“Like the funeral marches with the jazz bands?”
“On television or whatever. Not in real life.”
“In voodoo, they celebrate after death to please the spirits who protect the dead.” She stares at me as if waiting for something, and for a moment, I wonder if she already knows what I want to ask.
“Can I ask you something that might be a little . . .” I search for the right word, but for what I want to ask, I’m not sure there is one. “. . . awkward?”
“More awkward than kissing me for the first time in front of all my friends at a party?”
An unrepentant grin kicks up one side of my mouth. “About the same level of awkward.”
“Oh, okay. Then go for it.”
I reach across the table and take her hand. Her glance bounces from our linked hands to my face and back again.
“I get these, I think.” I touch the three fingers adorned with tattoos of the moon in various phases, and then caress the band on her ring finger. “But I wanted to ask about this.”
Her fingers clench in my hand, and the look she slants up at me is sharp, alert. She doesn’t voice permission, but nods for me to go on.
“You remember when we saw each other a few months ago at that Christmas party?” I ask. “You were with Iris and August, and brought Chase with you.”
I hate even mentioning that guy’s name, but he said something that leads to my question.
“I remember,” she replies, her eyes steady on my face.
“You gave Sarai a ring you made that resembled this one, and the one Iris wears. What’s their significance?”
She watches me for a few seconds without speaking, probably suspecting that my follow-up question is even more awkward. “My great-grandmother MiMi,” she says. “Mine and Iris’s, made one for me and one for Iris. It’s a gris-gris ring, like a talisman for protection. I never take it off.”
“Okay, and that night Chase said it was somehow connected to voodoo?” I leave the question open-ended for her to explain as much as she’s willing to share.
“Chase always runs his mouth about things he needs to be quiet on,” she replies, stirring a straw in her Bloody Mary. “Gris gris is a voodoo practice. Amulets, jewelry that invoke protection for the people who wear them. MiMi made them, along with potions and herbs and other things to help people when they had problems.”
I frown, trying to assimilate the information into something that makes sense. “So she was . . .” I clear my throat, not sure if I want to hear her answer. “What did she do? What was she?”
“She was a voodoo priestess, Kenan.”
Lotus may as well have said her great-grandmother was an alien who immigrated from Neptune. I wait for her to say she’s joking. Gotcha. Psych.
“Lotus, what does that even mean?”
She looks at me unblinkingly. “Many of the women in my family practiced voodoo.”
“You mean like during slavery or—”
“MiMi was the last one who practiced, and she only passed away two years ago. That was her livelihood.”
My smile dies off. I’m not sure how to approach this. Lotus looks perfectly serious. “Do you practice voodoo?”
“Practice is a strong word.”
“Uh, no. Voodoo is a strong word. I mean, do you actually believe in it?”
She doesn’t answer for a few moments, but twirls a stalk of celery in her drink.
“I decided that wasn’t my path,” she says. “I am who I am, Kenan. I can’t change my blood. There will always be things in my life I can’t explain to other people.”
Her lashes raise to reveal the pride in her eyes. “I feel no need to explain them. I don’t hurt anyone, and I help when I can.”