“Are you Makayla? With Devin Parks?” A male nurse practitioner in blue scrubs was standing over them, and neither of them had even noticed his approach.
“Yes!” She shot up out of her seat, both eager to hear what was going on with her friend, and to get away from Jamal.
“Come with me, please.”
As he walked, he introduced himself, giving a name that flew out of Makayla’s head the second she heard it.
“He’s going to be fine,” he told Makayla just as they approached the examining room where Devin was lying down. “His arm was broken, looks like some bruising of the ribs. But we’re going to keep him for a few more hours just to be sure since it looks like he took a few good blows to the head, and you know, with head injuries we like to do some observation, make sure that …”
Makayla went over to Devin’s bedside and took his hand. He looked sleepy. She turned to the nurse practitioner with a question in her eyes.
“He’s a little shaken up. Tired probably. We’re going to take care of that arm and keep him up a little more, until we’re sure, then …”
Sighing, Makayla stroked the side of Devin’s face. “Dev,” she said. But she couldn’t think of how to go on.
His eyes shifted in her direction and they filled with tears, even the one that was swollen and bloodshot. “I’m sorry,” he said through split lips. He sounded like his mouth was full of cotton. “I fucked up.”
Kissing his cheek gently, Makayla squeezed the fingers of his uninjured hand. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
_______________
Not feeling bold enough to ask Jamal where they were headed when they got back in the car, Makayla was relieved to see that he appeared to be planning to get her back home. With all the drama, she’d forgotten to text Candace and ask her to stick around. So her grandmother might be alone. But at this point, asking Jamal to do anything, anything at all would have felt like an imposition.
“It started sometime around when he was nineteen,” Makayla said. “The disappearing and coming back at odd times, under odd circumstances, sometimes in strange clothes, or … banged up a little.
“By then we’d … been together and it kind of … It stopped. He wouldn’t touch me anymore and I didn’t know why. But because we were only ever meant to be friends, I sort of felt rejected, but not crushed, y’know? Because me and Devin being like that? That was never what we were meant to be, and I always knew that.”
“When was the last time?” Jamal asked.
“What?”
“The last time you two fucked. When was it?”
“Years now, Jamal! I told you that!”
“But why the hell should I believe you?”
Makayla swallowed the tight knot that immediately formed at the base of her throat.
“You think I would put you—put anyone—at risk by …”
“So that’s his deal? He goes cruising in parks, right?”
“That’s his deal,” Makayla confirmed. He seemed to want brutal, honest truth, so she would give it to him. “Devin can’t have relationships. Not the intimate kind …”
“Except with you.”
“Not even with me. Not that kind of intimacy. He has sex with men. He doesn’t know them. He doesn’t even identify as gay. Some of them don’t identify as gay either, and sometimes they get aggressive during … or afterwards … I don’t even know how that works, but …” Makayla broke off and ran a hand over her face.
Devin had described it to her once, the switch that sometimes happened, in guys who would insist, ‘I ain’t no fag!’ even after they’d just had intercourse with another man. She didn’t want to hear the details, because it was more depressing and disgusting than anything she had ever heard—all of that self-loathing, turned into rage. The same self-loathing that Devin clearly felt, though to her knowledge he had only turned it inward, not outward on other people. Except … maybe he had.
Apart from the way he was with her, her grandmother and his mother, Devin was angry all the time, and could go from zero to one hundred at the drop of a hat. Makayla had always chalked it up to an artistic temperament, but what if he was just … angry? Lord knew he had plenty of reason to be, and yet she had never once seen him direct his anger at the person who deserved it—his mother.
The sun had risen, but the world didn’t seem brighter. It seemed drab and filthy and ugly and evil. Makayla desperately wanted to take a long, hot shower. She would do that as soon as she got home, and then she might feel equipped to face Jamal and answer all the questions that he had to have.
But he didn’t ask any more questions. They drove in silence until they were out front at her building and he put the car in park but didn’t turn off the engine. Makayla looked at him, but he didn’t look at her.
“Aren’t you ..?”
“You go on in and see after your grandmother. You can take the day off. I’ll call you later.”
“Your bag is …”
“We’ll take care of that later. Just …”
He didn’t finish but Makayla couldn’t shake the feeling that the words he didn’t say but wanted to, were “get out.”
With tears welling in her eyes, she nodded. “I’ll … call me later, okay?” She opened the door and got out, shutting it behind her. Jamal waited until she was inside, and then he pulled off and was gone.
_______________
Jamal stayed in the shower for a long time, trying not to think about when he’d been in there with Makayla. Even then she knew, she had to know how explosive the information was that she’d been withholding from him. And he thought she was a wide open book … That seemed laughable now. That was a hell of a secret she’d kept from him, and for a hell of a long time. But there was no time to consider that right now.
Sitting in the hospital waiting room, he’d emailed Chris and asked if he could come see him at his house. It was Friday, and he was planning to work from Jersey so Jamal offered to come out to have breakfast with him there. Chris readily agreed, and didn’t even ask why. They’d known and worked with each other long enough that Chris knew it had to be huge.
While he dressed, Jamal checked his iPad, figuring out how much they’d spent on Devin. When Chris first asked him that question a long while ago, the amount had been negligible—walking around money, practically. Now, it was negligible no longer. There had been studio time, venue fees, publicists, photographers, stylists, airfare, hotels, per diem … and Makayla’s salary. All of it on spec, banking that something would come of it in the end. He hadn’t picked the artist, but he’d chosen the strategy, betting everything he had that Devin would be the one to take him over the top and directly into the position of Chief Operating Officer of Scaife. Well, he could kiss that goodbye.
The drive to Jersey went by in a flash for him, even though there was heavy traffic and his head hurt like a motherfucker from lack of sleep and just plain old stress. And in spite of himself he kept thinking about Makayla, and wanting to call her and see whether she was alright. From her reaction last night, he could tell she’d been through that mess with Devin before, and he had a million questions.
The one he’d asked—when the last time was that she’d slept with Devin—was the least important of them. He knew it wasn’t anytime recently, but knowing about Devin’s lifestyle he couldn’t help but feel a surge of disgust, and a flash of concern for Makayla’s health and his own. It had only been three weeks or so since they’d dispensed with condoms after all the obligatory questions had been asked and answered. But he didn’t ask for proof, and in fairness, neither had she. Considering the sheer number of his sex partners, she would have been more than justified, but she trusted him.
But fuck, hadn’t he trusted her too? And though you never knew that kind of thing for certain, Jamal felt the odds were stacked in his favor that he’d never slept with someone who habitually had sex with strangers they met in a goddamn park.
When he pulled up at Chris’ gate, Jamal waited
the fifteen or so seconds it took for the license plate scan that would lead to the locks on the gates disengaging, then pulled in and right up to the house. As he exited his car, the front door opened, and Chris came out, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Knowing him, he’d been up for hours already, but he looked completely relaxed. Well, that was about to change …
“Let’s go around to the terrace,” Chris suggested indicating the path on the side of the house. “Robyn’s inside with the kids and its crazy-loud right now.”
Jamal nodded and followed him, admiring the gardens and sheer expanse of the property. Once, this had seemed like unnecessary excess, because Chris had lived here pretty much alone except for his household staff. Now he had a wife and two little ones; and Deuce and his other two kids who came and went fairly often, so though it still felt huge, the house and property no longer felt barren.
On the terrace, breakfast and coffee had already been set up and Chris dug right in, helping himself to scrambled egg whites and wheat toast, looking in the other chafing dishes and shaking his head.
“You believe this shit?” he asked indicating the healthy breakfast fare. “I’d have to bribe my own housekeeper for a piece of bacon around here.” Finally, food on the plate, he looked up at Jamal. “You not eatin’, man?”
“Maybe in a minute.”
Chris shrugged. “So what’s up?”
“Devin Parks,” Jamal began.
Chris glanced up, but looked down again to get a forkful of egg.
“He’s … gay,” Jamal said without preamble. No point beating around the bush.
Chris put down his fork and looked up, eyebrows raised. “Word?” He leaned back in his seat.
Jamal nodded.
“So … how …” Chris sighed. “So what’s your plan?”
“Plan?” Jamal shook his head. “Nah, Boss Man, it’s done. I can’t do nothin’ with that.”
Chris looked skeptical. “I disagree. It’s not ideal. I’ll give you that, but … it’s 2014, bruh …”
“So you’re tellin’ me you don’t care?” Jamal asked incredulously.
“Hell yeah, I care. Not only do I care, I don’t understand that shit. Why a man would want to be laid up with another hairy-ass man is something for the life of me I will never get. But I don’t have to get it. And I would guess that Deuce and his friends, that generation? They don’t give a shit as long as the music’s good.”
Jamal took a deep breath. Now he was going to have to tell him the rest. “That might be so, but he’s not just gay, he’s got … issues.”
“Being a little asshole? Pardon the pun … but that I already know about.”
“Nah. I’m talkin’ ‘bout some way more damaging shit. Last night me and Makayla went and picked him up. He was outside of Stuyvesant Park. You know the neighborhood?”
“Little bit. Yeah.”
“You know what it’s known for?”
Chris shrugged.
“Well let me spell it out for you. He was … cruising and got his ass beat up.”
“Oh.” At that Chris grimaced. “Cruising? Like you mean ..?”
“Public solicitation of sex with strangers, yes.”
“Goddamn.”
“Yeah.”
“So … all this time we never found this out why? Or was it one-time thing?”
“I don’t think so,” Jamal admitted. “Is that kind of behavior ever a one-time thing? When we were in San Antonio, one morning he came in and he had a black eye, looked like he’d been brawlin’ or something. And that’s what he led me to believe. I thought he was just a hothead. He is a hothead. But I didn’t know there was this whole other side to …”
“Wow. So Makayla. Did she know this was his thing?”
Jamal’s heartbeat sped up. He took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” he lied.
Chris looked at him, his eyes penetrating Jamal’s. They’d done this dance before under other, different circumstances. If he had to guess, he would say Chris knew he was lying, but was choosing to let it go.
“Let’s say for the sake of argument,” Chris spoke slowly, “that his friend since childhood—possibly even his closest friend—didn’t know this. She at least had to know he was gay, right?”
Jamal calculated whether he could lie about that as well. Probably not. So he said nothing.
“So she knew,” Chris nodded. “And … did she tell you?”
“No.”
“So what’re you gon’ do?”
“Fire her,” Jamal said, his voice almost inaudible.
Until he was asked the question, he hadn’t thought about it. But really, was there any other answer? A member of his development team knew highly pertinent information about how and whether they could develop, brand and market an artist and she withheld it.
“If you don’t think you can trust her, you could do that,” Chris said digging into his eggs again. “You could fire her. But you should know your motive first.”
“What the hell does that mean? We lost a shitload of money because she kept her mouth shut when she should have fucking opened it and told me what she knew. I can’t do shit with Devin Parks now. And from jump, she had to have known that would be the case. But she …” Jamal paused and bit into his lower lip. “She played me! She fucking played me …”
Chris let him finish then looked up again. “Are you firing her because your employee didn’t tell you something you needed to know, or because you feel like your woman lied to you?”
Jamal shook his head. “What the fuck difference does it make?”
“The difference is, if you’re looking at her as your staff, you hired her on the basis of her close personal relationship with the artist. That was the only reason you hired her, right?”
“More or less, but …”
“So now you can’t exactly be mad that she acted in a way that was completely consistent with being in a close, personal relationship with him. What was she gon’ do? Out him to you?”
Jamal said nothing.
“But as your woman,” Chris shrugged. “You had every right to expect her to be up front with you, or even hint that something should give you pause about spending all this money developing Devin Parks.”
Jamal took a breath, finally allowing himself to reach for his plate and heap on some eggs and breakfast potatoes.
“If you’re here to tell me you hit a snag, I appreciate the heads-up,” Chris said. “But c’mon man, we’re not amateurs. We dealt with shit a lot worse than this in our run in this crazy business. Haven’t we?”
If he didn’t know better, he would think this was Chris Scaife talking him down, comforting him even. Showing a human emotion common to other people—but to him not so much—called empathy.
“Yeah,” Jamal nodded. “We have. Like the kid in Cincinnati that turned out to have a couple bodies on that gun he got stopped with …”
Laughing, Chris slapped the tabletop. “Damn! I forgot about that kid! Talented little motherfucker, too! How much did he do again?”
“Ten-year bid. Still inside. Would’ve been a lot longer if they could’ve proved the bodies were his.”
“And how much were we into him for?”
“Close to four-hundred large.”
Chris nodded. “That was messed up. And back then that was big money. Remember?” He laughed. “I think I had the shits for days over that one.”
Jamal was surprised to hear himself laughing as well. Chris reached over and lifted the top off the chafing dish.
“Anyway,” he said. “Eat up. When I told Robyn you were coming over she said I should have you come in and see the baby before you go. She’s talking about making you the godfather.”
Jamal looked up, surprised, and not knowing what to say.
“Search me,” Chris said in answer to the question he hadn’t asked. “For some reason my wife seems to like you.”
20
Makayla had never been up to the twentieth floor before, let alone in Chris Scaife’s of
fice. So she was shaking like a leaf. Next to her in the reception area, Devin sat, his arm in a cast and his face still slightly swollen. For the past week, he’d stayed at her place, and they slept in the same bed, just as they had when they were kids. He was quiet, and chastened; embarrassed, and ashamed. As if in penance, he helped with cleaning up and cooking, even with one good arm, and he stayed in with Nana all day, every day.
A few appearances had been canceled and he hadn’t been back to the studio. Jamal didn’t ask about him at all, though he’d called and asked Makayla how she and her grandmother were doing. But even those calls had been impersonal and brief; she had only seen him at work since that night. The day before, he told her he needed her and Devin to come in for a meeting with Chris first thing on Friday.
Fridays was when people were let go. And Makayla fully expected that by the time this meeting was over, she and Devin would be out on their asses—she out of a job, and he having lost the opportunity of a lifetime. And there was one more thing. She would have lost Jamal as well. Of that she was certain.
“Makayla, Devin,” the receptionist said. “You both can go back now.”
Makayla swallowed. “Ahm … is Jamal Turner supposed to be here as well? I thought he was in this meeting.”
“Oh, he’s already back there,” the receptionist said. “So you can go on in.”
“Thank you.”
Makayla walked slowly, both to allow Devin to keep up with his slow, halting gait, and because her feet felt weighed down with lead. That morning she had taken the time to put her hair back, and to find crisp slacks and a well-tailored blouse. If she was going to be let go, she wouldn’t want to look like a hot mess when it happened.
At the door to Chris Scaife’s office, she paused, taking it all in. It was almost twice the size of Jamal’s—which was saying something—and decorated so beautifully, it didn’t look like a workspace at all. If she had to guess, she would say Robyn had had something to do with it, because the space, like the woman herself, was warm and homey. In the short time Makayla had spent in her company, she thought they might even become friends. Though Robyn was somewhat older, she’d never shown even a hint of condescension. And though she was friends with Jamal’s ex, even that didn’t seem to have any effect on the way she treated Makayla.
The Come Up Page 24
