“I like how that sounds, baby. That’s why I called. Hannah is getting engaged—”
“Hannah?” he asked before she could finish her thought.
“Yeah, Hannah,” she replied with a giggle.
“Didn’t the guy she was with, like, get some other girl pregnant a few months ago? And, wait—didn’t she just say she was pregnant by someone else a couple weeks ago?”
“Yes and yes,” Hannah replied, not feeding into where he was going with his recollections.
“Wow, OK. Let’s bet how long that will last.”
“That’s not nice. I’m not going to do that. They have just as good a shot as anybody.”
“Yeah, sure. If they do last, they will not be happy. She barely has a career, and they have had way too much damage already. It won’t be wedded bliss, I bet you.”
“I’m not betting, but I am going to end this conversation. It’s not nice.”
Michael laughed. “OK, if you say so. I know you are thinking the same thing, but you just don’t want to be mean because that is your friend.”
“Yup,” she replied.
Reyna eventually ended the phone call, and, surprisingly, she felt extremely optimistic about her future with Michael. She wondered how, with so many issues with her friends and family and her extremely demanding medical career, she managed to make Michael her main priority. She knew it had to be a woman thing, the whole biological clock thing, but still she felt so weak sometimes for allowing him and their life together to consume her. All the “strong, single sisters” told her to put herself first and not put no man that high on a pedestal—and every other sisterhood quote ever made. The thing Reyna had to remember was that not only were those sisters single, they were looking for Mr. Right constantly. They tried to act as if they were setting their standards high and were comfortable being single, so there was no rush, but that wasn’t the case when they were out at clubs or home alone complaining. So Reyna paid them no mind; no woman or man really wanted to live this life alone, and she was no exception.
Chapter 7
It was his first day back on air since the prior week, and DJ KD had a mouthful. As soon as he cracked the mic, he blew up, so much so that he didn’t introduce himself or give the station call letters. The first thing he did was clarify that the story Tryme had been spreading all through the media was false.
“Tryme, that’s all you can do is try, but you will never succeed, not over my dude.” Vice, the board operator, didn’t know what the proper protocol was when a jock threw a tantrum over the airwaves, but he stood with his finger close to the dump button just in case.
“That fake thug came up in here thinking he was running things. Nobody tells me what to do—I do what I want to do. You need me, I don’t need you. Your team should’ve told you you were overstepping your boundaries, but they didn’t let you. They let you step into the ring for a nonwinning battle. You mad at me ’cause I didn’t want to play your wack records. Then you tried to try me—and you got your ass beat! Then you want to go on the radio and say you did some damage—negro, please! Get the incident report from the police—the police that got called on me! You can spread whatever lies you want—but I’m here every night—you will never get the last word.”
KD was just filled with anger. It was bad enough he had been off the air for days, but he had been itching to respond to clear his name, and it showed. Vice finally signaled to him that he had to wrap up for commercial, and because no one played around with ad time at Drama 99, KD cut it short and took a seat.
As soon as he made sure the sponsors were well into their sales pitch, Vice looked over at KD.
“You alright?” he asked.
“I’m good,” KD replied.
“You just blacked out live.”
“He better be glad I didn’t see him last night at that album release party. It would’ve been round two.”
Before KD could turn to see what had caused Vice’s expression to change so rapidly and drastically, he heard the voice of Madison ripping through the doorway.
“Are you out of your damn mind?” she said.
KD looked up to gather his response, but he didn’t think quickly enough.
“Do you think this microphone is your personal diary for you to vent your personal issues?”
“No, I was just—”
“It’s not. You keep your drama and bullshit off my airwaves, or you will not be on them again, are you clear?”
“Madison, I was just responding to all the stuff being said. My listeners want to hear my side.”
“Don’t try to make this about your listeners or good content—this is about your ego.”
KD started to contemplate if he should have just left well enough alone.
“His record label just called, and they are pissed off. You are trashing their artist on the air, and they just had him up here to give an interview,” Madison continued.
“Is that what this is about? Kissing some label’s ass?”
“No, it’s about not wanting added drama spoken over the air—”
“We can’t speak of any drama at Drama Ninety-Nine FM?”
“Real funny, KD. I’m not in the mood tonight. Unless you want Vice finishing your show, I suggest you relax.”
“I am relaxed. I just don’t understand why I can’t speak my mind just because the record label is upset. I don’t work for the record label.”
“Yeah, well, you work for me, and I said cut that shit out.”
Madison exited on that note. She was well aware KD was one of her top DJs, so she wasn’t trying to take him off air any longer than he already had been, but she wasn’t in the mood for added drama.
KD was just as pissed off back in the studio. He was sitting in the swivel chair playing with the pen in his hand.
“We are back on in sixty seconds. You ready to rock?” Vice asked.
“Yeah. I was trying to tell you that you was blacking out and to be easy, but then I seen her out of nowhere,” Vice said as he adjusted the levels on the board.
“You was saying to relax because of Madison or the investigation?” KD asked.
Before Vice could respond, he was silencing KD and counting his fingers down from five.
“WDRD, it’s your boy, KD, bringing you the drama like I do each and every day. For those of you just joining me, I just let the tristate know that nobody’s favorite rapper, Tryme, is a fraud, but due to music business politics, I am going to say no more about it.”
Vice looked over at KD, shocked that he had made that stab at Madison over the airwaves like that, but he turned back away quickly in case KD decided to redirect his aggression. KD continued with some more banter about the music world and some of the drama within it before he got into some regular entertainment news.
Although KD and Vice expected Madison to appear back in the studio, she didn’t. She was sitting in her office trying to get her stuff together to get the hell out of there and wondering why she had her behind still in the building that late. By the time KD was on air, she was well into overtime hours. She knew that the on-air staff that came to work after she was gone felt a little more free to take risks. She knew KD was shocked to see her pop in the studio, but she was more pissed that he had made his slick remarks on air even after he’d known she was listening. It was a good thing for him, though, that she was in no mood to care. The station was consuming all her energy, and on this particular night she was ready to throw in the white flag.
An hour had gone by, and Madison was home and dressed in her comfy pajamas. Her hair was wrapped up, and she had her red and blue scarf tied around her head. She was all ready for bed and went into the family room to spend some cuddle time with her man in hopes to take her mind off the stressful day at work. When she walked in, he was sitting on the couch with the remote in his hand. He wore a pair of gray sweat pants, and his hairy chest was exposed through a saggy wife beater. He didn’t look up or acknowledge her when she walked in, but she just continued o
n her way to sit beside him. Once she plopped down next to him, he looked at her.
“Damn, do you have to jump down so hard?”
“Jump? How do you jump down, Jamahl?”
“Never mind,” he said and turned back to the television.
Before he’d just annoyed her, Madison had wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, but he had just diffused that feeling with his attitude.
She sat there for a few moments looking at the sports news he was watching. A few moments went by, and no words were exchanged. All Madison could think was, what happened to the generic welcome-home questions? What happened to enjoying spending some quality time together? What happened to us?
“So, no ‘how was my day’?” she asked.
“I was watching something,” he replied.
Madison bit her bottom lip to prevent from speaking too quickly because she knew it wouldn’t be very nice. She didn’t want to argue, but his unpleasantness was pissing her off quite fast.
“How was your day?” he asked with an obvious hesitation.
“It was fine, Jamahl.”
“So why did you ask me to ask?”
“Oh, my gosh, are you serious?” she said as she turned to look directly at him.
He just looked back at her.
“Did it hurt you to open up dialogue with me?”
“No, but I am saying you acted as though you had something to say, when really you just wanted me to say something.”
“I didn’t act like anything. I just asked you why you were sitting here speechless like I didn’t just come home and join you on the couch.”
Madison knew where this petty bickering was headed, so before he gave his counter she got off the couch.
“Never mind, Jamahl, enjoy your alone time. I am going to bed.”
Jamahl made no attempt to change her mind; he just watched her walk down the hallway toward the staircase.
Madison reached her bedroom and was beyond annoyed. She sat on the side of the bed and rubbed her toes on the plush maroon carpet in her bedroom and tried to let her blood pressure drop some before she turned on the television. She told herself to shake it off and start a new day—the last thing she needed was to go down her Jamahl-gets-me-sick road. Once she got into bed, she hit POWER on the remote. A familiar tune filled the room. It was Polytics’s new video on BET. Madison felt guilty, but watching him shirtless and rubbing on all the young video chicks was clearing her mind and cheering her up. Even though she knew everything about that was wrong.
Chapter 8
Naomi hadn’t called home to her parents in a few days. She had been so caught up in work she kept missing the window of time to just call and say hello, and her parents were not up on the texting game yet. She had just made it back from work, and she promised herself that she would call home tonight. It seemed as if she had left some of herself behind in Texas. She was very close to her parents; she was their only child, and prior to moving to New York, she had barely gone a weekend without seeing them.
Several times, when Naomi was home in bed, she wondered if she ever should have left Texas. She’d gone to college for broadcast journalism, and working in the big city of dreams was like a fantasy she never really expected. That was why, when she’d actually gotten a callback from the record label, she hadn’t wanted to pass up the opportunity; it hadn’t taken much for her to get up and go. Well, not much hesitation aside from her boyfriend, Charles. She and Charles had been together since high school, and as far as she knew, they were getting married as soon as possible. However, after a lot of thought and his support to take the job in New York, Naomi had decided to go for just a few years and come back home to Texas with a great résumé and a lot of contacts. Naomi was able to speak to Charles more frequently than to her parents; she and Charles spoke via text throughout the day and on the phone sometimes at night when her parents were already in bed. Those were the times she had time to talk on the phone for hours with him. She was wishing she could speak to her mother and father even half as much.
Within the first thirty minutes of being home, Naomi was dressed in her pink flannel pajamas and big puffy socks. She turned the channel to BET to watch the latest videos as she stuffed some potato chips in her mouth. She was in no mood to cook, so she had already made up her mind that she was going to make some ramen noodles when she got hungry. Besides, expensive dinners were not in her budget—having to pay New York rent was pretty much all Naomi could afford for the most part. She stuffed in two to three chips at a time as she watched the new video by Brian McKnight; she loved her some Brian, like most ladies.
After she was temporarily filled with potato chips, she put the bag down and finally called home.
“Hey, baby,” her father said as soon as he heard her voice.
“Hey, Daddy,” she said in her little-girl voice.
“How’s my little girl?”
“I’m good, just tired and working an awful lot.”
“You’re doing a lot of overtime?”
“Not every night, but I work some nights until about eight or nine PM.”
“How are you getting home on those nights?”
“I usually take the train. On some nights I can get car service.”
“Why aren’t you taking car service every night? I don’t want you out there late at night like that on the train.”
“Trust me, Dad, I would rather take the car service, but with the budget cuts and all, they don’t let us take them all the time.”
“Oh, well, on those nights, you go home at a decent time. I don’t want you traveling that late on the train. It’s dangerous.”
“I know, Dad, I will try.”
Naomi expected her parents to do the whole safety-training speech. Every time she called home, they went through all the dos and don’ts of living in the city.
“Is Mommy around?”
“She’s at the grocery store, but I know she wants to speak with you. You’re gonna just have to call her back.”
“OK, should I just call her cell phone?”
“You can, but if she’s shopping, she probably won’t be able to talk to you the way she would like.”
“OK, no problem.”
“What are you eating for dinner tonight?”
Naomi knew if she told him she was eating ninety-nine-cent soup, he would object to her lack of nutrition and vegetables.
“I’m not sure yet. I’m going to cook something though.”
“OK, baby girl. Eat and then call your mother back after nine thirty.”
“OK, Daddy.”
Once Naomi hung up, she stood to go make her little broke-man’s dinner. She wasn’t all that hungry yet, but she knew the later she waited, the closer to her bedtime she would be eating. She was only a whopping one hundred thirty-five pounds, but she wasn’t trying to get in the habit of eating late and becoming a cow. She learned quick that skinny was very “in” where she worked. She did want to take a minute to call Charles first, so she figured she would give him a call while the water boiled. She was dialing his number when she did a double take at the television screen. Tyreek was in the new Polytics video. Tyreek worked with Naomi, and she saw him almost every day at the office, so she was surprised to see him on her television. She hung up the phone and began to watch the video closer. In Texas, people you know and see in real life didn’t just appear on TV.
She watched clips of him dancing. Naomi had been sitting on the edge of a brown and cream armchair in her living room, but as she became more intrigued by the video, she began to sit back. Tyreek was five-eleven with broad shoulders. He was brown skinned with shoulder-length dreads and close-shaved facial hair. Naomi had noticed his good looks before at the office, but the more she saw of him on her television screen, the more attractive he became to her. She didn’t notice it at first, but she was wearing a slight smile on her face as she saw him profiling and interacting with the other people in the video. She hardly ever got a chance to speak to Tyreek, but she knew he was
a pretty big deal at her company. Watching him on her television made her feel honored just to be in the same building with him every day.
Naomi had one good girlfriend from back home who lived in New York, but because she worked so much, Naomi didn’t get to see her as much as they had anticipated. Still, when it came to the person she relied on to chat it up with, it was still Devora. She wanted Devora to get a glance of Tyreek before the video went off, so she quickly called her. Devora answered on the second ring.
“Hey, are you home?” Naomi blurted.
“Yeah, why?” Devora asked.
“Turn to BET—hurry, hurry!”
“What? I have seen this. This is the new Polytics video.”
“I know, but you see that guy with him in the gray hoodie?” Naomi asked.
“Yeah, who is that?”
“That’s my coworker Tyreek. He’s a cutie, I think.”
“Uh-oh…someone has a crush,” Devora teased.
“No, I just think he’s cute, and I wanted your opinion.”
“He is cute, I agree. You guys are cool?” Devora asked.
“No, not really,” Naomi answered.
“Well, if you think he’s cute, try to get cool with him and see where it goes.”
“No, I still have my baby Charles at home,” Naomi said.
“Charles—many-miles-away Charles?”
“Yes, but it’s not his fault I moved here.”
“Well, who knows what Charles is doing while you’re gone? It won’t hurt you to make a friend,” Devora said.
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