Wait! Did you read Part One: Hungry?
Part Two: Angry
“Can you believe people out here thinking I murdered my baby father?” Astra asked as she wrapped up plates of leftover wings, mac and cheese, and yellow cake from the meal. No one else answered, so Claude didn’t either. She watched Astra absentmindedly suck icing off of her pinky as she placed the plates in the refrigerator. Body bent into the appliance, ass in the air, the sequined writing on the back of her pink velour track pants facing the ceiling.
“I dropped Nyla off at Rashid grandma place and she was looking at me all stank. I ain’t got shit to do with it, he prolly just ran off somewhere.” Astra’s voice echoed in the fridge as she searched it for the coldest beer. There were four cans inside, and she palmed each of them several times before picking one. “Like, that’s my child’s father. Why would I even want to kill him? Why wouldn’t I want him to be okay?”
Astra popped the can and took her first gulp while Claude sat in silence between Tiff and Bee on the couch. Without words, Bee took a bag of weed out of her cardigan pocket and leaned over Claude to hand it to Tiff. Claude curled her lip slightly as she watched them pass the stinking bag, which motivated Tiff to elbow her teasingly in the rib.
“Well,” Tiff broke the silence and wet a piece of rolling paper with the tip of her tongue. “Don’t he owe you like three bands?”
“With his broke ass,” Astra said. She took a swig of her beer and plopped down on the couch next to Tiff, who lost her grip on the paper she was rolling and now had tiny crumbles of plant matter on her flannel shirt.
Tiff and Bee nodded their heads in agreement, so Claude did too. Though she didn’t have a particular fondness for either of them, the guidance those two consistently but unknowingly provided about remaining in Astra’s good graces was priceless. What Tiff, Bee, and Astra considered to be hangout sessions were, to Claude, carefully crafted etiquette lessons. A chance to learn what actions to take, what things to say. When to chuckle, when to sigh, when to commiserate. How to love Astra and how to become worthy of being loved by her.
The cumulative knowledge of these lessons indicated to Claude that it was a good time to continue Tiff’s line of rhetorical questioning. “And didn’t he cheat on you?” Claude asked.
Astra wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at a burn spot on Tiff’s carpet. “When I was pregnant.”
The three friends clicked their teeth in disapproval. A small fire lit inside Claude, a signal of pride for selecting her action correctly.
“And he’s… he’s… ” Bee looked around at the others, eyes wide behind her thick glasses. “He’s annoying as well!”
“Nah,” Astra said, chugging the rest of her beer before crushing it between her palms. “He’s super annoying.”
Astra rose to get another beer from the fridge as Claude, Tiff, and Bee murmured affirmingly, an auditory collage of sure is, can’t stand him, and you deserve better, girl. She returned with two cans, tossed one to Tiff, and sank back into the couch. Soon, the murmurs gave way to a tense silence barely occupied by the rustling of Tiff’s papers and the random clearing of a throat.
Bee stared at Astra, pondering. A moment later, her jaw fell open.
“Oh my God.” Bee put both hands over her mouth and stood up. “Oh my God, Astra. You didn’t.”
“Exactly,” Astra said.
Tiff shot a disapproving look at Bee and held her pointer finger in front of her lips as she shushed her. She gesticulated wildly in the air to illustrate all the neighbors who could be around ear hustling before returning her attention to the newly rolled joint.
Still standing, Bee looked at each of the women in the room with glistening eyes and fidgeted with a loose thread on the hem of her cardigan’s sleeve. “Then why are y’all being so weird?”
“We’re playing, Bee,” Tiff said, repeatedly flicking a lighter on and off in her hand.
Astra blew smoke rings into the air. “It’s how I cope.”
Bee continued to look at Astra and Tiff strangely, and shot several quick glances at Claude as if to ask, isn’t this strange? Do you see what I see? Claude responded by looking anywhere else, as if to say, no, and please stop asking me. She wished Bee would sit down. As if she had read Claude’s mind, she did sit back down, though her fidgeting remained.
Something that Astra and her three confidants could all agree on, without question, was Rashid being unworthy of Astra’s affection. What was less clear was what should be done about it. Bee spoke often about co-parenting and counseling. Tiff about the courts, child support, and garnishing wages. Claude would emphasize how many other suitors Astra could have if she opened herself up to it. What Astra agreed with seemed to change from week to week. But none of them truly wanted him to disappear completely.
“You should get a lawyer,” Claude said, turning to Astra. “And don’t tell the cops any of what you just said. You don’t need to go down for this.”
Astra seemed to search Claude’s eyes for any secrets they held. Then, after a long moment, she sighed and shook her head like she was rattling unwanted thoughts out of her skull. “Let’s just not talk about it anymore.”
If Claude had been more honest about her past with Tiff and Bee, she would have ignored Astra’s direction and given her more advice then and there. But there were still things about her history that she’d only shared with Astra and even more she’d kept to herself. Although it was certainly nothing she would bring up in her next therapy session, Claude knew there was nothing wrong with helping someone innocent like her best friend. In fact, it was the right thing to do. Claude, the fortifier. The protector. The fence.
An awkward silence fell upon the group and remained there for the rest of the evening. A cough here. A bad joke there. Before long, Tiff suggested that Bee and Claude head out so Astra could get some much needed rest, and the group shared somber goodbyes. Claude hugged Astra tightly before whispering into her ear how she would always have her back. Astra smiled slightly, and though Claude could perceive a sadness behind Astra’s expression, she didn’t realize it would be their last embrace.