The Takedown

by Nia Forrester

  Now, she seemed like something different. Not weak, but definitely shaken.

  Maybe he should have seen it coming, though. In less than a year after the death of the only mother-figure she had ever known, she was engaged, and then in another few months after that, she was wedding-planning, adjusting to being the partner of a public figure, and living a life where everything she needed, and wanted was suddenly and magically available to her.

  “Look, look …”

  Damon nudged him in the ribs, nodding in the direction of a table full of women. All three of them were in fashionable but business-appropriate attire, their hair smooth and perfectly-coiffed, their makeup impeccable, no doubt freshened up in office bathrooms before they came out for an after-work drink.

  One of the women, in a peach-hued pantsuit caught his gaze when he glanced over and smiled at him. She had dimples, and her auburn hair was striking against the color of her suit-jacket. Tilting her head to one side in a silent inquiry, she raised an eyebrow.

  “See how easy that was?” Damon asked. “You can get out there again, do your thing, and if you’re with the right woman, you’ll come back.”

  Jamal chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, a’ight.”

  “I’m serious, man. What would it hurt? If anything, if Makayla’s the one for you, you wouldn’t find nothin’ out here that would change that.”

  “Is that what happened with you, man?” Jamal asked. “Is that why your woman left you?”

  Damon’s face fell.

  “Yeah. Thought so.”

  “Gentlemen?”

  Damon and Jamal turned at the same time. One of the women from the table of three, though not the one in the peach suit, had made her way over to them through the crowd.

  “We have a table,” she said. “And couldn’t help but notice that as tall as you both are, you have to uncomfortable jammed up here by the bar. We thought you might want to come join us for a round.”

  Damon gave Jamal a look, both warning and begging him not to mess this up. Glancing at the time, Jamal saw that it wasn’t yet eight.

  Why not? Where else did he have to be?

  By the time he made it home, it was after eleven, and he was drunk.

  Tonight, his usual rule, of water as a chaser, had not applied. The bar was too crowded for their server to keep making trips just to bring water, so once the pitcher he left on the table was done, the only thing their table consumed were alcoholic beverages.

  The women did shots, but Jamal didn’t. Shots were for twenty-year-olds on spring break in Cancún. He decided to have the big boy drinks—cognac, gin and, later, a dark lager when he was trying to pace himself.

  Damon kept the conversation going, but there wasn’t meaningful conversation to be had in a noisy bar anyway. Every once in a while, the woman in the peach suit—whose name was Audrey—leaned in to say something to him. Each time she did it, she made sure her lips brushed his ear. The perfume she wore was flowery and almost overwhelming, and beneath that, she had another scent. She was one of those women who ‘layered’.

  Jamal remembered those women—the ones who, when he undressed them, it was like opening never-ending satchels of potpourri. The ones whose real scent you never got to experience because even if you took a bath or shower with them, they had oils and potions and lotions, often different ones, depending on the part of their body.

  Kayla used a single scent. Different ones for different times, but a single scent at a time. One day she smelled like vanilla, another, like coconut … He’d smiled thinking of her while Audrey tried to excite him with her mouth against his ear. Jamal might have lingered there much later, out of sheer inertia, had it not been for that last time she leaned in. That time she said, ‘If you asked me to leave with you, I would.’

  That was when he realized that he shouldn’t be there. Not because having a drink with three women in a group setting was a betrayal, but because this kind of thing was step one in a long series of steps to what could become a betrayal. He told Audrey he did have to leave, but that he had to do it alone.

  She looked disappointed, but slid him her card as he made his excuses and stood up from the table. Outside, Jamal shredded the card, and let its pieces flutter to the sidewalk before jumping into a cab.

  At home, he was alone, so he showered the scent of the bar out of his skin, and collapsed into bed. His head swimming, his thoughts almost incoherent. Even if he wanted to, he didn’t have the bandwidth to think too long, or too hard about where Kayla was.

  He knew exactly where she was.

  Jamal didn’t look at the time. It was very late, he knew that much. Late enough that when Kayla crept into their bedroom, it was like a thief, careful not to upset anything as she moved toward the en suite bathroom, or to wake him.

  Except he was already awake.

  He sighed, and she froze in place, then turned toward the bed. Jamal could see fine, because he had been staring into the dark for hours, and his eyes had long adjusted. But she was straining to make him out.

  “You’re awake.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m just getting in,” she said needlessly.

  He didn’t respond, and she sat on the edge of the bed. The smell of weed wafted toward him. Kayla didn’t smoke, so Jamal could only guess that she had been sitting around with Devin while he got high.

  “I’m sorry about before. About how I …”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I just needed to check on Devin, after the way he left,” she said. “And he’s surprisingly fine. I mean, he seems to …”

  “Devin’s fine?” he said, his voice rough. “That’s a relief. That Devin is fine.”

  “Jamal.”

  She moved closer and he sat up, leaning against the headboard. Interpreting that move—accurately—as him wanting to keep some distance between them, she stopped where she was.

  “How ‘bout us? You think we’re fine, Kayla?”

  “You should have told me,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “Probably. I should have told you right away when I heard about it. But you should have believed me today, when I told you there was no way I would have used that to get …”

  “I did believe you.”

  “No, you didn’t. All you saw was that you needed to protect him. From me. I was the threat. You understand how that …”

  “It was an impulse. I’ve always been that for him. But when I had a second to … to … I just needed to gather my th…”

  “Well, while you were with him, I’ve had all night to gather my thoughts,” Jamal said. His head was still swimming, and in the morning, he would regret all the drinking he had done. But still, he was clear on this one thing. “We don’t need to be planning to get married. Not right now.”

  “No.” She moved quickly then, so that she was right next to him “Baby, I was … Now, even Devin doesn’t think you were trying to …”

  “I don’t give a shit what Devin thinks right now. You hearin’ yourself right now? I’m talkin’ about you and me! You and me … and you want to talk about Devin? See, that’s the problem, and it always has been. You want to know why I didn’t tell you? Because of this shit, right here.”

  “Do you … are you saying you want to … You want me to move out, or …?” Her voice faltered.

  “No!” he said, not even trying to mask his impatience.

  He wasn’t as impatient with her as he was with himself, though. Just the sound of her voice breaking had him wanting to grab and hold on to her, to reassure her that everything would be okay, that they would be okay.

  But he didn’t know that to be true. Not right now.

  “This is your home. We ain’t in fuckin’ high school. Ain’t nobody movin’ anywhere. We just need to figure some things out before we start talking about weddings. And if we can’t work them out, then …”

  He left the rest unsaid.

  Flinging back the covers, he lowered his feet to the floor. Kayla moved
back a bit to make way for him.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To the den. I’ll be back when I’m ready to sleep.”

  “Jamal …”

  “Makayla. Just … I’ll be back.”

  He didn’t go back.

  Not that night, nor the next; nor the one after that.

  ~25~

  “Has anyone said anything?”

  Devin looked up. “Said anything like what?”

  “I don’t know, Devin. Anything.”

  He’d come to meet Makayla at a diner near her school for a late lunch, after her classes were done. While Makayla was shoving the leaves of a spinach salad back and forth, uninterested in her meal, Devin was eating enthusiastically after having ordered a Philly cheesesteak platter with fries and a side of French onion soup.

  He looked up. “No one’s canceled any gigs or anything. That’s the only thing I care about. And nah, nobody’s said anything. Only the usual shit-talking on the internet.”

  Makayla nodded. She had read some of the shit-talking. Most of it, unsurprisingly, was that site, BlackandFabulous.com, speculating about Devin’s sexuality, his future sale-ability as an artist, and his “interestingly close relationship with Jamal Turner’s fiancée.”

  Lately, that seemed to be the preferred angle—what was up with Jamal Turner’s girl and Devin Parks? Frankly, Makayla was surprised that someone hadn’t tried that angle long before now. But of course, it only became truly salacious once the guy in Atlanta had gone public.

  “The guy in Atlanta” Makayla now knew, was named Tyree Scott. He was twenty-three and said he was an “independent business owner” who sometimes did styling for local performers. BlackandFabulous.com commented that Tyree was unable to name any of those local performers, and no one had stepped forward to confirm he had ever worked with, or for them.

  “What’s Harper saying the word on the street is?”

  Devin paused mid-bite. Just for a nanosecond, but there was definitely a pause.

  “What you mean ‘the street’?”

  “In the business, Devin. Among music people.”

  “I don’t know. Haven’t spoken to her.”

  At that, Makayla narrowed her eyes. “Really? But I thought …”

  “What did you think?” Devin cut her off, his tone rough. “That it was ‘different’, that we were ‘serious’? What?”

  Leaning back in her chair, Makayla nodded. “Yeah, actually. I don’t know about serious, but I did think this was different. When I came over that day, you told me she wasn’t fazed by everything. That she even …”

  “Yeah, well since then we kind of cooled off, so … that’s what’s up.”

  “What does that mean? Who cooled off? Did you …”

  “I called her that night after you left. She said she ‘meant what she said, knew that everything was going to work out for me’ and then she ‘wished me well.’”

  The way Devin said the words made Makayla know he was quoting back to her almost the exact words that had been said.

  “Texted her a couple times after that, and she iced me out. So, whatever …”

  “Whatever?” Makayla repeated.

  “Yeah, whatever! What you want me to say?”

  She didn’t know what she wanted him to say. Something other than ‘whatever’ probably. Something that proved to her that he actually did care about Harper, even a little bit. Because it wasn’t healthy, it wasn’t … normal for him to care only about her.

  Except … she could tell from the tension at the corners of his mouth, and even the way he was decimating his fries, that he did care. Still, if she didn’t call him on it, or force his hand, he would let this go. He would tunnel in, and sooner or later, just let Harper go.

  Makayla hadn’t talked to him about Harper much. Once she knew they were hooking up, or whatever they called it, her feelings were mixed. She wanted to see Devin happy, and with someone in anything resembling a relationship. But she struggled a little, with a lingering, unjustified discomfort at the idea that there could be someone, besides her, that he found solace in.

  She never voiced that to him, but he knew it was there. And because things with Harper were so new, Makayla had no doubt that if Devin had to choose, he would choose her, and their “interestingly close” friendship. Maybe, when they were kids in middle school that would have been cool. But it wasn’t now. She was in a relationship—however shaky right—and he had to form his own, outside of her.

  “She cares about you, I think,” Makayla offered. “She was trying to change for you.”

  “Change?” Devin said. “People do that?”

  “Yeah, Dev. They do. Sometimes they do.”

  He shook his head and refocused on his meal.

  “Jackson’s picking me up in a few so I can go meet Claire. You need a ride anywhere?” she asked.

  “You’re really gettin’ into it now, huh?”

  “Getting into what?”

  “Having ‘staff’. Someone to drive you around, and that personal assistant person.”

  “I’m going to have to let her go, anyway, since we’re, you know, pushing back the wedding.”

  Devin looked up again, and his eyes were unreadable. “What’s he been talkin’ ‘bout?” he asked quietly.

  “Jamal?” Makayla shrugged and looked outside at the pedestrian traffic rather than meet his gaze. “He’s not talking at all. At least not to me.”

  “Not at all? I thought …”

  “No, I mean, he talks. Just to communicate the essentials, though.”

  “So, you’ve been iced out too, huh?”

  “No …” Makayla let the word drag. “He isn’t cold or anything. He’s just … not the same, I guess. He doesn’t trust me.”

  “He …” Devin shook his head. “Doesn’t trust you? He’s the one who …”

  “With his heart, Devin. He doesn’t trust me with his heart. So, he’s …” Her voice choked a little despite her effort to control it. “Not the real Jamal right now.”

  “I think Harper was right,” Devin said slowly, pushing away his now clean plate. “About that offer. I don’t think he was trying to hem me up.”

  “I know he wasn’t,” Makayla said. “But I just didn’t voice that, or … handle it well enough I guess.”

  “That would fuck with my head, too. If I was him.”

  “Wow. Thanks, Devin. But let’s not forget why that happened. I was coming to your defense, remember?”

  He nodded, and leaned back in his chair. Folding his arms, he surveyed her. Their eyes met across the table and his were warm, filled with more than two decades’ worth of love, shared memories, and shared pain.

  “I think …” He took a breath. “I been thinking that maybe it’s time for you to stop doin’ that.”

  Makayla felt the prickling behind her eyes, and blinked. Devin put his hand on the table, palm-side up, and she reached for it.

  “Past time,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Right?”

  It took a little while, but Makayla was finally able to make herself nod. And even then, just barely.

  “What’s the most intense friendship you ever had, Jackson?”

  “Intense?” he asked. “Friendship? Not like a relationship with a woman, but friendship?”

  “Yes.”

  They were driving away from the diner, Devin having declined the ride, saying that he preferred to take the subway because he wasn’t in the mood to ride around in a car that was “too nice.” Rolling her eyes, and then kissing him goodbye at the curb, Makayla had climbed into the front seat.

  She didn’t ride in the back any longer, because it felt pretentious. Especially since she and Jackson talked the whole time now, anyway.

  “Can’t say I ever had a friendship I would call ‘intense’. That sounds kinda … stalkerish.”

  Makayla laughed. “No, not stalker stuff. I mean like someone who’s always on your mind. Someone who, when you make decisions for yourself, yo
u always take them into account too.”

  “Like a mother and child,” Jackson said.

  “Kind of. But not.”

  “That sounds like it wouldn’t be a good thing. For either of them.”

  “Yeah,” Makayla said, looking out the window. “Maybe not. Maybe it once was good for them. And then, not.”

  “You’re sounding real philosophical today, Ms. Hughes.”

  Now he used ‘Ms. Hughes’ ironically. She smiled.

  “I’m feeling real philosophical today, Jackson.”

  “Well, cool, I guess.”

  “And can we make a stop before you take me back to the apartment?”

  “Sure thing. Where at?”

  “I need to go to Scaife.”

  Jackson turned to look at her, and Makayla knew that it was because if there was anyone who knew how little she liked going to SE, it was him.

  When they got there, Makayla tried not to critique her attire, or judge it the way she feared others would. The guards at the front nodded her through and she passed through the turnstile, heading for the bank of elevators. Other people waiting to head upstairs, some of them employees who recognized her, tried to make eye contact, but she avoided it and faced forward. When an elevator door opened, she waited until everyone else had taken it, and then took the very next one so she could ride on it alone.

  She didn’t go up to the twentieth. Instead, her stop was at her old stomping grounds—the development department. As luck would have it, once she got past the receptionist, the first person she saw was DeJuan Stokes, coming in the opposite direction down the hallway.

  It would be an overstatement to say that he had been her nemesis, but completely accurate to say that neither of them cared for the other too much. And that lack of caring was evident in his expression when he spotted her.

  But now, rather than the overt dislike that used to cross his features when she was just another grunt, he looked at her with something that was a mix between derision and respect. He looked at her as though she was someone who had pulled off a jewelry heist, with Jamal of course being the jewel.