“Okay, I’ll be on the lookout.” The FaceTime chime sounds again and I nod to my office door. “Close it behind you, please?”
“You were great today.” The door inches shut on his smiling face. “You always are.”
“Charmer,” I yell and accept Janelle’s FaceTime request. “Nelle, girl. Long time, no hear. What you been up to?”
“Little bit o’ this. Little bit o’ that. Howyoubeen, sis?”
“You know. Making it best I can.”
“I see you doing big things. Number-one morning show and all that.”
“We out here trying.” I chuckle, carefully propping the phone against a teetering stack of books on the desk and leaning back in my chair. “How’s higher learning treating you?”
“Still good. I’m loving my new position.”
“Oh, yeah. I did read in the alum newsletter that one of our own was running things in student affairs now. Congrats.”
“Thank you.”
“Why’d I have to read about it? I thought you were my girl.”
Her low laugh reaches across the miles. “You know how it is. I got busy.”
“Hmmm. I’ll let it slide this once. At least you’re calling now.”
“I’m calling to ask a big favor.”
“Shoulda known,” I say, keeping my tone light and wiggling my feet out of the high heels I’ve been wearing all morning. “How can I serve my alma mater?”
“Well you know we got homecoming in a few weeks.”
“Of course. Centennial.”
“You coming?”
I grimace at the small square framing Janelle’s face onscreen and glance at the pristine surface of my desk, an orderly veneer hiding the chaos of my schedule.
“Not sure. There’s a lot going on here. Getting away may be hard. I can send a little something if you raising money.”
“Girl. When are wenotraising money?”
We laugh and I sit up, reaching for my coffee, long gone cold, but still essential after a four a.m. call time. Hair, makeup, and strong coffee—the three-strand twist that gets me ready for the cameras at the crack of dawn every morning.
“This time I needyou, not money, though don’t tell the president I said that,” Janelle laughs.
“What can I do?”
“I need you to do atinyinterview for me homecoming weekend.”
“An interview? Who?”
“Touré Wallace.”
I set the mug down, afraid I’ll drop it since my fingers just went numb.
“Touré? He doesn’t . . .well, one—he doesn’t do interviews,” I remind her. “And two—he doesn’t do homecoming. Or at least I’ve never known him to in the twenty years since graduation. Hell, he wasn’t even at Finley our senior year, so what makes you think he’ll show up?”
“His daughter makes me think it.”
