"Look, I'm okay in my skin. I'm okay with asking the man I love to marry me. It doesn't mean that I'm taking the lead, it just means that I'm leading him to me forever."
She didn't flinch. She didn't cross her legs.
"Wow, that's something. I mean, I don't know how I would react if a woman asked me to marry her."
"All you would have say is… yes, if you really loved her. It's not rocket science."
"I think the whole idea of marriage is."
"The whole idea of marriage is what?"
"Rocket Science."
They both laughed again and Jake felt like now he could get the story he came for.
He watched as she displayed a look of seriousness. He could tell she was about to ask him something.
"My turn," she said.
"Your turn for what?" He asked.
"My turn to ask a question."
"Ask away."
"Is she going to read this?"
He knew what she meant by that.
"Yes, she has to approve every chapter. Why?"
"I guess I asked because, while I want her to know about me, I'm not sure if I'm ready to tell her directly."
"Why is that?"
"It just is, for now.
Jake waited.
"I know that in the end, when it is all said and done, she'll be waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"Waiting for me to call her mother."
Jake looked at her. "Simone."
"Yes."
"I think that maybe we need to try this a different way."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I think that maybe it would be better for you to take this."
"You're giving me your tape recorder? What am I supposed to do with it?"
"Talk into it as if you were talking directly to me. Tell me all about you."
Simone hesitated, but then after a few minutes she reached out her hand.
If he listened carefully, Jake was sure he heard a sigh of relief.
Watching her walk away, he caught sight of the ice cream man again.
Every boy wants their father to be proud of them. Even when you're grown and the gray starts to come in, that feeling doesn't go away. The only difference is that now you're a man still waiting for your father to say that he's proud of you.
I'm still waiting.
Just before he opened his car door, he reached into his jacket pocket and produced another tape recorder. He checked it to be sure it had recorded everything and placed it back in his pocket.
"I am going to be a bestseller, no matters what it takes. Finally, I am going to give my Father something to boast about."
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he said those words out loud.
He started the car up.
As he drove along he realized that he left his notebook at the coffee shop.
Jake pulled up behind a black Lexus and parked his car. He caught a glimpse of the driver. She was staring at the coffee shop window.
Shoulder length hair, smooth caramel complexion. He guessed she had to be somewhere in her late forties, maybe even crossing the fifty year starting line.
He watched her turn as she reached for something in her back seat.
It's her.
It was the woman he had seen at The Clue a month ago. The same woman he had listened to on the phone as he hid in a stall next to hers in the woman's bathroom that night. She had been calling her attorney, ordering some contracts to be sent to Carl for Simone. She had sounded upset. No, she had sounded angry and he remembered how sharp her tone had been.
He had liked that about her, it told him that she had some spunk about herself.
That night at The Clue, he learned two things about her. The first being that she wanted Simone awfully bad and the second, was that she didn't take kindly to losing.
He really liked that about her.
A week later, Jake read in the papers that she lost her record label.
Jake went back to watching her as his mental check list for women emerged inside his head.
She's mature. I'll give her a check.
She's pretty. She gets double check marks for that.
She's got a nice car. Never really mattered to me, but it doesn't hurt either. I'll give her half-a-check.
She's fierce. She is that and then some, another check.
She's fabulous in every way imaginable, check.
Should I? Absolutely!
Jake got out of his car and walked up to her passenger side window and gave it a light tap.
Misty wondered who this white man was, knocking on her car window. When he bent over, she recognized his cocky smile. She had seen it in the paper every Thursday.
It's that columnist, the one who wrote that stupid article on the 'return of Jazzmyne.' What was his name? Jake, that's it, Jake the fan of Jazzmyne.
She smiled at him as she started up her car.
Jake took a step back and watched as Misty pulled off like a race car driver. He waived.
He knew she was looking.
Chapter 3
"The only thing that keeps me sane is the love I have for one man. A love I pray will last for an eternity."
Keeping Simone Sane
Simone walked into her small apartment, kicked off her four-inch silver stilettos, and placed her purse and keys on the long narrow table, which sat against the wall of her hallway.
Those shoes were not made for parks, she thought to herself.
Down the short hallway, in what was called her den—she could hear her phone ringing. She knew it could only be one of two people, Carl or…her Mother.
Can I still call her that?
Her body found its way onto the cold and worn-out hardwood floor.
She stared at her toes.
Then she stared at the wall.
She allowed her guitar case to capture her attention
for a second or two. It had been sitting in the corner, unopened for a few weeks.
She thought about screaming.
Knew soon she would be crying.
Tried hard to catch her breath.
She slowly pulled the tape recorder out of her purse and stared at it for another hour or so before reaching to turn it on.
Her voice was shaky, unsure of what to say but she knew that she had so much in her that needed to be spoken.
"My name is Naya Simone. But everyone just calls me Simone. I am the daughter of two women."
"One of which is Naya Monà whom the world has passionately embraced as Jazzmyne, the Jazz singer, and the other of course is Monà Naya Simone, who I have known for over thirty years as my mother."
"I was born in what some might call the suburbs of New York. Mother and I lived in a small two-bedroom apartment, which boasted as being large but always felt more like two closets connected together with a tiny kitchen in the center."
"Mother put bread on the table and kept the cabinets fully stocked by working two jobs she hated. During the day, she took orders as a customer service rep for a power company. At night, two to three days a week, she took orders as a waitress at a diner that was just a few blocks from our apartment."
"Everything in our apartment was old but carefully chosen."
"I can even remember this old Mercedes that we had. We were so proud of it, although it was worth less than one month's rent on our apartment. It ran as smooth as butter and when mother would sit behind the wheel of that car, I swear I could see her hair blowing softly in the wind. Her smile was wider and even her laughter was cheerful and filled with sincere happiness. Mother always said that we didn't have much but what we had was paid for and was quality. Truth be told, most days we struggled to find a dime or make a penny turn into something more than the copper it was worth."
"It's funny, but just a week or so ago I was listening to Jonathan talk about life in that mansion he grew up in and about the high-priced schools that he attended; I remember how I felt when I finally hung up. I felt like I was
the rich one. I was the one that had something beyond what money could buy—love."
"I never thought about how priceless that word is, until now. You listen to someone who has spent his whole life without it and suddenly you come to understand it's real value. People work their entire lives to give their families money or leave them with valuable possessions, and yet one of the most precious gifts each one of us can offer to another human being—is love. It doesn't cost a thing but when it's not there, you know it. You can feel it. We tend to never see love for all the lasting possibilities it represents."
"Jonathan no doubt, has his stories of how rough his childhood had been and I have my own. You see; I was often referred to as the 'green-eyed' girl growing up. Black people didn't like the lightness of my skin, the properness in my voice, and the hazel color of my hair. White people didn't like the fact that my skin had a tan better than theirs."
"Mother had it the worst, I imagine. People were always staring at her. Wondering what she was doing with a white baby. Before I could barely say my ABC's, I could tell you that I was a person, a person to be judged by the color of her conduct and actions. I was proud of my complexion, my hair, and even my voice."
"Of course, none of my stories include trust funds from super-rich grandparents, fancy luxury cars, or free apartments for that matter. In fact, I had only possessed one new thing in my life until now."
Simone looked down at her ring.
"That one thing, I would never trade for any of the loveless things Jonathan had received. You see; my one thing came from the heart of a woman who loved me with all of hers."
"I received it when I was nine years old after Mother and I had decided to take a stroll down what she called the 'streets filled with bright lights and fancy clothes' that neither of us could afford. We had come past this one music store. There in the middle of their huge window display, my eyes lingered on a bright and shiny red guitar. The strings, I was convinced, were made out of gold. Man that thing was beautiful. It was at that moment that I realized what I wanted to do with my life."
"Boy, I must have talked about that guitar for what seemed like months. Downright drove my dear mother crazy I'm sure, but I just couldn't get it out of my mind. It was like a burning in my heart. I would sneak by there after school and beg the sales clerk to let me hold it."
"I wanted to sing like the lady I often heard Mother listening to. Mother would sit in her room with the lights out listening to Jazzmyne as she blew smooth as silk lyrics through the speakers. Even in the dark, I could see her tears but I never said a word."
"I use to try to envision myself as Jazzmyne. I would picture myself up on the stage with thousands of people below and there they would be, her and Mother. Who knew that crazy dream, as I called it back then, would be part of my reality today. True, there is no stage, no thousands of people sitting below listening to me sing—but they are here."
"I can't even get my mind wrapped around that fact right now."
"But I do remember the day my mother came home with that guitar. We shared tears of joy together and tears of a dream becoming a reality."
"I remember telling her that day that I would put it to good use. I would become something special. You know what she told me? She said that I didn't need a guitar to become something special. No, she said, that was already in my voice."
"That was the day that I, at nine years old, came to know what the love of a mother was."
So now, how am I supposed to call someone else—Mother?
Simone felt the tears flow down her cheeks. She reached into her guitar case and pulled out a CD with Jazzmyne's picture on the cover.
She ran her fingers across it and let out a long and deep sigh.
"I met her once. Only back then, of course, I didn't know who she really was."
"Mother had to have surgery in Chicago and so she dropped me off at this man's house, a man who I had never seen before. I was thirteen years old. His name was JK."
"Mother told me he was an old friend of the family. It seems, that too was nothing more than a lie."
"I remember her coming to the door with her husband standing at her side. Her smile was warm. Her hands were trembling."
"She wore a purple velvet scarf wrapped around her head, which allowed just a hint of her hazel brown hair to show through in the front. On her shoulder, sat a large pin filled with tiny feathers. Her clothes were exquisite. She had dark black sunglasses on, so I couldn't see into her eyes but I remember her expressions, her voice and even her kindness."
"I even remember the purple eye shadow that peaked out from behind her sunglasses and her red painted lips."
"One day, I imagine that I will call her mother. One day, I imagine that I will look into her eyes and smile. My heart will not be afraid and my hands will not tremble."
"I keep telling myself that tomorrow will be the day, but while tomorrow always seems to be just around the corner, nothing inside of me seems to change."
"There is an anger brewing inside of me, which scares me."
"There is a curiosity, which drives me to want to find the strength to look past that anger, but the tears that fall from within me keep holding me back. They keep reminding me of the nightmare that I am in."
"The constant pain that I feel."
"Feelings of betrayal."
"A past filled with lies."
"You asked me about my brother—what shall I say; except that….he's in trouble, mentally, and emotionally."
"There is too much pain— even for him."
"I could see it in his eyes when he walked up to me, that night at The Clue."
"That was the night when I thought my life was just beginning."
"There I was asking a man that sat in front of me for his hand in eternity, when life in turn, seemed to place something very different in mine, something that lyrics have no words for and hearts are not made for."
"In some ways, Jonathan is the only one who understands what I'm feeling inside, but it's hard for me to talk to him. There is too much want in his heart. Too much fear inside."
"I feel like maybe I'm fighting this battle on my own and calling out for courage. Trying hard to get it to answer me, to take me in and grab hold of me. I feel like I'm chasing after it. Hunting it down like a hidden treasure and coming up empty handed."
"Maybe I'm the one in trouble, mentally, and emotionally."
"I've tried pinching myself, thought about slapping myself, but every time I open my eyes, all I see is her."
"Naya Mona, Jazzmyne—real mother."
"I see her staring back at me, waiting for me. Waiting for me to call out something my heart doesn't yet understand. My mind can't grasp, and my emotions can't handle."
"Where is my rainbow?"
"Where is my sunshine?"
"I feel like I'm drowning in a sea and the waves are passing me by."
"There I am, floating underneath the crispness of the blue sea. There is no air in my lungs. No life in my breath, no movement in my heart. Yet, I can see the fish laughing at me and even the big whale refuses to lift me up and carry me to a moment of peace."
"I, Simone, am reaching out the for a life boat that keeps passing me by."
"Courage finds me for a moment. It throws me a rope. It wraps me up and carries me on the love, the hope, and the trust that I have in one man. He is the only one that keeps me sane and yet, at this moment, I can't find the strength to speak to him. I can't find the desire to say hello or the nerve to tell him that I need some time."
"You wanted to know about me Jake…well, now you do."
Simone clicked the tape recorder off and kicked it down the hallway. In reality, she wanted to throw it. She imagined the sound it would make as it hit the wall. She could see all the tiny pieces scattered upon the floor in her head.
Each one was a reflection of her broken life and torn apart heart.
A few seconds later, all she could hear from herself were screams.
Bring it dow
n Simone. She inhaled.
You've got to keep yourself sane. She released.
What is sanity, really? It is nothing more than being a split-second away from pulling your hair out and running butt-naked down the street.
As she walked down her hallway she picked up the tape recorder, placed it in her pocket and then stopped to stare at the rows of photos that hung on the wall—years of memories.
There in the center, is a picture of her when she was ten. Monà is standing behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder. Simone closed her eyes and remembered the day it was taken.
She pulled the picture down and carefully outlined the depth of their smiles.
They were real, weren't they mother?
She stared into their eyes.
Some people say that words can hurt you, cut you to the core. However, I am finding that lies can kill you. Reach deep within you and pull your heart out. Smear your memories and leave you crushed and unsure about everything and everyone you thought ever mattered.
One month ago, I was nothing more than a woman who sang for the love of it, played a guitar, and loved a man who didn't know it.
That was my life.
Now I find that I cry some nights, laugh hysterically at others, and still remember the days when I would find you staring at a picture of a young girl who's eyes looked like mine.
I can't get myself out of this place mother. I find myself simply trying to forgive.
But I still love you mommy. I still love you.
She placed the photo back on the wall with a gentle easinessand walked over toward her sofa.
She thought about Carl.
She felt as if the phone were staring at her, waiting patiently for her to pick it up.
I don't even know what to say to him.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she reached over and picked up the receiver.
Courage, it's me again. I need you. Just for a second. Maybe more, she whispered to herself as she began to dial.
The line was busy.
Thank you, she said to herself as she spread out over the sofa and watched the moon try to brighten her life.
Jake walked into his apartment and found himself rushing to grab the phone.
STRINGS of COLOR Page 3