Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Next,” Kimba says when she’s about halfway through the recipients. “He founded and runs a private middle school serving low-income areas and at-risk students, ninety percent of whom are on scholarship. Students at the Young Leaders Academy of Atlanta have experienced, on average, an eighty percent improvement on test scores. This award in the area of educational excellence goes to…”
She falters, a frown gathering between her dark brows. She lifts her head abruptly, scanning the room and then doing a slower pass until she finds me in the corner.
“Ezra.”
The room goes quiet for a second, the audience waiting for her to continue. She shakes her head. “Um, sorry. Dr. Ezra Stern.”
Noah stands in his chair and claps and whistles and hoots. Mona hugs me, squeezing my shoulder. As soon as she lets go, she pulls the phone from her pocket and aims it at me.
“Video for everybody at school!” Mona says, laughing at what I’m sure is my exasperated expression when she thrusts the camera in my face.
I head toward the stage, smiling at the people standing and clapping as I pass. I have a vague impression of their faces, but I don’t hear their applause over the clanging cymbal in my chest. Onstage, Kimba’s smile flickers like candlelight. There’s something uncertain on her face, in her eyes. I recognize it. I feel it, too. Ever since I read the email about this night, this moment loomed like a promise or a threat. The moment when I would see Kimba again.
When I reach the stage, she hands me the award, and we both turn for a photo.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she jokes, slanting a smile up at me.
“How would you like for us to meet?” I ask, trying to force a smile, but I can’t. I mean it. It’s not an idle question, and I can’t make the moment as light as it should be. Seeing her only twice in more than twenty years feels wrong. It’s never felt right to be apart from the person who once knew me better than anyone else—who knew me even as I was learning myself. When I saw her before at her father’s funeral, what crackled between us felt like danger, the possibility of all that could go wrong. But now, I’m free. This time when our eyes meet, I can’t help but wonder, if given the chance, what between us could go right?
Chapter Fourteen
Kimba
“You’re a doctor?”
A dozen thoughts collide in my mind once we’re off the stage and standing with all the recipients, awaiting a group photo, but that’s the one I blurt out. I presented several other awards after Ezra’s, but I couldn’t tell you any of the recipients’ names. I don’t remember their faces. On autopilot, I presented the awards and smiled and posed, but all the while, I knew exactly where Ezra stood with the others behind me onstage. I could feel his stare—the heat and intensity of it tingling across the bare skin of my neck. As soon as all the awards were announced, I wasn’t surprised when Ezra immediately appeared at my side.
“Of sorts,” he replies to my question, shrugging. “Ed.D.”
“Daddy!” The shout comes from the boy who is bigger and more like Ezra than the first time I saw him at the funeral. Noah throws his arms around his father, burying his face in his side. “You won.”
“It wasn’t a competition, son,” Ezra says dryly, brushing a hand over his hair.
“I tried to explain,” says an attractive woman around our age with dreadlocks pulled into a regal arrangement just behind Noah. “But he wasn’t having it. You’re a winner in his eyes.”
I remember Ezra’s wife vividly, a petite woman of Asian ancestry. This woman doesn’t look anything like that, but she does look vaguely familiar.
“All that squinting,” she says, turning laughing dark eyes on me. “And you still haven’t figured out who I am?”
“We have met, right?” I ask, hating to admit I don’t recognize someone, but too curious to pretend.
“He was Jack,” she says, nodding to Ezra. “You were Chrissy, and I was—”
“Janet!” I shout, pulling her into a fierce hug. “Oh my God, Mona.”
Tears prick my eyes, and I’m probably holding her too tight, but I’m overcome with how good it feels to see her again. When her parents decided she wouldn’t bus into our district for high school, we kept in touch at first, but didn’t maintain the friendship, caught up in new schools, new friends, and all the changes that came with growing up and inevitably growing apart. Eventually, with Ezra and Mona both gone, I found a new circle of friends, and so did she. I heard snatches of news about her until I left for college, and then nothing—until now.
“I’ll let you off the hook because it’s been so long since we saw each other,” Mona says, pulling away to look me up and down. “Well, that and you gave us one of the best presidents this country has seen in recent memory. Congratulations, Kimba. When I saw you on CNN, I couldn’t believe you were the same girl who hated reading out loud in class.”