There's something about lounging in a bath of blood that makes me want to stay until my fingers shrivel enough to show the outlines of my bones.
My toes peek out of thick ruby ripples. Slick drops slide off my fingers and splash with an echo in the tub like spicy pone batter dripping off a mixing spoon.
"Sorry to stop you waxing poetic, but you need to get out of the tub." My cousin Keis slouches against the doorframe of our bathroom. The toilet is so close to the bathtub that you have to prop your feet on the ledge when you pee.
She blows a breath out of her nose and crosses her arms. The powder-blue robe she's wearing is embroidered with a K for Keisha. Our oldest cousin, Alex, made one for everyone in the family last Christmas. My canary-yellow robe with a V for Voya is hanging up in my room.
“Don't call me Keisha, even in your head,” she says, casually reading the thought off the top of my mind.
Sorry. Even a year after Keis got her mind-reading gift, I still sometimes forget that she has it.
Granny used to say that Keishas were bad. To fry Granny's battery, Auntie Maise gave the name to both her twin girls. Keis, as she insists on being called, is pronounced “KAY-ss,” like something you put glasses into instead of the more natural “KEY-shh,” which sounds like a delicious egg-and-spinach tart. I figure this is a way for my cousin to differentiate herself even more from her sister, who she's clashed with since birth on account of their shared name.
My cousin clenches her jaw. “Keisha is annoying and obsessed with her feed and dating. That's why we clash. Taking those pictures with her ass stuck out like she's some sort of NuMoney tagalong. For what? So some stranger can give her a five-star rating?"
I like Keisha's feed. She makes living outside the downtown core look glamorous, and I find her open sexuality kind of rebel feminist. It is a lot of boobs and butt, but at least she's proud of it?
Keis pulls off her headscarf, and curly ringlets bounce out of its hold. The roots are a black 1B and the ends blond 14/88A. I bought the sew-in wig online for her birthday. "Yolanda,” it's called. It looks real for fake.
Keis opens her mouth.
Not fake, sorry. It's real hair, but it's not yours.
Having someone inside your head constantly is an experience. By now, I'm used to it. Sometimes it makes things easier because I have a best friend who can comfort me about something I feel shitty about before I even tell her. And sometimes it makes things harder, like when I feel shitty because I know I'll never be as smart or strong or talented as Keis, and I have to see her face shift as she pretends she hasn't heard the thought.
I press the small button on the bath keypad. It's embedded, crooked (thanks, Uncle Cathius), in the white tiles lining the tub. The steam icon lights up neon green, and the installed jets feed heat into the blood bath. I shiver as the warmth hits me.
Every minute I spend here is another I don't have to pass downstairs. I should be enjoying this time, not spending it dreading what comes next.
