Jakkie June-Akin was in dungarees, tending to her new damask roses when the call came in, slicing through her repeat play of Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté’s “Ruby.” She liked her music when she gardened, so she took her time assembling playlists, matching them to seasons and moods, the time of day and current climate in her body. This one had been doing its perfect work on her; massaging down some old griefs that burbled up from the sticky dream she woke up from that morning. Setting her gloves and shears down, she went inside to check where she left the device. If it was someone she didn’t want to speak to—like the woman she recently went on one date with who couldn’t seem to understand her disinterest afterward and kept saying tell me if I did something wrong, so I can change it—she could just airplane it as usual. If it was someone she cared about—like her recently widowed neighbor Hannah who she now ran a two-person book club with—she could always pick up and ask to call back later.

The phone lay curious and alert in her palm, scanning her face for a reaction to the name on its screen. What was this feeling in her body, thrumming in her core? Was it leftover hurt, even after all this time? Some random anger at the audacity? Was she … confused? Jakkie was still thinking when the call rang out. But instead of heading back out to the garden to meet the blossoming miracles she spent so much time planting with her hands, she sat on her red velvet couch and dialed the past back.

“Hello?” Ifechi’s voice sounded smattered and scared.

Jakkie said nothing, just staring at the stained glass window she recently got installed as her thoughts turned a curve. Had she drank enough water today? Taken her meds? Focus on the reds, she told herself, the blues, the golds, the silhouettes.

The voice on the other side was a shaky stampede of confessions: Ifechi was burnt out, badly needing a break, had been considering a divorce for months now, was wanting to feel something again, anything. Her used-to-be dream house was currently eating her sanity; even work was starting to feel heavy and did Jakkie remember when her work was her life … no … both their lives? Could Jakkie recall all the ways they lived for the screen? Tajudeen was in Amsterdam shooting a TV show; their daughter, Yemisi, in Italy studying film; their son, Tade, in rehab for the sixth time, nothing made sense, not even this call …

“I know I’m the last person you want to hear from right now,” Ifechi said, over rapid tight breaths, “but god I miss you I miss you, I hope it’s not too late to say that, dammit I’m sorry I miss you … Hello, are you there?”

“Ifechi …”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Ifechi …”

“Yes?”

“What do you need?”

“To get away.”

Jakkie, who had gently unlocked the front door and was now sitting on her patio drinking loose leaf raspberry tea, asked where she wanted to go. When Ifechi told her, Jakkie stirred the murk in her mug. Then she said, “As long as it’s not Lagos, I’ll meet you there. Send me a date.”

Grateful for a life like this that allowed her to go wherever she chose, Jakkie walked back to her garden barefoot, tended to the flowers and plucked some basil for the bolognese she’d been dreaming of all day. Ifechi’s text came in when the fettuccine was al dente.

Coral Beach Lodge belonged to their mutual friend Mukhtar: a horticulturist, real estate enthusiast, and wellness addict. It was one of the few places they wouldn’t be swarmed by fans who wanted to talk or gush or take selfies. Jakkie knew the address already.

Before she put out the sandalwood candle at her bloodwood dining table, Jakkie thought more about the day. To hear from Ifechi after all this time? To have her need her again, out of all the people she could have called instead? Relief. That’s what she felt. And the rousing of a long buried want.

*
Ifechi Adams was not yet a Nollywood powerhouse all those years back when they met in New York on an autumn night, the fallen leaves a crunch of green, flaming red, dull yellows, and enthusiastic browns. She was doing a film course at NYFA and still lived in the flat in Queens that she shared with six other girls who worked as models, bartenders, dancers, and the like. A cab would cut too deep into her budget for the month and she didn’t want to take the subway, so she walked the forty minutes in her boots, black thrifted coat, and a shimmery sequined dress under, to the address on the invite. Inside the private mixer, she felt like an imposter, a grifter, as her friend-turned-brother made the introductions, telling everyone she was the Next Big Thing.

Ifechi was not sure then what Ayo always saw in her, but she knew better than to give that away. Even when in doubt, she had a gift for blending in, handed to her by her mother whose mother had also done same. Finally, they settled at Ayo’s table, which he was sharing with “JJA” and another man with sleepy eyes called Amadi. A growing thirst began in Ifechi’s body as JJA spoke about art, about her stint as a professor, about directing stage plays in Nigeria and writing a film she knew was about to change everything, her silver canine glinting. Ifechi wondered about that choice: had she lost a tooth? Was this just jewelry? She snapped out of the distraction and began following JJA’s words again.

“You know ehn, Jakkie …” Ayo said while making a point, setting that name on the table, casual as a condiment. Aha, thought Ifechi, that’s what the J is for.

This was the entire point of the night, as Ayo told her when he ushered her in from the door: “Loosen up. Meet people. Make some friends. Dazzle them. Everyone who’s someone in this industry you’ve been dying to penetrate is in this room.” He’d always felt like she kept too much to herself, like she needed some permeability in all that concrete so that the world could trickle in just a bit, and he told her just as much. She was trying to listen. Ayo nodded as Jakkie talked about Broadway plays and silent films, all the while self-possessed and charming, an alloy composed of a steely wisdom, a coppery confidence, and brasslike wit. Their banter was easy and agile, topics bouncing off the table as they talked. Had Ayo seen The Lion King on Broadway just yet? She could imagine stories like that in Nigeria. Giant theatrical productions. Could he see it too?

“So wait, are you thinking of moving back home full-time now, or what?” Ayo asked.

“Full time is far. I still love New York, of course. Always will. But I want more time there.”

Ayo asked her about the small indie film she just wrapped shooting for. “It was alright. I learned that I don’t need to like people to work with them, if I’m being honest; as long as we can respect each other as individuals and no one steps on my toes … This was like that.” Just then, Amadi began to slip out for a smoke break.

“And you,” Jakkie asked, turning to look at Ifechi dead in the eyes, the atmosphere between them dour. “What do you do?”

“I mean … things,” said Ifechi. “I’m still trying to figure it out.”

“Don’t mind this one,” said Ayo, interjecting, eyes fixed on the door, his mouth still pointed at the table. “She’s a fantastic actress. The only person I know who matches the ruthless desire I met in you all those years ago … is Ifechi. Anyway, I’m going to love and leave you guys. My bobo is here.”

Ifechi and Jakkie both turned their heads to see Ayo’s partner: Mr Jimi—a music producer, a conjuror of transcendental beats who had worked with everyone from Lágbájá to the Lijadu Sisters—and then they turned again, to face each other.

“I like your earrings,” Ifechi said quickly, a heat burning behind her ears.

“Thank you. That lipstick flatters you. You should rock it everywhere.” A pause shivered between them. Then: “Let me use the restroom real quick, and then go say more hellos.”

Ifechi nodded feebly, words vanishing quickly on her tongue. What felt like half a minute passed before she made her way to the toilet too, following closely behind Jakkie like a confused shadow. There was nothing in her bladder, so why was she there? Washing her anxious hands in the sink, heart staggering in her throat, Ifechi stayed put until Jakkie came out of her stall, and then she turned; the tap behind her now trickling lazily. “C-can I see you again?”

“In what capacity?” Jakkie asked her, adjusting her hair in the mirror. Still holding a rolled dollar bill, it was clear she had just done a line straight off the marble. Good. Ifechi was buzzing too from all the shots Ayo gave to loosen her up. “And why?”

What could she say here? Nothing was coming. “Um … In what capacity? I would like some time. To talk about film, ask questions, listen, laugh. Would you be open to that? As for the why, because I want to.”

Jakkie was fucked in that moment, and she knew it—looking at that Ifechi’s pouty mouth, the smile she was keeping to herself. Why fight it? “Dinner? 9 p.m. tomorrow. If you’re open, I can have someone pick you up. The chef is my good friend, so it’s really whatever you want. Personally, I go there for the seafood.”

“Yes. Yes please.” Ifechi wrote down her address on a piece of paper and handed it to Jakkie who put it in her purse, then left her standing there.
‍

On the day they were to meet up, Ifechi tried on five different outfits. A suit (too serious), her favorite black pants with an off the shoulder lace top and a wild afro wig (incorrect), three dresses she liked to wear often (white cotton, yellow silk, black midi). In the end, she chose the black dress, the exact same red lipstick from the mixer, and her hair in a twist out. The chauffeur was a handsome tall Senegalese man who small-talked with her all the way to the restaurant just off Fulton Street, distracting the knots in her stomach.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Jakkie asked over her seventh oyster, as they overlooked the Brooklyn Bridge. “I told you already. You’re not confused. You’re a star. You’re an actor. Why don’t you do something about that?”

“Aspiring,” said Ifechi through a forming shiver. In all her months here, she had never seen New York with this dreamy skin over it. “I’m not an actor. Not yet.”

“You are.”

“I—”

Jakkie could see Ifechi casting her net into their conversation for more praise, a sturdier word, something prophetic. “I won’t convince you past here. Only you can know.”

“Fine! I am an actor. I’m an actor. I’m an actor!” At this admission, Ifechi’s full body throbbed.

“Good,” Jakkie said, flashing Ifechi a flabbergasting smile as she nervously grabbed a tempura prawn. “You were saying about your top five dream collaborators?"

*
One Thursday night in spring, a month before Ifechi’s visa was to expire, Jakkie called her at 8 p.m. to meet her at a friend’s home if she was free. Ifechi, still burning with the unnameable from all the ways their dynamic had deepened since that first night out, said a sharp yes. She got up and went. There, Jakkie introduced her to a man named Kalejaiye Johnson, a screenwriter who was executive producing a film named Land of the Living with a top shot director whose last name Ifechi did not yet know she would take: Tajudeen Adams. It was set in Lagos and would take about six intense weeks of shooting. At the time, Ifechi had only been in three student-led short films.

KJ’s face was beaming with adoration when he turned to Jakkie. “My friend here is the star, of course. I wrote the script for her, with her in mind. She turned me down at first. Then again. But I guess God is finally shining His light on me. JJA in my film? Ahhh, God loves me.”

“Wow, congratulations!” Ifechi said, to Jakkie. “I know you’re going to kill it.”

“Don’t mind the fool,” said Jakkie in the heart of the home’s splendor, her mouth loosened by wine and charisma, “calling God here when he’s an atheist. The reason I asked you to come … is because KJ is actually looking for a supporting actress. He asked if I know anyone, and well …” Jakkie turned to KJ. “I think she’s your girl.”

“Oh yeah?” said KJ, scanning Ifechi. “Can you come by to audition tomorrow? Say 4 p.m.?”

“Yes! Yes!” A real role? This was really happening? “I’ll be there. Where is it?”

Later, thanking Jakkie profusely, Ifechi was trying not to jump up and down. Her excitement still wafted strongly off her, causing a coiled commotion in Jakkie’s core; one that had been there since night one. But Jakkie wasn’t going to let herself go. She needed to see where the work would take them, what being set ablaze by the same script would lead naturally to. “First of all,” she said, “you haven’t locked it in yet. I love your joy but keep that energy for your audition. KJ is pretty strict. Secondly, I don’t like people, so if I like you, then …” Jakkie liked her? Did she just admit that? Sometimes when JJA spoke, Ifechi wanted to fall to her knees and lick her shoes. But maybe that was what the ambition Ayo described looked like. Maybe.

Before she left, Ifechi told Jakkie she wasn’t sure if her parents would approve of her moving back to Nigeria and doing this thing for real. What if it all worked out?

“What would you do if you were me?”

“I’m not you.”

“Yes, but what would you do if you were me?”

“What I most want to do. Which is what I did. I don’t let anything get in the way of my work. You shouldn’t either. It’s your art. It’s what you’re alive for. Why would you let anyone cut it off?”

“Hm,” said Ifechi, still unsure.

“If you’re blessed enough to see the work you are called to do, you either shy away from it or you decide, and commit. Your call.”

When Kalejaiye called to confirm that Ifechi had gotten the role, she cried. Her life was about to change for real, she could see it.

Back in Lagos, Jakkie and Ifechi started work together on the film, spending hours together in rehearsal off set. Watching Jakkie work—the way she allowed the dialogue to swallow her mouth, the written implications blur her jawline—a cold steel started to grow over Ifechi’s spine. Of course she wanted this more than anything: more than belonging, more than approval. She would take this dream by its throat and make it want her as hard as she wanted it. Jakkie was determined to prove her gut right, make a phenom of a film, a searing comeback onto the scene, so she pushed both herself and Ifechi with a drowsy tenacity until new muscles appeared and her starlet’s talent gleamed.

Tajudeen Adams, on seeing Ifechi on set, met his new purpose with a heady doggedness that soon became what he knew as love. He was determined to make a star, to forge her a blazing path, to show her as he saw her, to use his skill to bolster her dreams. On release, the film flayed the industry and there was so much chatter: Jakkie’s name was back in every mouth hailing her as the legend she was, and Ifechi’s name blasted into the lights. More offers came in. And then more. More calls. More scripts. More money. Neither Jakkie nor Ifechi returned to New York. It was the start of a new life.

*
By the time Jakkie June-Akin arrived at Coral Beach Lodge with her head shorn, in a burnt orange dress, wisps and splotches of white and violet chasing the billowing satin, ass like a whistle from a past life, muscles like an insistent devastation, Ifechi—already there for a week—grew freshly feeble in her joints. After the call, she had packed a bag, some swimsuits, an abandoned manuscript for the memoir she started five years prior, and a journal. Booking herself three weeks away through her travel agent Mustafa, she bought the almost six hour connecting flight to Dakar. She had spent the first week journaling, stretching in the mornings, on the phone with her sister in the evenings. It was precious what she and Nneka had. In London for almost a decade now, Nneka never had to ask Ifechi to send cameroon pepper, ata rodo, frozen snails, and the green Indomie because Ifechi did that religiously even though they sold all those things in London now. Nneka still bought Ifechi’s snacks, favorite teas, underwear, favored pork sausages, and sent those along with all the online shopping Ifechi ordered straight to her flat in Maida Vale, even though there were ways to get them sent directly. It had always touched them both; the ways they found to keep the love even continents apart.

Before Jakkie up and moved continents, too, there was a time when she and Ifechi would come out here together for their yearly getaway and just sit by the water clearing their heads side by side; pressing their endless wants against each other until they were gasping for air. But so much had happened between then and now, so Ifechi hadn’t been sure what to expect when she reached out, with the film of silence that had grown over their friendship. Home alone that day, she’d sat on the cold tile of her bathroom floor, a sudden audacity allowing her to scroll and dial the number. She hadn’t even been sure it’d go through.

*
“May I?” Jakkie asked, nodding to the hammock beside Ifechi.

Ifechi stood up to hug Jakkie. She was wearing a sarong over her deep blue bathing suit, cleavage visible and torturous. “Hi,” she said. Jakkie ran her fingers through Ifechi’s dark forest of hair. Ifechi lowered her nose to Jakkie’s neck, whiffs of warm amber hitting her behind the eyes.

Biting down the cry she could now feel rising in her chest, Ifechi thought to herself: my god, time can be so cutting. She couldn’t believe she’d let them go like that, that when Jakkie moved to Europe she didn’t do more to stay close to her. Yes, she couldn’t take her up on the proposal she was making, but still.

Ifechi was still thinking, trying to wrench herself out of the grip of her regrets when Jakkie pulled her back in. They stared at each other as the possibility of a kiss thrashed between their breaths, reminding them of a time when they were so swallowingly consumed by each other: when Jakkie’s insomnia worsened as she wondered whether to keep the lines strict, squandering hours on the understanding that she had finally met her match, though younger, much much; and Ifechi couldn’t decide if she wanted Jakkie to mother her, mentor her, or finger her senseless. She didn’t know then that she wouldn’t have to choose; she just couldn’t have it all at once.

But now?

Now, Ifechi knew they were in a separate timeline, one in which Jakkie had paved open the career Ifechi always wanted, and one in which she had worked so ruthlessly until they had somehow magically become peers. This was the aftermath of that, powered by their other varying choices. Ifechi reached forward, trying to rip the threadbare veil between the before and after lives, thinking in a whisper: take me back take me back take me back.

Jakkie smiled gently at her. “Some words first?” Of course. That was like her too.

They sat down and watched birds scatter elegantly across the horizon. While alone, Ifechi had been along the lip of the ocean every other night, taking walks, collecting seashells, holding them to her ear, asking for new instructions from her guides. Some nights it worked, some nights it didn’t, but there was a stack of them now by her bedside table next to her journal and the worn mug she made sure to pack with her for comfort.

“So,” Ifechi said to Jakkie, “you agreed to see me.”

Jakkie cocked an amused eyebrow. “Are you surprised?”

They were in a different world when Jakkie had told Ifechi that she’d always be one call away. Ifechi didn’t expect that such an old promise wouldn’t have begun curdling by now. “Yes.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Jakkie said, leaning back. She craned her neck to see the portly waiter standing to their far left and beckoned to him. “What’s on the menu today?”

“Everything listed ma.”

Jakkie looked at the menu, a slab of gold leaf resting on a stained wood stool set faithfully between them.

She still remembered her favorites by heart, so all it took was a cursory scan. “Let’s start with a salad. Chicken Caesar.” She turned to Ifechi. “I want a seafood platter too. That good?”

Ifechi nodded, remembering the days when their time together meant bottles of brandy and smoking a shared pack of cigarettes. “And oysters.”

“After you bring it,” Jakkie continued, darting her words at the waiter, hiding away a smile, “you’ll give us some space. We’ll call the number if we need anything.”

“Yes ma.”

“Did you quit drinking? Smoking?” Ifechi’s voice shone with sparkling hints of tease once the man was out of sight.

“For the most part. Turned fifty. The doctor did a thorough check of all my organs. He said something about the future of my liver that I didn’t like. So I stopped. You know how I am.”

“I do know how you are.” Recollections hummed behind them. “You’re not going to ask me why I never called?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I think you’ll tell me before I leave anyway. Won’t you?”

*
On Day Two, Ifechi was still asleep at 6 a.m. when a knock rapped on the door’s wood, tearing her awake. For hours the night before, they’d both laid awake tortured by the same memory: the last time they were on a private beach together in Morocco. They’d coaxed heartbreaking moans out of each other and come away with sand stains, only to stand under an outdoor shower, stripped and satisfied. Ifechi opened to find a sweating smiling Jakkie, clearly just fresh off a run in a sports bra and shorts. Behind her, the sun was still settling: rinds of lilac, peach, and rust peeling out of the sky in reverse motion, making way for more deep blues, greys, dark whites. Still in her robe and naked underneath, Ifechi wanted to untie the only thing between them, just to mock time, to let it know it didn’t matter as much as it thought it did—that taunting beast.

“I haven’t even brushed my teeth, dude. Go away.”

“I will,” said Jakkie. How long had it been now since they had seen each other’s morning faces? Eons. Too long. “But meet me soon? You’re the one who called me here.”

“Fine.”

Ifechi smiled through her shower, a sense of rightness working between her muscles under the steam. Where Jakkie slept was only eight footsteps away, and Ifechi knew this because while restless at night, pacing back and forth as quietly as she could, she counted. Now, she was outside, staring at the shared Jacuzzi, Jakkie dangling her feet inside it, reading a purple book. Ifechi sat beside her. “Want to swim later?”

“Sure.”

“I asked them to bring us smoothies. Also, I have these … cookies? If you want.”

They both peeled off a corner of the white chocolate edible in sync.

“I thought you stopped doing drugs.”

“I stopped smoking,” said Jakkie, “and drinking. Didn’t unbecome myself, smart mouth.”

Ifechi shrugged, teasing. She was gleaming under the tame sun; had taken her time to moisturize properly.

“I always knew he was a fool, you know?” said Jakkie, the incoming high idling through them as they sat. “A genius at his work, but a foolish person at life.”

Ifechi chuckled into her palm. “Then why did you introduce me to him?”

“I didn’t,” Jakkie said, serious. Ifechi watched her, alert. “I told you to audition for the film with KJ, not sleep with his co-director, marry him and have his babies. Brilliant as he is, I never told you to let him subsume your light. I never told you to stay with him when I asked you to come with me and work on the play. I never told you any of that. That was you. You could have had anything you wanted, and you chose him.”

Ifechi felt the sting of an old slap she had given Jakkie, after Jakkie asked for it mid-rapture. The memory dropped her head slightly. “Touché,” she said. “Also, I couldn’t have had anything I wanted. You know that.”

“You could have had me, us,” Jakkie interjected, adjusting Ifechi’s recollection like a tuning fork. “That said, I always knew you’d do more than I did. So even though I left, I’m glad you stayed to keep climbing. I’m glad you didn’t leave Lagos to start over again somewhere else. I’m glad you saw the promise and ran with it. It’s why you’re who you are. It’s why you own the screen by the heart now. It’s why you’re the blueprint. You changed everything.”

Those words from Jakkie felt almost chiropractic. This was what she wanted, right? Right.

“After Taj and I married,” said Ifechi, melting the sequence, “I entered a black hole and made our shared life in there. I climbed out after many years, parched and needing me more than anyone else. Many of my friends missed me. I could tell. Some left me. I think that’s alright. But you? I was not alright.”

Yes, Tajudeen could amplify the thing that mattered the most to Ifechi in the world, and he did not know where in herself she hid the only part of herself that could be destroyed. How could he? Consumed too fully by his own work, he wasn’t the type to spend time digging. She told him she was bisexual. He said: Who isn’t in this our world? All that matters is who you choose. When he prodded, she told him about the harmless flirting, the almost touches, the vapid sex. He was fine with her women. She was fine with the charged secrets he tucked into work trips. It was part of why they worked. She never said what mattered about her and Jakkie.

But he could see. He saw.

When he asked her to look at it, to stop lying, to cut Jakkie off, she said yes. She foolishly did. And that part was on her.

“Everyone who loved you knew that, saw that you were struggling. But Ifechi, you needed those lights. And you fought for them. You stayed for them. That is something to be proud of.”

Ifechi’s voice caught just then. “Then why am I so heartbroken? Why am I so … burnt out?”

“Because we don’t often know when to stop …? People who want like you and I, we don’t always know when to stop.”

“But you did. You did. You left before they could consume you.”

“You think that’s why?”

The news the press told about Jakkie June-Akin was pristine, dignified, clinically produced. That was her publicist’s job, and it worked. They said she left because Nollywood was too banal, small, uninteresting. That had never been the truth. She missed everything often. Here, now, with Ifechi—this woman who had entered her life and changed everything, enlarged her heart and made her want to keep falling—she wanted to tell her the truth. She wanted to peel off the illusion, stand bare and ask to be seen. She wanted to say, I left because I had to. I left because, because, because …

“Let me,” she said instead. “Please let me get away with this one. Let me tell you another day when I’m more brave.”

They swam into the heart of the ocean that evening: Ifechi and Jakkie, as the burnt orange sun drowned into the water. When Ifechi expected it the least, Jakkie took off her sports bra and tossed it into the ocean, then swam to shore. Ifechi couldn’t tear her eyes away from those damn waist beads, her back, those breasts and the memory of them in her mouth. And wait, was that a tattoo? An ectopic emotion resumed its place.

“Why?” Ifechi asked, arriving at the shore too, her entire core clenched beyond reasoning. She was close to falling apart, she could feel it.

“I like to give something to the water,” said Jakkie, “so that it has something to remember me by.”

*
On the eve of Jakkie’s exit, both their throats raw from the hacking pleasure from the full day before—Ifechi astride Jakkie on the sand that high afternoon after taking off her top and then her underwear as Jakkie watched; the old leash the sight of Ifechi’s body immediately tore off Jakkie, right there in the open because why wait; the soft wet darkness Ifechi found between Jakkie’s thighs when she let her fingers roam that deadly trail; the way a sweet flame engulfed her when she slid her fingers in and Jakkie bit into her shoulder in response leaving a beating mark as souvenir, then another on her hip, then another on her inner thigh; Ifechi on all fours that night mouth open to the sky, swallowing stars as the ocean undulated darkly; Jakkie working her from behind like old times were back, no years had passed; both of them successfully seduced by a brief sleep in one fell swoop shortly after only to wake up and choose it again; this time inside, in the room, in the shower, on the bed; how Jakkie’s eyes snapped open as the glass beads and string clattered around her body under Ifechi’s tight grip, a searing severance from fear, like what now—Jakkie asked Ifechi a dreaded question under the arrogant full moon.

“Have you enjoyed being a mother?”

“All I can say is you’re lucky you’ve never experienced it.” Ifechi caught the expression that grinded on Jakkie’s cheekbone, and asked. “Or have you?”

In a moment like this, Jakkie and Ifechi could simply sit as women, as human, as friends. Now and then were planets apart, no? So: “Long ago,” said Jakkie. “Not that it matters.”

“Tell me.”

Jakkie could afford to be closed on Day One, Two, Three, but all this was about to end and she knew. She knew. How many people in her life could she tell this to?

“I had a child once. Before we even met. I was about twenty. Her father’s a composer I met early and he saw me clearly, which by then I didn’t realize didn’t mean we needed to do what we did. It was too late to terminate by the time I found out. The kick came and I realized I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have it to give: housing and growing a person. So I gave her up after she was born, left that life, fell into acting, which was my real desire, a great catalyst, the only thing I wanted to come out of me. When I do think of her, like right now, it’s to hope that her life is good.”

“Oh,” said Ifechi. She scanned her mind for words, only finding small senseless sparks. “What should I say?”

“I like that you have nothing. Please keep it that way.”

“Okay.”

“When I found out about my fibroids,” Jakkie continued, “I’d never been more glad to do a surgery. I scraped it all out in a hysterectomy. So children stopped being possible. A relief. You and I met after that.” Jakkie shrugged. “Now … back to my question. Have you enjoyed being a mother?”

“In the earlier days. Now I feel … disconnected sometimes? And … I don’t know …”

“Resentful?”

Ifechi nodded. “And some days, stuck.”

“It makes sense,” said Jakkie.

Ifechi turned to find an enthralled waiter who she waved away with her hand, waiting until she scurried away. She never understood why people thought they were so stealthy. Her body was full of sensors.

Jakkie was waiting when her attention returned. “What’s going to happen with Tade? Drugs are hard … Yemisi seems to be doing alright. She wants the way you want. But that’s not the worst thing. This is a new world. Women can love women.”

“Can they?” asked Ifechi, melting Jakkie under a steady gaze. “And yeah, I know. I know. It’s just … it is the most terrifying thing to have a child who is like you. Like me … About Tade, I don’t know.”

“You can’t choose life on his behalf, you know?” Jakkie said, resting her fingers on Ifechi’s wrist. “That’s one of the worst parts of watching this kind of thing unfold. You also can’t scoop him back into your body to save him from the world. I’m so sorry.” They sat there as crickets skittered behind. “What’s he on?”

“Whatever you can name. The worst of the worst. I can’t recognize him. What allowed you to stop?”

Hm. “Let’s see.” Jakkie thought that was a question worth taking her time with, so she did until the words appeared. “In trying to run away from myself, I ran into myself, sustained some unforgettable injuries. And no one had to tell me again.”

“So, new life?”

“I guess.”

“Still working?”

“Always. I write more now though. Scripts. Under different pen names. And then depending on my mood, I might sell them to filmmakers whose work I love. People keep asking: who wrote this? One of my pen names recently won me best screenplay at BFI and AFRIFF. Sweet life. I get to step away from the screen and still inject all the praise.”

They both laughed uproariously. “You do love your praise.”

“Watch your mouth, baby.”

Ifechi shook her head then, her neck weighted with returning flashbacks. She felt outrageously shy. “I saved this for you.” Ifechi handed Jakkie three seashells. “You can make them into anything you want. A pendant, a ring, an earring. But make them into something. I don’t know.”

“How thoughtful. Thank you.” Jakkie inhaled and Ifechi could tell she was already thinking about tomorrow: the flight, her return. “So, it’s done? With you and Taj?”

“I left the divorce papers on his bed. Hard to call that back.” A siren whined in the foreground. “Stay some more?”

“You know what my answer is.”

“I do. But why is your answer no?”

“I have a garden to tend to. It misses me when I’m gone too long.”

“A garden, huh? What do you grow?”

“Herbs. Flowers. Fruits. Beautiful things. Butterflies visit often. Maybe you can come visit me sometime?”

“Maybe.”

A frisson coursed between them like a brief flash of lightning. Ifechi and Jakkie stared out at the beach, waves thundering over sand like a ravishing silky hunch.

Afterword

Ifechi Adams first appeared fully formed on the page of my sophomore novel-in-stories Necessary Fiction, as one sturdy half of a Nollywood power couple. An actor who shines and cuts through her roles with the heft of a scepter, the astuteness of a switchblade, the accuracy of a skinning knife, she flashes her ambition like a predestined, bioselected fang. Here in “Silverscreen,” we meet her again, from before the consecutive wins, and then in a sliver of timespace when the protective flesh falls; where the failing foundation on which her personal life stands brings her to her knees. Jakkie June-Akin is the bloody half-heart of the story, the shattering chord that makes this timestack of Ifechi’s future-on-past-on-present visible to the reader. Jakkie is the only one who can do it. When Ifechi chose to go and be beside water—her ancient reliable witness—and to bring Jakkie there too, I understood.
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Coral Beach Lodge has a sound. In my mind’s cochlea, Immanuel Wilkins’s The 7th Hand album first suffuses the air, before landing definitively on “Fugitive Ritual, Selah” on loop. It is the song for the unraveling scenes, that mercurial dynamic. The saxophone waxes over the piano, which covers the bass, so of course there is now a habitable world beyond the realm of articulation. A web forms between our protagonists, composed of sound and silence, instruments and water—a racking attunement, a stabbing fork in the road. There’s the album’s cover image too (photographed by Satchel Lee), which evokes the image of baptism, of renewal, replete with spiritual connotations of water.
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In this story, the waves asked each person some questions. They had answers—some of which they said, and some of which they kept within. I respect that, adore it between them. Though I know much, I’m not on the inside of everything. And ultimately, what I do and don’t know is what I wrote.