This is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and therapeutic encounters are imagined.
Tasha K knew how to make something look effortless.
That was the trick.
Nobody needed to know she'd changed the seating chart three times, threatened the linen company before breakfast, found a replacement saxophonist at 11:47 p.m., and talked one of the sponsors out of backing out forty-eight hours before the retreat.
By Saturday afternoon, none of that mattered.
What mattered was that eighty Black women were scattered across a lawn in Martha's Vineyard wearing linen, oversized sunglasses, and the kind of smiles that only appeared after somebody had finally given them permission to put their phones down.
The retreat had been marketed as a weekend for Black professional women to rest.
Tasha had made sure it actually felt like one.
No fluorescent conference-room lighting. No eight-hour panels about leadership. No name tags dangling from lanyards like everybody was at somebody's corporate summit.
There had been yoga near the water that morning. A chef prepared brunch. The afternoon workshop was optional. There were hammocks. Massage therapists. Journals nobody was required to write in.
And most importantly, there was time where absolutely nothing was scheduled.
Tasha stood at the edge of the lawn watching women do nothing and smiled.
"You did good."
She turned.
Dr. Simone Carter, the therapist who had hired her to produce the retreat, stood beside her with two glasses of sparkling water.
Tasha took one.
"I know."
Simone laughed. "See, that's what I like about you."
"What?"
"You don't do that fake humble shit."
"I worked my ass off. Why would I stand here and act surprised it came out good?"
"Fair."
Tasha took a sip.
The truth was, it had come out better than good.
She had made money.
Real money.
Enough that when she'd transferred her percentage into her business account the night before, she'd stared at the number for a second.
Not because she'd never made money.
Because she knew she could make more.
That thought had been following her lately.
You could be bigger than this.
Not famous.
Not necessarily.
Just bigger.
More clients. Larger contracts. Her own agency. Staff. Events that people waited all year to attend.
Every time she imagined it, another thought arrived right behind it.
Girl, please.
She hated that voice.
Simone nodded toward the lawn. "What are you thinking?"
"That I might put some of my profit in the girls' account."
"The girls?"
"My friends."
"You have a group bank account?"
Tasha looked offended. "You saying that like we running drugs."
Simone laughed.
"It's emergencies, trips, shit like that. Mya-Ann set it up, obviously."
"Obviously?"
"You'll understand if you ever meet her."
Tasha looked across the lawn again.
"I've been able to do a lot because my people support me. They come to my events. They promote my shit. They've helped me when things were tight. I made more than I expected from this weekend, so I'm putting some back."
Simone studied her for a second.
"That's generous."
"It's not charity."
"I didn't say it was."
Tasha glanced at her.
Simone smiled.
"I'm just going to tell you something."
"Oh Lord."
"Be intentional about how much of your success automatically becomes provision for everybody else."
Tasha's smile faded just enough to notice.
"I take care of myself."
"I didn't say you didn't."
"And they take care of me too."
"I believe you."
Tasha waited.
Simone didn't add anything.
Which irritated her more than if she had.
"So what you saying?"
"I'm saying congratulations on a beautiful event."
"Bitch."
Simone burst out laughing.
By eight-thirty that night, the retreat was officially over.
The four of them had changed into white.
Not coordinated white.
Mya-Ann coordinated white.
There was a difference.
Three weeks earlier she'd sent a group text with a screenshot titled:
FINAL DINNER LOOKS
Lori had reacted with a heart.
Cherish had asked whether cream counted.
Tasha had responded:
I'm wearing whatever the fuck I want.
She was now wearing exactly the white jumpsuit Mya-Ann had sent her.
Nobody mentioned it.
Their table sat close enough to the water that they could hear the tide between conversations.
Candles flickered inside glass hurricanes. Dinner had already been cleared. Wine remained.
Lori sat across from Tasha, engagement ring catching candlelight every time she moved her hand.
Cherish noticed it.
"I still can't believe you're getting married."
Lori smiled.
"You've said that fourteen times."
"Because bitch, you're somebody's fiancée."
"So?"
"So that's grown."
"We are thirty-four."
"Exactly. Grown as hell."
Tasha reached for the bottle.
"Lori been somebody's girlfriend since Bush was president. This ain't new."
"Fuck you," Lori said, laughing.
"It's true. You've had three boyfriends since I've known you and somehow that's only like twenty-two men total years."
"Twenty-two men total years?" Mya-Ann repeated.
"Relationship mathematics."
"That is not mathematics."
"Accounting lady, relax."
Mya-Ann rolled her eyes.
Cherish leaned toward Lori.
"You nervous?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
Tasha noticed.
She noticed most things.
That was the problem with everybody thinking she wasn't serious.
They mistook humor for inattention.
Lori rotated the stem of her glass.
"I mean, wedding planning is stressful. But no, I'm not nervous."
"You sure?" Cherish asked.
"Yes."
Tasha looked at her.
Lori looked back.
Neither said anything.
Six years of friendship meant sometimes you knew when to leave a door closed.
For now.
Mya-Ann adjusted the candle.
"I think the bigger issue is that none of us actually do what we say we're going to do."
Three heads turned toward her.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Tasha asked.
"Every year we sit somewhere and talk about what we're changing."
"It's August."
"Exactly."
Cherish laughed. "She got a midyear performance review for the friendship."
"I'm serious."
"Of course you are," Tasha said.
Mya-Ann ignored her.
"Lori said she wanted to spend more time alone."
Lori sighed.
"Tasha said she wanted to stop accepting contracts beneath her rate."
"Why are we doing this?"
"You did."
Tasha took a drink.
Mya-Ann pointed at Cherish.
"You said you wanted to figure out whether you actually like your career or if you're just good at it."
Cherish's smile disappeared.
Then all three looked at Mya-Ann.
She frowned.
"What?"
Tasha leaned back.
"Oh, no, baby. You don't get to facilitate."
"I wasn't facilitating."
"Yes you were."
Lori laughed. "Very much so."
"Okay. What's mine?"
Tasha didn't even hesitate.
"You miserable."
The table went quiet.
Mya-Ann blinked.
Cherish covered her mouth.
Lori whispered, "Tasha."
"What? She asked."
"I'm not miserable."
"You've been tired since Easter."
"I'm busy."
"You don't like your job."
"I never said that."
"You don't like your house."
"I love my house."
"You complain about everybody in it."
"My family gets on my nerves. That's normal."
"You complain about the nanny."
"Because she's late."
"You complain about church."
"I do not."
"You complained about church parking for forty-seven minutes last Sunday."
"That's not the church."
"It's literally the church parking lot."
Cherish started laughing so hard she dropped her napkin.
Mya-Ann folded her arms.
"This is exactly why I don't tell y'all anything."
"No," Tasha said. "You tell us everything. You just don't like when we have opinions back."
That one landed.
Mya-Ann looked toward the water.
Tasha immediately felt bad.
She always did.
Truth left her mouth faster than tenderness could catch it.
Lori reached across the table and touched Mya-Ann's wrist.
"We know you're tired."
"I'm fine."
"That's different."
Silence.
Then Cherish said, quietly, "I'm not."
Everybody looked at her.
She shrugged.
"I don't know what I'm doing."
Tasha frowned. "With what?"
"Anything."
"Girl, you got a job."
"That's what y'all always say."
"You got a nice apartment," Lori added.
"Exactly."
Cherish looked around the table.
"Everything y'all name is stuff I have. I'm talking about me."
Nobody interrupted.
"I don't know if I want to get married. I don't know if I want kids. I don't know if I want to stay in this field. I don't even know if Dallas is where I want to be forever."
Mya-Ann softened.
"You're young."
"I'm twenty-eight, not twelve."
"I didn't mean it like that."
"I know."
Cherish picked at the edge of her napkin.
"I just don't want to wake up at thirty-eight and realize I built a whole life because everybody kept telling me I had time to figure it out."
Tasha watched her.
Something about that sentence bothered her.
Maybe because she understood it.
Maybe because she didn't want to.
Lori looked down at her ring.
Tasha saw that too.
"Oh, shit."
Lori looked up. "What?"
"You felt that."
"Felt what?"
"What she just said."
"No I didn't."
"Lori."
"Tasha, leave me alone."
There it was.
Not anger.
Fear.
Small. Quick. Almost invisible.
But Tasha knew her.
Lori looked toward Cherish.
"I'm happy."
Nobody had asked.
"I'm happy," she repeated.
Tasha leaned forward.
"Okay."
"And I love Marcus."
"Okay."
"And I'm excited to get married."
"Okay."
Lori's eyes narrowed. "Stop saying okay like that."
"I'm literally agreeing with you."
"No, you're doing your face."
"What face?"
"That face where you think you know something."
Mya-Ann took a sip of wine.
"You do have that face."
Tasha looked around the table.
"Fuck all of y'all."
They laughed.
The tension broke.
For a minute.
Then Lori exhaled.
"I've just never been alone."
Nobody joked.
"Not really."
Cherish leaned closer.
"What you mean?"
"I've been somebody's girlfriend since I was fourteen."
"Freshman year," Tasha said.
Lori nodded.
"And anytime one relationship ended, another one eventually started. I've lived alone, technically. I've been single for months here and there. But I've never built a life where there wasn't somebody I was moving toward."
Mya-Ann's expression changed.
Lori looked down again.
"Sometimes I wonder what kind of woman I would've been if nobody was waiting for me."
Tasha felt something shift at the table.
Not dramatically.
More like a door quietly opening.
Mya-Ann looked at Lori.
Cherish looked at Mya-Ann.
And Tasha realized, with irritation, that Simone's voice was back in her head.
Be intentional.
She hated therapists.
The four of them sat there for a while.
No fixing.
No advice.
Even Tasha kept her mouth shut.
Eventually Cherish looked around the table.
"So..."
Tasha groaned.
"What?"
"I think all y'all need therapy."
Mya-Ann nearly choked.
"All us?"
"Yes."
"Excuse me?" Lori said.
Tasha pointed across the table. "Bitch, you just gave a TED Talk about not knowing who you are."
"I included myself!"
"No you didn't. You said all y'all."
"Okay. Fine. We need therapy."
Mya-Ann shook her head.
"I don't need therapy."
All three women stared at her.
"What?" she said.
Tasha started laughing.
"Girl."
"I'm serious."
"That's exactly why you need to go."
"I manage my life perfectly fine."
"Baby, you have an Excel spreadsheet called 'Emotional Goals.'"
"It's called organization."
"You cried because Target moved the toothpaste."
"They changed the entire layout!"
Cherish screamed.
Lori was bent over laughing.
Even Mya-Ann eventually smiled.
Cherish raised her glass.
"I'm serious, though."
Slowly, the laughter settled.
"One year," she said. "Everybody gets somebody. Therapist, counselor, whatever. We actually work on our shit."
Tasha lifted an eyebrow.
"And then what?"
"I don't know. We check in."
"That sounds invasive," Mya-Ann said.
"We don't have to tell each other everything."
"Then what's the point?"
"The point is we stop sitting at pretty dinners talking about changing our lives and then going home doing the same shit."
That shut everybody up.
Tasha looked at the women around the table.
Lori, with the ring everybody admired.
Mya-Ann, with the life everybody assumed was organized because everything in it had a calendar reminder.
Cherish, who had somehow become the baby sister none of them remembered adopting.
And then herself.
The loud one.
The funny one.
The one everybody called when they needed the truth.
The one who could sell out a retreat about rest while running on four hours of sleep.
The one who could tell everybody exactly what they needed to do.
As long as nobody asked her what she needed.
Tasha lifted her glass.
"Fine."
Lori looked at her.
"Fine what?"
"I'll go."
Cherish grinned.
Mya-Ann sighed.
Lori stared at the water.
Then lifted her glass.
"Fuck it."
Three glasses turned toward Mya-Ann.
She looked personally betrayed.
"I hate all of you."
Tasha smiled.
"Is that a yes?"
Mya-Ann picked up her glass.
"One year."
Cherish clinked hers against it.
"One year."
Lori joined.
Tasha put hers in last.
"To therapy."
"To minding our business," Mya-Ann corrected.
"That ship sailed six years ago."
They laughed.
Four glasses touched beneath the August sky.
None of them knew yet what they had agreed to.
Or how expensive honesty was going to become.
Next in Therapy Fictional Stories: Tasha K makes the appointment first.
And for the first time, the woman everybody comes to for the truth has to answer a question she can't joke her way out of:
"What made you decide to come to therapy now?"