to chew on.”
    “He’s taken.”
    She puts her hands on her hips as if he’s standing in front of her and she’s getting her flirt on. “I’ll take him too.”
    “You can have him.” We start walking up the flight of stairs to our second- floor apartment.
    “Why didn’t you ask him to come in? Don’t tell me he’s all walkin’ you to your door and you’re not trying to holla.”
    “I’m not trying to ‘holla.’ I have a boyfriend.” A boyfriend that’s afraid of my father, who’s paying part of his salary too . But who’s counting paychecks?
    “Girl, I heard white boys