My mother watched the moon with me that night. And then, together, we went back into the house and she helped me pack my things for the morning. At first, I’d just slid an outfit into my bag, but then, my mother came in with a suitcase she’d owned when she was my age and handed it to me. “Take everything,” she said. “Don’t plan to come back until you’re ready. I’ll put the pay you made from working at the church all these weeks into your bank account in the morning. That’ll get you through the summer at least.”
When the moon was still out but the sky was brightening and showing a promise of rain, both of my parents, still in the clothes they’d worn the day before, walked me outside to my car and kissed me softly on both cheeks. “We love you,” they said. They packed my things into the car and then stood arm in arm as I started the engine and drove, in tears, out of their driveway.
PART FIVE
Something She Can Feel
Chapter Thirty-two
July 21, 2008
This was the second time I was driving to Atlanta in my car alone. The second time I’d walked out on my life altogether. The second time I felt heart-breakingly sad and unimaginably happy all at the same time. But as the hot summer rain came pelting down on top of the car, pounding a thunderous racket all around me, I realized that there was something different tugging on me in that car. As I drove along 20 this time, I felt confident in my right to own all of those emotions. I was sad that I had to walk away, but I had to get out of my old life in order to get into my new life and I didn’t feel bad about that anymore. I wasn’t worried about what was happening behind me and when I really thought about it, I wasn’t worried about what was in front of me either. If things didn’t work out with Kweku and SonySOULJOURN, I’d be okay. Maybe I’d get back into my car and drive to the next city or find a place in Atlanta. Maybe I’d decide to launch my own singing career and fly to New York or L.A. Or maybe I’d just go back to teaching and find a job somewhere in Georgia. It didn’t matter to me at that point which thing I chose. All that mattered was that I was showing up and I was doing it all on my own. There was no plan. And, ironically, that was the best plan.
The rain clouds followed me all the way into Georgia, washing the dirt from my car and the pain from my past in one long shower. When the sun came up and pushed its July heat through the thick clouds, a steam came rising off everything I could see—the road, the hood of my car, others going by, the trees, even buildings and the tops of signs. It created an odd mist for a late July morning in Georgia and when I veered off the exit toward the city, the rain just stopped in one second—cut off like a faucet the way it always did during summer Southern showers, leaving the mist to just sit thick in the air like smoke after a fire.
The rush-hour traffic slowed to a snail’s pace, and while everyone around me looked anxious and angry, I let my foot up from the gas pedal, held the brake, and just watched the miraculous picture. It was unusual and unexpected. But still beautiful. Completely beautiful.
“What’s up, ATL? It’s your girl, Shanda Smith,” a woman’s voice said when I turned on the radio. “I hope y’all liked that get-up-and-go set we just played, because y’all got to get up and goooooo.”
“That’s right, Shanda,” a man’s voice said as they laughed. “You don’t have to go to work, but you have to get up.”
“Why they have to get out the bed if they ain’t going to work, Frank?” the woman asked. “I know if I wasn’t going to work, I’d be catching some serious Zzzs!”
“How they gonna listen to us if they sleep?”
“Well, that’s what I’d do.”
Giggling along with them, I listened to their comical exchange and then realized that my car hadn’t moved one bit since I’d turned on the radio. The traffic just stopped. I couldn’t see an accident ahead. It was just a standstill. I turned up the radio and put the car in park.
“Soso, what you got in entertainment news?” the woman asked.
“I got a lot, Ms. Shaaannnda,” another exaggerated voice said and I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, but there was something sassy, snappy, and silly about it that made it appealing to me in that stopped car. “This is your girl, Ms. Sophie, and I’m about to bring you the latest in entertainment news from around the world, baby. Because when I talk, you talk, and we talk, and that’s sister talk!” A little jingle for the segment played in the background, and Ms. Sophie went through a list of Hollywood and hip-hop highlights that had occurred over the weekend. Most were interesting, but also uneventful. The eventful part was just hearing her speak this scrappy and over-the-top sister-girl chatter. “And last, but not least, we got something hot off the press from the hottest man in the game, baby!”
“Who is it?” Shanda begged.
“It’s that hunk of a man, Dame from the deep down-down and dirty.”
“Yeah,” Shanda said, and I felt a lump growing in my throat. “Didn’t he just turn himself in for killing someone in Africa somewhere?”
“That’s right. Apparently, he was over there playing cowboys and Indians with a special, secret lady love no one can locate.” I turned up the volume and noticed that the cars around me were moving but I just sat there. “Word is, your boy was just released after being held by officials in Ghana for questioning related to the incident two weeks ago. Now, he hasn’t been cleared of any charges including the murder of a local drug kingpin, but according to the official release from the Ghanaian government and Mr. Damien Mitchell’s attorney, chile, Dame was being set up the entire time and one of the kingpin’s snitches who was arrested on charges not related to the case said, there’s no way Dame and that mysterious woman were supposed to make it out of there alive.”
“They were going to kill them?” Shanda asked. There were horns beeping all around me, and cars zipping from the back to the front of my car as they changed lanes angrily.
“Well, the release says Dame was wearing a fiftythousand-dollar watch and apparently, that’s what they were after.”
“See,” Shanda said, “that’s why these rappers need to know they can’t go blinging all over the place. You never know what can happen.”
“Hey, I’ve hung out with Dame a few times,” Frank jumped in. “And he’s a smart cat. I’ve never even seen him with jewelry like that. And let me make this clear to everyone listening out there that this is an isolated incident and there’s no reason to think folks are running around Africa just killing people for chains.”
“You think people will say that?” Sophie asked.
“I just want to make it clear,” Frank answered. “We have evil people everywhere.”
“Well, let’s just continue to pray for the whole Mitchell family,” Sophie said. “And hope he’s cleared of all of this mess. He’s at the height of his career.”
“Yeah,” Shanda added. “And I want this mystery woman to come forward and let us know who she is. Maybe she can add something to the case, so he can get off.”
“Oh, you’re just being nosy,” Frank said, laughing.
“No, for real,” Shanda said. “Who knows what she knows?”
“Well, I know what I know and that’s all that matters,” Sophie joked. “And if everybody wants to know what I know, y’ all are going to have to wait until after the weather to hear the rest of the report.”
Her voice faded out and a woman came on to read the weather. I slid my index finger over the button and clicked off the radio but the sounds of the waking city around me quickly filled the car again with noise—horns blaring from the road, voices yelling at each other, buses pulling off, the repeated beeps of a truck backing up. All of this noise. But none of it overrode the rattling coming from inside my heart.
Hearing the news the world was listening to about what happened to me and Dame in Africa, I was suddenly taken back emotionally to this place and pushed into remembering how I’d felt when I came out of it. I’d thought about what Pete said in Amsterdam about a man’s right to protect himself and those he loves at any
cost. How maybe I couldn’t understand, psychologically, what it must’ve been like for Dame to add up in his mind in those seconds at the dark bar what could happen if he hadn’t protected—if he’d lost his life, or worse, if on his watch, he’d lost mine. And while I didn’t support killing a man in any way, inside I knew who Dame was and what was on his heart. He wasn’t a murderer. I’d seen nothing but peace in his eyes until that night.
Hearing and imagining what Dame was going through, I wished I was with him. Just to comfort him the way he comforted me. I knew these had to have been dark and desperate hours in his life. And while he’d left me alone in that hotel, I knew he didn’t deserve to be alone now.
And as I was moving on with my life, I only imagined how proud he would be if he could see me now. See me making my own decisions. See me being free. These were goals we’d made together. And, for me, they were coming true. This made me happy and sad. I knew he’d be excited, but I also knew, and had to accept the fact that maybe we’d never see each other again.
After following Kweku’s assistant’s directions what seemed like a throng of forgotten buildings, I found the street number 875 taped to a piece of paper on the front door. I’d passed it several times and then when it seemed there was nowhere else the building could be, I got out of the car to find that I was in the right place. It was odd at first. I’d expected a big sign out front with the imprint’s name and maybe some fancy cars parked outside. But what I’d found was a tuckaway no one who wasn’t someone who’d been invited could locate or suspect.
This made me wonder if maybe I should get into my car and head back to Alabama. Maybe this was a mistake and Kweku was shady. I clutched my purse and frowned questionably when I pushed the door open. When I entered, my fears quickly dissolved. Unlike the unassuming exterior, the interior of the building was quite posh and orderly. Folks were walking around, platinum albums were up on the walls and the sound of phones ringing echoed from every corner.
“I know, it’s busy,” Kweku’s assistant Celeste, who’d given me the directions, said after another assistant led me back to Kweku’s office. Celeste was a pretty brown-skinned girl with long skinny legs that somehow stretched beyond the bottom of her desk and in clear view of everyone passing by. She had polite, happy eyes and an aura around her that let me know that she was more model than receptionist. “It’s been like this since we announced the imprint.”
“I just wasn’t expecting all of this,” I said, adjusting my purse on the arm of the seat I’d taken next to her desk. “I mean, from outside ... it just looks so different.”
“This is SonySouth ... not Sony New York City,” Celeste said with her brown eyes rolling. “If we put a sign out there, every artist from Magic City to Athens would be here in the morning. Most labels are low key here. It protects us from a lot of stress. I don’t even tell my cousins where I work. Please, the next thing you know, they’d be showing up after lunch.”
“I guess you can add me to the list now,” I said, laughing. “I kind of feel like I’m just showing up from out of nowhere.”
“Don’t say that,” Celeste said sweetly. “I’m sure you’re great. Kweku has a good ear.”
“That’s exactly what I mean—he liked me. But I don’t want to embarrass him in front of other people.”
“Embarrass him?”
“Yeah. If he’s putting himself out there by presenting me in front of some bigwigs, I don’t want to make him look bad.” I was confident in my singing ability, but I meant what I was saying. I’d never done any studio recording on my own and this was my first time meeting with a record label. I had no clue what they would be looking for or what was expected. Everything could go horribly wrong.
“Bigwigs?” Celeste looked at me cross. “Do you have any idea who Kweku is?”
“He’s an attorney,” I said slowly and returning her look. “Right?”
“He’s not just an attorney.” Celeste quickly picked up a call and transferred it back to another receptionist. She looked at me and her eyes narrowed as she lowered her voice in secret. “He’s the former director of A&R for SonyWorldMusic ... and he’s going to be the president of the new imprint.”
“Really?” I asked, remembering the humble and soft-spoken man sitting beside me on the plane. “But he said he just does contracts.”
“That’s part of his job, but it’s not everything. Kweku discovers, grooms, and packages every artist that comes into the new imprint. It’s all a part of Sony’s new world music vibe. He knows the best of the East and over the last year, he’s been learning the best of the West by operating out of SonySouth.” She paused and looked into my eyes, which, I was sure, were glazed with confusion and wonder. “Basically, what I’m telling you is that Kweku is the only ‘bigwig’ you need to impress up in here.” She winked at me and leaned toward me. “The meeting is a bit of a formality to let everyone here see who you are, but I’m pretty sure Kweku wants to sign you to a deal today. He’s been with legal all morning.”
I was dumbfounded ... past surprised and speechless. This didn’t make any sense at all. Kweku was just a man I’d met on a plane. Someone who’d opened his ears to me when I needed to be heard and whose candor and cool demeanor soothed me into letting go, for only a few hours, of a pain I was sure would burn up my insides forever. He did say he worked in music and did contracts, but never in ten million years would I have imagined that he was who Celeste was saying he was. I guess I never got this answer because I never asked the question. And while I was a bit upset that I hadn’t known who Kweku was and what man I was talking to and singing to over a fifteenhour plane ride halfway around the world, a part of me was happy that I didn’t know. I hadn’t yet made up my mind about where I was going or what I was doing and maybe it wasn’t time for me to know who I was sitting next to. Maybe I was finding out just when I needed to. But there was still that question in my head: Out of all of the millions of people flying in the world on that day, how was I sitting next to that one?
“Are you okay?” Celeste asked.
“I’m fine,” I answered. “I’m actually ... good.”
There is this song one of the mothers at the church used to sing whenever my father walked into the pews and handed her his microphone. We never asked what she was going to sing and my father never once made a request. There just would come a time in a service when someone who’d come from our church family or from someplace outside and lay themselves, broken and beaten on the altar, and my father, at a loss for words, would walk out and hand Mother McDonald the microphone. And she’d sing “You’re Next in Line” as the entire church rose, some crying and others in prayer, to their feet. It is a meditative and comforting gospel song that tells of a miracle coming to knock at the door of someone’s life. That after years of wondering how they would ever get by, ever see a change in their life, a voice comes and says to get ready for a miracle. “The Lord always comes just in time ... move to the front of the line ... you’re next in line for a miracle.”
I sat in that chair, watching Celeste work the two phones on her desk and stab away at the keys, hearing this song in my head. I was next in line. Somehow, some way, my time had come to receive what God had to offer me and here I was, just sitting and waiting for it all to happen. That was the only way I could explain where I was and what was going on. A divine intervention. A ray of light from the sky. My name being called out loud. And it was so funny because I hadn’t even known that I’d gotten into a line. Just months ago, I was a restless somebody, trying to figure out how to live my life—not change it. But somehow, something from my past interrupted everything in the present and drastically changed my future.
After waiting for so long that my feet fell asleep, Celeste led me toward the back of the office where long glass windows lined the wall of a room that was filled with faces surrounding a huge meeting table. At the front of the room stood Kweku, speaking to their attentive eyes as they wrote down nearly every third word he said. He looked like an easy
leader in the room and seeing his calm face again almost immediately put me at ease.
“This is it,” Celeste said, waving Kweku to the door.
“I guess so.” I smiled back at a woman seated toward the top of the table.
“Greetings, ‘Journey Cash ... just living,’ ” Kweku said, coming out of the room and closing the door behind him. Celeste quickly turned and headed back to her desk.
“Kweku,” I answered, hugging him like he was an old friend. And he really did seem like one—his delicate smell, the muddy, smooth tone of his skin, and the way his suit hung flawlessly on his body had been marked in my mind after the short time we’d spent together. “I can’t believe this.”
“Well, you ought to. You don’t have a choice,” he said. “I just told all those people you’re better than Miriam Makeba.”
“Stop!” I cringed and cut my eyes at Kweku.
“Look, this is a mere formality. You don’t need to sell yourself. Just do what you do. I have confidence in your talent. After hearing what I heard in Amsterdam, I’m already sold.”
“But I don’t know what to sing ... what they’re expecting. . .”
“Sing what you sang to me. Sing ‘Happy Birthday. ’ ” Kweku laughed. “Just let them hear what I heard.”
Kweku turned to the door and took my hand.
“Wait,” I said, pulling him back to look at me. “I have to know something. Why didn’t you tell me who you are? What you’re doing?”
“Hmm... . Well, I’ll sum it up like this: Someone I really trust once told me that when you’re looking for someone—even in a crowd of a million—if it’s meant to be, the one will just show itself. I was looking for you. For a sound ... a look.” He looked into my eyes. “And when I saw you, I didn’t want you to audition for me. I wanted you to just be yourself. To sing in your own way and not try to be what I was looking for. I wanted you to be you. You understand?”
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