After work, I dropped off my stuff at my apartment except for my keys and whiskey and phone, then took a deep breath and walked over to 203 and knocked on the door.

Tee answered quickly, and we both smiled. She had her dark hair with a few strands of gray in two shoulder-length braids, and wore bright green shorts and a similarly bright blue T-shirt. She had muscular arms and legs, and I had to refrain from staring.

“Come in, Ann,” she said. “How was work?”

“It was pretty cool. I think I’m going to like it there. How was your work?”

“Working from home means the work is never done. But I decided to take a break!”

We walked into the dim living room, which was bigger than mine. There was a string of white lights hanging from a bookshelf softly illuminating the room, a glowing jukebox in one corner, and music videos playing on a smart projector. The music was playing loud enough to enjoy, but we could still talk.

Several pictures hung on the wall of a girl with white skin, shoulder-length curly brown hair, and brown eyes.

“Lana,” Tee explained. “Her father is white, but he’s not in her life. When she was younger, people thought she wasn’t my kid. I always told them, if all these white women can have black kids, why can’t I have a white child?”

“She’s beautiful,” I said.

Tee sat on a dark blue couch, and I sat on a matching love seat adjacent. A black coffee table stood before us with a half-empty pint of Seagram’s Extra Smooth vodka, along with a shot glass.

“The shot glass is for you,” Tee said. “I’ve been drinking out of my bottle.”

“I brought a bigger bottle in case you ended up wanting some,” I explained.

“I don’t mix alcohol. I’ll be fine with this pint.”

I poured myself a shot and drank the whole thing down, cinnamon, but pleasant, and no need for a chaser.

“Sorry, usually I’m kind of shy, but this might loosen me up,” I said.

“I don’t think you’re shy. I think you’re selective,” Tee said, taking a sip of vodka. “And the fact you want to hang out with me means you have good taste.”

I laughed and poured another shot, then glanced around. “I’ll try not to wake your daughter.”

Tee pointed to a closed door beyond the kitchen. “She has her own bathroom, so she rarely comes out once she’s gone to bed unless there’s a thunderstorm or something. You’re fine.”

I nodded and smiled. “So, you’re from Pennsylvania. What brings you to Indiana?”

“I was in a relationship that didn’t work out, and decided to stay here instead of going back to Pittsburgh. I haven’t been at this apartment long, but I’ve been living in this town for over three years. I was on the north side before. I just keep renewing my PA plates and license online. My dad still lives at that old address. Lana likes her school and made friends. But still. I live on Indiana. I don’t live in Indiana! I’m a traveler.”

I laughed. “Well, I’ve been on Indiana most of my life, except for a year of college in Kentucky. I’ve visited several states, but for the most part I’ve stuck to East Central Indiana. Just moving to this town compared to my hometown was like moving to a different world, yet I’m still not far from my family if I want to visit them.”

“Do you have any black friends?” Tee asked.

I poured another shot. “I don’t have any real friends of any kind right now besides my old roommate Anthony, and he’s black. But he got a girlfriend who moved in, and I decided it was time for me to get back out on my own. He and I met through work and were good roommates. He’s pretty busy with his new girlfriend these days. But I say when it comes to friends, it’s quality over quantity.”

Tee nodded. “Well, that’s true. All my friends in Indiana I met through my ex-girlfriend. So I don’t have contact with them anymore.”

“To new friends.”

Tee tapped her bottle against my glass and we took our drinks.

“Do you smoke cigarettes on your balcony too?” I asked.

“Yup. Let’s go!”

All the higher floor apartments in this building had patio doors that led to small balconies. Tee’s had two outdoor chairs and a standing ashtray. We sat outside and smoked, watching the clouds pass ...

“Wait a minute,” I said, then felt weird.

“You see it, don’t you?” Tee responded, looking at the sky.

“Yes ... those clouds are passing behind the moon! How is that possible? Like they’re really ...” I grabbed my phone out of my pocket. “I’m going to look up why that happens.” I typed quickly. “Look, a bunch of crap comes up. Hardly any information at all. Except that it’s an illusion and anyone who claims to believe otherwise is a flat Earth conspiracy theorist.”

“Keep asking yourself those kinds of questions,” Tee said. “You’re off to a good start. I have all kinds of questions no one can answer, always have, ever since I was a kid.”

“What kind of questions?” I asked, still scrolling through my phone.

“In elementary school, I asked how Christopher Columbus could have discovered a land where people were already living, and got ridiculed by my teacher. I also asked how George Washington could have been the father of our country if he had slaves.”

I put my phone down. “All things people today are finally acknowledging. But I guess in the 70s, people --”

“White people.”

“White people ... were still pretty brainwashed.”

“The history we’ve been taught is a lie.”

I looked at Tee thoughtfully in the light of a street lamp. “What’s the truth?”

“That’s what I’m still trying to figure out.”