by Lamar Giles
Wait! What?
I left my desk too, vaguely aware of Shameik giving me the stink eye as I chased my friend into the hall.
“Fuse,” I hissed, “what are we doing?”
She was annoyed, dismissed me with a pushing motion. Back off!
“Fuse!”
“We aren’t doing anything. Remember, you trust me now. You should hang back on this one.”
“We’re in this together. I really want to know the plan now.”
She spun on me, scary. I backed into a wall of lockers, the thin aluminum bins clashing like weak cymbals. “When the Dark Nation first started and they were wildin’, I told ParSec to steer clear of their videos, comments, and low-key dry snitching about the borderline illegal things they did in her name. Plausible deniability.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“That we’re in this is my fault. I built the monster that’s got us running around like buddy cops. This should’ve never fallen on you. Not in the slightest.”
“But it did, and I’m here.”
“Listen. I’m out of this school one way or another. My dad’s seen to that. Any trouble I get in probably won’t be the same as trouble you get in. Let me do this on my own in case it goes bad.”
Oh my God, what was she going to do? “After what we’ve been through, I’m not letting you take the heat for anything done on our behalf.”
Fuse backed off. “Final warning, then. I don’t need you in there for this.”
“I need to be in there, though.”
She raised her hands in submission. “Those fad diet drinks she sips, they make her pee like she’s pregnant. She makes a pit stop when she enters and leaves a venue. I watched her do it like clockwork for months. I knew she’d have to go before she left the school. Knew I’d get a crack at her.”
Fuse snaked one hand into her bag, stalked into the bathroom. I followed, just as a roaring flush sounded. Paula Klein undid the latch on her stall and clutched her chest when she saw us. “Jesus, Fuse. What now?”
Yanking her hand free of the bag, wielding a device I’d only ever seen on TV, Fuse said, “Now we have a real conversation. No bodyguards protecting you here.”
Paula’s eyes bugged. I imagined mine did too.
Fuse depressed the trigger, and blue lightning sparked between the prongs of the stun gun.
So much for civility.
The stun gun was a relic from the back of Mom’s closet. These days she preferred pepper spray and the spiked keychain her self-defense teacher gave her to this heavy, takes-a-full-day-to-charge fossil. She wouldn’t notice it gone. Unless I got expelled and/or arrested for having it on school property. Even then, I felt confident a self-defense argument would play since I wielded it against a possible murderer. I was standing my ground.
Paula’s feet scrabbled. She squeezed in a narrow space next to the paper towel dispenser.
“Make a noise and I’ll light you up.” I said. Paula clapped a hand over her mouth. Terrified.
Good.
I wasn’t actually going to use the stun gun on her. Who knows what would happen given the weapon’s age and Paula’s penchant for cheap fabrics. Fireball? Eh. No, Paula wasn’t in any real danger today, but I liked letting her believe she was. In my experience, bullies were more afraid of the world than anyone they preyed on. My plan was to leverage that fear into useful info. Best-case scenario: a confession. Worst-case: Disney World–level fun for me.
Kya—just as terrified as Paula—said, “I’m going to wait outside.”
Too bad I couldn’t let her in on the fine details at that moment. “Told you that’d be best.”
She scurried away, leaving Paula and me alone in a long-overdue reunion.
I said, “You threw me out of my friend’s memorial service. You did it smiling.”
“Fuse”—her eyes followed the business end of my mom’s stun gun—“may I speak?”
“No.”
With my free hand, I slipped the VenueShowZ letter from my pocket and placed it on the counter near her. “Pick it up. Read it.”
Her bony, shaky, liver-spotted hand plucked it up. “I don’t have my glasses.”
“It’s a letter from ParSec’s new management company. She fired you. Seems real suspicious that she tried to move on from your company and ended up dead. Somehow I bet that got left out of whatever statement you made to the police, right?”
“There’s been a mistake here!” Her voice trembled with the lie.
“Did she fire you or not? A lie or the truth will make me happy in vastly different ways. I promise you’ll only enjoy one of them.” Energy sizzled between the gun’s prongs.
“Yes! We’d come to an agreement to terminate our partnership. But it’s not what you think.”
“I think you, or one of those goons from her memorial, needed to teach her the consequences of double-crossing you. Right, Paula? You’ve already admitted you’re petty. Why not cop to petty enough to murder your former meal ticket?”
Her chest hitched. “I didn’t hurt her, Fuse.”
“Hurt and kill aren’t the same thing, Paula.”
“I promise you it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.” Her head dropped, she cupped her face in her hands. Enough hot tears spilling that they leaked between her fingers and dripped to the floor.
“If not you, who?”
Her face tipped up, she was a sloppy crying mess. “I knew where she was going to be. That night.”
“And?”
“I’m telling you I didn’t go there, and I didn’t send anyone there. Not on purpose.”
I leapt forward. “What’s that mean?”
“He was mad, and I was too. I knew about the pop-up party she was throwing, and I only mentioned I wouldn’t be going. That’s all I said. He said, ‘Going where?’ and I suppose I let it slip.”
“He who, Paula?”
Barely a whisper, as if saying his name would summon him in a cloud of fire and black smoke. “Lil’ Redu. I told him where to find her.”
“Redu, you’re mumbling again.” I toggled the talkback button, muting my side of the conversation so he couldn’t hear me curse under my breath. This was our ninth take.
Even though he was unaware I was calling him every name but his own, I, unfortunately, could still hear him making excuses inside the recording booth. “That’s how I want it to sound.”
If I didn’t need his money …
Annoyed, I played back what he’d just done, then unmuted my mic. “Do you understand yourself, Redu? I guarantee the average listener won’t. You sound like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. Don’t he, Fuse?”
I waited for her to chime in, but her face was in her phone. Again.
“Fuse!”
She jerked alert. “Huh? Sorry. What?”
“Redu’s verse.”
Dazed and distracted, she was like, “Yeah, it’s dope.”
“See!” Redu shouted from the booth.
I smacked my forehead.
Thank goodness he’d come to the studio alone tonight. No rowdy, constantly shifting entourage to make the process more painful with their unwanted input and feedback. Crazy that in their absence, my one-woman entourage was the session’s problem child.
Fuse’s eyes were on her phone again, and she left her seat. “I gotta step out for a minute. This is important.”
With a wave, I dismissed her. She’d made tonight’s work harder by ego-boosting this clown. Whatever been going on with her lately had her off her game. No new ideas on the social media front. My followers and SoundCloud plays had been stagnant. Paula been on me about bringing in some more “seasoned branding talent,” a suggestion I shut down, of course. Never told Fuse, but maybe I should. She been slipping lately and hadn’t said why.
“Run it back!” Redu demanded.
We started again. Did three more mush-mouthed takes that had me wondering if he’d gotten dental work done before coming here. Fuse had the right idea. I needed a break. “T
ake five. I’m going to get some air.”
I bundled up, because Ocean Shore cold could feel like ice water misting you from all directions, and stepped out the studio expecting to see Fuse in her car, doing whatever. I didn’t see her, though. I heard her. And him.
Around the corner, the conversation quick and desperate in tone. I snuck closer to make out words, and I didn’t feel the cold anymore.
“—told you that you have to go,” Fuse said.
Shameik wasn’t trying to hear it. “Is that what you want, though? For real?”
“What I want doesn’t matter. You can’t be here. This can’t happen.”
“Again. You mean it can’t happen again.”
“It should’ve never happened. It was a moment of weakness. I’ve regretted ever since. I should—I should just tell her. I’m going to.” Crunching gravel footsteps, and rustling fabric. “Let go of my jacket, Shameik.”
“Seriously, though, me and her ain’t together no more. You don’t have to tell her anything. We should be able to do what we want.”
“I don’t want, Shameik. Maybe in the moment, I did. But it was wrong. You shouldn’t have kissed me, and I for sure shouldn’t have kissed you back.”
No way. Seriously? This was what they’ve been up to? How stupid did they think I was?
I rounded the corner. He towered over her, both of his hands were on her hips, gripping hard through her jacket. Her head was turned away, avoiding his gaze like she’d stumbled upon Medusa. So he saw me first. Startled, he released her and backed away. The sudden shift in demeanor drew her attention to me, and her face went slack. She said, “ParSec—”
One finger, the signal my first-grade teacher used when the classroom needed to quiet down. Fuse must’ve realized it was in her best interest to heed my direction here.
Shameik, however, “Well, now you know.”
“There’s nothing to know,” Fuse countered, and took another step closer before rethinking her safety.
“Sounded to me like there’s a bunch to know, Fuse. You kissed him?”
“No. Yes. I mean, it was an accident.”
“A kissing accident?”
“Why do you even care, Paris?” Shameik stuffed his hands in his pockets and bounced his shoulders. He did that when performing some of his angrier poetry. “You got the studio. And Lil’ Redu. And your famous clients. Since when do you concern yourself with us peons?”
“Excuse me?”
Fuse said, “Shameik, stop! ParSec, don’t listen to—”
I’d lost all my chill. “Whatever scheming you two been doing is my fault because—what? I have a job? A life? Responsibilities? I’m out here on my own now, and because I couldn’t hold your hand or take some corny picture at the homecoming dance with you, you got the right to hook up with my so-called friend.”
Shameik scowled, but Fuse shrank. Like she was trying to get small enough to sail away on the wind. Still, she tried it, she opened her mouth. “I’m sorr—”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” I said. “The two of you never could get enough of talking about me behind my back. So keep on. When I get a platinum album, when I’m rolling into the Grammys, when I get a big house on a hill, talk about me. Because that’s all you’ll have.”
I turned, heard Fuse’s shuffling footsteps. “You don’t want to come back into this studio, Fuse. I promise you don’t.”
And she didn’t.
Back inside, at the board, I hit the talkback button. “We’re going again.”
I started the track, but he missed his cue. Instead, saying, “You good?”
“Rap!”
I started the track again. We got through the session, I collected my money and went back to my cold, dark, lonely place. Success never felt less valuable.
Three days later, it was 7:00 p.m., winter dark out, and I should’ve been at the studio.
I couldn’t leave my bed.
It was freezing outside but hot in my room. An oscillating fan on my dresser fwump-fwump-fwumped back and forth, creating a cone of cool air I wanted to live in. My phone buzzed, and my first instinct was to throw it across the room. Considering how crappy this place Paula had me renting was, the impact would probably collapse the whole structure and kill me.
The phone buzzed again, and I made a guessing game of who it might be. It wasn’t Fuse because I’d blocked her number. Certainly, it was someone with an urgent need because on top of making hot music, I was also a genie. Everybody wanted something. Everybody’s mad if they don’t get it. But I’m just one person. This was supposed to be living the dream. Living the dream didn’t feel much different than living with the roaches at Grandma’s house. Except lonelier.
Two buckets in the kitchen plinked with random drops from a leak the maintenance man didn’t seem real motivated to find. There was a hornet’s nest in the guest bedroom closet, so I’d been contemplating having the whole room sealed up like an Egyptian tomb. Paula said she’d talk to someone about it. That was two weeks ago. Maybe Fuse wasn’t the only person on payroll who needed replacing. The more I lay here, the longer that thought lay with me.
On buzz three, I flipped the phone over. Saw a name I hadn’t heard from in a while and my heart skipped.
KYA
I don’t know if this is even your number anymore.
KYA
I need to see you. Please.
KYA
I miss you.
My eyes prickled with fresh tears over that last text. I missed her too. Even if I didn’t know it until that moment.
ME
Five Guys? In an hour?
KYA
Yes.
KYA
Thank you.
I got to the burger joint fifteen minutes early but didn’t order. I’d wait for Kya, and we’d get our usual. My treat. Brought cash because Paula hadn’t fixed my bank account situation yet. That sizzle from meat hitting the grill and that savory oily smell that made fresh oxygen feel inferior was thick. My mouth watered. How long since I was last here? I honestly couldn’t remember.
The table we usually copped was occupied by a dad and his two babies. One was in a carrier thing, like a picnic basket for infants. The other looked like he was ready for kindergarten. While the dad helped the infant hold its bottle, the big kid played in his fries, humming some tune that seemed nursery rhyme-ish.
Lately, in the studio with Redu, or with Paula breathing down my neck about some future gig, thinking about music felt like I had a bad milkshake. I’d forgotten moments like this. Pure, old-school inspiration.
All of a sudden I was happily thinking of piano chords. Ting-ting-ting-ting, then some kids—like a choir!—on vocals, laid over a sample from something Disney. I’d been feeling The Lion King lately, probably something from that would work. It was all messy in my head, and I broke out my phone to get some rough sounds down in the GarageBand app so I wouldn’t forget.
The door chimed. I recognized Kya by height alone. She was all bundled up in a bubble coat with the fur-trimmed hood shadowing her face, had the puffy cartoon gloves. I absently waved her over, then made sure to save my new song file. She’d get exactly where I was coming from with this, she knew my vibe. Even though she claimed music wasn’t her thing anymore, since we were talking again, it might not be that hard to get her in the studio for one session. Then, another. Then …
The possibilities of getting the team back together again. We’d had our problems, yeah, this dinner, though … that had to mean we’re all good. Just as those piano chords chimed in my head, hope blazed in my chest.
She sat, flipped her hood back, and I knew whatever this was, good was nowhere near it. “Kya? What?”
Her eyes were puffy, nearly swollen shut. Snot crusted her nostrils. She mopped her damp cheeks with those puffy gloves, succeeding in nothing but smearing tears.
“Did something happen to your mama, Kya?”
A head shake. “No. Not her.”
She seemed dazed almost. Rambli
ng. “Phillip wanted to be a millionaire. He had all these plans. The app was making money, and I started thinking, yeah, yeah we could—”
Who the heck was Phillip? “Kya. You ain’t making sense. What app?”
She sobbed into her fist, and the only thing I kept thinking was, why did you text me?
Salty, I slid from the booth, kept it chill, though. Food would help. “I’mma get you something to eat. The usual?”
She waved me off. “No thank you.”
“I got it.”
She was insistent. “I can’t eat right now. I just needed to talk to someone. Mama had a gig, and I don’t think she’d care that much anyway.”
But I would? I haven’t seen you in months, Kya, and I got out of bed for all this me-me-me crap? More problems laid at my feet.
She said, “Simon was all about the math and sometimes didn’t care about the other stuff.”
“I thought his name was Phillip.”
If she heard me, I couldn’t tell. Then she mentioned some other dude—Jim—and I needed a break from the drama.
At the counter, I ordered, paid. My burger sizzled, and so did I. I mean dang, Kya, a “Paris, what’s up with you?” would’ve been nice. Or a “Paris, are you okay?” Why did no one in my life give a crap about me anymore? Them, them, them. All the time. What can DJ ParSec provide today?
The worker dropped my burger in its paper bag, topped it with greasy fries. I wasn’t hungry anymore.
That family from before was packing up to brave the cold, the older kid still singing his nursery rhyme. What was inspiration minutes ago was now a sonic irritant, the audio equivalent of hot sauce in your eye. How in the world did I think I could spin a song from that? Such a stupid idea. Right up there with coming here in the first place.
Back at the table, Kya looking all sad and heartbroken pissed … me … off. Still, I tipped my bag toward her. “Take a fry.”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t.”
I grabbed a handful myself, jammed some in my mouth to keep from cussing her out.
Kya managed to squeeze more words through her sloppiness. “I talked to Simon right after last bell. That wasn’t even six hours ago. How could it happen so fast?”
