Page 213 of The Sweetest Return

“I don’t know if I’m built for that,” she said.

“You are.”

“I’m good at wanting. I’m good at leaving before wanting turns into need.”

“Maybe you’re tired of leaving.”

She looked at me.

Camille swallowed, and for a moment, the restaurant noise moved around us without touching the table.

“I hate when you get emotionally accurate,” she said.

“I learned from the best.”

“I am the best.”

“You are.”

Her smile came back, smaller than usual but real.

We sat there longer than we planned, talking about travel, love, men with old football bodies and new emotional vocabulary, the house Camille had sold that morning, the boxes I had finally unpacked because Dre had “helped”, and whether my mother would ever stop pretending she was not thrilled every time his name came up.

“She won’t,” Camille said.

“You don’t know that.”

“Your mother is a Black woman with a daughter she likes and a man she approves of circling that daughter with intention. She is already mentally shopping for her dress.”

“She would never admit that.”

“She doesn’t have to. The dress knows.”

I laughed into my water.

Outside the restaurant, Camille hugged me longer than usual. The afternoon had cooled, and traffic moved softly along the street while the florist next door watered buckets of roses by the window.

“Don’t borrow fear from old versions of yourself,” she said near my ear.

I closed my eyes.

“Try taking that advice too.”

She pulled back. “Absolutely not. I am the advisor.”

“Fraud.”

“Successful fraud.”

I watched her walk toward her car, coat moving behind her, phone already in her hand. Probably Malcolm. Probably a client. Possibly both, because Camille loved making her life difficult in heels.

When I drove to Dre’s house, the sky had started shifting toward evening.

I still was not used to the size of it.

The first time I came here, I thought it was beautiful.

The second time, I thought it was excessive.