“You’ll call, right?”
A fleeting smile tugged at the corner of Elias’s mouth. “Be good,” he said, pulling his sister into a side hug and planting a quick kiss on her forehead. He climbed into the waiting cab, not glancing back as it drove away.
Elias gazed out of the window as the cab cut through an agonizingly trendy neighborhood. You could go antiquing and then stepnext door and get an authentic deli bagel covered in lox. After you were done with that, you could walk across the street and get Indian food and a Swedish massage.
Elias couldn’t wait to leave it all behind.
It wasn’t the city he disliked, but rather the people, the culture, the weather, and the accents. He never understood why a city inhabited by people who usedfucklike a comma drew so many tourists.
North Carolina didn’t exactly bring up good memories for him either. The last time he had been there was about five years ago when his parents were going through their divorce. His mother had packed him, Nia, and William into the car and driven them down to her big brother’s house, giving their father until they returned to clear out his things and move into his new place. His mother spent most of the time talking to lawyers and crying on Uncle Moodie’s shoulder. William mostly kept to himself, talking to all his friends back in New York constantly, because William’s method of dealing with things had always been not to deal with them. That left Elias to be the one to try to explain everything to Nia, who was only eight at the time. They’d go to the park, get sick from eating as much junk food as they wanted because no one was there to tell them no, and stay up late. Elias got used to sleeping with the light on since Nia had been afraid. Even now, he found it difficult to be in the complete dark.
Elias hoped that, this time, North Carolina would signal a more positive change for him. Stepping off the plane and onto the tarmac, Elias felt like he was sweating inside of his own skin. Rushing into the airport was all he could do not to spontaneously combust.
At baggage claim, Elias waited for his luggage to reach him, but a woman in front of him grabbed it before he did.
“That’s my bag, ma’am,” Elias said.
“Well, you should label your stuff. Everyone has a black bag,” she said.
Elias’s eyes widened. The coffee she was holding was probably her only personality trait. He wondered how long it would take someone to do something if he smacked it right out of her hand.
“Don’t you have someone to go argue with on Facebook?” Elias snapped, snatching his bag from the woman’s grasp.
He couldn’t help but wonder if his mother would have been proud that he’d had the good sense to walk away before he truly got angry. Her favorite thing to do was call him disrespectful. She would go on and on about how she hadn’t raised him that way, but obviously, she did, because he ended up exactly that way.
Elias’s mind was blank and his body stiff as he waited in the belowground pickup area. It wasn’t long before his uncle pulled up in his black F-150, the same truck he’d had the last time Elias was in North Carolina.
“Hey, nephew,” Uncle Mudiaga—known to everyone as Uncle Moodie—said as he got out and ran around to Elias’s side of the truck.
“Hi…” Elias replied. The last time he’d been in North Carolina, he could have sworn that Moodie was at least fifty. But now, looking at his uncle—effortlessly throwing Elias’s bag into the truck with one hand and likely able to do the same to Elias if he didn’t watch himself—Elias supposed that every adult looked old when he was a kid.
Elias got into the truck next to Moodie, securing the belt around him. “Hey, Mood,” he said as they drove off, wrapping his arms around himself and giving his biceps a reassuring squeeze, “I don’t mean any disrespect, but I thought I was helping out in your storebecause you were reaching your golden years. How oldareyou?”
“I’m thirty-eight,” Moodie replied with a laugh. “And I’m not too old to work. I just don’t want to. I’ve spent all these years making money—isn’t it time I go spend some of it? Let you young folk work a little bit while I go to Capri or Paris or something.”
“We both know your ass isn’t going to Europe. If you’re still the same Mood I know, you couldn’t leave that shop alone for more than a minute. You’re better off just buying a baguette and some pasta right here and calling it a day.”
“I see you haven’t changed either. You’ve still got that mouth,” Moodie said with a smile.
“It’s good to see you, too, Mood.”
That Uncle Moodie had started a business in his twenties was quite an accomplishment, but Elias would never say that to him out loud. Moodie would take that compliment to the grave with his chest puffed out and his chin held high.
“How’s your mom?” Moodie asked.
“Good, I guess.”
“How about Will and Nia?”
“They’re good. Everybody good except me. I’m starving.”
“We’ll be home soon,” Moodie replied, taking the hint that Elias didn’t want to talk about his family.
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
“Hey, Eli.” Moodie’s voice woke Elias from a nap he didn’t remember falling into. “We’re here.”
Elias stretched his arms and rolled his neck, earning him a satisfyingcrack. He then followed Moodie, half-dazed, up thestairs at the back of the bookstore, which led to the private entrance of the studio apartment over his uncle’s store.
