“I know this one guy who makes mixtapes.”
“Ugh, dude.” I shook my head. “Why did I think I could count on you?”
“A king doesn’t just perform. A king improvises. When you hit an obstacle, you gotta roll over it. The obstacle is the way, Julie.”
“You literally had no plan for me beyond getting me to take out a huge payment on credit and then sending me to this party.”
“Nah, nah, nah,” he said, playing the turntables again. “You got me all wrong, Julie. This was just step one. Now that you’ve got your contacts, we’re gonna work on you, get you whipped into shape for your next event. Leveraging those contacts. You got some numbers, right?”
“Ugh, yeah, I, uh… I got that woman with the app, and, um… and that’s pretty much it.”
“What’chu not telling me right now?”
“It’s nothing, dude.” I scratched my head.
“You trying to hide something from me? We a team, Julie. We’re making you a king. Can’t do that if you ain’t working with me.”
“Look, I—it’s this girl.”
He lit up. “A hot model?”
“Ugh—yes but that’snot relevant.She’s… I mean, she might be straight. Listen!” I waved it off. “She’s the one who thinks I’m Cassandra Evans-Pierre. So I tried to stay out of her way, but I accidentally said some things that really piqued her interest, and she tracked me down, and we got to talking, and we… I mean, we had a nice time. We exchanged numbers. But it’s not relevant to anything because, I mean, like I said, she thinks I’m somebody else, and it’s too late to explain now.”
“You’re into her, huh?”
“I—” My face burned. “That’s not important!”
He whipped out a piece of paper from nowhere, marker in hand. “Let’s note this down.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, Kingmaker.”
“What’s her name?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“I’ve got the attendance list for that party. I’ll check one by one.”
“Ugh, fine—it’s Helena. Helena Warrick.”
He wrote it down,HELENA WARRICK – HOT MODEL.I scowled.
“Dude, she’s not just an arm warmer. Don’t reduce her tohot model.”
“Oh yeah?” He didn’t sound convinced. I scowled.
“She’sfunnyand clever and intelligent, and she’s charming and makes you feel listened to, and—for fuck’s safe, don’t write that down!”
But write it down he did,HELENA WARRICK – HOT MODEL: FUNNY, CLEVER, INTELLIGENT, CHARMING, MAKES YOU FEEL LISTENED TO.He’d started writing the part about me telling him not to write it down, and he crossed it out. “Sounds like she’s a good one. She like limos and champagne?”
“Dude, stop. She thinks I’m Cassandra. Like you said, I gotta stay away from everyone who does.” I shook my head. “Forgether. What’s important is that I’ve been going all in on telling people I do music, so I’ve gotta… get involved in music. I need to have something to show for it.”
“Like?”
“Stephen Shale,” I said, and he raised his eyebrows.
“That kid from yesterday?”
“I need to… have him… in my portfolio.”
