SUNSHINE AND BAY AND DOUBT

"This would be easier if we were sleeping together."

[Mahlena wrote this short story! Please leave a comment! 🙆🏾]

“Do you even have a daughter?”





October 2016


“Yes. You met her. With your daughter. At the Monkey Bar the other day. You saw me, and I saw you, and we both freaked out.” Bay crumpled his napkin on the booth table. “I know I shouldn’t have let Tib badger me into driving to Hennessey Park for a free fruit smoothie. But it was free. And delicious.”

On the other side of the diner booth, Sunshine shrugged. “For all I know, she could have been an actor.”

“Yes, on the off chance that I’d run into you in public, I hired a strange eight-year-old to maintain my charade.”

Sunshine tightened her grip on the large white envelope in her hands. “Your name isn’t Bay.”

“It’s a pseudonym. A stage name.”

“This has all been a performance?”

“It’s for our protection. Fat lot of good it’s done, considering your cop friend dug up my permanent record from a fingerprint I left at your house. By the way, are you also saving my stray hairs to discover which ships my ancestors boarded to enter this country?”

“I didn’t know Charm was going to do this. She saw us out together, and when she came over for a PTA meeting, she told me you looked familiar. Charm’s a detective with the HP Police Department, so she’s suspicious of everyone. I didn’t think anything of it, until she handed me this envelope at school.”

“And what have you learned?” He crossed his arms.

“Nothing. I haven’t opened it.”

“Why not?”

“I wanted to hear from you first.”

“You do realize, I don’t know everything about you either, Sunshine.”

“I don’t have a record. I’m not a criminal.”

“Neither am I. I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit.”

“Do you want me to open it?”

“Go ahead.” He sipped his bottle water.

Sunshine set the sheaf of pagers on the tabletop and pored over them one at a time. “Armed robbery. Assault with a deadly weapon?”

“Keep going.”

She read through printouts of newspaper clippings, booking files, and court documents. “Pablo de la Bahía?”

He nodded. 

“Bahía, Bay. I see.” She continued reading. “Accomplice, no bail, guilty plea, suspended sentence, time served. I think I understand.”

“It was my last year of university in Florida. My last semester, on a third string football scholarship. I was in a car with my little brother and his friends, and they pulled up at a convenience store. I stayed in the back seat, because I didn’t want anything. Without telling me, they decided to pull a gun on the cashier, ran out of the store with $50, and drove off. Whey the cops tracked the car, the only person they found was me.”

“What about your brother?”

“Haven’t seen him since that night.”

“You haven’t seen you brother in … 14 years?

“No one was hurt, but I sat in jail for most of the semester. Finally got to trial before graduation. My lawyer had proof I wasn’t involved, from the video surveillance outside the store, but the DA wanted to convict somebody, so the judge agreed to conviction with no sentence, along with my testimony of the actual events. And I never finished my last 15 credits, so no degree. Some college. That’s the box I check. Ended my dreams of a sport management career.”

Sunshine shuffled the papers back onto the stack. “Does the agency know?”

“It appears as part of my background check. So I told Brenda the story during one of my many interviews. She was crying, like you are.”

Her tears created ink puddles on the pages. “This is complicated.”

“Not really. It’s a common story for Latino youths. A justice system created to keep us down. Comparatively, I’m doing okay.”

“Not that,” Sunshine said. “Of course, yes, institutional racism is the scourge of our country, etc., why do you think I live in Hennessey Park, even the white people here are brown, blah blah.”

“Great platform. You should run for office.”

“I meant,” she wiped her eyes with a recycled paper napkin, “our relationship is confusing. I feel like we’re friends, but I pay you to hang out with me, so we’re not friends? You’re like my nanny, but you don’t change my diaper.”

“That’s definitely extra. For me. For other people, that’s included on the menu.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I. Don’t poop on me.”

“Stop making me laugh!”

He zipped his lips shut.

“This would be simpler if we were sleeping together,” Sunshine surmised.

He replied with raised eyebrows, followed by a sarcastic nod.

“The lines would be clearer,” she claimed.

He shook his head in disagreement.

“It seems that way to me,” she insisted.

He gave her an eye roll with a neck roll for emphasis.

“Fine,” Sunshine conceded. “What would you like to say?”

“If you think I’m funny, that’s on you.”

“Proceed.”

“I provide a service that is tailored for you,” he said. “Whatever services I, or my colleagues, provide to our other clients are irrelevant.”

Sunshine sat back against the pleather bench. 

“And yes, over the past two months, we have become friends, without quotation marks. Which,” he admitted, “makes our situation… unusual.”

“It’s probably because we have the single parent status in common?” 

Pablo regarded Sunshine with care before he responded, “Probably?”

“Then we could be friend with benefits. Does the agency offer benefits?”

“It’s a contract position, so there are various packages available at different levels. In any case,” he said, “in my professional opinion…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think you’re in a good place for a casual, physical relationship.”

Sunshine was mortified. “With you, or with anyone?”

“I, well, I, um—”

She gathered her papers into her purse. “I get it.” She opened her wallet to leave some bills for the check.

He stopped her. “No, I get it.”

She left her wallet open. “On my account, right?”

He recoiled, stung.

Sunshine’s fire persisted. “Just tell me the truth. I’m too damaged. That’s why you don’t want to consummate this relationship.”

He stared at her. “I do want to. That’s the problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she sputtered.

“Forget what I said.” He stood up and left his cash on the diner table. “Let’s take a break. I’ll inform the office.” He headed toward the exit.

“Wait! Bay?” Sunshine scrambled to follow him, the envelope almost tumbling out of her satchel. “Pablo?”

He stopped.

Standing in the aisle between stations that needed to be bussed, Sunshine watched as Pablo came back to her. She felt his dark five o’clock scruff graze her cheek as he kissed her temple.

When Pablo walked out the door, Sunshine remained standing, alone.

FIN

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