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“Yeah,” Shanda said, and I felt a lump growing in my throat. “Didn’t he just turn himself in for killing someone in Africa somewhere?”
“That’s right. Apparently, he was over there playing cowboys and Indians with a special, secret lady love no one can locate.” I turned up the volume and noticed that the cars around me were moving but I just sat there. “Word is, your boy was just released after being held by officials in Ghana for questioning related to the incident two weeks ago. Now, he hasn’t been cleared of any charges including the murder of a local drug kingpin, but according to the official release from the Ghanaian government and Mr. Damien Mitchell’s attorney, chile, Dame was being set up the entire time and one of the kingpin’s snitches who was arrested on charges not related to the case said, there’s no way Dame and that mysterious woman were supposed to make it out of there alive.”
“They were going to kill them?” Shanda asked. There were horns beeping all around me, and cars zipping from the back to the front of my car as they changed lanes angrily.
“Well, the release says Dame was wearing a fiftythousand-dollar watch and apparently, that’s what they were after.”
“See,” Shanda said, “that’s why these rappers need to know they can’t go blinging all over the place. You never know what can happen.”
“Hey, I’ve hung out with Dame a few times,” Frank jumped in. “And he’s a smart cat. I’ve never even seen him with jewelry like that. And let me make this clear to everyone listening out there that this is an isolated incident and there’s no reason to think folks are running around Africa just killing people for chains.”
“You think people will say that?” Sophie asked.
“I just want to make it clear,” Frank answered. “We have evil people everywhere.”
“Well, let’s just continue to pray for the whole Mitchell family,” Sophie said. “And hope he’s cleared of all of this mess. He’s at the height of his career.”
“Yeah,” Shanda added. “And I want this mystery woman to come forward and let us know who she is. Maybe she can add something to the case, so he can get off.”
“Oh, you’re just being nosy,” Frank said, laughing.
“No, for real,” Shanda said. “Who knows what she knows?”
“Well, I know what I know and that’s all that matters,” Sophie joked. “And if everybody wants to know what I know, y’ all are going to have to wait until after the weather to hear the rest of the report.”
Her voice faded out and a woman came on to read the weather. I slid my index finger over the button and clicked off the radio but the sounds of the waking city around me quickly filled the car again with noise—horns blaring from the road, voices yelling at each other, buses pulling off, the repeated beeps of a truck backing up. All of this noise. But none of it overrode the rattling coming from inside my heart.
Hearing the news the world was listening to about what happened to me and Dame in Africa, I was suddenly taken back emotionally to this place and pushed into remembering how I’d felt when I came out of it. I’d thought about what Pete said in Amsterdam about a man’s right to protect himself and those he loves at any
cost. How maybe I couldn’t understand, psychologically, what it must’ve been like for Dame to add up in his mind in those seconds at the dark bar what could happen if he hadn’t protected—if he’d lost his life, or worse, if on his watch, he’d lost mine. And while I didn’t support killing a man in any way, inside I knew who Dame was and what was on his heart. He wasn’t a murderer. I’d seen nothing but peace in his eyes until that night.
Hearing and imagining what Dame was going through, I wished I was with him. Just to comfort him the way he comforted me. I knew these had to have been dark and desperate hours in his life. And while he’d left me alone in that hotel, I knew he didn’t deserve to be alone now.
And as I was moving on with my life, I only imagined how proud he would be if he could see me now. See me making my own decisions. See me being free. These were goals we’d made together. And, for me, they were coming true. This made me happy and sad. I knew he’d be excited, but I also knew, and had to accept the fact that maybe we’d never see each other again.
After following Kweku’s assistant’s directions what seemed like a throng of forgotten buildings, I found the street number 875 taped to a piece of paper on the front door. I’d passed it several times and then when it seemed there was nowhere else the building could be, I got out of the car to find that I was in the right place. It was odd at first. I’d expected a big sign out front with the imprint’s name and maybe some fancy cars parked outside. But what I’d found was a tuckaway no one who wasn’t someone who’d been invited could locate or suspect.
This made me wonder if maybe I should get into my car and head back to Alabama. Maybe this was a mistake and Kweku was shady. I clutched my purse and frowned questionably when I pushed the door open. When I entered, my fears quickly dissolved. Unlike the unassuming exterior, the interior of the building was quite posh and orderly. Folks were walking around, platinum albums were up on the walls and the sound of phones ringing echoed from every corner.
“I know, it’s busy,” Kweku’s assistant Celeste, who’d given me the directions, said after another assistant led me back to Kweku’s office. Celeste was a pretty brown-skinned girl with long skinny legs that somehow stretched beyond the bottom of her desk and in clear view of everyone passing by. She had polite, happy eyes and an aura around her that let me know that she was more model than receptionist. “It’s been like this since we announced the imprint.”
“I just wasn’t expecting all of this,” I said, adjusting my purse on the arm of the seat I’d taken next to her desk. “I mean, from outside ... it just looks so different.”
“This is SonySouth ... not Sony New York City,” Celeste said with her brown eyes rolling. “If we put a sign out there, every artist from Magic City to Athens would be here in the morning. Most labels are low key here. It protects us from a lot of stress. I don’t even tell my cousins where I work. Please, the next thing you know, they’d be showing up after lunch.”
“I guess you can add me to the list now,” I said, laughing. “I kind of feel like I’m just showing up from out of nowhere.”
“Don’t say that,” Celeste said sweetly. “I’m sure you’re great. Kweku has a good ear.”
“That’s exactly what I mean—he liked me. But I don’t want to embarrass him in front of other people.”
“Embarrass him?”
“Yeah. If he’s putting himself out there by presenting me in front of some bigwigs, I don’t want to make him look bad.” I was confident in my singing ability, but I meant what I was saying. I’d never done any studio recording on my own and this was my first time meeting with a record label. I had no clue what they would be looking for or what was expected. Everything could go horribly wrong.
“Bigwigs?” Celeste looked at me cross. “Do you have any idea who Kweku is?”
“He’s an attorney,” I said slowly and returning her look. “Right?”
