Chapter Notes:

This 2018 piece deals with friendship, romance, drama, and institutional racism in a fictional state called "Silkwater." The main POV is Tiana's, but know that her opinions are subjective and a reflection of her environment. We alternate between present tense and past tense because she's telling her version of events. By the way, "taking a nixon" is another way of saying "taking a bathroom break."

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I can't stand cleaning up after old rich men and their greasy egos. They can't keep nothing to themselves whether it be their thoughts or their angry eyes. Not one has been fit to care about calling me by my name or apologizing for spilling wine on my dress at all hours of the night, and they always manage to draw a bead on "my kind" even when "my kind" hasn't got a thing to do with their undercooked salmon. Their pretty women ain't much better. Night in and night out they disrespect my humanity—or what they call "three-fifths" of a humanity—and I'm about to go upside their heads with three-fifths of my piping hot temper.

But I put up with it for Mama. I put up with it until I can go home and think my own thoughts before putting them back on the shelf in the morning. Then I bus straight from Cafe Du Monde to Velvet and trade my white apron for a red flapper dress. God wouldn't have brought me to Velvet if it hadn't been for Mama needing money back home. The first summer I got my feet wet in Silkwater, I found a job as a house maid for Mr. La Bouff and his daughter, Charlotte. It took nothing less than Mr. La Bouff's sugary compliments, homemade rumors, and a sticky love triangle for Charlotette's jealousy to get my reputation kicked to the curb.

Mr. La Bouff, kind as he may have been in the past, made sure I'd never set foot in another white mansion for as long as I was still Colored. The word reached my hometown, where I had to hear from Mama about all the folks dragging my name through the same streets I used to play hopscotch in. It got real hard getting up to feed myself every sunrise. Running out of finances gave my appetite an extra boost, and by then, the chances of locking down a decent job were slimmer than my waist. I resisted Velvet's job application for a while―I resisted for a long while―but I couldn't resist no more after Mama got sick.

See, Velvet pays Coloreds more than the average nightclub in Silkwater, and as long as I keep my head down, I fair mighty fine. I reckon that my heart is a Southern magnolia tree that God had planted to withstand hurricanes, and I'm not about to wait for no world to grow into me. I was born to outgrow the world. Silkwater will see its very first Colored woman run the biggest restaurant any day now. A great big piece of earth is out there just waiting for me to fertilize it with my vision once I get done paying off Mama's debts. But these ignorant men―sometimes they make me want to fold myself up like a pair of dirty stockings and never see daylight till the world has outgrown them.

"Gal, tell one of your skinfolks to get me the Devil's Mouthwash while I'm taking a nixon. I plan on being legless t'night."

"Yes, sir! Comin' right up, sir!" I've gotten real good at pretending certain words slide off me like olive oil, but the people who say them are even better at steaming me up like a tea kettle on a stove. Men everywhere seem to test my patience.

"Have you seen Rider lately, young lady?"

"I...I declare I haven't, Miss Longpré."

Though there was this one man―this...Romeo of sorts―who would stick out among the high rollers to everybody who was anybody. He was plenty handsome as far as handsome went, real smooth-talking with nicely pressed suits, and his skin was a pinch melanated, too. Mama would've called him "sugar, spice, and everythin' nice." Because of his swarthy looks, he got treated like an Italian in Velvet, meaning he was seen as one of those "in-between people" by his own race; his looks still didn't exclude him from its privileges, so to me, he was no different than any other white man. Oftentimes, some "in-between" white people do their best to get in good with "lily white" white people by mimicking the very worst of what many do to Coloreds in Silkwater.

Yet he seemed...different. He didn't try to animalize my people as far as I could see, and that gave him some color to them. It was just the little things he did at first that caught their attention, such as asking his lady friends to ease off poor Odessa, soft-soaping Velvet's performers into apologizing to the Colored bus girls they taunted, and even helping old Miss Jolene down the stairs—little breadcrumbs like those for which he might have expected a Nobel Peace Prize, I imagined. "Flynn Rider" was the name I heard all the girls giving him, and no angel ever fell out of Heaven with a name like that. I gambled on him having a hero complex that was all about feeding his own ego.

I won the bet on the night I went from serving to singing. Desiree Dupré was supposed to be singing on Velvet's stage that night, but the nightingale had fallen ill two hours before her performance for "Almost There." I, the colored waitress, happened to be the only Desiree Dupré fan on the staff. Nobody else knew how to sing her songs with the same rhythm and range, so Mr. Westergaard pushed me into Desiree's dressing room under the impression that the audience wouldn't know the difference because "all Coloreds look alike" according to him.

When everything was happening, I pretended that I was in some Hollywood motion picture instead of the world people like Lars Westergaard had scraped out for me. Belting out harmonies has never been a dream of mine, but once I hit that stage, I sang like I had God in my lungs. God is the one who really brought those folks together from all walks of life by using my voice as his vessel. He warmed them right up and put big smiles on their faces in that godless place. I couldn't stop myself from basking in all the applause I received.

Much of me wishes I had now, given how backhanded all that praise was, but the rest of me had been high up in them clouds from those first few fickle moments of what almost felt like equality. Acceptance. Oneness. Love. All of the sudden, the world had grown into me.

And then, the world shrank again, and it tried to shrink me along with it. I was wiping off my eye-shadow in Desiree's dressing room when a couple knocked on her door with a gift. How sweet and lovely-minded they were for bringing me flowers, I figured. Truly cushion-hearted and whole-spirited people. The Southern belle, Mrs. Baker, had no problem with touching my hands and talking about how pretty my skin shined.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Baker started carrying on and on about how talented "negroes" were, and all that inclusivity I felt went right on out the door like I should've done. But I didn't. I sat there like a fool would do after they had left and swallowed my tears in front of Desiree's vanity mirror. All I really wanted was to escape all the ugly in the world and build my own corner of it to thrive in, but the furthest I could run was my very own mind. That's why I have to outgrow the world instead of waiting for the world to grow into me.

After cleaning myself up and dressing myself down, I closed the dressing room's door behind me and threw away Mrs. Baker's roses. Velvet's back alley was the only thing waiting for me with open arms. I almost made it halfway to the bus stop before I heard this ruckus behind me:

"There she is~!"

"What on God's green earth is it now?" I put some pressure on my temple with my fingertips. Tiana Dubòis was good and through with folks by now. No matter what color this man was, he had too much energy for this time of night, and I had none at all.

"I have been looking all over for you!" His footsteps caught up to me.

I pulled myself together to confront him. "And just who might―"

The man who walked up on me looked so much like Naveen up close until I put the features together and recognized his race as well as his name.

"―you be?" I finished.

He seemed to mistake my surprise for awe. "Rider. Flynn, Rider."

My surprise thinned out like butter in a frying pan. 'Well, congratulations. Now please get the heck on 'fore I lose the feelin' in my feet―'

Flynn squeezed my fingertips, wagging his eyebrows all silly and foolish-like. I was too stunned to respond like the white woman he seemed to think he could treat me as. He let my flesh breathe by releasing my hand without wiping his own on his pants.

'Which part of outta space did he emigrate from?' I thought.

"And you," he kept on, "were incredible tonight. Stunning, if you don't my saying. I couldn't take my eyes off you."

I didn't like the idea of having anyone's eyes on me.

"Haven't seen a gape-worthy performance like that since Billie Holiday's 'Summertime.'"

"Oh, now I wouldn't―..." The jingling of a chain gave me a startle. I minded my surroundings. Some eavesdropper who tried to look inconspicuous was checking his pocket watch while he waited for a cab on the sidewalk, but he was well-off, nosy, and white, and that mash-up was enough to make my hair stand up. I touched my throat before turning back to my new pair of handcuffs. "I...I thank you, very much, sir―"

"Oh, no please; just call me 'Rider.'" He was still smirking like he had something to smirk about. Probably did, with as big of a female following as he had.

The eavesdropper took the anvil off my lungs by hopping into a cab and leaving us in a cloud of fumes. I covered my mouth with my handkerchief as I walked away from that awful poison.

Rider followed in my footsteps. "Delightful!" he coughed against the silk wing of his cream evening scarf. "Just―that's great. Just perfect. Great way ta' end an evening."

"That's Silkwata fo' ya!" While I was walking ahead of him to get more feet between us, I closed my green coat and said, "I should tell you that I've heard your name several times b'fore, Mista Rida."

We stopped walking together once we arrived at the bus stop. The bench was empty because I was a whole hour early, but it was the first time in a long time that I wasn't feeling too peachy about the peoplelessness around me.

"Is that right?" Flynn unenthusiastically answered.

I would have done myself one better by being polite and bright in his face till he had peeled off me. Can't have attitude around white folks in Silkwater. They don't take too kindly to it. "That's right, Mista Rida. See ya' every other Friday upstairs―up there in the VIP sections? You make quite a commotion in Velvet. Surprised no husbands have fined ya' for stealin' the hearts of those wives they try to hold onto."

He chuckled softly, that pride of his gaining another liter. "What can I say? My charm is a felony." It was something Naveen would've said, as well as something that would've made me smile.

I got to grinning without giving my teeth permission to do such a thing. The best way to tame my dimples was to look down at my scuffed shoes and close my lips into a smile. If he had been Naveen, I would've said, "I'll bet those big brown eyes of yours have gotten you outta plenty of trouble."

"I hope you don't mind me changing the subject, but may I ask why a star of your magnetism is...waiting for the bus?" His voice had a different flavor.

I could taste the sympathy marshmallowing it just by listening to him, but I responded as flowery as could be, "I gave up on cabs sometime ago, Mista Rida."

He let that marinate. "...How about I get you a cab?"

I flipped out. "Oh no, that's not necessary. Really―"

"Of course it is! What kind of groupie would I be otherwise?" Now he was fast-talking me.

'Has he lost his whole mind?!' "No, no please. My troubles don't need takin' on by a man of your stature. Your praise has been more than enough to soften up my night."

"It's no trouble at all." Flynn licked his thumb to leaf through the green cheddar in his hands. "It's the very least I could do after that inspirational performance you blessed me with."

My teeth dug into my bottom lip. 'You're a hardheaded thing, huh?' I paid his attire a glance. He must've been in tall cotton if he could afford that navy blue satin tuxedo he was stunting in. My hand went underneath my coat to stroke my neck. I couldn't wait to have that kind of money on my skin.

"So! How far up are you heading, Mademoiselle?"

My hand was so sweaty that it practically peeled off my neck with the stickiness of an orange peel coming off the fruit. "I beg ya' pardon?"

Flynn looked up from his wallet and looked straight into my eyes like we were equals. I looked down to remind him that we weren't in public. While people may not have been around, cars were still on the highway.

"I said how far up are you heading?"

I put some of Auntie Claudia in my voice when I said, "Mista Rida, I appreciate your kindness. I really do, but I prefer the bus for reasons that're too hard to explain to you."

Flynn thought about what I said, and this time, he let it marinate long enough to savor it. He folded his money and tapped the roll with his thumbs before squinting at me with an ironic smile. "Did I~ ever ask you for your name? Because I have an inkling that it doesn't start with 'Desiree' or end with 'Dupré.'"

Lars Westergaard didn't know two cells about white minds, after all. "Ya' caught me redhanded, Mista Rida." I playfully shrugged my shoulders with my hands in my coat pockets. "It surely doesn't."

He narrowed his eye at me, smirking. "Thennn who's the talented voicetress standing before me?"

I hesitated, but something in his eyes―something real familiar in them―made me let go of that small piece of myself that he wanted a bite of: "Tiana is what everyone calls me."

Flynn Rider gazed at me like a teacup had fallen off the cabinet inside him. My pulse started speaking to me. I held down the top of my hat to stop the wind from stealing it. A thought was leaking through his brain that he couldn't give words to.

I tried to give him some for borrowing, "Is...everythin' aw'right in there, Mista Rida?"

Flynn blinked, and then he was half-himself again. "...Yeah!" He nodded, rubbing his hind legs. "Yeah, just there's, um..." He went back inside himself to think. Thinking did him no good because he came back out more diced up than before. "What I meant was...uh, what I meant was...I'll be keeping that in mind." His nervous smile was artificial. "Your name, I mean."

"That means plenty to me." I hoped that he would he forget it. Knowing his doings, he really should have. "Well, then...you have a swell night t'night, Mista Rida."

"No, yeah! Yup, same to you." He was still standing outside of himself, but I didn't care to find out why or how I had turned him inside out. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Tiana. Truly."

"Likewise, Mista Rida."

"But are you...sure you're gonna be okay out here all by yourself?"

"I'm used to it. So long, Mista Rida."

"...So long, Tiana." The soft way in which he murmured my name made it sound like it could cleanse the sins from a man.

Smiling the way Mama had taught me to, I walked past him to go on about my night. He turned around as I passed by, memorizing my face. The bench was chilly against my thighs when I sat down. I remember because it got chillier after Flynn finally walked away. I also remember how hot my thumbs felt after I wiped the tears from my eyes.

I had been thinking about Naveen, Charlotte, and Mr. La Bouff. Naveen had probably outgrown me, but I still hadn't outgrown him if I was seeing him in other people. The hardest part about it was the fact that I didn't have a choice.