I need to go by and see her. It's been too long.
Jake glanced in a mirror. I could use a good shave and a shower, he thought to himself until he looked down at his hands and noticed that they were shaking just a little. Why are you so nervous? He asked himself. "I'm not nervous, just excited," he said out loud.
Jake looked back into the mirror. Man, she already has you talking to yourself.
He laughed at himself all the way to the bathroom.
Forty-five minutes later, Jake heard a knock at his door.
Chapter 5
"There I sat on the front row, watching her. She had hazel brown hair, green eyes, and a guitar hanging off her barely-there hips. The lights had been dim, but the spotlight was shining brightly upon her."
The Spotlight
Carl held the phone close to his ear. His heart was beating at an uncomfortable pace.
Why isn't she picking up? He wondered.
He had been calling her all day, night and then some. His nerves were beginning to get the best of him.
They had barely spoken for almost a month. The conversation they did have, always seemed to be centered around one subject.
Then there was the car accident.
Something, he felt, had clicked off inside Simone when Naya's husband, Chris, and her brother, Jonathan, were hit. Being honest with himself, he knew that something had clicked off inside her after that night at The Clue.
She's not even speaking to her mother, either of them.
Carl rubbed his head. He was more than overdue for a haircut.
Who has time for a haircut? He stared at the phone again.
He was trying hard to be there for her. To help her through it all but it seemed that all she was doing was pushing him away. When he would talk about making plans for the wedding, she would go silent and say nothing.
Carl was scared.
He was also worried about her music career.
Mia had been calling him every week since they signed that contract with her. She was just as eager to get Simone into the studio as he was.
She would ask for a date and Carl would tell her that Simone would be there but then couldn't deliver. He felt like he was not only losing his client but that he was also losing the love of his life.
The tears came. He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at a phone that refused to ring and thinking about that night at The Clue.
She had been so happy before it all went down.
There I sat on the front row, watching her. Hazel brown hair, green eyes and a guitar hanging off her barely-there hips. The lights had been dim, but the spotlight was shining brightly upon her.
My heart was laid out upon the table for her and the whole world to see.
She stood in front of the microphone with her fingers snapping and lyrics mixing with her insides.
Every note she hit, captivated the audience.
Then she stopped and looked down in my direction. Her lips parted and she began to speak directly to me.
"Before I begin this song, I want to thank a man that has been more than a manager to me. In fact, I stand here tonight because of him. In the time that I have known him I have felt like his passion for music, I have seen his determination, his endurance and even his love for me. Right now I know he's wondering if I feel the same. So, to answer that question I am dedicating this song to the man I have loved from the moment he said hello.
"It happened two years ago, right here at The Clue.
"This song is called: All You Have to Say is, Yes.
"I hope that after hearing it, he will understand what I'm asking."
Everyone strained through the darkness that night to see whom she was referring to. But I knew she was speaking directly to my heart.
I was saying yes.
But then, everything changed. Just like that. Now, here I am still trying to hold on to something that I hope was more than a dream.
That was the night that she found out about Naya Monà—her real mother. That was the night she met her brother. That was the night; she said that she wanted to marry me.
Man, this is crazy.
Maybe Jake is right, maybe I just need to give her some space. Maybe I'm pushing her too hard, trying to make her talk about things she's just not ready to.
But, should our wedding be one of them?
Does she still love me? Does she still want to marry me?
Please let her say yes.
Please.
The phone rang. Carl watched it for a moment, afraid to answer it, afraid not to answer it.
"Hi."
Carl could feel the tension in her voice.
"Hi, how did it go with Jake?"
"In some ways, it was better than what I expected and worse in others."
Carl felt his stomach turn. I knew that was a bad idea.
"All in all, it was still a good idea."
Carl felt his stomach begin to settle some as he quietly let out a sigh of relief.
"He gave me a tape recorder to use. I tried it tonight."
"Did that help any?"
"It did. At least there is no one staring at you and writing down every word you say."
"So, what did you think about Jake?"
"He seems okay. How did you meet him again?"
"We've been friends for awhile. We met at a music concert that he was covering.
"Why? You don't sound like you like him much."
"I wouldn't say that."
Carl could hear the hesitation in her voice.
"He's really cool and he knows his music. I've learned a lot from him about the history of the music industry from both sides and he's been there whenever I needed advice. He's like a big brother to me."
Simone was silent.
Carl continued.
"In fact, I was thinking about asking him to be my best man."
He waited for a response, any response.
"Carl,"
He knew what was coming.
"About the wedding…."
"Please don't call it off Simone. Please don't tell me that you don't want to marry me."
"Why would you think that I didn't want to marry you?"
"Let's face it Simone, ever since that night at The Clue, when you met your brother, you and I haven't spoken much to each other. I just don't know what to think any more."
"I know I've been distant. It's been tough for me Carl, real tough."
"I know it has. I'm trying to be there for you. Trying to help you deal with the situation we're in but you keep pushing away from me."
"I don't mean to push away from you. It's just that, for so long it's only been my mother and me. Monà, that is. She has always been my best friend, my person to talk to. Now I feel like I don't have that anymore and I just can't find a way to handle it."
"But you do have a best friend Simone. I'm right here for you baby, right here. You've got to let me in. I love you Simone, I'm your man and your best friend."
"I love you too Carl."
"Then why don't you want to marry me?"
"Carl, I want to marry you. I asked you, remember. It's just that with everything that is going on in my life, it's hard for me to think about planning a wedding when I'm still trying to figure out who I really am."
"You're the woman that I fell in love with. That hasn't changed."
Carl's voice grew soft, almost to a whisper.
"Baby, I fell in love with you before I even saw your face. I heard your voice. Whoever your mother turns out to be, or your brother, doesn't change that. Your last name isn't going to be Creek. You and I become one.
"Just give me time, Carl. Give me some time to sort things through."
"I'm trying Simone."
"Try harder. Put yourself in my situation."
"That's just it Simone. The day you and I got engaged, it no longer became your situation. Baby, this here is our situation, ours to handle together."
Simone grew quiet again. She knew he was right.
"
You make it sound so easy."
"No, it's not how I make it sound. It's how it should be, you and me. Not you alone. Not Simone to handle the problems of the world upon her shoulders. Give me that. That's what I'm here for. I'll be your superman."
Simone began to laugh.
"It sounds so good to hear you laugh."
"It feels good to laugh."
"You see what I mean? I got this baby. I got you. All you have to do is say yes."
"Yes."
She laughed again.
"That's what I'm talking about baby. That's what we need, our wedding."
"Give me some time Carl. I promise, I will marry you but right now, I just need some time so we can sort everything through."
"Don't say we, just to appease me. You've got to mean that Simone. You've got to really feel that way."
"I feel that and I mean that."
"Okay then."
Simone sat up and braced the phone.
"Okay then…what?" She asked.
"We'll give it some time to sort through the madness so that we can get to the greatness."
"Thank you."
"I'm only agreeing because I love you, you know that don't you?"
"Yeah, I know that."
"Good."
Simone hung up the phone with a sigh of relief and a smile. She stretched out on her sofa again and stared at the ceiling.
What a man, she said to herself.
She thought about the first time they met. She remembered the moment when she realized that she was in love with him, and in her mind she saw the tears that had flowed down his face the night she asked him to marry her.
She looked down at her engagement ring, white gold with one and a half carets of beautifulness. Engraved on the inside was the word—yes.
Am I crazy to put off marrying a man like that? She could feel her head nodding, yes. She could feel her heart telling her that she was downright, losing her cotton-picking mind—crazy.
So why aren't you calling him back?
Just as Simone reached to pick up the phone, it rang.
"We must have been thinking the same…"
"Simone."
His voice scared her.
"What is it?"
"He passed away."
Chapter 6
"You meant that a man's love is filled with the love of a wife that loves him for him and not the high-priced walls that he can't pay for."
A Man’s Love
Misty sat in her car, watching the building across the street with a big thirty-six hundred marked on the outside of it.
She pulled down her visor, flipped open the mirror and grabbed her lipstick and eyeliner from out of her purse. Fussed with her hair for a moment and then checked herself in the mirror again. She slipped out of her black flats and reached in the back seat to grab a pair of flaming red stilettos with a silver heel, her favorite.
Her look needed to match her attitude.
Misty got one foot out of the car when she spotted an old brown station wagon pulling up in front of the building. She couldn't explain it, but she felt something strange come over her when she took notice of the woman behind the wheel.
Misty eased back into her car, quickly put her sunglasses on, and moved her car seat back just enough to still see.
She watched as the older woman appeared to be staring at Jake's apartment. Twenty minutes later and Misty saw that she was still sitting there.
Her grey hair lay softly on the mid-part of her back. Her skin was laced with the wrinkles of a hard-worked life and streaked with a touch of golden brown sunshine. Her eyes sparkled in a deep hazel color.
Misty watched as she finally eased out of her car. Her clothing was old but her walk was what captured Misty's attention. It was full of a gracefulness most women her age longed for.
Misty watched her move up each step. There was purpose, strength, and determination in her stride.
A slight whiff of sadness came over Misty as she thought about her own mother. She had left Misty and her father, when Misty was thirteen years old. Misty came home one day to find only remnants of her clothes hanging in the closet.
Her father, of course, deserved it. He was a low-down, cheating, money-hungry snake of a snake, if there was ever such a thing.
Misty on the other hand, always felt like she didn't.
Her mother never came back. Never wrote and Misty often wondered if she ever really cared about her at all.
When the door closed behind her, Misty moved her seat forward, flung her glasses over into the passenger seat and slipped out of her heels.
"Such a shame, I was so looking forward to showing a little attitude." She eased back into her black flats, started up the car and pulled out as if she owned the road.
She turned off her air conditioner, waited impatiently for the top to come down, cranked up the radio and drove as if the sun was only there for her.
Jonathan stood in the bathroom mirror staring at the cut on his cheek. He traced it with the tip of his finger. He ran his hands through the deep waves of his hazel brown hair and stared at the paleness of his white skin. Yes, the color of snow ran deep within him. That was never the problem, the color of his skin.
He tried to see her in him—Naya, his mother.
He could see her green eyes and her hazel brown hair, which hung down the length of her neck with swoops of waves and softness. They had the same jaw line, tight. Same nose, pointed. Same lips, thin. They even shared the same fire and stubbornness.
He placed his hand on the mirror, "I am her son."
He thought about Simone.
Her fire was not as strong, her stubbornness didn't resonate as his, but looking at her was like looking at a younger version of his mother.
He thought about that night, when he saw her up on that stage at The Clue. At first, he thought maybe the resemblance was a coincidence, but then she opened her mouth, and that was when he knew.
He wondered what her life had been like growing up. He wondered what it would have been like if they had grown up together. He wondered if that would have made him any different.
Would the pain still be the same?
Jonathan saw the door open.
She saw the tears.
Jonathan sat down on the edge of the tub. He couldn't look up at his own wife. Shame had made a home on his face and in his heart.
"It's not your fault."
Any other time Jonathan would have agreed with her, but today was not one of those times.
He watched her sit down next to him. He realized that he was tired, tired of hiding the truth.
"For five years I have wanted her to hurt as much as I hurt. Now, after seeing the pain that radiated in her eyes at the hospital yesterday, I just want to see her smile again.
Funny, isn't it? I really wish it were."
She didn't say anything.
"There is something I need to tell you, something about me, about my insides that you need to know.
"I'm not the man you think I am. Not sure if I have ever been.
"I stalked my own mother Felicia. I pretended that I was excited to meet her that day when the phone rang and you told me who it was on the phone. I pretended, even with you. She didn't find me Felicia. I had known where she was for over five years prior to her phone call.
"I had hired a private investigator.
"The moment he gave me the information on her, I put my plan into action. I was determined to make her give me everything that I never had growing up, every single moment that I felt should have been mine.
"Did you know that every morning I would leave this house and follow her husband around? It's true. I even went through their trash Felicia. One day, I found one of their checkbooks and started forging checks. It's all I could do to keep the lights on.
"Here is more truth. When I met you, I had blown every dime my great-grandparents, Kenneth and Sarah Creek, had left me. Since I never finished Grad school, I never got the rest of the inheritance they left.
I didn't care about it then. I felt like the only reason why they left me anything was so I wouldn't end up begging on the streets. How would that have looked, a Creek, begging for money?
"I hated them. They never loved me, especially her, Sarah Creek.
"Do you know what I hated the most? I hated that they named me after him, their no-good son. Why? They knew what he had done to his own daughter? That wasn't love Felicia. That was just dirt!
"I got dirt and money from them, instead of love.
"But things got worse for me. I tried to blackmail JK for a million dollars. You see, at that time, Naya thought he was dead. She didn't know that Chris and JK were scheming against her. She didn't know that Chris was paying all of the old man's bills so JK could provide him information, information that turned out to be about my sister, Simone.
"Chris had JK living in that fancy penthouse that belonged to Kenneth and Sarah. The same stinking penthouse I grew up in. I used to hide in the brushes when he and Chris would conspire together. So I thought I could use this information to my advantage. We were broke and the bills were piling up. When that fell through, I had decided to go directly to Chris and try the same thing.
"I didn't want to lose this home. I couldn't stand the fact that we would have to go back to that little apartment Kenneth and Sarah left me while my mother and JK lived their rotten lives in mansions, drove fancy cars, and acted as if they owned the world. At the time I couldn't see what was wrong with getting a small piece of the world she kept from me, stole from me.
"In my heart, I blamed her for everything.
"I was so bitter Felicia. So bitter that it took her ten years—she lived her life, married Chris and only then did she even start really looking for me. It burned me to the core to know that when she did find me, she waited ten more years to pick up the phone to call me. She was a multi-millionaire. You couldn't tell me that she couldn't have used her money to find me sooner. I found her and with very little money.
"How was I supposed to forgive her Felicia?
"I had great-grandparents who treated me like a resident in their home while she was out there winning Grammy awards for goodness sake!"
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