Madison.
~16~
“Look at this one.” Robyn took a huge bite of her Mix’D Up burger and shoved her iPhone across the table toward Jamal. “Isn’t he adorable?”
Glancing down, he grinned at the picture of his godson, Landyn, digging both his chubby, little hands into a frosted chocolate cupcake. Most of the cake was on his high-table, and a good amount of the frosting on his face; and his brows were furrowed in concentration, like the cupcake was the most important project he had ever undertaken in his life.
Since he was still under two years old, it probably was.
“He gettin’ it in, ain’t he?”
“Yup. Just like his Daddy. You’d never believe the crap Chris would eat if I didn’t pay attention,” Robyn said smiling, a syrupy-smooth tone in her voice. “It’s crazy how much I miss all of them, even on short trips like this.”
“Yeah?” Jamal said.
He looked up from his own burger. It was good, and huge. Just what he needed after a morning without breakfast. The burger joint, in Grant Park had come highly recommended, even though the tiny space had stayed crowded since he and Robyn walked in almost forty minutes earlier, and perched at one of the small pub-style tables.
“Yeah. Our house is crazy, as you know. Just with the kids running in and out all day and night, and now Chris working from home. So, I always overestimate how much I’m going to love getting away.”
“You don’t?”
“Only for about ten minutes. Then I get to the hotel room of wherever I’m going and spend like, two hours depressed and homesick, missing my babies and missing Chris.” Robyn shrugged.
“Well then thank you for coming,” Jamal said. “All the more since this isn’t exactly official company business yet.”
“But you are working on that, right?”
Jamal made a noncommittal sound.
“If he’s not one of our guys by the time we look to close this thing out, you’ll be paying out of your own pocket that ridiculous sum of money Madison’s client is asking for.”
“But he’s not her client. Just the firm’s client,” Jamal said sarcastically, repeating the refrain Madison had been singing for him and Robyn since they arrived at her office that morning.
Robyn rolled her eyes. “I am so disappointed in her. I think if they’d approached this guy differently from the outset, he would have gone away. Maybe satisfied himself with posting unverifiable innuendoes online or something.”
Also that morning, they had had the distinct displeasure of meeting Tyree, the young man who claimed to have had what Madison’s colleague cutely called “sexual congress” with Devin. Jamal had insisted on meeting him, because he prided himself on sizing people up.
But Tyree was difficult to assess. Knowing what he knew about Devin’s past, Jamal was inclined to believe he was telling the truth but the kid was just as Madison described—a hustler. He was dressed well in obvious designer labels, and looked like he spent a decent amount of money on shape-ups and shoes as well.
According to him, he was an “independent entrepreneur” which in the world of hustlers was code for, “I make money wherever, whenever and however I can.” Jamal wondered—but only in passing, because who wanted to dwell on such things—whether Tyree was basically a prostitute. But he couldn’t see Devin being down for, or needing to pay for sex.
Even after the meeting, Jamal was undecided about what to take away from meeting Tyree. He had a studiously expressionless face, almost pretty, but with hints of roughness around the edges, giving him away as someone who had lived a hard-knock life.
‘I’d rather he pays me, and not a tabloid, you understand,’ he said, referring to Devin. ‘Because I’m not tryin’ to mess up nobody’s life. I just think that if he about to misrepresent himself to the public, I have a right to tell my truth.’
The tortured rationalization for what was, at the end of the day, common ol’ greed, made Jamal want to puke. But instead he nodded wordlessly.
‘This can be a simple private agreement,’ Madison’s associate said, chiming in. ‘Like a retrospective NDA.’
At that Robyn had smothered a laugh. ‘Or blackmail. Depending on your point of view.’
‘I don’t believe you think that, counsel. Or you wouldn’t be here,” the associate had retorted.
And that was true enough.
After that, Tyree was excused, and then the negotiating over numbers began. The opening salvo was two-hundred-and-fifty hundred dollars which both Robyn and Jamal laughed aloud at.
‘Devin Parks is still a little-known, down-market from the A list artist,’ Robyn said baldly, and Jamal forced himself not to grimace at the description. It was nothing more than a negotiating tactic, but still, it was cringeworthy hearing a talent like Devin’s being described that way.
‘So, you’re going to have to give us a number that’s a little more realistic,’ Robyn continued.
‘He’s down-market now,’ came the response. ‘But you forget we’re in this business, too. In less than two years, it’s likely he’ll have left all that … down-market-ness behind.’
By the time they were done, Robyn had succeeded in getting the figure down to seventy-five grand. That was more than Jamal had paid for Makayla’s engagement ring. It made him feel slightly ill, to think of spending even a dime on something like this. But that number was as low as Tyree would consent to go.
Now, all that remained was to let his lawyers draft up an agreement that Robyn would then review, revise, and take back to New York for Devin to review and sign. From what Jamal knew of Devin, that would be no small task. Say what you would about him, he wouldn’t easily take to the idea that he was giving in to someone, and backing down. Jamal remembered only too vividly how many times Devin had taken him around the mulberry bush. He smirked and shook his head, recalling those days.
But regardless, if he had to twist and then break his arm, Jamal was going to get him to accept the agreement.
With that little problem disposed of, even if he never signed with SE, Devin could position himself for a long, lucrative and rewarding career in music. Not that Jamal cared personally about that, but it was important to Kayla, so he would take this financial hit. Especially if it helped ensure that Devin Parks could—that much sooner—take charge of his own life.
Between them, on the table, Robyn’s phone buzzed and she reached for it. Looking at the screen and then shaking her head, she showed it to Jamal. It was a text message from Madison, inviting them both for dinner that evening and saying she hoped they could put that “unpleasant business aside” and get together as friends.
“You into it?” Robyn asked.
Jamal shrugged. “What else we got planned?”
“For me it would be room service and a pay-per-view movie. You?”
“Same.”
He thought about Kayla at home, and how they’d parted. He thought about the fight at Devin’s place and made up his mind. It was better to get out of the hotel room, get out of his head. And when he returned, it would be late and sleep would come that much more easily.
“Let’s go,” he said shrugging.
She promised herself she wasn’t going to call him. Especially since he promised to call her as soon as he got there, and hadn’t.
But just past nine-thirty, she couldn’t hold out any longer, and dialed his number while sitting in the center of their bed, thumbing through the pages of the wedding planner. Now, with the focus that had escaped her when Claire was over at the apartment, Makayla pored over the swatches of fabric, the mock-ups of place-settings and the photos of floral arrangements. And while she did, she felt the beginning flutter of excitement.
She had never been that girl, who dreamed of a white wedding and began, from the age of thirteen, considering who her bridesmaids would be. She hadn’t even been to that kind of wedding. Where she grew up, weddings happened in banquet halls, the courthouse, or were hastily-arranged affairs to beat the arrival of the stork w
ith a little unplanned bundle of joy.
This wedding—her wedding—would involve all the things weddings on television involved. A long, white dress, tulle, flowers, and elegant meal and a blissful two weeks of uninterrupted honeymoon time. Jamal and she had talked about the honeymoon, in the dark while they were sleepy and post-coital, sticky, but still wrapped around each other.
They never talked about where they would go—because they seemed to silently agree that it almost didn’t matter—but instead about the quiet they would have, the solitude, the long hours to do nothing except each other.
Funny, but when she had been throwing around empty threats about postponing, she had forgotten the things Jamal had been involved in. The talks about food he wanted, the number of guests; and she had even forgotten his sweet gesture of looking up and saving a picture of calla lilies and baby’s’ breath to show her.
His phone rang four times before he answered, and when he did, it was with noise in the background.
“Hey. You good?” He was almost yelling into the phone.
“Yeah, I’m good. I just … I wanted … I wanted to ta…”
“I can’t hear you. Gimme a second.”
She waited through more noise, and shuffling sounds until finally, Jamal was back, and obviously in a much quieter place.
“Hey,” he said again. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I thought you were going to call me, that’s all. So I was a little …”
“Yeah. Sorry. I was planning to call as soon as I got back to the room tonight and had more time to talk.”
Why wouldn’t he have had time before? Where was he? Why didn’t he have time now? Where was he now?
The questions came fast, tumbling one over the other, fueled, she knew, by her knowledge that he was in Madison Palmer’s town. But once, she had overheard her grandmother counseling a woman friend with marital trouble, that the two questions she should never ask her man were: ‘Where are you going?’ and ‘where have you been?’
Makayla had no idea whether that was good advice or not, but it had stuck with her. And in all honesty, she had never before had cause to ask either of those things. Tonight, though, she wanted to know both.
“I was looking over the wedding planning stuff,” she said, for want of something to fill the awkward silence.
“Yeah?” He sounded distant, almost dispassionate.
“It’s been kind of cool,” she said. “Looking at it all organized like this, the way Claire did it. I’m kind of getting excited about it now.”
He said nothing.
“Jamal …”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you. You’re getting excited,” he said. His voice was flat. “About the wedding you ain’t even sure you want to have.”
Makayla lay back on the bed, shoving the wedding binder aside and staring up at the ceiling. Jamal was silent as well. She tried to think of what his expression must be right now, but she couldn’t picture it, because he was almost never impatient with her, and certainly never angry. At his best, he was indulgent with her, and at his worst, he was exasperated. But never angry.
“Remember that time we went to that wine festival I asked you to take me to upstate?”
He said nothing.
“You remember?”
“Makayla …”
Wow. Well, there is was, as if there had been any doubt. He was still calling her ‘Makayla’, so he was still pissed.
Part of her resented that, because there was no way he shouldn’t be able to get how much it had hurt and disappointed her when he missed their planned dinner. There was no way he shouldn’t be able to get why that would give her doubt that he was ready to make the time necessary to plan a wedding, plan a life.
But another part of her was thrown into a tailspin at the idea of Jamal as anything other than wide open to her. He always was, and almost always had been. She didn’t know how to navigate anything else.
“Do you remember?” she insisted.
“Yeah, I remember.”
Makayla had seen a flyer at her school for tours of the Millbrook Vineyards & Winery in the Hudson Valley. There were vivid pictures, of a beautiful sun-dappled field, people in casually chic clothing holding long-stemmed glasses. It looked like the kind of thing women like Robyn Scaife and Riley Gardner might do on weekends, and she was still in a frame of mind where she desperately wanted to fit in with them.
Jamal had begun taking her to events at their houses and Makayla was sick of sitting awkwardly on the sidelines while these somewhat older, but much more worldly women talked about things she had never experienced, and places she had never been. They didn’t mean to exclude her, but seemed to assume she would know all the things they did. Their easy inclusion was what stung — ‘of course, you’re just like us,’ their behavior seemed to say. Except she wasn’t just like them, and she was the only one who was excruciatingly aware of it.
Somehow, walking by the table at school, seeing that flyer every day, she had gotten it into her head that a trip to Millbrook would be her initiation into the rarefied world of the recording artists’ and executives’ wives. She would learn about wine, and how to hold a glass properly. She would, at a safe distance from Manhattan, study how more polished women behaved in relaxed social settings, and she would come back and do Jamal proud.
When she asked him to take her to Millbrook, he’d furrowed his thick brows in confusion and asked why she wanted them to drive two hours into the country just to drink wine. But he’d taken her anyway, the very next weekend he was free.
When they got there, the afternoon was a little too hot, most of the other patrons were several decades older than either of them, and the details of wine-tasting were a little, well … boring.
And to top things off, Makayla discovered a very unfortunate aversion to red wine. By the time they completed the tour and tasting, her head was swimming, her stomach roiling and she had a monster of a headache. When they got to the car, intending to head back to the city, Makayla had vomited, all over the front passenger floor of Jamal’s luxury Mercedes, before they were even out of the parking area.
“I remember you almost ruining my ride,” Jamal said at the same time she called it to mind.
Makayla smiled, hearing the hint of a softening in his tone. “You found this cute bed and breakfast place and checked us in because you knew I wouldn’t have survived the drive back to the city …”
“You would have survived. You were being a big baby.”
“… and there was that little old lady who owned it, who when she walked us to our room kept touching your biceps and saying, ‘oh my!’ over, and over again.”
Jamal laughed, and it was a welcome sound.
“And then you left me in the room, and drove with a car full of throw-up to some little country store somewhere and bought us toothbrushes and underwear, and a change of clothes for me.”
“That was an odyssey, too. You’d think everywhere in America there’d be a Walmart within a few miles.”
“You came back with the clothes, and toiletries and ginger ale. And we stayed in that room all weekend. Remember?”
They had.
The first night was awful. Even after throwing up once more, brushing her teeth twice, and taking a long bath in the claw-footed tub, she felt terrible. For hours, all she could so was lie on her side, head in Jamal’s lap, and moan, waiting for death to take her.
He sat there, with her in the room with no television, and read some spy novel that someone had abandoned the bedside table, stroking her hair, and only occasionally moving to reach for the ginger ale so she could take slow, careful sips.
Later, when it was late, and dark outside, he literally spoon-fed her a mint tea their hostess made her. Makayla didn’t even remember him leaving her to go eat the evening meal with the other guests downstairs.
When she woke the next morning, her head was still in his lap, and it was clear that Jamal had f
allen asleep sitting up, legs outstretched, his back bolstered against the hard, wooden headboard. The spy novel was open on its face next to him on the still-made bed.
Except for a vague headache, all the previous night’s sickness had passed, and Makayla felt almost hearty and hale. She got up and ran another bath, and by the time the tub was full, Jamal had awakened as well, and got in the water to join her.
“I remember everything about that weekend,” he said. His voice was low, and sexy, and Makayla wished he was home, so she could see and touch him. Something in her center ached with how much she missed and wanted him.
She remembered everything about that weekend, too. Because it was the purest time they had ever had together, uncluttered by their daily lives, or television or phone calls. It was just the two of them … being.
They made love in that claw-footed tub, had breakfast with the other, much-older B&B guests and then went exploring neighboring towns. Jamal bought Makayla a sterling silver necklace in a tiny, overpriced boutique that obviously catered to well-heeled Manhattanites, and Makayla had the sudden epiphany that she and Jamal … they were well-heeled Manhattanites.
When they returned to the B&B, after having had the car cleaned while they shopped, neither of them broached the subject of returning home that night. Instead, they went back up to their small room, played Pictionary, talked well into the wee hours of the morning and though exhausted, made love again—slowly, quietly, sweetly.
Makayla cried.
With him, she often cried when she climaxed. Because what he made her feel was so much more than just physical pleasure.
“I wish it could be like that all the time,” she said, snuggling against the pillow on his side of the bed that smelled of him. “Like that weekend.”
“I know, baby.”
Makayla exhaled.
Baby. He’d called her ‘baby.’ Maybe they would be okay, after all.
“But, Kayla, look, I have to …”
“Go. Yeah, I know you do.”
She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t ask where he was, who he was with. She wouldn’t.
The Takedown Page 16
