Platinum

by Aliya S. King

Z smiled and stepped out into the hallway to ask one of the promoters what was going on. He closed the door behind him and everyone waited. When he opened the door again, Beth knew something was wrong. His jaw was tight and his eyes were wild.

  “Let’s pack this shit up,” Z barked, pointing at the mess. “My set is done. We got the money. Fuck we sitting around here for? Let’s go.”

  Beth had to move double-time to keep up with Z, who was striding backstage toward the back door like he was about to break into a jog. She kept the three older boys in between them so no one would get left behind and she carried Zeke. Right before they got to the stage, Beth stopped walking.

  “Mommy, they’re leaving us. Come on,” Zeke said, pointing to his father.

  Beth took Zeke’s hand and placed it on her belly. Zeke looked down at his mother’s stomach.

  “What’s in there?”

  “A baby,” she said, looking Zeke in the eyes and checking for his reaction.

  “A baby for me?”

  “Yes, for you. And your brothers too.”

  Zeke clapped his hands together. Beth knew he’d be thrilled, unlike Zander, who had greeted each of his brothers with increasing levels of disdain. Zeke was different. He was a happy baby.

  “Is it a girl baby or a boy baby?”

  Beth began to walk again. Z was standing at the door, waving her forward. His face was tight.

  “It’s a girl baby,” she said to Zeke. “A little sister for you.”

  Zeke put his thumb in his mouth and his head on her shoulder. “Good. I like girl babies.”

  “Me too,” Beth said.

  There was a commotion at the back exit, where Beth had come in. For some reason, the security guard at the door wouldn’t let Z out. Beth caught up to him and saw that the guard was trying to get a crowd of people away from the door so that Z could get to the waiting car. There was a small group trying to force their way in. And behind her, Beth could still feel that pulsing thunder. Finally, police officers showed up and dispersed the crowd to either side of the doorway so that Z could leave. Beth watched her husband take a deep breath before he walked out. But when she followed him out, she noticed that the crowd, all craning necks and waving hands and arms, barely noticed him. A few people reached out and touched his arm. And two young ladies actually stopped Zander for a picture. But Beth was absolutely sure that everyone else’s eyes continued past Z, back at the door. They were waiting for someone else.

  As they sat in the car for the short ride to the hotel, everyone took nonverbal cues from Z and stayed quiet. Beth, in the back with the boys, kept her eyes on the back of Z’s head. She slid her phone out of her bag with one hand and sent a text message to Kipenzi. “Atlanta is not live like it used to be. Crowd is kind of weak, right?”

  Two seconds later, her phone buzzed. “Are you kidding me? I think this place is about to explode. You know it’s sold out, right? KP.”

  Beth shut her phone off and rubbed her belly. She wondered when Jake had surpassed Z in popularity and how she hadn’t noticed.

  “WAIT. SO YOU’RE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.”

  Kipenzi smiled wide and threw her arms around Jake’s neck. After ten years, Jake was still the only person Kipenzi felt truly comfortable with. And while she was prepared for all the hangers-on from the music industry to disappear, she knew Jake had her back.

  “Serious as a heart attack,” Kipenzi said.

  “How are you gonna get out of your contract, the endorsements …”

  “My lawyers are working all that out right now,” said Kipenzi. She nuzzled Jake’s neck.

  “And you’re willing to pay for the privilege of not working?”

  Kipenzi stepped back and looked Jake in the eye. “You don’t think I should do this?”

  “I’m not saying that. Necessarily. I just wonder if you realize—”

  “What a big deal this is? Of course I do. Have you seen my bunions?”

  Jake laughed. “You have the ugliest feet on the planet.”

  “And my voice. It’s changing, Jake.” Kipenzi put her hand up to her throat. “I’m just not loving this anymore. I heard Zander and Bunny sing a song me and Usher recorded years ago. They did it better! It’s time for me to go quietly.”

  “Why not go out fighting?” Jake asked.

  “Like you and Puff and Jay? Forty years old and still rapping? Putting out a farewell album every other year like it makes sense? No thank you.”

  “I’m thirty-seven,” Jake said.

  “That’s not what your birth certificate says.”

  “You remember what you said a few years ago?” Jake asked. “About what you would do when your career was over?”

  “I would sleep late every day.”

  “No. You said you would marry me and have a bunch of babies.”

  Kipenzi smiled. “I did say that.”

  “So let’s go. Now.”

  “Wha—?”

  “You serious about leaving the business? I fully support that. So let’s do the damn thing. Right now. Today. You’re retired. Ready for the next phase of your life. Let’s do it.”

  Jake clapped his hands together and then folded them behind his head. He had his long legs stretched out on the sofa, one foot crossing the other on the teak coffee table.

  “I love you, Kipenzi. And I want you to be my wife.”

  “Wait. Jake, you can’t say it like that!”

  “Like what?”

  “Like … that. With your feet up and your hands behind your head.”

  “What’s wrong with this?”

  “You know, in certain cultures it’s considered disrespectful to put your hands behind your head like that.”

  “I just told you I want you to be my wife. And you’re tripping on my posture?”

  “It’s not your posture. It’s your body language.”

  Jake grabbed his crotch. “Body language this.”

  “You are awful.”

  “Come on. Let’s get this going. Call your little assistant man and tell him to make it happen.”

  “His name is Ian,” Kipenzi said. “You should call him Ian.”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “I don’t fuck with that dude.”

  “That’s ’cause he doesn’t fuck with you.”

  “He’s weird.”

  “He’s indispensable.”

  Kipenzi flipped open her cell phone and typed a text message. “He just hit me back. He’s coming over in ten minutes. Please be nice.”

  “I need a piece of paper and a pen,” Jake said, sitting up straight.

  “Here,” Kipenzi said, digging out both from her purse.

  “You take a piece too. Sit right here.”

  “What are we doing?” Kipenzi asked, sitting on the floor at Jake’s feet.

  “Pro and con list. I’m making one for you. You make one for me.”

  “And then what?”

  “I just want us both to be aware of what we’re getting.”

  “Or not getting.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Kipenzi shielded her paper with one hand and began to write. Jake leaned over her shoulder.

  “No peeking,” Kipenzi said. “Write your own list. Here’s an extra sheet of paper for the pro side. You’ll probably need room for all my wonderful qualities.”

  “Yeah. You too. Might want to write small.”

  “I’m almost done already,” Kipenzi said, rolling her eyes.

  “I know everything on your list already anyway.”

  “No, you don’t. You have no idea.”

  “Kipenzi, I always know.”

  Kipenzi lifted her head to look up at Jake. Before she could stop herself, she reached up and put her hands on Jake’s cheeks and then kissed him. He was right. He always knew. From day one.

  Kipenzi and Jake had met at Electric Lady Studios in the Village, the place where Jimi Hendrix had recorded “Slow Blues” just a month before he died. The year before they met, Kipenzi’s father had brough
t her to New York for a studio session. He’d cashed in his 401(k). When his wife found out, she told him to prepare for a divorce when he returned. The studio session fell on Kipenzi’s eighteenth birthday. Kipenzi’s father had a meeting scheduled at Atlantic Records with an A&R. Kipenzi stayed behind at the studio, recording all the parts on a ballad that would close out her demo. Her father had only hesitated briefly about leaving her in the studio alone. She’d shooed him off, telling him she was more than capable of taking a taxi to their hotel in Midtown.

  The last time she slipped into the booth to sing over the backing track, she looked up from the microphone and saw Jake standing next to the engineer with his arms crossed over his chest. Kipenzi was grateful that her father wasn’t there. He would not have been able to keep his cool around a rapper he’d only seen in music videos. And Kipenzi hated it when he asked for autographs or to take pictures with celebrities.

  She knew better than to give anyone more props than she’d give herself. Jake was all right, but at that point he’d never even had a platinum record.

  She gave him a brief head nod, closed her eyes, and launched into the song she had written the night before. When she was done, she opened her eyes and Jake was gone. She packed up to go and then called her father, letting him know she was leaving the studio and getting in a cab.

  But as she talked to her father on the phone, Kipenzi knew that upstairs Jake was waiting for her in the lobby of the studio. She’d never been introduced to him. She hadn’t known him from a hole in the wall. She’d only glimpsed him briefly before singing her song.

  And somehow, that was all the time it took.

  She knew that if she walked upstairs to the lobby and Jake said he was taking her to Redondo Beach or Malaysia or Tuscany, she was going, no questions asked.

  She came up the stairs of the studio and saw Jake standing at the front door with his back to Kipenzi. Without looking, he held out an open hand behind him. Without hesitating, Kipenzi put her hand in his. He walked out of the building, holding Kipenzi’s hand tight, and led her into the parking lot across the street, where his Benz was idling. They drove in silence. Jake pulled up at a diner in Brooklyn. The owner, who’d known Jake since he was eight, sat them down and locked the door behind them.

  Kipenzi remembered Jake looking at her—straight through her. She couldn’t find her voice.

  “When we getting married?” Jake asked.

  “I’m busy right now,” Kipenzi said, her face buried in her menu. “Working.”

  “For how long?”

  “At least ten years. Few million records. Stuff like that.”

  “Then?”

  Kipenzi put her menu down and smiled at this man she’d only seen on television. He was taller than he seemed in videos. And his smile was wider and brighter. His first words to her had been a marriage proposal. And in that moment, it made perfect sense.

  “As soon as I retire, we can get married.”

  “Cool,” Jake said, signaling to the owner that he was ready to order.

  “Don’t you want to know my name?” Kipenzi asked.

  “Nah,” Jake said. “I’m thinking it’ll come up at some point.”

  In the ten years since that night, as Kipenzi’s career soared and Jake racked up multiplatinum plaques, they had never been apart for more than one week. And they had never publicly or explicitly acknowledged that they were a couple—not even to each other. Somehow, they managed to be engaged but not officially dating.

  The first year made sense. Kipenzi was only eighteen. Jake was thirty. It took a year of sneaking around for her to even get up the nerve to tell her father. She thought he would be upset because Jake was so much older. Her father was upset, but only because she hadn’t told him sooner so that he could have hit Jake up for a verse on a remix for her first album.

  But the last three years had been a battle. Kipenzi hated staggering their entrances into movie premieres and concerts. They went to basketball games and sat far away from each other. The last straw had been the American Music Awards. He came late—on purpose, she believed—and she ended up sitting between her parents while Jake sat behind them. She was seething the entire night, even as she took the stage when she won for Best R&B Album.

  That night, she’d given him an ultimatum. They came out openly as a couple or it was over. He said it was over. They got back together the next day and continued to keep their relationship out of the press.

  “Why’d you start with your Con list?” Jake asked.

  Kipenzi shielded her paper with her hand and hunched her back. “Stop looking!”

  “Yo. That’s foul! Starting with the bad stuff? What’s number one?”

  Kipenzi held her paper to her chest, peeled it down an inch to peek at it, and then pressed the paper back to her chest. “I’ll give you number five: you want us to remain undercover.”

  “Interesting. That sounds very similar to my number seventeen.”

  “Seventeen?”

  Jake and Kipenzi both broke out into laughter until they were out of breath and holding their sides. There was one sharp knock on the front door of Kipenzi’s apartment.

  “Come in, Ian,” Kipenzi said, still chuckling and trying to hit Jake with one of the pillows from her sofa.

  Ian, dressed in a silk paisley smoking jacket and an ascot, breezed into the living room with several binders and two cell phones.

  “Do you want a nonsectarian ceremony or a Baptist minister?”

  “I want to step on a glass,” Jake said.

  “I didn’t know you were Jewish,” Ian said. He didn’t look at Jake. He sat on his usual perch, on a high stool next to Kipenzi’s wet bar.

  “I’m not,” Jake said. “We can borrow it.”

  “Ian, where does that tradition come from?” Kipenzi asked.

  “In the Talmud there is a story of a man named Mar who smashed expensive glassware at his son’s wedding to put an end to the celebration at the end of the night.”

  Jake rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb in Ian’s direction. “How the hell does he know that?”

  Kipenzi put her hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelashes. “Ian knows everything.”

  “You Jewish?” Jake asked.

  Ian rolled his eyes. “I stay away from anything that I can’t do well without becoming completely consumed.”

  “What’s wrong with being consumed by something?” Jake asked, looking up at Ian. “You don’t have any conviction about anything?”

  “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction,” Ian said.

  “Blaise Pascal,” Kipenzi said.

  “Good girl.” Ian nodded and then tapped his binder again. “So Jake will stomp on a glass and we will yell out mazel tov. Any guests? Witnesses? If you want this to happen today, we need to get moving.”

  “Just my parents. And Jake’s.”

  “And Z and Beth,” Jake added.

  “Are you sure? After the show, I thought …”

  Kipenzi hadn’t been able to get Beth on the phone after the show in Atlanta. It had been an overwhelming success for Jake; one of those shows where every guest appearance brought more and more screams from the crowd. He brought everyone from Drake and Lil Wayne for the young folks and Eric B. & Rakim for the purists. He’d dusted off his entire catalog of number one records and performed with such vigor that Kipenzi watched the show through her fingers, worried that he would pass out.

  Z’s show hadn’t gone nearly as well. And Kipenzi knew that Beth probably didn’t know how to handle it. But she didn’t understand why that would influence their friendship. For years, they’d weathered Z’s and Jake’s hot and cold streaks. So Z had a bad show. Big deal. Why would that make Beth stop answering her calls?

  “They gotta be there, Kipenzi,” Jake said, opening up his phone.

  “We can tell them. But they might not show up.”

  “They’ll be here.”

  “Ms. Hill, would you lik
e me to retrieve an item of clothing from storage?”

  “I’m gonna wear something here. Thanks, Ian.”

  “I’m booking the travel for your officiate. You two need to get up to Rockland County immediately to get a license. Your driver is downstairs. He has the address. The paperwork is in the back seat. Probably a good idea to have it filled out when you get there. Save yourself some time.”

  Kipenzi stood in front of the large mirror next to her front door and smoothed down her cowlick.

  “Jake, you ready?”

  “Just finishing up my list.”

  “Whatever.”

  Jake maneuvered himself out of the squishy sofa and threw a long, gangly arm over Kipenzi’s neck. “A’ight, Ian. We’ll be back.”

  “Enjoy your outing. Both of you.” Ian bowed his head just slightly and opened the front door for Jake and Kipenzi. “Ms. Hill? Mr. Giles?”

  Jake, his arm still around Kipenzi, spun them both around to face him.

  “Congratulations,” Ian said.

  SIX HOURS LATER, KIPENZI’S MOTHER CAME INTO HER ROOM, HER FACE long and sad.

  “Penzi, I can’t believe you all are doing it this way. I wanted to see you in a beautiful gown. Have the whole family here. But if this is what you all want …”

  Kipenzi’s mom began smoothing her daughter’s hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. Kipenzi put a hand up to where her mother’s hands were and squeezed.

  “This is the right way for us, Mommy. The only way.”

  “Not even your aunt Pam? My own sister can’t be at her niece’s wedding?”

  “Especially not Aunt Pam,” Kipenzi said through clenched teeth. “She’d sell me out to Us Weekly in a New York minute.”

  “She would do no such thing.”

  “She would. And I believe she has.”

  “You won’t even give me a few days to make something for you to wear?” her mother asked. “I’ve been dreaming about making your wedding dress since I gave birth to you.”

  Kipenzi hesitated. Her mother had been her only stylist—in the beginning because she couldn’t afford anyone else. And now, in the end, because it had become her mother’s identity. Kipenzi had grinned and borne it with several of her over-the-top sequin-covered creations. Not today. She turned to face her mother and kissed her cheek.