“I don’t get it. Quintin means nothing to you.”
“But Jaylen does. And Quintin is his business partner. I’m not going to mess this up for them.”
“Oh, brother.” Skye rolled her eyes. “What do I have to say to get you to understand that Jaylen ain’t thinking about Quintin?”
“Maybe you can’t say anything to her, Skye.”
I felt whiplash coming on with the way I snapped my head to the left and stared at Jaylen standing in the doorway. My eyes got big and I couldn’t move. I guess Skye felt the same way, because she was standing so still, she could’ve been a statue.
“What are you doing here?” I didn’t mean to whisper, but that’s the way my words came out–just barely, because it was hard for me to even breathe.
“I came to check on you,” he answered, his voice just as soft as mine. Jaylen nodded his hello at Skye, then moved toward my bed. My heart was beating so hard now that my chest ached as much as my head. “How’re you feeling?”
I nodded, because the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. It wasn’t just the shock from Jaylen being in my room that had me speechless. It was partly because of the way he looked. When Jaylen turned to shut the door that Skye had left open, I couldn’t help but see the way his black tailored pants hugged his butt. And if his shirt could speak, it would be bragging about the muscles in his chest and the way his arms were cut.
Finally, Skye backed away from the bed as if she wanted to make room for Jaylen. I wanted to snatch her back, but it was hard for me to move since I still wasn’t breathing.
“Your moms said you were really sick,” Jaylen said as he looked at me. His eyes were squinted as he gave me the once-over, like he was a doctor checking for symptoms. For a moment, I could tell that he really thought I was sick. I guess I did look pretty bad from a long night of sleeplessness.
“Not really sick,” I said, getting my voice back. “Just a little . . .”
I didn’t finish, but Jaylen nodded as if I had. As if he understood what I said and what I didn’t say. He said, “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday.”
I shrugged. “Not your fault.”
“Nah, it is. I should’ve taken care of Quintin before I got you involved, but it’s all cool now.”
It was my turn to squint. “What are you talking about?”
“Quintin and I talked and he’s fine with you being our first artist, so we can just keep moving forward with our plans.”
I shook my head. “You’re not just saying that, are you?” It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him . . . well, truth? I really didn’t believe him. I mean, with the way Quintin had talked, I couldn’t see him being fine with anything that had to do with me.
“Nah, I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”
“It’s not that I think you’re lying. It’ s just that . . .” I had to pause, because just thinking about what Quintin had said made all of these sad feelings rise up inside me. “Quintin didn’t sound like he would ever change his mind.”
“Well, he did. And even if he didn’t, Miles and I wanted you, so what Quintin said didn’t matter.”
Okay, that wasn’t exactly a resounding endorsement. It didn’t sound like Quintin was on board at all.
“But what Quintin said did matter,” I said. “Because he was only telling the truth.”
Jaylen frowned as if he didn’t understand what I was saying.
I said, “Have you ever noticed that I am fat?” There! I said it. I had to get that out.
Across the room, I heard my sister groan. I had actually forgotten that Skye was there, but I didn’t look at her. My eyes stayed on Jaylen, who shook his head at my words. “Let me tell you what I have noticed about you,” he began. “I noticed that you can sing.”
I could sing? That was the best he could come up with?
“And I noticed that you’re beautiful. Really beautiful, Simone.”
My mouth opened wide at that one, because I was shocked and I needed air. I’d had guys say some decent things about me before–that I had a pretty face, that I was nice, that I was special. But beautiful was not a word that many used to describe me.
“Aww.” That was Skye again, all up in my business.
“Look, Simone.” The way he said my name made me forget all about my sister. “I know you were hurt by what Quintin said yesterday, and I’m so sorry about that. If Quintin were here, he’d apologize too.”
Okay, up until that point, Jaylen had me. But Quintin apologizing ? That I had a hard time believing.
He said, “I could stand here and argue you down about all the big girls who’ve made it. But none of them and none of that matters to me, because I’m only thinking about you and your success. Simone, I know how big you’re gonna be.”
My eyes got really wide at his choice of words, but Jaylen was quick to clean it up.
“I mean . . . you know what I mean, right?”
He looked so sorry, all I could do was smile and nod.
Jaylen said, “Now maybe Quintin’s not your biggest fan . . . right now. But since my boy is all about the Benjamins, he’ll love you as much as I do very soon.”
“Oh!” Skye was all up in this as if she were watching her favorite soap opera. “So see, Simone? Everything s fine,” my sister sang.
It may have sounded fine to Skye, but I still wasn’t sold. At least, not until Jaylen held out his hand. I just stared at him for a moment before I took it. He pulled me up from the bed. “Simone, you are the best singer I’ve heard in a long time, and I know that God has great plans for you. The bottom line is that Miles and Quintin are behind you, but most of all, I want you.”
The way he looked at me and the way he sounded made it seem like Jaylen was no longer talking about my singing. But I wasn’t trying to figure it out, because I’d never heard words so sweet.
Then, Jaylen did something even sweeter. He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly. He held me as if I were his girlfriend or something. And he didn’t seem to even care that Skye was sitting right there. The truth was, I didn’t care either.
So I closed my eyes and hugged him back, until I heard my door squeak open. Dang! It seemed that my room had turned into Hartsfield Airport. I hadn’t had this many visitors all semester. I wasn’t sure if it was Chyanne or Devin. Probably the both of them.
But then the door fully opened and I jumped right out of Jaylen’s arms. If my heart was beating hard before, there was not a word for the way it was beating now.
My father stood at the door with the deepest frown on his face. And that was when I started shaking.
I had no idea how much time had passed–ten seconds, ten minutes. Actually, it felt like ten hours had gone by before anybody in the room even breathed. My father stepped completely inside the room with my mother trailing behind him.
“We thought you were sick.” My father’s strong voice boomed against the walls of my tiny dorm room. “Your mother and I wanted to check on you.” Then, he turned from me and glared at Jaylen, his eyes moving up, then down, as if he was trying to tell Jaylen just how much disdain he had for him. The way my father looked stopped my heart cold, but I didn’t breathe any easier when he turned away. Because now, he was staring at Skye with the same contemptuous scrutiny.
I stood there, just waiting, just knowing that I was next. But my father didn’t come back to me. Instead, he took giant steps that took him right up to Jaylen.
Please, Lord, I prayed inside. I stopped my prayer after those two words, because I wasn’t sure what I was asking God. But I figured that since He knew my heart, He’d figure it out.
My dad was all up in Jaylen’s face when he asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I . . . I . . . I . . .”
Oh, Lord. Jaylen was as scared as I was. I turned to Skye, and inside I yelled out to her. I’d read that sisters who were close were supposed to be able to read each other’s thoughts. I needed her to know that I needed her to do something, to jump in right in
and save me and Jaylen.
But Skye didn’t move. Not that she looked scared. She didn’t, as she sat with her arms folded and a deep frown on her face. But it didn’t look like she was about to get involved in this, either. If only Chyanne were here, she’d jump in the middle. She’d save everything.
It took him a couple of seconds, but finally, Jaylen got it together. “I . . . just came to check on Simone. Mrs. Davenport–he paused, and looked at my mother as if he expected her to come to his side–“told me Simone wasn’t feeling well, and I wanted to make sure that she was all right.”
“There’s no reason for you to be here,” my father said as if Jaylen was an intruder. “Taking care of my daughter is my job. You’re nothing more than a piano player.”
“Daddy!” I meant to scream out that word, but it only came out as a whisper.
I don’t think it would’ve mattered how loudly I spoke, because it didn’t seem like my father was trying to hear anything that anyone had to say. He was already on Skye.
“And I know why you’re here,” my father started.
Skye raised one eyebrow as if she wanted him to know that she wasn’t scared, and she was ready for any kind of fight.
My father said, “You just want to start trouble. Why don’t you stay away and leave your sister alone? She’s doing fine without you.”
I started praying again. This time my appeal to God was for Him to keep Skye’s mouth shut, because I knew if she said a word, it wasn’t going to be pretty. But before God could answer me, Skye proved that I was right.
“This is the first time that you set eyes on me in two years and this is what you have to say?’ she asked all boldly. Skye shook her head. “I’m not even going to let you come at me like that.”
My father’s eyes got wide. “I am your father, young lady!”
“And that’s my point. Because no father should talk to his daughter this way.” She made a sound that was something like a chuckle, even though I didn’t think she was laughing. “But what would I expect from you? Of course you would talk this way after the way you’ve treated me!”
There was nothing I could do now to save the situation except maybe sit down in the middle of the floor and cry. I couldn’t believe this was playing out right in front of Jaylen. I wanted to push him out of the room and ask him to pretend that he’d never been in the middle of this family drama.
But then, our mother stepped in, right between Skye and my father, as if she felt like she had to protect Skye. Or maybe with the way Skye was trembling with anger, my mother thought that the reverend was the one who needed protection.
She said, “Skye, your father has always wanted what was best for you.”
Skye said, “Daddy doesn’t want what’s best for me or Simone.” She spoke as if he weren’t standing right there. “He just wants what’s best for him. He just wants to portray himself as the perfect Reverend Davenport,” she said as if his name disgusted her, “with the perfect children who do exactly what he wants them to do.”
I could only think of one thing to stop all of this, and that was to pretend that it wasn’t happening. I could just act like my father hadn’t walked into my room and caught me in a lie. Just act like my mom and dad had just walked in. That’s exactly what I did. I took the few steps to my father, figuring that if I hugged him, I could make most of these bad feelings go away. “Thanks for coming, Daddy,” I said. But when I hugged him, he didn’t exactly hug me back. “I was sick earlier, but I’m glad you came by. Just like I’m glad that Skye came, and Jaylen too.”
It was like when I said his name that reminded my father that Jaylen was there.
“You need to leave,” he said in a not-so-nice tone. “And just stay away from her. I know you’ve probably been filling her head with silly dreams.”
I couldn’t believe my father was acting like this. But before I could defend Jaylen, he defended himself.
“They’re not silly dreams,” Jaylen said. “I have a record label. And I have a studio. My partners and I are signing Simone to a recording contract.”
“No!” my father said as if he were in charge of me. “She’s going to graduate and work for one of the biggest firms in the country. Do you know how much they’re willing to pay her?”
I stood there, astonished, trying to find the right words to stop this nightmare that was playing out in front of me.
But Jaylen took over. “Yeah, I know all of that, Reverend Davenport. Because Simone and I talked about everything so that we wouldn’t be making this decision lightly. But this is her dream, and–”
“Oh, please!” my father said, interrupting Jaylen. “Dreams don’t pay the bills.” He paused. “So, you talked about this, huh? Then how much are you willing to pay her? How much are you willing to give her to make sure that she can support herself? Because if she does this then . . .”
He stopped short of telling all of us that I was going to suffer the same fate as my sister; I was going to be thrown out of his life.
Now, what I wanted to do was sit in the middle of the floor and cry. But I stood there, like I was a big girl. Like I wasn’t at all affected by the things my father was saying.
Jaylen said, “Simone and I talked about the money, too. Of course, there won’t be any money at first . . .”
My father laughed, though we could all tell that he didn’t find anything funny. “Of course there won’t be any money,” he said, repeating Jaylen’s words. His face was once again so serious when he looked directly at me. “This is a pipedream,” he said.
“Even if it is, it’s her dream,” Skye piped in.
Oh, God! Could this get any worse?
His eyes became thin slits when he said to Skye, “Get out of here!” Before I could say anything, he demanded the same of Jaylen. “Both of you, get out of here.”
“No!” I couldn’t believe that shocking word came from me. And from the way everyone looked at me, especially my father, I knew no one else could believe it either. So since I started, I decided to finish. “Dad, you can t throw people out of my room.” Before he could say it, I did. “I know you pay all of the bills, but even though I love and respect you, you can’t just come in here . . .”
It was the way he looked at me that made me stop. All of the mad that was on his face went away, and all that was left was hurt. My father looked at me as if I were slipping away, and I wanted to hug him again. But I just stood where I was.
“I’m just trying to protect you, he said, a combination of love and pleading in his tone. “You don’t know what it’s like, Simone. It would be such a mistake.”
“But it would be my mistake,” I tried to explain. “You’ve got to let me make my own mistakes.”
He shook his head so hard, I thought he might hurt himself. “No.”
“Daddy, I’ve tried and tried to make this go away, but it won’t. Singing is just a part of me, and I really want to give this a try.”
“No,” he said again.
“I have to.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I have to,” I repeated, wanting him to really hear me.
“I said you can’t! Don’t you understand?”
I frowned. “Understand what?”
“Understand that it’s just a stupid dream. And that same stupid dream killed my father!”
It was so quiet, so still, until my mother took slow steps toward my father. Then, with her hand gently on his shoulder, she guided him across the room toward the only chair, where Skye was sitting. My sister, who seemed to be in the same trance I was, jumped up, making room for the man she’d just about cussed out a minute ago. But now, my sister’s eyes were wide like mine, full of questions. And like me, she stayed quiet and just stared.
When my father sat down, he bent forward and rested his elbows on his legs. “I can’t let you do this.” Even though he was speaking to the floor, I knew his words were meant for me. “It’s a curse that’s followed our family.”
Okay, I had a
feeling that my father’s words were supposed to scare me. And maybe they would have if I weren’t so confused. We had a rich history of pastors in our family, so how could we be cursed?
“I wanted to be a singer all my life, my father said so softly that I wanted to get closer to really hear him. But like everyone else in my dorm room, I stayed right in place.
He continued, “When I was a little boy, I was in awe of all those Motown greats–James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson.” He shook his head. “I wanted to be just like them.”
My dad had never told me that he wanted to sing, but I wasn’t surprised. From the time I was a little girl, I loved my father’s voice. He could sing for real; even when he talked, it sounded like a song.
“But my parents had different plans for me. I was supposed to follow my father into the ministry.” For the first time, he looked up, straight at Skye. “I was the firstborn,” he said, keeping his eyes on Skye. “And that was our family’s tradition. For generations, the firstborn Davenports became pastors.”
Whoa! In just a few words, my father had answered a lifetime of questions for me. That’s why he wanted Skye to become a minister, even though she never had one iota of interest.
Moving nothing but my eyes, I looked at Skye. I couldn’t see all of her face because of the way she was turned, but from what I could see, she was as affected by our father’s words as I was.
He said, “But even though I knew what my father wanted for me, I didn’t care. I wanted to do my own thing. I was grown and had to be my own person. I had to follow my own dreams.”
His words were exactly the ones that Skye had said to him a couple of years ago, and were the ones I was now trying to get him to understand.
Turning to me, he said, “My father told me not to do it,” he said, once again turning his glance down as if he couldn’t face us as he talked. “But I went out there anyway. Even when my mother called me every day to tell me that I was breaking my father’s heart, I didn’t care. I took the little bit of money I had, moved to Detroit, and waited to become the next great thing to be discovered by Motown.
“And then, one day I called home. I needed some money, and my father told me he wasn’t going to give me a thing. I should’ve just hung up,” he said, shaking his head. “But I was twenty-two years old, dead set on proving that I was a man.” He took a deep breath as he glanced up again and looked straight at Skye. “So I told my father exactly what I thought of him treating me, his own child, that way.”
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