The Deal

Twenty-Bernadette

"Did I used to have an assistant?" I ask Yvonne, as I switch on Trevor Noah's stand-up comedy show, I Wish You Would on Netflix. While seated on the couch, my best friend rummages through the stack of albums next to the radio stand. She pulls out a red, bulky one with a huge title called '90s' labeled on it. My question falls on deaf ears, so I repeat myself, "Yo!"

"Yeah, Bee?" Yvonne still has her gaze locked on the big red 90s album.

"Did I used to have an assistant?"

Yvonne finally looks at me. "Yes." She scoffs. "She was Shuri Dickson. You fired her all because she tried to stop you from drinking."

I lift my eyebrows and turn to the TV. "Was I really that cruel?"

"No, Bee. You were just depressed." She flips the album page. "Wow. You and Thabo's fifth anniversary. Back in twenty-sixteen, Thabo and I wanted to surprise you by bringing you to your favorite restaurant in Cape Town. Little did we know, you hated the place. Your father used to take you there when you were a kid. You were effing pissed. But we learned a lesson that day, I guess."

Not saying anything else, I watch her put the album back and sigh, before scrolling on her phone. She switches from the reminiscing best friend to Yvonne the showrunner in a matter of seconds. "One of my co-producers probably leaked this information to the press. We were the only ones who spoke about the replacement thing before I talked to you about it." She exhales after a deep breath.

My mind still focusing on Trevor's standup show, guilt suddenly envelops my chest. All this on-set drama my best friend is going through is because of me. If I died in the accident, I would have been gone from the equation. Yvonne would get her team of writers to probably kill off Puleng. The character would have been buried along with me, and so would the promiscuous, seventeen-year-old Aneska. This way, Yvonne would have shot the third season with a brand-new lead and there would be no problems.

"Bee," Yvonne calls. "Talk to me. What's in your head this time?" She places a gentle hand on my shoulder. "You seem to love watching stand-ups a lot lately."

"Yeah. I actually don't know why, but when I sit down to watch these comedians on stage. Especially when I hear the audience laugh, it feels so soothing. It makes me feel at home."

"Hm. Interesting. I don't think I've ever seen you watch a standup. You'd be bored to death. Maybe watching them helps ya jog the memory of the times working onset."

I nod my head. "Sure. It might be true." Silence hovers around us seconds later. "I'm a burden, aren't I? I'm creating all this pressure for you. This season is going down the drain. If only I'd stopped drinking, there'd be no accident. No accident, then no coma. No coma, no memory loss."

"Hey. Hey, look at me." Sighing, I shoot my bestie a side-eye. "This. Is. Not. Your. Fault. Do you see me blaming you for anything? Everyone has gone through their bad times. Booze was ya weakness, it caused you to make the biggest mistake of ya life. But I'm not gonna blame my best friend, who almost lost her life all because some useless show I thought of years ago gets canceled."

I smile at her. How could I ever think about such a thing? Death? I'm terrified of death. When Yvonne rubs her hands over my aching shoulders, it feels like an entire month of stress has been freed from me. I close my eyelids and revel in the moment. "Were you always good at backrubs and massages?"

Yvonne chuckles. "It's what I would do back in Uni, anytime ya went through a hard time with the professor or some of the boys. A few of our other friends were like, 'Hey, they're giving gay vibes.' We got teased a lot because of this. They have no idea how sisterly we've now become."