Sullivan was fit, but she hadn’t run like this since… She’d never run like this. She’d run all the way from Miss Brenda’s biscuit restaurant in downtown Oakwood Heights to the grange. She felt like someone had stabbed her in the side. Now she was standing between flanks of folding chairs, the mild-manneredneighborhood members gaping at her. Sullivan doubled over, gasping.
“You can’t—” Her vision blurred from lack of oxygen or shock. “Sell the Bois.”
A long table had been set up in front of the board members’ seats. An extension cord trailed to one of the outlets. A portable induction burner sat on the table. In her oxygen-deprived state, it looked like an approximation of an altar with the board seated behind it like disciples.
“Ms. Sullivan.” The board chair’s voice cut through the haze. “We were surprised you weren’t at the last few meetings. We’ve discussed this extensively. The neighborhood is in favor.” Sullivan’s mind reeled. She clenched her jaw, berating her own shortsightedness in choosing to attend the two Sunday evening She-Pack games instead of the association meetings.
She gripped her side and struggled to an upright position. The hall’s high ceilings looked vacuous. Night darkened the high windows. Suddenly the folding chairs and the board’s table stripped the grange of everything that had made it elegant and cozy. This was just another industrial space where lots of people made bad decisions without thinking through the consequences. She just had to speak up and—
And then her mind cracked and she froze. She had to be hallucinating, because Kia Jackson stood at the front of the room wearing flipped-up turquoise sunglasses and holding a pink spatula with a crepe draping off it like a Salvador Dalí clock. She wasn’t the skinny kid she’d been in school, although she still wore the same ridiculous amount of color. Bright green jeans. Yellow sneakers. A tight pink T-shirt. She’d replaced her Afro puffs with a glorious Afro. She still had the same luminous light brown skin, although she wore more makeup.
Kia dropped her spatula on the pan. Then Kia was running toward Sullivan. The gathering turned their heads as one.
“Whaaaat?” Kia reached Sullivan and almost threw her arms around her but stopped. “Oh my god, I didn’t know you’d be here.” Kia held her arms open waiting for her hug. “Chef Sullivan! Still trying to make up your point six percent? You look amazing.”
“What are you doing here, Kia?” Sullivan kept her arms crossed and body guarded.
“I’m… buying… the Bois.” Kia went from confident to hopeful to hurt. “To put in food trucks?” It came out as a question. “Who’s ready to be gourmazed!”
“No.”This isn’t real.Sullivan was in a dream. Kia Jackson was buying the Bois? Had Sullivan conjured her out of the pages ofAmerican Fare? Sullivan could hear the room around her. She needed to text Nina.You’re a lawyer. You have to stop this.
Sullivan shook the imaginary cobwebs out of her head. She noticed a screen standing to one side of the board members, lit up with a splashy photo gallery of gaudy food trucks. She glanced from the board members’ faces, back to Kia’s stunned expression. But then another feeling washed through the mix of confusion and anger that had taken over her mind and body: nostalgia. Sullivan breathed in the familiar scent of coconut and chocolate floating like a spring breeze around Kia’s hair. How could someone who had once been her comrade be capable of such betrayal? How could Kia Jackson be the person behind Taste the Love Land. What a cheesy name! Sullivan took in the whole scene of conspirators. The board. The audience sitting silent and unmoving, uncomfortable with the tension in the air.
“Please sit down, Ms. Sullivan,” one of the board members said.
“You are not paving over the Bois so you can sell elephantears and fried grease and… and… and kratom!” Sullivan said to Kia, her voice trembling with a mix of shock and defiance.
Kia had the audacity to look genuinely wounded.No hug?her face seemed to say.
“The Bois is not for sale,” Sullivan barked.
“Ms. Sullivan, you are disrupting our meeting and being disrespectful to Ms. Jackson. Those are not Oakwood Heights values.”
Sullivan half sat, half fell into an aisle chair.
Kia looked like she might tear up. Her brows were raised in surprise, and she stifled a shuddered breath from fully escaping.
“Land held by the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association can be sold at auction to the most competitive bid—barring a claim by a legacy landowner—after discussion at an association meeting and a vote,” the board chair said.
“I’m a legacy land owner!” Sullivan’s voice soared in panic. Aubrey, her ex, always made her redo the video if Sullivan squealed.You are sexy, stylish, masc-of-center, Aubrey had complained.Please stay on brand.Sullivan tried to lower her voice, but it came out in a squeak. “My great-great-grandfather signed the original charter. Our family has owned land here since the beginning.”
On a normal day, that fact made Sullivan profoundly uncomfortable. Her family had not owned land since thebeginning. Nations of people had lived on this land for thousands of years before Jedidiah Marius Sullivan planted his first survey stake. That was all the more reason to protect the Bois. It wasn’t theirs to sell.
“I claim it. I’m a legacy holder. I claim it!” Sullivan said.
Kia stood in the aisle a few feet from where Sullivan had fallen into a folding chair. Kia bowed her head, as if to hide reddenedcheeks. Her shoulders slumped and her arms dangled. For a second, Sullivan felt sorry for her. Was Kia really a developer now? Was this one of a dozen properties, or was this purchase a first? And how awkward to run up to someone to hug them in front of an audience only to be rebuffed, especially when you were giving a business pitch. That was up there with the classic naked-in-public dream, except no one was mad at you in the naked-in-public dream. No one was shooting daggers at you with their eyes, which Sullivan was doing. It was the only weapon she had right now.
“Ms. Sullivan, are you able to pay for the land in full by the end of the month following clause 12a in the charter?” The board chair’s question hung heavily in the air.
“I… no…”
Sullivan felt everyone’s eyes on her, their faces a sea of curiosity. How could they go along with this?
“You had ample time to raise objections to the sale.”
“We know the Bois was important to your grandfather. We contacted you, Sullivan,” one of the board members said. “We sent you several letters asking if you’d like to attend a meeting?”
She vaguely remembered letters with the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association logo and return address. She’d assumed they were just the usual flyer they sent around advertising holiday gatherings or alerting people to new parking regulations. She’d recycled them without opening them. Besides the bank and the IRS, who sent important documents through the mail?
