“Oh.” Lo sounds deflated for approximately a quarter of a second before bouncing back to full-force enthusiasm. “Well he’s the bomb, and I didn’t realize it was his shoot. I threw some of MiMi’s French on him, followed instructions like a good little minion, and kept him cracking up the whole time. At the end, he offered me a job in his New York atelier. Can you believe that?”
The information zooms through my mind at warp speed, bits of it clinging to the sides of my brain while some of it doesn’t stick at all.
“But . . .” I flounder a little. “But you have one more semester left at Spelman. Is this a summer job?”
“No, it starts right away. I can finish school anytime.” Lo’s energy crackles even over the phone. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“It’s a bit of a risk, isn’t it?” I ask tentatively, not wanting to upset her but feeling like I need to offer a level-headed perspective. “I mean, you spend one afternoon with this guy and you uproot your whole life, all your plans, for him?”
“You mean the way you uprooted your whole life and all your plans to follow Caleb?” Her voice comes sharp and pricks me. It’s quiet for a few moments as I find my way in this foreign land where Lo and I may be at odds.
“It’s not the same,” I say quietly. “Our situations are not the same, and you know it.”
“No, they’re not,” Lo fires back. “Because unlike you, I won’t hand my life over to some man. I’m taking this opportunity by the horns and following my dreams. I would never allow myself to end up trapped in somebody else’s plans for me.”
“Trapped?” I cannon back. “What are you saying? I should have had an abortion?”
“You know I love Sarai.” She pauses. “But I would’ve been more careful about what was going in my lady business and made sure he was wrapped up tight.”
“I’m not the first woman this has happened to, Lo. You know condoms aren’t a hundred percent.”
“I know, but . . .” The quiet on the other end swells with her hesitation.
“But what?”
“I don’t trust Caleb.”
I abandon the vegetables altogether, my hands dropping and falling limply at my side. “Did someone say something to you? You heard something about him?” I ask, dread gathering in my stomach.
“No, nothing like that,” she says quickly. “I saw a shadow.”
My head tilts as I try to discern what the hell this means. “A shadow? I don’t understand.”
“On his . . . soul,” she says, her voice lowered to a whisper. “I think I saw a shadow on his soul.”
“What do you-you . . .” I can’t even stutter right. This is so ridiculous. “What the hell does that even mean? A shadow on his soul? He’s the father of my child, Lo. This is serious. It’s not time for some voodoo shit you caught from MiMi.”
“Maybe if you’d taken the time to learn some of that voodoo shit,” Lotus says, her voice crackling with disapproval, “you wouldn’t be with him right now.”