by Lamar Giles
And cc’ing that crappy email to HR (PK Music Group)? Please. There’s no human resources department in Paula’s mildew-smelling apartment. ParSec and I were the human resources. She might’ve had a few more acts on her roster, but they came after us. We were the draw. This was more fake-it-till-you-make-it trickery Paula was good for. A way to paint this as inevitable, out of her control. Something different than what it really was. An opportunity to do what she’d wanted to do since she saw ParSec as money on demand and me as an unnecessary expense. Get rid of me.
I’d handled all of ParSec’s social media since the SoundCloud days. I created #ParSecNation! So, what kind of “outside firm” was going to take over when what I built was there, but ParSec wasn’t?
To be … ousted! By someone like Paula Kryptkeeper! It twisted my guts like spaghetti on a fork. Still, that wasn’t enough to put me over the edge. The follow-up emails, though. The ones about ParSec’s funeral …
I’d seen some buzz in the #ParSecNation feeds. A secret memorial service. Tomorrow. False, obviously, since no one had told me. That’s what I wanted to think. Until I saw a single tweet getting liked and retweeted over and over.
PK Music Group @PKMusicGroup
In lieu of flowers for @DJParSec’s memorial service, please consider donating to one of DJ ParSec’s favorite charities (see links in replies below). It’s what she would have wanted. #ParSecNation
So there was a service. As for those charities that ParSec would’ve wanted the Nation donating to, never heard of them. That was a back-of-my-mind concern. More pressing was my response to Paula’s email.
From: F. Fallon
To: Paula Klein
Subject: Re: Ongoing SM Manager Duties
Where is ParSec’s memorial? And what time?
It didn’t take long. Paula’s fake professionalism decreased by half.
From: Paula Klein
To: F. Fallon
Subject: Re: Ongoing SM Manager Duties
Fuse,
I have a feeling that you know that’s not happening. It’s been determined, by all involved parties, that your presence would be a hindrance to the event. I’m sorry. Could you please send my username-password combinations ASAP? Thank you. Have a good evening.
~PK
What involved parties? What hindrance? She was my friend.
“Fatima,” Mom called, fresh off a hospital shift, her stubby shadow legs blocking the light seeping beneath my bedroom door. “Have you eaten?”
Straining to steady my voice, I said a simple “Yeah.”
“Well, come down in fifteen minutes if you want to watch a movie with Dad and me. It’s his turn to pick, so I understand if you don’t want to.” A rare joke from her. She’d been trying to lighten things up around here.
“Sure.” It was all I could manage without cracking. Couldn’t stop looking at my emails.
Screw Paula. I went online and put out discreet feelers about the memorial service in some well-known #ParSecNation subreddits. Outside my window, a fat june bug rammed itself against the screen as if trying to get my attention, reminding me summer was near. For the first time in my life I wasn’t looking forward to it. A whole season would be missing a piece this year, as would I.
The fifteen minutes Mom allotted for me to join movie night passed. Then another fifteen, then another hour. All that time, and I still had no idea where the service would be, and simply posting the question publicly wasn’t an option. Then #ParSecNation would know just how out of the loop I was.
A new email notification popped.
From: Bell, Winston—MIXX mag
To: F. Fallon
Subject: Follow-up for DJ ParSec Feature
Fuse, hi! This is Winston, a journalist from—
That’s all that showed in the little gray notification window that appeared in the upper right-hand corner of my screen. I might not have clicked on it any other time. As a general rule, I despised reporters. There was something about that “Fuse, hi!”—something I hadn’t felt in so long. For whatever reason, minuscule, insignificant, petty—someone needed me.
When I opened the message, read it and all the others preceding it, I could’ve slapped myself for curving this guy so hard. The message said:
From: Bell, Winston—MIXX mag
To: F. Fallon
Subject: Follow-up for DJ ParSec
Fuse, hi! This is Winston, a journalist from MIXX magazine. We met a couple of times while I was working on the DJ ParSec story for our Summer Heat issue. First, my condolences, sincerely. I know how tight you two were. Second, and I apologize for this but, given the circumstances, I need to ask some critical follow-up questions. The timing is terrible, but if you have a moment at the memorial service tomorrow, I promise this will be relatively painless …
There was more to the message, of course. Things about the article that I didn’t care about and did not dwell on. My response—drafted quickly and anxiously, as if this chance might disappear—was:
From: F. Fallon
To: Bell, Winston—MIXX mag
Subject: Re: Follow-up for DJ ParSec
Winston, can we meet before the service? Then, if it’s okay, can I ride over with you?
Seven days ago was the last time I saw Paris. Seven days later and it’s the last time I will ever see her. There was symmetry here, but no comfort. There was never a time I didn’t find comfort in symmetry. I turned it over and over in my head, looked for flaws in the alignment. The memorial service was at three in the afternoon. I found her body closer to 7:00 p.m. last week, so the timing wasn’t exact. That’s … something.
In my Notes app, I added another inquiry to my Questions for the Smart Ones list:
Is there a fundamental design flaw, maybe a glitch, that accounts for good people dying young?
I put my phone away and my hand floated to the nylon necklace, anchored by a barely-there bulge beneath my dress. This charm was supposed to be an olive branch that, maybe, got Paris and me closer to what we once were. The thought didn’t seem as naive last week as it did now. Since she died, it became part of my daily apparel. Wedged between my skin and the world. Penance.
Paris’s grandma, Miss Elsie, squeezed my other hand. Spoke softly, exhausted. “Lord, Lord, Lord.”
We were together in the back of a slow-moving limo that smelled of coconut air freshener. The leather seats had the oily sheen of fresh detailing and vacuum lines streaked the dark floor mats. I looked the part—black dress, dark shades, a black hat from Miss Elsie’s own church-lady crown collection—but I wasn’t supposed to be here. Mama and I never talked about the service, she never forbade me from going, but she would’ve. She won’t react well when she finds out I went—and she will find out.
Some things are worth the consequences.
“Thank you for riding with me, child,” Miss Elsie said.
Would she be so thankful if she’d known the way things were between Paris and me this time last year?
We weren’t in Ocean Shore anymore, having crossed a bridge and taken a tunnel to the neighboring city, Portside. I’d only been there once or twice in my life. It was dreary, no sense that the ocean lapped sand just a little ways away. The only VA sounds here were traffic and wind. Paris would’ve hated it.
A divider descended, opening a porthole between us and the driver. He said, “We’re here, ma’am.”
Miss Elsie shook her head as if telling reality this version was unacceptable. I squeezed her hand back.
We pulled up to the curb between two orange cones outside of an ornate building. Not a church. A movie theater. The marquee protruded over the ticket booth like an overbite, the black block letters read: Private Event.
Crowds gathered across the street with their We Miss You, and Turn Up, and #ParSecNation signs. Being that they knew this address before I did, I supposed the secret was out.
The crowd wasn’t overwhelming, though a few police officers maintained order. A pair of brown girls younger than me dabbed t
ears with tissues. One was stout, in baggy overalls with a striped shirt underneath, and earbuds snaking white wires to some device in her pocket. The other, scrawnier girl pushed glasses atop her head. Paris and I once looked like them, and a wave of sadness hit.
Then I spotted another spectator that shocked me from my sadness. My immediate thought: Are the cops seeing this?
A few yards from the pair of girls, behind more animated fans who waved signs, or volleyed for attention from whoever actually had access to the venue, was a featureless face. Smooth, white. No eyes, nose, or mouth, though the contours for all that were there.
Twisting in my seat, I intended to ask if Miss Elsie saw it too, but she was halfway out the door, on course for the theater entrance. When the driver finished helping her, he extended a hand to me. I coiled my fingers into his and stepped onto the sidewalk. Over the limo’s polished roof, I searched for that creepy masked figure. They were gone.
If the mourners across the street represented what Paris and I had been, then the attendees inside the theater represented what we never wanted to be. Old. Stiff. The adults who sat at separate tables—or in separate rooms—during Thanksgiving dinner and talked about the news. Who were these folks?
At a glance, I estimated seventy-five to a hundred people packed into the lobby. Enough to turn their combined conversations into something like reverb, so loud you’d have to nearly touch shoulders to hear or be heard by the person next to you. While some grinned through small talk in loose clusters, or munched meat, cheese, and fruit from a central snack bar, a photographer roamed, breaking up chats for group poses. Others hovered by golden columns at the lobby’s less crowded corners, jotting down notes on little pads or holding their phones to another person’s lips, recording their conversations. It didn’t feel like any funeral I’d ever been to.
I hung at Miss Elsie’s hip, like I once did with Mama, uncomfortably familiar with this kind of see-and-be-seen gathering from my pageant and talent search days. Back then, I knew the adults in the room were there to pick and judge. So it made even less sense I was feeling that vibe here.
Where was Paris’s other family? There should be out-of-town cousins here. Aunts and uncles. All from Miss Elsie’s side of the family because Paris’s dad situation was worse than even my dad situation, but still. Where were other people from the neighborhood? People who’d grown up with Paris even if they’d lost touch with her since the music took over?
There were barely other black people.
At the center of the largest clique, visible by brightness alone, was a platinum-haired white woman in a pristine white pantsuit. Tall like me but with deep creases around her mouth, slashing her forehead, clutching the corners of each eye.
She excused herself from her worshippers and made her way to us, her arm extended for handshake. “You must be Paris’s grandmother, Miss Secord.”
Miss Elsie tilted her chin toward the hovering hand, as if examining it for germs, pinched the fingers quickly before pulling away. “Are you Ms. Paula Klein?”
“Paula is fine! I’m sorry that we’re meeting under these circumstances.”
Miss Elsie nodded curtly, seemed to take in the room. Could she be feeling the same anxiety about all of this that I was?
She said, “You and my granddaughter did what together, now?”
“I was her manager. Really, business partner. We had plans, Paris and I.”
“It was her plan that you do”—Miss Elsie did another sweeping gaze of the room—“this?”
There was justifiable venom in that last word.
Paula Klein’s expression didn’t shift at all, though she flung poison too. “Since Paris was emancipated—”
Miss Elsie still held my hand, the reflexive squeeze cracked my knuckles.
“—arrangements fell to parties she designated. I had power of attorney in most of her business affairs, so I put together what I thought was tasteful. I apologize for not getting you involved sooner. It took me a while to find you.”
Miss Elsie’s chin dropped, her back heaved, quiet sobs. I looped my arm over her shoulder, reeled her to me. Our emotionless hostess observed how she’d broken Paris’s only living relative at this ghoulish cocktail party. Paula’s reaction—or lack thereof—was chilling. The neighborhood boys were more compassionate burning ants with broken glass and sunlight.
Paris’s whole emancipated minor thing was something that never sat well with her grandma. Or me.
What did that matter now?
“Oh dear,” Paula Klein said, switching her robotic face to the Concerned setting. “Please, come with. Let me get you some water.”
Miss Elsie let Paula take her other hand without issue; there was no fight left in her. I might have held on tighter, fought for her, if my eyes weren’t on the main entrance. As it was, my entire focus shifted away from the person in the most pain, to the one I wanted to cause pain. Miss Elsie’s fingers slipped free, and I found myself locked in a stare-down with the girl I’d come to think of as my nemesis.
Fuse Fallon was in the building.
Winston Bell’s dreadlocks swayed as he walked me into the theater, the beads on the ends of select strands colliding, creating a cabasas-like clacking that his voice harmonized to naturally, giving his words a lyrical lilt. “After the service, maybe we can get a bite and talk. There’s a great restaurant around the corner. Best chicken and waffles on the East Coast, I swear.”
“Uh-huh.”
His suit matched the wispy gray threaded through his beard and lion’s-mane hair. Winston wore a white Fugees Europe 1997 tour T-shirt underneath his suit coat, taking it out of the realm of strict funeral attire to the kind of outfit you could work or party in. That was his thing, like he was a dad and a little too attached to a scene meant for his kids.
Every time I’d seen him during those long, follow-you-around interviews with ParSec, he was always doing the “when I was your age,” followed by some positive-to-negative comparison of his youth versus ours thing. It was harmless, but it got tired fast. Like on the car over.
“When I was your age, people actually read about the music,” he’d said. “Real words by real aficionados. Slick glossy covers with dope photos and art. Not all this comments-section, typo-ridden blog stuff. MIXX magazine’s managed to hang on, though. Grateful for that.”
It was a short ride from the coffee shop I met him at in Norfolk. I’d purposely been late to our meeting and amped up my grief on the way so he’d back off with the questions. I’d give it to him, he wasn’t letting me off easy. I’d actually considered living up to my end of our bargain despite my intense dislike for journalists. Until I saw her.
Kya Caine was here? How in the actual—?
Oh crap.
Sidestepping, I dipped into the shadowy recess between a tall fern and trio of men, as Paula caught sight of my ticket into this joint. She gave Winston a curt nod before shuffling some old lady away. Winston’s head swiveled toward the spot I’d occupied a moment before, smirking, ready to talk my ear off some more, but his smile fell when he found empty air. I slipped around the men who’d become my camouflage.
I moved on, peeking between bodies to make sure Paula remained unaware of my presence. So far so good, but Kya tracked me like a nightmare stalker, rotating on her heels so she didn’t lose me. Her punching hand flexed.
I posted up in a corner, a golden column between Kya and me. Relaxed a little, and wondered … why hadn’t the service started already? This whole thing felt like Dad’s holiday office parties. Hardly anybody even seemed sad.
If this was for ParSec, I mean, for real, why did the fans across the street seem to get it more than the people in here? Half of this lobby was old-old, jockeying for Paula’s spot on the Iron and Fiber Throne. They weren’t even playing ParSec’s music, and I know she would’ve wanted that at her funeral. She’d told me herself.
There was a Muzak version of an old Anita Baker record playing. Don’t get me wrong, Anita Baker’s voice wa
s fire—thanks for that fine bit of music education, once-cool Dad—just not as jazz-piano-and-saxophones without actual Anita Baker. Some dude over by Paula and the elderly lady actually tapped his foot to this atrocity.
Were Kya and I the youngest people here?
I thought so, and not only that … I did know these people. At least some of them.
All the leeches, and publicity hounds, and scandal creators. All the people ParSec expressed open disdain for, here to see her on her back. Forever. My hands shook; I dug my nails into the meatiest parts of my palms to stop the rage tremor. It’d be like if Batman died, and everyone at his funeral was the Joker. How were these people allowed here?
Easy. These were people who might make Paula Klein money someday. This was a networking event. One benefiting not just Paula.
Ugh. Lil’ Redu was here.
Or, as I liked to call him, Lil’ Wannabe Gangster Steaming Trash Monster.
He was a frail dude with only a few inches and pounds on me, who always smelled strongly of weed and cologne. Even though he was young—a high school dropout who would’ve graduated same time as me if he felt school was worth his time—his attendance here was just as mystifying as the old folks’ home field trip filling this lobby. Despite being forever linked because of their collaboration on “Calm Down, Turn Up!” Lil’ Redu and ParSec had hated each other lately.
He nudged his way toward me, clearing a wide path with the two girls flanking him, grinning, and said, “What up, Lose Fallon?” Then cackled at his own corny “joke.” When his dates didn’t laugh too, he flicked cold glances, reminding them of their obligations, and they chittered lightly.
My punching hand flexed. He proudly represented the worst, most exaggerated perceptions of hip-hop. The misogyny and stupid-dumb excess, from the gaudy chain on his neck, to the precious metal grill crammed in his mouth. In honor of ParSec’s memory, I was happy continuing the tradition of hating this dude. “Oh, I see. You swapped Fuse for lose because they sound alike. Nice. It’s almost like you’re a rapper.”