“No. I’m never sorry after I see you.” At that she did turn, and the sight of her from the front was no less arousing than she had been from the rear. Madison smiled and then made her way back to the immense bed, leaning over it to kiss him. “But each time we do this, I get … a little … nervous.”
“What of?”
“You know,” she said.
Yeah. He knew. They talked about it. Over and over, they’d talked about the fear Madison had, of being strung along. Of falling for a man who had no will, and maybe no ability to fall for her. And each time they had that talk, Jamal knew he should probably put a stop to this. Because while Madison was beautiful and good company, after over a month and a half since they’d first slept together, she had become precisely what she told him she didn’t want to be—a woman he was fond of, who he was just kickin’ it with.
The irony was, Madison may have become more, but for her insistence on forcing those heavy conversations prematurely and repeatedly. It was all the damn talking that was making him hold back when he wasn’t sure he would have otherwise.
This trip to meet him in San Antonio for the weekend had been his idea. And maybe it was a bad one, because Madison had flown out for hookups twice before; each was at a time when she said she had “a little time to kill” or “nothing much planned for the weekend.” The first time she’d met him at one of their venues it was just for a night and that seemed harmless enough, but the second time she’d spent two nights in Dallas, and Jamal had not only taken her to the club where Devin was performing to pick everyone up, but to a late dinner with the team afterwards.
And he told himself it was okay, because he wasn’t seeing anyone else at the moment and had no time to chase tail while on the road, but after all that “boyfriend behavior” Madison was turning moody on him, even after sex. Particularly after sex, like now.
“How many more weeks until you come back to New York?” she asked.
“Just three and a half.”
“That’s not so bad.” She kissed him and let him pull her back down to blanket his body with hers.
“Nah. That’s not so bad.”
“But I’ve been thinking …”
Here came one of those talks again.
“… maybe we shouldn’t communicate until then. Maybe …” Madison let the word stretch out for a while. “Maybe those three weeks should be time we take to think about where we want things to go with us.”
“Madison …”
“I know, I know,” she said, placing two fingers across his lips. “You like to ‘let it flow’. But I know myself, Jamal. I’m going to go crazy wondering where this is headed. And I’m going to drive you crazy as well. So I think it might be better if you just take this time and think about it.”
He said nothing. He was already sick of thinking about it.
“And when you get back in three weeks, if I don’t hear from you, I’ll know that that’s your answer. And I’ll leave you alone.”
“You’re making a job out of this. Getting to know someone, figuring out whether you fit … it shouldn’t be a project, Madison.”
Pulling back from him a little, she sat up, folding her legs beneath her. Jamal raised himself on his elbows, watching her.
“Look,” she said. “I know how this looks. How it must feel. Like I’m pushing an agenda that you haven’t even had enough time to decide whether you want. I get that. But I know myself, Jamal. And I know you …”
He gave a brief laugh. “We’ve known each other barely two and a half months.”
“Yeah. But I know you. We talk a lot too, right? You’re a good guy. You want to have a good life. And you try to do the right thing by the women you get involved with. You treat me like …”
Madison paused and looked down. For a moment Jamal thought that she might start crying, but she pulled it together.
“You treat me like a queen. I could so easily fall in love with you. And if I did, I would probably love you for the rest of my life. If that’s the direction I thought you might to go in …”
“We talked about this, and I told you, I …”
“That whole ‘letting it flow’ thing is a cop-out, Jamal. If you want to apply yourself to making this work, it’ll work. It’s that simple. So that’s what I want you to think about. Whether you want to give it a shot and make it work. With me.”
“And if I said I did, we’d what? Get engaged, announce a date?” Jamal shook his head. “That’s crazy, Madison.”
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that we’d be deciding that we’re both on the same page, working toward that. And that one day, yes, we could—when the time is right—get … we’d plan to get … married.”
Jamal let himself fall onto his back and looked up at the ceiling.
“Is it really that crazy?” Madison asked, reaching out to stroke his chest. “To ask that you look at me, look at what we have now in the same way you would when you’re signing a new artist? Consider what you want for your life, and think about whether I’m a good bet. That’s all I’m saying.”
Her soft fingers traversed his pecs, down over his abs and Jamal reached down, putting his hand over hers. Madison turned her hand palm upward and interlaced her fingers with his.
“I know you’re not in love with me now,” she said quietly. “But think about whether I’m the kind of woman you could love. Who could be standing next to you when you lead Scaife Enterprises, and when you buy that country house you say you want. The kind of woman you could see yourself … having babies with. Who would be a support and a help-mate. And if for some reason you can see me in that picture, let’s start building something together.”
_______________
It was crazy, Jamal thought after he walked Madison downstairs to get her a car to the airport. He couldn’t choose his life-partner like he did an artist for one of SE’s labels. He couldn’t apply pragmatism to the process of finding his wife.
But as he walked back into the hotel lobby, Jamal couldn’t help but wonder: why the hell not?
There was no denying that on paper, Madison was pretty close to everything he would have chosen for himself. And not just on paper, in actuality she was pretty damn close to what he would choose. Beautiful, accomplished, poised, intelligent, ambitious and funny. Not to mention just adventurous enough in bed to make him keep suggesting these visits, even when his better judgment told him it might be his mouth writing a check his ass couldn’t cash in the long run.
But he had to hand it to her; she’d been honest about her needs and her wants from the very beginning. And her reasoning was in reality not that crazy at all. How else did one pick a mate? On the basis of some unnamed, hard-to-define intuition, some warm and fuzzy feeling that they were The One? That was what was irrational, not what she was suggesting. Madison was simply asking him to look over her attributes, decide whether they fit in the life he wanted, and then if so, choose to build that life with her.
Choosing her didn’t even mean he had to give her a ring right away. But unless he was mistaken, it meant that she would expect him to apply the same seriousness and focus to making that life with her as he did to making dozens of young performers into stars. In that arena, his focus had no doubt paid off. So why couldn’t it pay off here as well?
“Mr. Turner.”
Jamal turned away from the elevator bank and toward the voice calling his name.
“Whassup Devin?”
Looking him over, taking in his rumpled jeans and shirt, the same outfit he’d worn when he performed the previous evening, Jamal realized that he’d probably spent the night elsewhere. Devin sported a shadow across his chin, indicating that he was in need of a shave, and …
“What the hell happened to your face?” Jamal indicated what looked like the beginnings of a shiner around Devin’s left eye.
Leaning away, Devin gave a brief laugh. “A little altercation with some locals. Nothing to worry about.” He yanked on the waistband of his jeans, which
appeared to be missing a belt when, unless Jamal was mistaken, he’d been wearing one the night before.
“Where’s Mack?”
The elevator doors opened and they both stepped in. Jamal hit the digit for his floor and Devin leaned across him to do the same.
“Does she like it when you call her that?” Devin mused. “Mack? It sounds like the nickname for a hairy redneck truck-driver who wears a cowboy hat and chews tobacco. I like the nickname ‘Kay’ myself … depends on whether we’re getting along that week.”
Taking a breath, Jamal tried to maintain his composure. Over the weeks of travel, Devin Parks had become no less difficult. But if he was going to add to his repertoire of general pain-in-the-ass-ness by getting into “altercations with the locals”, they were going to have a serious problem. This was the kind of thing he needed Makayla to be on top of—making sure this little asshole didn’t blow everything over a bar-fight, or some other crap like that.
“You used to call her ‘Hughes’ which I think was way more appropriate, given that you’re her boss and all,” Devin continued. “And ‘Mack’ is both annoying and … intimate.”
Jamal looked at him, raising one eyebrow, daring him to go further. The elevator stopped on Devin’s floor and he stepped out, but put a foot in the door to prevent it from closing.
“I know you call yourself being her mentor or whatever these days, and you two have been gettin’ kinda cozy,” Devin said. “But I hope you don’t screw my girl over.” He paused and shook his head. “Or come to think of it, don’t … screw her at all.”
By the time he got to his room, Jamal was almost trembling with anger. Picking up the phone he dialed Makayla’s room number. She picked up after a few rings sounding slightly breathless, but said she would be up right away. When she arrived in sweats and a little dewy-skinned, the breathlessness was explained.
Her color was high, her eyes bright, and she looked energized by her workout. Reaching back to pull her locs up into a ponytail, she sat where Jamal indicated, on the sofa in his suite’s sitting area.
“I ran into your boy in the lobby about a half hour ago,” he began before she could speak.
Makayla shrugged. She reached up and wiped a little perspiration from her brow with the back of a hand, so Jamal went to his bathroom and returned with a towel, tossing it to her.
“Thanks,” she said, beginning to dab her face. “So you ran into Devin? And …”
“He was just getting in,” Jamal said.
Makayla shrugged again.
“Looked like he was in a fight. And then he told me he was. Did you know he was going out last night?”
“No. But …”
Her shoulders sagged and she slowly lowered the towel from her face, looking at him like she was trying to read his expression. Over the past couple weeks, their relationship had taken a turn. Just when Jamal was starting to figure her out a little, she’d shut down on him and now, didn’t speak much. But he knew one thing, she was a tough cookie and didn’t need him to pull his punches, so he never did. And he wasn’t about to pull any now, either.
“Why didn’t you know?” he demanded.
“Because he’s twenty-seven years old and I can’t manage his every move?”
“Not his every move. Just the dumb-ass ones.”
Makayla pursed her lips, which Jamal now knew was the way she controlled herself before she said something ill-considered.
“He can’t be getting into fights with random people in random cities. We don’t need him getting hurt, or god forbid hurting someone else. Or getting arrested, or …”
“Oh, you would just love it if he got arrested,” Makayla said. “Think how well you could spin that.”
“Are you being a smart-ass?” Jamal said, narrowing his eyes.
“I’m not the only one responsible for Devin. If you weren’t so busy with your extracurricular activities, maybe you would have some time to support …”
Standing so he was towering above her, Jamal looked down and directly into her eyes. “You better watch where you’re goin’ with this. Your job is supporting me, Makayla. Not the other way around. Even if I’m screwing my way through the State of Texas, you need to be on point! Now I don’t know what you need to say to him, but you better figure out a way to control your boy, or I’ll find someone else who …”
Makayla stood, maneuvering her way around him. “Yeah, well good luck with that. If I’m gone, Devin will be gone too.”
“What the … are you threatening me?”
“No. Just letting you know the facts. I had to drag him into this and he’s already hanging by a thread.”
Folding his arms, Jamal looked at her. “Okay. Both of you can walk. Pack your shit and book your flights back to New York.”
Makayla looked at him, her mouth fell slightly open. “I wasn’t threatening …”
“This is bullshit. You think Devin is a once-in-a-generation performer?” He walked up to her so their chests were almost touching. “You think nothing like him will ever come along again? Well let me tell you something … I can pull a street performer off the San Antonio River Walk and make him a bigger deal than Devin Parks in two damn weeks. So you better get his head straight, or both of you can get the hell off my team!”
Makayla stood there, staring up at him, struggling to control herself. Jamal could see her trembling slightly and knowing her, it was with anger, rather than fear.
“Get out of my room,” he said, his voice quiet now. “Get your head together, meet me in the hotel restaurant at 12:30 with your stupid-ass friend and the two of you can tell me what you gon’ do. Come correct or take the next flight back to New York. Your choice.”
Tossing his towel onto the bed, Makayla turned and walked out of the suite. Jamal had no doubt that if she could have mustered up the guts to do it, she would have slammed the door.
When she was gone, he sat on the edge of the bed and weighed the odds that she and Devin would decide to walk and came up with slim-to-none. Left to his own devices, Devin would probably go kamikaze, crashing and burning his future without a second thought. But Makayla was cut of a different cloth. She didn’t talk about much, but the one thing she’d mentioned was how important it was to her to get to a place where she felt comfortable that she would be able to take care of her grandmother “when things got bad.” That was code for ‘just before she died’. Jamal understood all about that stage. He’d seen his own grandmother go through it, and thankfully had been at a place where he was able to arrange for round-the-clock care, good doctors and everything else that made her comfortable in her final days.
He didn’t get into that with too many people, but he’d told Makayla a little bit during one of their many lunch meetings. He told her about his background because she could relate. But what he hadn’t told her—had told no one—was that his grandmother had never been a benevolent and kindly figure. She’d raised him angrily, resentfully, grudgingly, and cursing his mother’s name the entire way. Funny thing was, she never uttered an unkind word for his father, her own son who had so seldom made an appearance while Jamal was growing up that he doubted he could pick the loser out of a line-up if someone paid him.
He loved his grandmother because for most of his life, she was all he had to love. And when his mother re-entered the picture just as he turned fifteen, it was because she had moved back to the States from her home-country of Jamaica. She’d left him with his father, she explained, because she thought he would have a better life in New York, and because he was a boy, and she believed that if they could only have one parent, boys should be raised by men. He’d never asked why, all throughout his childhood, she never bothered to come for herself to check and see whether he really was being raised by his father. But there was no point asking because Jamal already knew why.
She had made a nice life for herself back in Jamaica, remarried and had two other children. Only once that marriage had split up did she move to America once again. And in doing so, she l
eft those children behind too, just in their preteens. They were grown now—Jamal’s brothers Marlon and Damon—and he had no doubt they harbored the same simmering resentment Jamal had for their mother.
She lived in Queens, in a pleasant neighborhood and pretty row-house with her most recent male companion; and she joyfully welcomed her three sons over whenever they wanted to come, for holidays and Sunday dinners, for birthdays and even when there was no special occasion at all. But one thing she wouldn’t abide was blame. Once she’d recited her catalog of excuses for being an absentee mother, she didn’t want to discuss the matter ever again, and shut down anything that resembled a meaningful conversation on the topic.
The absence of a parent, and the anger at their absence was something else Jamal shared with Makayla, and he understood how deeply it motivated her to become self-reliant. So he felt pretty confident she wouldn’t walk away from this gig. After all, it was her way out. And Makayla remained his way in; in to the uppermost echelons of the recording industry. Just so long as she could keep a firm hold of those reins on Devin.
It was true—Devin Parks wasn’t one of a kind. Jamal could find and make someone else if it came to that, but this was the one Chris Scaife wanted; and if he pulled it off on the right scale, it would be Jamal’s last turn at the game of star-making. He wanted something different now. He wanted to sit at the top of the hill, enjoy the spoils of his hard work, to leave the clubs and the parties and the social-climbing women behind. Maybe Madison was right.
All he needed to do was choose something different.
_______________
Devin was drumming his fingers on the table while they waited. Makayla squelched the urge to reach over and stab the offending hand with a fork. Maybe he didn’t care, but the fact that she’d pissed Jamal off bothered her. This was the best job she had since deciding to get into the entertainment industry, and Devin was about to ruin it for her, and then on top of that, was acting like it was nothing at all to him. And it was more than the job, it was …
“I still don’t understand why me going out at night has anything to do with you,” Devin said, interrupting her thoughts.
The Come Up Page 9