CHAPTER 1
I LOVED THE SOUND of my own name.
“Dance with me, Blake.”
It wasn’t vanity. Not entirely …
“Blaaaaaake.”
Hearing my name reminded me I was here. I existed. I had a witness.
And it felt good to be seen.
“I love you, Bee.”
My girlfriend’s breath was hot in my ear. We were dancing. I loved dancing with Ella Spencer. This gorgeous statue of a girl who only had eyes for me. She was electric, and so was I. We were Blake and Ella, Ella & Blake, the couple Landstown High voted Most Likely to Still Be Together in Ten Years for yearbook senior superlatives. Only ten years? A decade sounded insulting when the honor was first bestowed.
We were going to last forever, I just knew it.
We were on Josiah Winters’s yacht, Byte Me. I didn’t know what time it was. The string lights looked pretty and so did my girlfriend, my beautiful, beautiful girlfriend. Someone handed me a drink and I downed it without asking what was in it. It was pink and it was pretty, what more did I need to know? I was here and everything was good.
* * *
Someone shouted over the music, “You aren’t going to fucking believe this!” Josiah. Loud-ass Josiah. Ella and I swayed toward the knot of our coworkers clustered around the bar, and there was Roxanne Garcia, glowing under a crystal chandelier. She grinned at me over a martini glass like the Cheshire Cat. She was so pretty she made my teeth hurt.
“Mr. Peterson hosted a costume party on his boat last weekend and he showed up in blackface,” Josiah said, and declarations of “Shut up!” and “I know you fucking lying!” exploded from the group like confetti. Ella snaked an arm around my waist, and I sank into her.
(My beautiful girlfriend—who chose me!)
Josiah had evidence. He airdropped it to the entire party so we could see. When Ella opened it, she laughed and called him an asshole, but when I saw the photo, my anger was scarlet and slingshot fast. I hated the Petersons. I served Mr. Peterson and his miserable, entitled family all the time at the Snack Attack Shack. More than once he’d snapped his fingers to get my attention because he didn’t know my name.
“I hate him,” I spewed, tossing my phone onto the bar with a clatter. “He’s such a racist piece of shit! Someone … someone”—the room swayed—“someone should teach him a lesson.”
“Uh-oh,” Ella said. “Big Bad Bee’s coming out.”
(You know what’s even better than the sound of your own name? A nickname someone created just. For. You.)
“I love it when Big Bad Bee comes out!” Josiah cheered, his pale cheeks ruddied from wine.
“Who’s Big Bad Bee?” someone asked.
How could they not know?
I sashayed around the bar and plucked the cotton candy vape out of my best friend Annetta’s hand. She muttered, “Not like I was using that,” when I took a giant hit. I looked so cool.
“I am Big Bad Bee,” I declared through a cloud of sweet smoke. The crowd cheered, “Bee! Bee! Bee!” but all I heard was, Me—
Me.
ME!
* * *
I was in the bathroom. Swirling like I was going down a drain. I grabbed the sink for balance and my eyes snagged on the girl in the mirror. She looked so good. Wild black curls, straight white teeth, smoky eye makeup that hadn’t budged all night. No more Little Blake. This was Big Bad Bee.
“I’m so sexy,” I purred, grabbing my chest and shimmying my shoulders. Someone giggled. A toilet flushed and Ella—my beautiful girlfriend—joined me at the mirror. She’d been here the whole time?
“Yeah, you are,” she said, running her tongue along her bottom lip. Her mouth was grenadine red.
* * *
Inside the golf cart bay. It was hot. Summers in Virginia were always so damn hot, even at two in the morning. Was time was it? Who knew. Who cared. Not me, Big Bad Bee.
I was drinking something fruity. Watermelon? No, grapefruit.
“You should chill,” Annetta said. She was always popping up like some overbearing Whac-a-Mole just when the party was getting good.
Ella came over with a frosty bottle of rum and topped me off. “She’s fine, Nettie. My Bumblebee needs her nectar.”
I sipped and winked at Annetta.
Buzz, buzz, bitch.
* * *
Someone mentioned Frank Peterson again, and I got riled up again and told everyone how much I hated him again. When I turned around, Roxanne Garcia was there. Somehow she was always there.
“You know, Blake…” My name fell from her pink-painted lips like scribbled cursive, impressive for just one syllable. “The Serena Society fiercely condemns racism and anti-Blackness in all its forms.”
I knew. Of course I knew. I wanted to be a Serena Society girl so bad it took everything in me to not throw myself at her feet right then and there. I nodded like a hungry disciple.
Roxanne’s mouth slid into a pout. “So what are you going to do about it?”
* * *
This is where things got hazy.
* * *
Outside, the parking lot. It was so hot. Asphalt sizzled beneath my feet. Why was I barefoot?
Tunnel vision. I was searching for something. I had a feeling I’d know what it was when I found it. Alcohol surged through my body, propelled me forward.
At my back, a chorus line: “Big Bad Bee! Big Bad Bee!”
* * *
A heavy paint can. Hot tin, liquid gold. It was in my hands and the lid was off. It was in my hands and my palm was bleeding, but I didn’t care. I was Big Bad Bee.
* * *
A desperate hunt. The wooden dock groaning beneath my feet. So much laughter. I was the reason.
* * *
“Who wants to see me fuck up this white man’s boat?!”
Their cheers lit me up from the inside. There it was: That Feeling! I was glitter and whiskey and audacity, I was THAT BITCH! A symphony of encouragement. Only one dissenter—
“This isn’t a good idea! Blake, stop—”
Roxanne’s laughter drowned everything. She was the president of the Serena Society and she was happy. Whatever she wanted, I’d do. I lifted the paint can over my head.
* * *
My target? Frank Peterson’s yacht, La Dolce Vita. I flung the can with everything. Yellow paint. A neon swirl, lighting up the night. Spraying and splattering across pristine white.
* * *
“Yoooooo!”
“Blake’s fucking wild, bruh!”
“Big Bad Bee! Big Bad Bee!”
I loved the sound of my own name.
CHAPTER 2
I WOKE UP IN ELLA’S BED, the only mementos from the night a throbbing headache and yellow paint caked beneath my fingernails.
Ella stirred awake. “Morning, Bee.” She yawned and said, “Last night was unbelievable. You should’ve seen Roxanne’s face. No one thought you were gonna do it.”
I rotated my left hand and winced at a large red gash that sliced my palm in half. I looked at Ella in confusion.
“The paint can,” she explained, propping her head up. Her long waves, recently dyed fiery red, splayed across her silk pillowcases. “You cut yourself on the lid.”
My fingers curled over the cut, palm pulsing, raw and tender. Ella snuggled against my neck and kissed the underside of my jaw. I ran my tongue over my teeth, still not used to how slick they felt without braces.
“You are so wild,” she murmured. She sounded pleased, thank goodness.
I sat up, head pounding, and squinted against the honey morning light spilling through Ella’s sheer ivory curtains. Her chubby tabby cat, Nina, yawned at the end of the bed. A clock bounced around the snoozing computer monitor across the room. Nine thirty. We were about to be late for work. Ella sat up, too.
“You okay, Bee?”
I looked at her. She wore no trace of last night on her face. Her pink lips were moisturized, soft brown eyes bag-free.
“You’re not worried about Mr. Peterson, are you?” Even her breath smelled fresh. “Because you shouldn’t be. He’s the worst, remember? He totally deserves it.”
“What did I do?” I asked, and she laughed.
“You threw paint all over Frank Peterson’s yacht because he’s a racist piece of shit.”
I froze. The night was foggy, but the paint under my fingernails was real and flaking all over Ella’s lilac duvet.
“Shit,” I said. “Did someone see? What if—” The thought was too terrifying to finish. I didn’t know how much yacht detailing cost, but it sure as hell was more than I made at my crappy minimum-wage job. I couldn’t afford the repair. Would Mr. Peterson go after my parents? They didn’t have money, either. But—
“Hey.” Ella shook my shoulders. “Don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” I lied.
Copyright © 2024 by Jasmyne Hammonds