~5~

These are better…

I sighed, rolling my eyes in front of the full length mirror. There were few things more depressing than trying on new clothes when shopping, especially since I’d gained over fifty pounds in a year and a half, and kept the weight on. I went from a size six to—apparently—a fourteen. After glancing at the tag, my eyes squeezed shut. This shit was embarrassing. Along with my new life as Mrs. Ragee, came the expectation to look the part. Apparently, as a rhythm and blues singer in this day and age, fashion went along with the motif. It was about what you did, who you knew, and who you wore. Eighty-five percent of the new wardrobe I’d recently acquired was purchased from a high end fashion boutique in the City. The rest came directly from budding designers, and fewer were from established ones. I wasn’t a size four, so according to Myisha, not many were interested in “dressing” me. The shit was stressful.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped out from behind the black curtain of the changing room. When I walked out into the lounge area in the back of JAGMisha Boutique, I saw Myisha sitting on a round tufted ottoman with her lean legs covered in thick black hosiery crossed as she spoke adamantly with one of the owners, JAG.

“He wanted to eat my pussy so damn bad,” Myisha declared in a tone scandalous all by itself while JAG, a bronzed slender diva herself, squealed at the gossip. “I almost let him. You know I’m always down for a good time!”

She high fived the woman.

“Girl, that dude ain’t want no trouble with Raj!” JAG reminded her. “You remember how he almost got locked up over there in fucking Manchester? Raj ain’t care about being out in the U.K. when it came to you.”

I watched and listened as I chewed on the inside of my mouth, trying to follow what seemed to have been a juicy story. Why would Raj be ready to kill over his employee? Was there something more between them? They did travel together a lot. And she was hella attractive. But Myisha was boy crazy. Almost each time I’d been with her, there was always talk of men, either she dated or wanted to. She seemed to be a healthy woman.

“What do you think?” Mishka approached me, holding a dress on a hanger. “I think you’d like this, too.” Her accent was faint yet present just as the first time I’d met her in my apartment for sizing.

“If you don’t mind me asking…” I narrowed my brows and smiled. “Where are you from?” I wondered because of her bone straight sun-blonde hair and pale skin, too.

Mishka, I learned upon introduction at my apartment, the day I met Myisha, was the other half of JAGMisha. But the pronunciation of her name didn’t fit the banner of the boutique outside.

“Russia.”

“Oh.” For some reason, I was impressed and shocked.

She and JAG seemed polar opposites, even in personality, but apparently established this boutique, which was originally online from what Myisha told me. In fact, I’d spent a lot of time with her since meeting her. It wasn’t a difficult feat considering we lived together. Yup. Ragee’s executive assistant lived with him. She was two doors up from my room. When he was home, in between shows she hadn’t attended, he’d walk right in without knocking. It was odd, those two.

But so far, Myisha had been kind, and somewhat infectious while turning me into a mini her. My fingernails and toes were always painted, but all the same color, unlike what I did before her advisement and influence. My hair was professionally done every other week, and I now wore mink eyelashes. Mink! I’ve always appreciated fashion, but never cared—or could afford—to go full throttle with being a diva. Myisha here made one out of me, treating me like her favorite Barbie doll.

“Yeah,” Myisha interjected. “You wanna hear something wild, Wynter?” I flashed an expression of interest. “I’ve been shopping at JAGMisha for years—since they were only online, trading—and would talk to her on the phone, never knowing she was white. You’re saying you picked up on her accent and I feel dumb as hell!” We laughed.

“It’s faint, but discoverable.” I smiled at Mishka.

“Anyway,” Myisha pointed to the black bell bottom slacks I’d tried on. The ones with a broad elastic band waist, reaching just underneath my breasts. “Those would go great with that Rebecca Minkoff midriff sweater. You know the gray wool one?” I nodded my recollection. “Yup. That and those Bianca Suede Platforms” The confusion on my face must have registered. “The Louboutin booties we got last week?”

“Oh!” I palmed my face. “Myisha, you and these names. You actually know the names of each designer’s collections?” I rolled my eyes, playfully.

She shrugged with her head. “Gotta respect the game to play in it.”

That’s when it dawned on me. “Shit!” I moved toward the dressing room. “I gotta go.” I hurried inside to change into my body suit, jeans, and blazer—all of the Myisha influence.

I honestly didn’t mind exploring this side of my femininity. Hanging out with her made me forget how much of a fucked up situation this all was.

When I was out of the dressing room, trying to fish for my phone in my bag, I noticed the girls weren’t back there anymore. I could hear them up front, in the actual store. I figured Myisha was paying for my things, something I told her was unnecessary, but she insisted until my “basic” wardrobe was complete.

Just as I headed out to them, I saw her hand a credit card to JAG.

Embarrassed by it, I murmured when sidling up to her. “You don’t have to keep doing this.”

“Girl, bye. It’s on Raj anyway. I’m always racking up on his card.”

My entire body steeled. I didn’t want to be party to that. She and Raj may have their type of affair, but there was none going on over this way. The man couldn’t stand the sight of me. Proof of that was the two times I’d seen him since the wedding, it was with Myisha and he hardly remembered my name. The feeling was completely mutual. I was no groupie.

JAG scoffed, noticing my discomfort. “Don’t worry, Wynter. You may be still new to this as a wife.” She tossed her forehead toward Myisha. “For her, it’s little cousin privileges.”

My neck stretched, head shifting forward, and eyes closing slowly. “Come again?”

Myisha’s neck whipped, and she faced me, her expression was one of confusion herself. “The hell you think I was?”

“Fucking him?” When I grasped what left my mouth, I tried softening it. “Maybe?”

JAG backed against the counter behind her laughing, and I even caught Mishka, a few feet away snickering, too. But then I recalled the doorman, the day I moved into the apartment, referring to Myisha as Ms. McKinnon. It seemed odd, but I abandoned the thought right away then, knowing I had more important things floating around in my mind.

“Oh, my god!” JAG hollered. “Wait! Wait! Wait!” She couldn’t stop laughing. “Who knew Wynter was this funny! I know you’re joking about the kissing cousin thing, but that’s a stretch when her cherry’s still intact.”

My head flew over to Myisha, eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re a virgin?”

Myisha’s only response was a sheepish rolling of the eyes, if that combination was even possible. “It ain’t nothing I’m ashamed of, but I don’t shout it from rooftops.” She rolled her eyes at JAG. I could tell they knew each other well enough that this explosive announcement wouldn’t be held against her. “Could you hurry this up? The woman has to go,” Myisha urged.

Still trying to calm her funnies, JAG cleared the transactions and I couldn’t wrap my brain around this new discovery. Myisha was not only a diva, but she was dainty, beautiful, effortlessly feminine, popular in her role as Ragee’s assistant, and at thirty-five, she was still a virgin? She had the body and swag of a twenty-five year old, but even at that age, I wouldn’t have expected a damn virgin. That blew my mind and it took as long as JAG did to finish for me to gather my bearings on all of this. As I was about to leave with two bags of clothing—again—I slowed as I neared the door.

“Myisha…” I called. She turned from a new conversation with JAG. “How do I gain access to the gym at the apartment? Is that through the building or something?”

“It’s Raj’s. I can get you a tag made. He only uses it when he’s in town. Otherwise it’s a waste.” She shrugged.

I hated the sound of his name then because it reminded me, once again, I was in his personal space. But I needed to address this extreme weight gain. I’d put on so much, I felt like a different person. Hell, living in a luxury apartment and being married to Ragee put me on a planet I’d never known. If I was going to totally jump out of the box to a life unrecognizable, my weight would be another factor of newness that came with it.

As I turned to leave again, I heard, “Enjoy that dope ride, Wynter!” JAG cheered.

Yeah…

The white E-Class Mercedes Myisha had waiting for me when we got off the plane from Marye Island was yet another factor of newness.

“You all dolled up.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t start, Van.” When he smiled, I saw it. “What happened to your face?”

“Oh, that?” He sighed, effectively blowing me off. “That shit like two weeks old.”

“What happened?” I was angry.

Van was a handsome man, by most standards. He was nearly six feet, honey complexion, with good, straight teeth, full lips, and a bald head, women seemed to love. He could’ve been a pretty boy if he wasn’t so fascinated with the damn streets. Seeing a faint mark on his face wasn’t something that sat well with me.

“I’m in jail!” He chuckled, raising his arms. “Fuck you mean? Call it an environmental hazard.”

“Who are you fighting in here, Van?” My tone was maternal as my eyes roved around the room.

He waved his hand in the air dismissively. “That’s jailhouse shit. What I wanna know, where the hell did fuckin’ Ragee come from?”

My spine steeled at that. I couldn’t talk about my arrangement with Ragee, and especially not here.

“You’d have to ask his momma where he came from. I can only tell you where he’s at now.” I tapped my chest over my heart convincingly.

“Bullshit, Wynter!”

“Sorry, I haven’t been keeping you in the loop, but he’s pretty private. For real. Like…” My mind spun, struggling to say something compelling. “The way he stays out of the public eye. He’s just a workaholic, who likes his privacy when the record ends.” It was hard coming up with characteristics for a spouse—fake spouse—you didn’t know.

“I smell so much bullshit in this.” He chuckled. “If you was fuckin’, fuckin’ Ragee, yo nasty ass woulda let that slip a long time ago.”

My eyes shot around the room as I pushed forward toward the table. I whispered, “We are not going to discuss him, hear? We can’t discuss your latest fuck up that landed us here and we can’t discuss that.”

Van’s head cocked to the side. “Well, if we can’t rap about either one, what we gone talk about for thirty minutes?”

“How about what’s being done to get you out?”

“You tell me. You hired the lawyer.”

“He came recommended.”

“By who?”

“Mike Brown.”

At the mention of that name, Van visibly froze. I knew him well enough to know I’d sparked a revelatory thought. Not much regarding me got past him. Not much at all. It was just as hopeless as when I lied to him about sleeping with his best friend, knowing damn well he was too old for me.

“Fuck!” he muttered angrily under his breath. “How the hell—”

I cautioned him with my eyes to shut the hell up. I couldn’t afford Ragee’s wrath if I breached our agreement. The contract laid out exactly how I’d be penalized by Mike Brown. His shady ass would sue the shit out of me, and I believed he would, even though I had nothing to collect from.

“I knew this was bullshit,” he groused through gritted teeth. “That motherfuck—”

I tried speaking over him. “Has nothing to do with you.”

Van studied me again. It wasn’t like me to keep anything from him. We shared just about everything—except for his illegal life, it appeared.

“Wynter.”

“Hmm?” My brows lifted.

“On Daddy, everything on the up and up with you and…” His eyes fell to the two rings, conspicuously bundled with brilliant glittering diamonds on my left ring finger.

A pang ran through my chest at the hope and message they exuded. The lie they told. They said I was answered for, secure, was loved, and committed to. My current situation was all but. The only person who currently cared for me, showed any level of commitment was the man across from me. The only person who knew my proper lineage and honored it. The only person who hadn’t denied me or betrayed me. The only one who had shown accountability to me since my grandparents passed was the one I sold my soul to get out of a quagmire. Van was the kid, who on the first night I moved into their place after my grandparents had died, went out to the store and bought a box of maxi pads for me when I was too ashamed to tell his mother my period had come on.

With the slightest movement of my head from left to right, I answered him.

Honestly.

Using my fingers to hold the sandwich over the spatula, I flipped the grilled cheese over, and to my relief, the other side hadn’t toasted too much. I turned off the eyes for the frying pan and sauce pot before bringing the sandwich to my plate. On the plate was a bowl where I spooned servings of tomato bisque as my stomach growled. Damn, I was hungry. I couldn’t believe I was having my second meal of the day at close to midnight.

Cautiously, I carried the plate topped with the grilled cheese and soup out of the kitchen to go to the dining room where my glass of wine awaited with my laptop. After getting nowhere today with the lawyer Mike Brown had set me up with for Van, I decided to look him up myself. I needed answers and the first step in getting them was obtaining another number to reach him. Mike never provided me with any of that.

“You only made enough for one?” an unfamiliar thick baritone questioned.

It’s…him…

I glanced up…way up and caught the lifted brow of a tall, full-bearded semi-stranger in my temporary home. I missed a step, nearly dropping my plate and my lips parted. I almost asked what he was doing here, but that would have been odd seeing he owned the place.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” My heart galloped in my chest.

“Why?”

I swallowed hard, fighting to gather myself. My pulse raced and hands trembled.

“Because you’re never here.”

“I’m working. Somebody gotta pay for this.” His eyes trailed to my food.

I swallowed again, eyes straining. “I actually paid for this—minus the plate, bowl, and spoon, of course,” I amended.

A snort shot from the back of his throat and he shook his head. Then Ragee stepped off, seemingly amused. I had no idea why. Did he get off on making me uncomfortable?

It had been nearly a month since we’d married and this may have been my third or fourth time seeing him. Two weeks after the wedding on Marye Island, Myisha and I caught a flight to Detroit for his show. Mike wanted me seen supporting him after a blog got lots of likes and comments on a post about me being in hiding. Those pictures got loads of play for a week after. A whole twenty minutes with him backstage earned Ragee hundreds of thousands of retweets and a placement on the trending list. As the pictures were circulating at lightning speed, I was on a Delta flight back to Jersey.

But his show…

Seeing Ragee perform in Detroit changed my entire perspective of him as a human being. Being an entertainer was what Ragee McKinnon was born to be. I knew it from the moment the show began when the stage went dark, and his performance opened to a voice belting acapella, lyrics that were actually familiar to me, but hearing them live gave the experience new life.

His voice…

It was commanding, thick, sensual, steady, curvy, and starkly masculine. The crowd shouting their anticipation of seeing him finally didn’t disrupt his delivery. Ragee held the note so long and strong over the blustering audience. When the first beat finally dropped and the lights appeared on a tall, thick man crowding over a microphone and stand as though it was a fleeing lover, his voice pinned me tensely to my seat there near the stage; his talent was that captivating. The more he sang, the more I realized I did know his catalogue. Though not old school, Ragee’s music was being weaved into the soundtrack of my life. I guess I’d been in a bubble over the past five years in terms of music, only listening to radio hits and not paying attention to the players.

And Ragee’s repertoire didn’t just include his own music. A third into the show, he slowed the pace to speak about his passion for music and how it was ingrained in him from his mother’s womb. He performed a motely of songs, taking us all on the journey of his developed musicianship from behind the piano. It was weird seeing him there, considering acts of today. Most don’t know a clarinet from a flute. But Ragee knew how to play. He began the medley with gospel songs, belting lyrics from his soul. The audience was right there with him, filling in lyrics when he’d pause his own. Then he moved us along in his story to the first R&B song that made him want to croon as well as “worship.” It was Teddy Pendergrass’ “Turn Off the Lights,” according to the name and photos flashing on the jumbotrons. He moved on to “A House Is Not a Home” by a Luther Vandross, whose vocals were as deep and rich as Teddy P’s and Ragee’s.

From there, Ragee ventured into nineties music, saying it was an era of music that made him want to explore a woman for more than a “nut.” Even I laughed with the audience at that. He was damn sure charismatic up there. His fingers worked the grand piano to a tune where he declared, “It’s all about you. Sexy you…” The group, 112’s images flashed on the screens. His delivery was nothing short of enchanting and convinced me he wasn’t the arrogant brute I’d only known him to be. It was at this point the buttons of his silk shirt were snapped off and his handsomely carved chest was bared. Oh, my fucking word! Abs bubbling and glistening like that were not manufactured in Hollywood. Chests resembling damn Spartan shields were only on men who shit sitting and pissed standing on their feet. On that stage, Ragee was king supreme.

When he was done, he announced, “But don’t let that rhythm and blues shit fool you, I’m from New Jeruz, New Brunswick to be exact, where all my people wanted to be rappers. So to run with the pack I had to…” Biggie’s “Who Shot Ya?” dropped, streaming through the speakers and Ragee broke out a freestyle that had my jaw drop and thighs squeeze together tensely. Everyone around me—who was still seated, which was hardly no one—jumped on their feet, swung their arms in the air, and cheered him on. To close the hip-hop portion of his musical journey, he paid homage to Young Lord by playing a snippet of “I’ll Never Love Another,” injecting his own lyrics.

He resumed his own catalogue, and I continued to be stunned by his unimaginable gift. Never had I sat through a concert and appreciated the vocal qualities of the performer being equal to, if not better, than the recording. And his stage stamina was amazing. Ragee wasn’t much of a dancer, but the little he did, charmed the panties off all the women in my vicinity. He flashed an enticing smile at key points, winked into the audience when it was least expected but highly appreciated, and he escaped from us into the melody, making his entire being a musical instrument. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

As I snapped out of my stupor, I continued to the dining room and reminded myself I did nothing wrong. All month, I practically had the place to myself because of Myisha. She’d call, text, and FaceTime often, but I was not her client. Ragee—or Raj, as I noticed they called him—was.

I threaded through bodies, men and women I’d seen in passing this past month, and some I hadn’t. Some spoke to me and others didn’t. I prayed to find the dining room empty. As I toed into the room, I sighed in relief. My laptop and phone were in there untouched. I pushed the laptop up to make room for my food and sat to eat. I was working on my poetry, hoping to soon translate it into music lyrics. As I devoured my food, I tried drowning out the increasing sounds of a full house and read over what I’d started. As soon as I was done, I planned to head to my room for privacy. One thing I’d learned about Ragee’s world was it was crowded with people. Maybe it was because of the nature of his job, but he stayed with a gang of people around.

“Well, looky here,” I heard from a distance and glanced up from inhaling my soup to find Mike Brown. “Looks good.” His compliment hadn’t an ounce of sincerity.

Realizing I forgot to grab a napkin, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Just the guy I’ve been texting for a week with no return.”

Mike pushed off of the arched entry to the dining room and stepped in. “My bad.” He sighed, swiping his nose with his thumb. “Shit been hectic with this tour we kicked off. We just flew in from Connecticut… Hotep Black Financial. He play the Garden tomorrow night.”

I nodded politely.

“Well, I’ve been calling because”—my eyes scanned the doorway to be sure no one heard—“my uncle says his lawyer hasn’t availed himself much. He’s never seen him and only had someone from his office come visit Van once. I was about to google him to see if I could get a number. Care to save me the trouble?”

A big dude I recalled as Mike’s security came into the room.

“Oh, yeah,” Mike sounded unfazed by our new company. “I do remember that text.” There were three. “Dude ain’t my lawyer, so I ain’t got his number handy. I’ll have my assistant send it to you tomorrow.”

I nodded, happy to have addressed that issue. Van had been worried, and that concerned me.

“Anything else you need, pretty girl?” He snorted, hands gripping the back of the tall dining room chair. “Damn, I never realized how pretty you is. Right, Will?” he asked his security friend, who chuckled while shaking his head.

Even he likely realized how random and inappropriate that was. But I didn’t react to it, used to men flirting.

“There is something else.” I stuffed the last of my grilled cheese into my mouth and chewed while I spoke. I didn’t want to be “pretty” to Mike. “You haven’t helped with my music.”

“Music?” he frowned, unfamiliar with the topic.

My neck rolled. “Yeah. The one thing I ever asked of you until your proposition…”

“What about music?”

Unbelievable!

Mike convinced me he was genuinely confused, comically similar to the way his eyes would glaze over when I ran into him at Checkerboard without Van.

Head unmoving, my eyes skirted over to my laptop where I had stanzas of my latest music on display.

I smirked, slightly embarrassed, but determined. “I write, remember?”

With a creased forehead, Mike’s eyes bounced between me and the table. He couldn’t recall.

“Oh, damn! You the poet!” he shouted while scratching his head underneath his Yankees baseball cap. “I gotchu. I gotchu!”

“How?”

He began backing out of the room. “Ummm…” He tapped his temple with his middle finger. “I got a group of producers in the Bronx on the come up. They just sent Raj some tracks. I’mma have my assistant send you their info tomorrow, too.” He was almost at the door. “Matter fact, lemme hit her up now. C’mon, Will.”

And then he was gone. And so was my appetite. In my line of work, I knew a bullshitter when its tongue wagged at me. Identifying them right away could save you precious time in trying to look for jobs, schools, housing, and/or lawyers for them, because you knew they wouldn’t make use of your research. Mike Brown was a tenured bullshitter.

Just as I was closing my laptop to leave for my room, a slender frame sauntered in. Her heels clacked against the hardwood floors.

“Hey,” dragged from Myisha’s lungs.

And her shoulders, they were slumped. Never had I not seen Myisha spritely. Even our first meeting when she didn’t know if she could trust me, she had pep in her step.

“Why the sulking?” I eyed her carefully.

“Niggas, girl.” She pouted.

Her face was layed and weave, dark, long, and wavy. She sported a chic cropped electric blue blazer, highlighting her small waist. I caught a bit of the flared, black and white striped mini skirt before she plopped into a seat next to me.

“Where they at?” I jeered with a smile.

“Girl, everywhere but by my side.”

“What’s up with you?” I scoffed. “For real.” I wasn’t used to seeing her like this. And of course, it had to do with a guy. Myisha was a man-eater. “He forgot to leave a bedside note?” I laughed at my own damn joke.

Myisha didn’t. “Why do men have to be so damn egotistical and…mean?”

“I don’t know.” I stacked my plate over my laptop to make it all easy to transport. “Maybe you can ask your cousin that. He’s an asshole.”

“He’s been fucking with you already? We just got here!” She rolled her eyes. “I told him to chill when it comes to you.”

“I’m good. Being hospitable wasn’t in the contract,” I whispered.

“So sick of him and his whole crew.” She swore under her breath.

My eyes blossomed, amused. “The whole damn crew?”

Myisha drew circles into the table with her long, Tiffany blue stiletto shaped nail. “Especially when he’s a part of Raj’s band.”

I choked out a laugh. “That white guy I saw you showing your gums to backstage in Detroit?”

Her head flew into the air. “Okay. So, he’s Ukrainian. And his name is Vanda.”

“Is he your man?”

Myisha’s shoulders dropped again and her chin went back to resting on her fist. “Not yet.”

“You plotting on him?” I laughed.

Come to think of it, this was the most humor I’d had in weeks.

She giggled, no longer leaving me hanging. “He likes me, too. A lot.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Her eyes skirted around for privacy. “He thinks I’m too stuck under Raj. As if I don’t work for him like he does, just at a higher level. Shit, I get paid for what I do. I have a career!”

“What’s wrong about you working for your cousin?”

“The travel. The commitment. Vanda isn’t exclusive to Raj. He’s a touring key, not necessarily production key.”

“Key?”

“Keyboardist. He plays the keyboard for Raj’s shows like he does others.”

“Oh. That means he travels a lot.”

She nodded, taking a deep breath with wide eyes. “Yup. And he wants me with him. Even now that we’re touring with Raj, at night after the shows, I have to deal with Raj before I can… You know.” A demure smile caressed her face. If Myisha could blush she’d be burgundy. “Come out to play.”

I smiled, my eyes falling. “But you don’t ‘play,’ from my understanding.”

“I want to!” Her eyes squeezed and lips went up into a pout. “Damn, I want to! I’m just a slow rider. Can’t trust my goods to just anybody, you know.”

“Is that something your mom taught you? Does she still want you to…preserve the kitty?”

I was hella curious about this thirty-five-year-old virgin.

Myisha chuckled softly with one cheek lifted. “I wouldn’t know. She’s dead.”

“Oh!” I tucked my chin, not expecting that. I had to remember, Myisha wasn’t a friend. “I’m sorry for your loss and shouldn’t have asked.”

Her chuckle was heartier when she scoffed, “You didn’t know. No need to be sorry.” She shrugged with her lips. “I never really had a mother. She had mental issues and on top of that, got high out her mind all the damn time.” Her eyes rolled, expressing annoyance. “And I guess this is a good time to tell you, your mother-in-law died a while back, too.” Her smile was forlorn.

“My mother-in-law?”

I’m not marri—

“Raj,” she murmured, keeping her tone low.

“Oh!” My eyes closed and I shook my head to get it back in the game, trying to recover from that. “Then we are a motherless couple, aren’t we?”

“Yours, too?”

I nodded. “Since I was about eight, so I get having to figure out men without the benefit of an experienced woman. But you trust Vanda?” I tried steering us back on course.

She did it again. Myisha gushed as she nodded her head. “I wanna take it there with him so damn bad, but he has to trust me. And not try to be so domineering! I’m not a clueless spring chicken.”

“You damn sure ain’t,” I thought I uttered only in my head.

“Well, damn, friend! Just make me feel worse, why don’t you!” There was humor in her tone.

I laughed as I tried to apologize. “I’m sorry. It’s just that… You’re thirty-five, Myisha! That’s insane.”

“And how much experience do you have?” she dared.

I lifted my things from the table to leave the room. “Apparently, enough for the both of us.”

Myisha howled a laugh at that. “Ah, shit! Somebody ‘bout to help me catch a fuckin’ Ukrainian shark!”

She followed me out of the dining room, into the kitchen, and from the kitchen all the way to my room where she stayed for hours yapping about…nothing. And I was completely okay with it.

 

His timing was just seconds off when striking the keys, but he was pushing through it as he worked the baby grand piano on stage. Once in a while his head would come up from his hands and he’d swing his neck to rock his chestnut strands from his eyes, so he could see his note sheet. He wasn’t practiced, less than a year into his piano lessons, but there was an unbridled passion in the digits of his hands as he delivered the chords. I could tell he’d been critiqued on looking at his fingers too much by the way he struggled to keep his head up.

“Matthew’s strides have been out of this world,” Molly whispered, leaning into me in the dark theater. “Donna has been working with him for months now. Even his counselor says the lessons have helped with his anxiety. We’re hoping to have him promoted to the next step in the program.” She turned to me with red stained lips as we sat balcony level away from the audience. “You remember Matthew—”

“Peterson,” I muttered, watching him closely for similarities. “Yes.” He was the first white kid I sponsored.

“Yes!” she whispered with excitement. “Great strides, that kid. See! What you’re doing for these kids is beyond extraordinary,” she breathed as her palm brushed over my arm.

My eyes swept over her touch with an arched brow until I forced my attention to the saxophonist on the stage beginning his solo. It was the annual fall recital at Bearing Love. They put them on a few times throughout the year, but I came to only two. And when I did, I didn’t sit amongst the audience. I may have dressed in a full tuxedo, but my attendance and sponsorship remained anonymous. Molly would come up to the dark empty box with me and gush over their residents. 

“How’s Benji doing?” I asked as he blew so hard into the sax, his eyes squeezed.

“Fantastic! He’s been to visit his father in Bayside, which was the next milestone in his care plan.”

“How did it go?”

She shrugged her slender shoulder as her eyes were on the stage below. “I was told he didn’t speak much, but neither did his father. It’s only been a year since his mother’s murder. I don’t think his father has forgiven himself for it.” She tossed her aquamarines over to me. “Or maybe he doesn’t struggle with guilt at all,” she whispered. “Violation of a child is violation no matter who the predator is, and this case, the parent.”

My phone rang, snatching my attention.

“Hang on,” I explained. “I gotta take this.”

Quietly, I moved toward the box door and opened it. Danny G’s eyes were alert as I stepped into the hallway.

“Yeah.”

“Yo…” Mike practically shouted into the phone because wherever he was had been mad loud.

“Yeah.” I repeated.

“I just got off the phone with ol’ girl.”

“Who?”

“Wynter,” he yelled, and even though I knew why, it still didn’t sit well with me.

“What’s winter?”

“Your fuckin’ wife!”

God…

Wynter.

“And?” My eyes fell to my Gianvito Rossi’s.

“And IG blowing up with bullshit ass blogger posts about Ragee’s cover up marriage, nigga.”

“And?”

“And they sound legit saying they never see y’all together, which is true. I tried to google her name and only came up with pix of her before you or the same ones of her at the wedding and that one show she went to in Detroit.”

The one she came to because I got a call from you just like this, saying she needed to be seen at one of my shows?

I rubbed my face with my free hand. Then I shrugged, face still to the floor. “What you want from me, man? I got shit to do.”

“Be a fuckin’ newlywed! Fuck you mean?”

I laughed, tossing my eyes to the side to calm myself. “Word? And how do I do that?”

“Take her out. Take her somewhere y’all can be seen doing shit that ain’t got nothing to do with work.”

“But I’m touring, man!”

“You ain’t working right now, but you touring!”

He had a point.

“Yeah. A’ight. Later.” I was ready to dead the call.

“Hold up. Raj!”

“Yeah?”

“I know I’m on my petty shit, homie. But remember what this means to us. Frank called me the other day, asking if you interested in any of them roles Janice sent you. They watching, fam. Facts! They watching.”

I took a deep breath, rubbing the back of my neck while I processed his message. I knew I had a job to do with this fake marriage business. I was just hoping to make it as painless as possible for me.

“Raj?”

“Yeah, man. I’m here.” I turned back for the door I just came out of, considering what was inside. Talks of progress and care plans had me putting things in perspective. “Got it. I’m out.”

I disconnected the call and nodded to Danny G before going back inside. I’d already missed most of Benji’s solo. I didn’t want to miss Devon’s, too.