NIKKI BYRD — writer, thinker, lover

This is not a narrative, just moments in time I’ve had the pleasure of remembering. Names have been changed for a thousand reasons. Enjoy!

Dimitri Suliman

White curtains billow against a warm breeze blowing from the depths of the summer night, marsh air from the forest of cypress trees harboring the swamp’s dew and fog. Has it been days? Weeks? She remembers when Dimitri drops her home after their first date; she runs up the stairs, opens the window, and watches his car drive away below a blood moon in a black sky. She stares at the end of her street long after he is gone. Cicadas sing, and frogs mate; somewhere, birds are still awake, holding counsel, maybe even chirping at the moon, announcing eventide, telling tales. 

That entire evening, she took him in under the stretch of streetlight in the passenger seat of his car, sitting so as to not fidget under his steady gaze of fascination. Outside, people in the park stroll, merrymaking, biting into beignets, drinking iced chocolate amidst the buzz of crickets, mosquitoes, and the swamp creatures of the bayou; couples saunter in summermood of flirtations and frivolity, budding fanciful romanticisms evanescent under wet heat spells; kids swing and run, ebbing the blackness of the forest beyond the playground maybe with a mother, maybe without. An awning on a building next to the parking stretch reads MORNING CALL. 

In the car, their voices turn into a whisper with a command from the evening shadows as if to blend into one with its mystique and allure. Something plays in the background. She thinks of his eyes, huge and dark, twinkling beacons of amusement, and his features, foreign and French, against the backdrop of the Creole blur of faces she saw every day in New Orleans. His fingers are long and nimble when they grip the steering wheel, and his hair and smile so big it makes him look like a caricature, animated with a soul as light as a feather, the joy of life shining from each and every expression. Oh, and he laughs! And he smiles! Without a summon, their world begins to assemble in the spring-summer liminality; they birth purple, translucent oceans, mountains shaped like felines and faces of loved ones, five or six waxing moons in an array of gradients, a sun that glitters and beams instead of shines and burns, valleys furred for miles in rainbow flora encircling lakes lacquered with dancing glitter, and pastures of endless orchards baring periwinkle nectarines. Sometimes, they decide on white clouds looming on a blue horizon; it only rains on clear, sunny days. There, they frolic. Shall they remove gravity? Is their bliss met with wings? One moment, Dimitri and Nikki play and bend against one another in a floating opalescent bubble high in their daysky filled with shooting stars; a behemoth of sand rises from a beach, twists, and sways with their wind, turns into the shape of a hand and waves at them from below. One moment, she a confessor, and he a priest; she a priest, and he a confessor. Inside the car, they excursion to hillsides, peaks, and caverns, and between them burns blue, fervid flames pacified by a natural affinity gifted by a Him, a Her.

–

The windows roll down to let in the summer sun, and he watches her hair fly and whip against the brisk winds in the refractured light. Bas plays from the car speakers. On the Crescent City Connection bridge, the city stretches like an unexplored land before them, and she wonders where he will take her, not just today but every day. 

The two of them laugh all the way to a restaurant Uptown on Magazine St., where they park and walk to a purple Creole townhouse with a white balcony and mint green doors. An outdoor menu has their new item written in blue chalk: HUEVOS EN PURGATORIO: baked eggs in Colombian Hogoa sauce, crispy chorizo bits, manchego, yuca frita. There’s food, drinks, food, food, and more drinks. Across the table, Dimitri settles in his chair and gives Nikki and long-lasting look. The silence is as sweet as a kiss.

“You’re good company,” he says.

She sips her margarita and laughs. “Well, I’d hope so. Otherwise, you’d be wasting your time and money.”  

Dimitri’s mouth draws into a thin line, and his eyes squint against the relentless sun peaking through the window. “That’s one thing I don’t like to waste. I don’t mind the money, but I do not like to waste time.” His voice is the only one she hears among the bustling of the crowded restaurant.

“You know,” she says, raising an eyebrow, “there’s no such thing as time wasted. Only lessons learned.”

He stares, looking past her into the passage of time. “I’m tired of learning lessons.” 

“I’m sorry to tell you, Dimitri, but that’s what life is about, and it will go on and on; even on the best days, there will always be a lesson, which means you will always have the opportunity to learn something new.”  

He shakes his head. “Maybe we’re talking about two different things.” 

“I don’t believe we are.”

He shifts in his seat, straightening up. “Don’t you believe that a man and woman can find some sort of connection that binds them? That there is something that can be shared between them?”

Nikki looks into her glass, slippery from the condensation, and watches a lime wedge float around in ice and liquor, light flaring at the wet edge. How did we get here? She curses the bitterness that stows inside her chest from her past, and a conversation like this feels ill-timed. Grasping at the feather of hope within her, she tries to swim out of the trance of ardent spirits. What can she say – she didn’t drink much. And Dimitri looks so intensely she can barely bring her eyes to his. 

“Of course, it’s possible. Maybe a little harder to find that ideal in this age of technology…” Really romantic, Nik. “But it’s possible to find. I see that type of connection, or love, between my parents. I suppose it’s just about finding the right person for you, or really, just letting them come to you.” The ice begins to melt in her glass. Heat from within dizzies her. 

“How about we get the check and maybe go for some dessert? Do you smoke cigars?”

A breath. “Every now and then, I’m certainly not opposed to it.”

“Then, let’s go.”