by Love Belvin
“Plan B,” Mike shouted to Ragee, but more out of frustration than disrespect. He turned over his shoulder and found me standing in the middle of the opening of the apartment, incensed eyes brushing over me before they retreated to Myisha. “Take her back there to get her shit!”
At that, I turned to Myisha. Who in the hell did he think he was ordering around? Myisha’s darkly lined eyes communicated the need for calm and she waved me to her as she turned for the hall leading to the other side of the apartment where our bedrooms were. I paid one last regard to Mike, in an effort to figure out just what in the hell had I walked into. When he began speaking animatedly to Ragee, I decided to drop it and fish for answers from Myisha.
I glanced up from my phone, face stretched with confusion. “A marriage certificate?” I asked Myisha. “They want my white blood cell count, too, to prove I’m human?”
She sighed, rolling her eyes as she stepped away from my closet door with her arms folded. She looked every inch a model with her long jet black ponytail, soft pink colored lips, and winged eyeliner.
“Fucking vultures,” she murmured.
“How could one small blog like Spilling That Hot Tea cause a shake up in the camp of a major figure like Ragee’s?”
Myisha stopped pacing and glanced my way. “First, Spilling That Hot Tea may not be the Wendy Williams Show, but they are powerful as hell because of their resources. I told Raj Mike’s plan wasn’t air-tight. It would be like that blog to do a public records search for a damn marriage certificate.”
“Okay,” I argued. “It wasn’t filed. He’s a busy man. Let’s file the damn thing and get it over with.”
I was pleasantly surprised at Mike’s maneuver of not having made the marriage official. It meant I was still a single woman. But filing it now wouldn’t be a major life change because all this time, I’d forgotten it wasn’t final.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and moaned. “It’s not just that, Wynter. One of the bellmen here spoke to TMZ. Told them the first time any of them had seen you was the day you moved in. And the other said they never see you two together.”
“And? That still doesn’t prove anything.” Was I crazy?
“It doesn’t all by itself, but having both the marriage certificate thing and the staff at your home running their mouths about their own doubts makes it suspect.
“But the guy, Pito, just told Mike the one who spoke to them had only been working here for a few months.”
“But the public doesn’t know that. More than that, they don’t care when the narrative is already rooted in their minds.” Her eyes closed tightly. “Ughhhhhhh!” she grumbled so hard it sounded painful. “None of this shit would matter if Raj would’ve just told Mike to go fuck himself when he came up with this stupid ass plan in the first place!” She took a seat next to me on the bed and massaged her temples.
“So, we pack up and leave town? Are we going to do this every time a stupid blog post surfaces about him? React?”
This was how I ended up at his concert in Detroit, too, back in October.
“We’re not moving,” her voiced cracked when she answered cryptically.
“But you have almost half of my wardrobe on this bed.”
Myisha face spread in a wry smile. “That’s because you don’t have much of one. I’m only taking a bag. I have clothes galore.” Her eyes fell to her fidgety hands as she righted the diamond encrusted Rolex on her mocha wrist. She stood. “We need to go. I have so much shit to do tonight and we have to drive up to the house.”
“What house?”
“Raj’s place in Sparta.”
“Where the hell is Sparta?”
“Out west. It should take us less than an hour to get there at this time of night.” Her eyes swept around the room as though she wanted a recorded memory of it.
“What else is going on?” She was definitely distracted, not as turned up as I’d grown accustomed to her being. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Myisha didn’t answer right away. Her eyes remained to the pointed toes of her suede boots.
“Before y’all got here, Mike said he’s going to push back the international leg of the tour.”
My eyes blossomed. “Raj’s tour?” She nodded. “Because of this bullshit?”
The last show of Raj’s tour was three days ago in Vegas. The next part of the tour was supposed to pick up overseas right after the new year to give everybody on his team time with their families for the holidays.
Myisha exhaled as she nodded again. “He’d already been mentioning it, but Raj vetoed it last month. Mike putting that out there has Raj’s band making alternative moves just in case they need to pick up a gig in between. A lot of his band members are just touring musicians. Raj employs them for the road. They have to feed their families.”
“Well, how far are we talking?”
“Possibly late spring/early summer.” Her eyes roved up to me.
That possibility concerned Myisha. Why?
“But that doesn’t affect you.”
She sighed, another lamented breath leaving her. “No, but Dale kicking off his tour the first week of January does.”
My face fell in confusion. “Why?”
“Because he’s in need of a keyboardist.”
“And?”
“And currently Vanda is being vetted. He told me the other day.”
“Okay…” The more she spoke the less she made sense. It didn’t help that she continued to the door to leave as she spoke.
“He gave me an ultimatum. If Raj postpones the rest of the tour, he’ll sign per diem with Dale.” She stopped in the doorway. “Mike’s over there now, probably convincing Raj to cancel it and tell the public he’s doing it to have a bonding period with his new bride. Now, I have to go to my boss and tell him I’m going on a hiatus. To be with Vanda.” A soft smile broke out on her face. “I’m going to choose him for once. Say goodbye to the thirty-five-year-old virgin.”
My mouth fell when she closed the door, and not about her venture into womanhood. It was two days before Christmas and I was unexpectedly moving in a hurry like I was in witness protection. Two hours ago, I was sharing a meal with Young Lord and his down-to-earth-ass wife. Now, I was being rushed off to West Bubblefuck instead of preparing for the holiday.
This shit is depressing…
And a depressing holiday season it was.
As I sat, stretched out in the nook of my assigned room, I watched the grounds people sweep, and pick up the last of the falling leaves near the massive inground pool outside my window. There were always people around here cleaning, cooking, polishing, or monitoring something or another. My eyes roved up to the tree adjacent to the window and saw it was almost bare. A dry leaf disconnected from a branch before my eyes and fell slowly toward the working men. Seconds later, it was joined by another escaping leaf.
It was nearly a week after Christmas. When snow should have been falling, the trees were still shedding. It made me think of my life and how the season changing should have brought better days. Instead, I felt stuck in a world I couldn’t identify and gain my bearings to thrive in. I was lonely and…bored out of my mind. Just as I had been on Christmas day. While everyone was together as a family, ringing in the yuletide, I had a hearty meal, thanks to Ragee’s chef—world class, I’d been told by Myisha before she left the country—and ate with his staff, whom I’d just met two days earlier. Ragee, himself, was off with his family in New Brunswick celebrating. Lucky guy.
After filling my belly and smiling and laughing at appropriate times, I retreated back to my room with a fancy bottle of wine—I couldn’t pronounce its name—to stalk relatives on social media. I went to my sister, Reign’s page and saw her children opening their gifts with familiar faces in the background. More family. Her little Haile was getting so big; it swelled my heart with such a contradiction of emotions. I visited my neglected girlfriends’ pages and saw how they spent the holidays. One, Ivie, was on a tropical island that conjured j
ealous pangs in my heart. Lucky girl. I also went to Van’s kids’ mothers’ pages and saw they were happy with the gifts I was able to give, standing in proxy for him. Playing Santa Claus to four kids and two babies’ mothers was not an easy feat. But it was important for me to make their holiday as special as I could while he was away. That was the only gift that allowed me to fall asleep that night without crying, though I wasn’t much of crier anyway.
My phone rang, snatching me out of my pity-party. My eyes rolled at the name.
“Hey, Mya!” I sighed, fighting for cheer. “Happy holidays, girlie!”
“Wynter! What the hell is going on? Are you really breaking new on people?”
I caught the reference. My girlfriends—the few I had—had been texting me and it was once mentioned in jest I’d gotten new on them because of being married to Ragee. Mya’s tone made me wonder if the accusation was lighthearted after all.
It had to be. Mya’s disposition, among all of ours, had always been congenial and bubbly. Ivie, our other roadie, blamed Mya’s compassionate spirit on her Polynesian and black mixed heritage. I’d known her since high school and we’d maintained a tight relationship throughout college, though I went off first. She was the cooler head.
“Ivie and I have only seen you once since you’ve been married,” she fired off. “We don’t do anything together, but according to your posts, you’re living better than ever…” Mya went on and on.
My face fell into my free hand as I leaned into the massive window. I deserved it all. It was a part of my “contract” to have my activity on social media reflect a happy marriage. That was hard, considering I hardly saw Mr. McKinnon. Myisha had access to my accounts and would post random shit that would make you think Ragee was tricking me out on jewelry, bags, and gifts. I’d forgotten about my friends and I hadn’t forgotten about my friends. I just hadn’t figured out how to let them in my new, manufactured world. My life was now fraudulent. A secret. My universe was now a big secret. I hated secrets. It was the bane of my existence. My life had been marked by the weaving power of those six letters from the day I was conceived. And now, it was by my own hand that deception was a thriving theme in my world again.
Even when Ragee was touring and I had the apartment in Jersey City practically to myself, I’d planned to invite them over for cocktails before using the excuse of needing to get on with the activities of the night to get them out minutes later. That would have at least made them feel up to date with me. But here… There was no way I could bring them to the estate. It was a damn fortress here and because of the commute alone, they’d have to spend more than twenty minutes in a place new to even me.
“I’m sorry, Mya. I swear I am,” I tried. “Even if it appears all is great, it isn’t. Van is still locked up and we still don’t know what’s going on.”
“Oh!” Her tone had warmed on that shriek and she exhaled, “I’m sorry. So sorry, Wynter. How is Van? I ran into Reign last week at the mall and she had nothing to tell.”
Because there wasn’t anything to tell. I’d still been trying to run down his lawyer through Mike Brown. Since Mike passed on the attorney’s information to me last month, the guy had been to see Van only once. He managed to get his initial court date postponed and claimed he was gathering evidence in Van’s defense. That was just after Thanksgiving. Two weeks ago when I called his office, the secretary said things would slow around the holidays; that’s the way the judicial system worked. Judges and prosecutors took vacations around this time of the year. But when I asked what did that have to do with her boss gathering evidence, she stalled.
“It’s been fucking frustrating. A nightmare, really. He calls all the time and I feel like shit, not having anything for him. I’m thinking about looking for another lawyer after the new year. Maybe that’ll speed this shit up.”
“Damn,” she breathed. “I know how close you two are.”
She would. Mya grew up in the neighborhood my mother’s parents raised me in. When I met my father’s side, Van and the family, Mya and Ivie were right there. They crushed on Van. He’d always been more than an uncle to me—literally. He was my best friend. My brother. We fought on occasion, and protected each other regularly.
“What else have you been up to other than that?” she tried to ease us into a conversation, something I’d been short on over the past three months.
“Trying to get my music career started.” I let out a dry laugh. “Doesn’t that sound so damn cheesy?”
“Yeah. It does. You sure you’re not using that poor man?”
My laugh was more jovial at that joke. You couldn’t use a man you hardly saw. Mike Brown on the other hand, had promised to help me out with getting into the business. It was a part of our agreement. The studio in the Bronx he’d arranged had turned out to be a total bust. I’d been twice to what turned out to be a makeshift studio in a cramped basement, filled with potheads, smoking the loudest weed. Each time I traveled all the way over there, my car was paid more attention to than I was. The guy, Speed, knew who I was and who sent me, and gave me a seat that wasn’t broken, but that was it. I waited four hours the first day before giving up, thinking he was too mixed up in another project. The next time I went, after two hours of sitting in a smoke-filled basement and possibly having caught a contact, I stomped out of there without even saying goodbye. Not that Speed would have cared anyway.
“Well, that’s been my focus. It’s not been easy either.”
“But it has to be better than the transitional program.”
“Yeah.” I chuckled, remembering how many times Laura, my old boss, had tried calling me since I quit. Her last attempt was two weeks before Christmas. “I don’t miss that at all.”
“Listen,” Mya sounded rushed. “I have to go. My lunch is almost over. I’m so pissed I didn’t take this whole week off. If your poetry turns into music, I’ll leave welfare and work as your assistant.” I laughed. Mya had been working for welfare since she graduated college. “Promise me you’ll call me after the new year and we’ll make plans to get together.”
“I promise, babe.” Half of my face went up into a warm smile.
Hearing her voice comforted me.
“Okay. Love you. Bye!”
“Bye, MiMi.”
I exhaled hard as I settled back into two pillows in the nook. Hearing from an old, trusted friend intensified my loneliness. These eleven days since leaving Jersey had been a slow blur. I was bored. When I called Mike yesterday about the Bronx failure, he told me he was with his kids for the holiday and would get back to me. He was blowing me off again. Mike wasn’t holding up his end of the bargain. That meant I sat in this big ass castle without shit to do.
I glanced out into my new room and sighed again.
Myisha was gone. An hour after she left my room in Jersey City that night, it was like the whole apartment packed up and left for Sparta, a rural town in the western region of the state. We trailed behind each other. I insisted on driving my own car instead of having Myisha arrange to have someone bring it up to me. We pulled up to a gated estate I could have easily gotten lost getting to, and inside of it, if not for her guidance. The place was fucking huge. Its prestige was something like a museum. If I thought Ragee’s place in Jersey City was plush and vast, this mansion he had in Sparta would swallow that apartment whole.
The next morning, before she left for Europe with Vanda, Myisha took me on a tour and introduced me to the staff. There was a gang of them, too many to remember them all the next time I passed them in the hall. The one I committed to memory was Earl, Ragee’s very flamboyant and burly chef. My grandmother always told me to be nice to people who prepared my food, even if they were rude to me. She feared them poisoning her. I was desperate for food, period. I made sure to commit Earl’s name to memory. Based on the twinkle in his eye when we met, I had a feeling he was looking forward to feeding me.
The rooms were endless, their sizes, unimaginable. His stairs on the main level, leading up to the seco
nd floor were double curved staircases with black railings and steps. The regal sight of it all was breathtaking. Ragee had a full studio built as an extension to his home, sitting on a sprawling nineteen acres. Myisha said Ragee had the place built three years ago when he’d purchased the land for dirt cheap. She lived here with him, too. Had a suite style bedroom on the first floor that resembled a studio apartment without a kitchen. Similar to his place in Jersey City, his home had a black and white theme he’d chosen. Each room I was shown was immaculately decorated with a particularly keen eye no straight man I ever knew possessed.
My bedroom was larger than the one in Jersey City, making it almost three times as large as the garden one-bedroom I gave up. It wasn’t decorated with me in mind because of the timing. I didn’t care. It was conveniently located on the opposite side of the house from his bedroom, just like in Jersey City. I hadn’t seen that side and didn’t care to. In Ragee’s world, I felt like an interloper.
He also had a state of the art gym bigger and better than in the high rise. A few days ago, I challenged myself to kill this time by working on my body. I had lots of restless energy I wanted to work out of my system. Today seemed like a good day to get started. I stood and stretched my arms high in the air, attempting a balance on my toes before I headed to the closet to change.
On my way to the stairs, I passed a window with a view of the basketball and tennis courts. There was a group of men playing basketball. One, I was able to identify as Ragee. That one thing remained consistent in the past three months, which was he kept a gang of people around him. Out on the court, Ragee was acting as though he was going to toss the ball to one of them. One though, was just as tall if not taller than him, and I noticed his inappropriate footwear as he stood on the sidelines. When he tossed his head back and laughed, high cheek bones and bright white teeth caught my attention. I moved closer to the window at that.
I hadn’t seen this guy since…the wedding. It was LeRoy. It looked as though Ragee was challenging him to play ball. I didn’t think sports was LeRoy’s vibe. He was more refined than athletic to me. But when the ball was tossed, LeRoy’s big hands caught it and, in what was clearly shoe boots, he pivoted and ran until closer to the hoop. Then he leaped into the air like a jaguar and flicked his wrist to release the ball. It swooshed the net, setting off a round of whoops and shouts from the small group of men, though mostly muted from the distance. Ragee cheered him on so loud, I could see the chords in his neck protrude as he grabbed his sacs. LeRoy approached him and together, they engaged in a masculine haughty embrace with LeRoy pounding his chest and Ragee encouraging it. One of the guys in tow was the little one with him the past two times I’d seen LeRoy. Short, frail, and clearly gay.
