The Education of Nia Simone Bijou by Eric Jerome Dickey

Author:Eric Jerome Dickey [Dickey, Eric Jerome]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781101621622
Google: 0VujxwCRZhEC
Amazon: B00AR2RZR2
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2013-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Five

In most of the photos we were at a table, English and psychology and sociology books in front of us, smiling as if we were the best of friends. A stack of the photos showed all of us in my dorm eating. I remembered. Back when boys had to be signed in and signed out. No hot plates so everything had to be cooked in the kitchen, unless you had a microwave. No alcohol. Our mini-fridge was in the corner. It was a Sunday when I had made dinner for us all. Back then the photos on my camera phone weren’t as good as the ones taken with Kodak, plus I always had the photos burned into a disk. Chris had taken most of those photos. M&M hated to be photographed so she made silly faces in most of them. It was the day that I had introduced the fish-out-of-water ingénue I tutored to the well-respected man I loved. I had introduced her to Chris as being a great young woman, a freshman with a lot of potential, a humanitarian, a smart girl, and a grounded soul. Soon after, she was fucking my boyfriend and I had been made the fool.

Rigoberto.

Chris.

Siobhan.

M&M.

Eugene Williams.

There were more people. Many more. Once you started cooking a home-cooked meal, everyone made a beeline for your room. Patrick. Esther. Rodney. Joe. Sabrina. Gwyneth. Tamari. Dana. Lori. Karyn. Kareem. There was the heavy-chested girl from Tampa, the one who had to wear two bras and a sports bra all the time. People I hadn’t thought about in years were in the photos. Jeans, Timberland boots, and hoodies. Even Siobhan had on Tims and an oversized hoodie, looking as hip hop as the rest of the crew. We were all present and eating and laughing and jamming music and talking and dancing and enjoying college life. Those were the days.

M&M had cooked fried chicken, her specialty. All she ever really ate was fried chicken, fast food from Burger King, or Chanello’s Pizza. I always did most of the cooking. That day Siobhan had come and watched. She couldn’t cook. Had never learned how. So I tried to give her an introductory course. Everything came out perfect. Rigoberto had his plantain, cheese, and sausage. The romantic in me had sort of hoped that he would be interested in Siobhan, even thought she wasn’t his flavor. Eugene and M&M started off pretty awkwardly, but soon they were chatting, and then laughing, then sitting in chairs next to each other. Chris had his beans-and-rice and stewed fish. Siobhan had a little of both, plus she had more than a little curry chicken with eggplant relish and tomato-chutney vinaigrette. And, as I had said before, Chris loved my macaroni pie and breadfruit oil down. We had ginger beer. And we had real beer.

Siobhan was surprised to see Chris in my dorm. She knew him by reputation.

She said, “He’s your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re dating Christopher Alleyne?”

“Chris. Call him Chris. He’s very down-to-earth. Very cool guy.”

“I hear he’s a very smart guy as well.

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