Coming Home

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

touré

Phones should be banned.

At least when I’m on deadline. The ringing, after a morning where I’ve struggled to focus, jars me from my hard-won concentration and the little I’ve been able to accomplish. I thought I’d silenced that thing, but apparently not.

“Could you answer that?” I yell to my assistant Camille.

The insistent ring of my cell phone from the kitchen is the latest in a long line of distractions I’ve tried to ignore.

I need to make more progress on this draft because my editor has been up my ass over this deadline.

She’s in that teeth-gritted smile phase, where she asks for things nicely and at least tries to hide her frustration, but she moved to full snarl with my first book, and it’s not an experience I want to repeat.

The problem is that every time I think I know what I’m supposed to be writing, the creative well goes as dry as the war-torn deserts where I earned my reputation as a journalist in the field.

Is this the famous sophomore slump? Or just me not figuring my shit out?

That one.

The ringing stops and I shove the call from my mind, flipping through my notes, scouring them for the details I need for the chapter I’m working on. Camille clears her throat, and I glance up to find her standing in the door of my home office, phone pressed to her chest.

“Yeah? What’s up?” I ask, running a hand down my face and leaning back until my chair creaks.

“Um . . .do you want to take this call?”

“Is that a real question? You’ve worked with me long enough to know the answer is always no.”

Camille grimaces and nods, her pink dreadlocks twisted into a topknot bobbing with the movement.

“She just . . . she says you’ll want to talk to her.”

“Unlikely. Take her number and feel free to lose it until I finish this book.”

I squint at the notes on my desk, trying to decode my own hieroglyphic handwriting. The scribbled phrase could be Arab Spring or . . .I give up. In my defense, these notes were hastily jotted onto a palm-sized notepad. Phone dead, bombs overhead, hidden in a cave with barely any light, I made do.

“I was gonna take a message,” Camile says, hesitation in her voice. “but she said before you get rid of me, tell Big Country he can make time for an old friend.”

My head snaps up and I narrow my eyes on her.

“Big Country, huh?” A pleased grin chases my scowl away.

Only one person has ever called me that. I hold out my hand, flicking my fingers for Camille to give me the phone. I look down at the screen to check the call is muted.

“I’m gonna go, but I left lunch on the counter from that Ethiopian place up the street.” Camille crosses her arms over her chest and scolds with a glance. “Actually eat it this time. If I come back tomorrow and it’s still there cold and unopened then I—”

“I’ll eat. Got it. Go.”

As soon as she turns to leave, I unmute the phone and lean back in my seat.

“Janelle Hopkins, what the hell you want?”

Her rich laughter hasn’t changed in twenty years and the sound of it tugs my mouth into a reluctant one-sided grin.

“So you do remember the little people.”

“Pfft. Little people, my ass. I heard you running Finley College now, Ms. Vice President of Student Affairs. Congrats on the promotion.”

“Thank you. I assumed you hadn’t given your alma mater a second thought since you left senior year and never looked back.”

“The alumni association would beg to differ. They hit me up on the regular for donations and I never say no.”

“Glad to hear that ‘cause I need a huge favor and I don’t want to hear nothing but yes coming outta that mouth.”

“My wallet is always open.”

“It’s not your money I need this time. Though we’ll always take the kind that folds.” She laughs again, and it transports me back to the Finley dining hall when I could barely afford the cardboard they tried to pass off as pizza. “I want you to come for homecoming.”

“And do what? Nah, I’m under deadline.”

“Homecoming’s not for another month. I would’ve asked you sooner, but the idea just occurred to me.”

“And what made it occur?”

“Well, the fact that your daughter is homecoming queen, for one.”

I sit up straight in my chair and scowl. “What did you say?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

When did Celine and I last speak? She called last week, and I know she didn’t have my full attention because I was in the middle of a tough chapter, but I would remember her saying she was homecoming queen.

Wouldn’t I?

“It must have slipped her mind.”

We both know that would be the last thing to slip the mind of a young woman voted homecoming queen, but Janelle is kind enough not to say it. Or maybe in the years since we’ve seen each other, her kindness has evolved into professional discretion. Either way, I appreciate her not calling bullshit.

“Yeah, well, she is homecoming queen and I assumed you’d be here for her?”

The question dangles in the air posed with innocence, but to my guilty ears, tinged with accusation.

How many times have I not been there for my daughter?

Not because I didn’t love her, but because I loved the story.

Loved the chase. Loved my job reporting “important” things to the rest of the world.

Maybe Celine even thinks I loved those things more.

Who could blame her for wondering?

“I’ll call her as soon as we’re done. Of course, I want to be there, but that doesn’t mean I want to do whatever you’re proposing.”

“I know it’s the last thing on your mind, but it’s Finley’s centennial.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize.”

“Yup. A hundred years, so you know we ‘bout to turn up. It’s such a great year for Celine to be queen.”

“Yeah, it is. That’s amazing.”

“Well, we, of course already have a ton of stuff planned, but when Celine was voted queen, it started my wheels turning.”

“Oh, I remember those wheels. They always got us in trouble.”

“Hey, the dean dropped those charges, so don’t throw that shit in my face.”

I can’t help but laugh and shake my head. “Nelle, if you don’t get to the point. What do you want?”

“I want you to do an interview homecoming weekend.”

I stiffen in my seat. Over the course of my career, I’ve lost count of the number of interviews I’ve conducted, but being on the other side of the mic and pen—somebody digging through my trash?

That I rarely do. My publisher insisted I do promo for my first book and I’m sure I’ll have to do some for this one, but answering questions about myself isn’t something I enjoy or do unless I absolutely have to.

“I’ll definitely show up for Celine, but not sure about the interview.” I glance at the calendar on my watch. “When is it?”

“Second week in October.”

And my daughter didn’t even mention it?

“Lemme talk to Celine and we’ll see.”

I feel pretty confident it’ll be a no on the interview, but Janelle and I got each other through three years of college before I left to spend my senior year abroad. We haven’t talked in a long time, but that counts for something. The least I can do is let her down gently.

“Please say yes, Touré. Can you imagine two of Finley’s most famous alums sitting down for an interview at our centennial homecoming? That would be fire.”

“Two alums? What do you mean?”

“You and Niomi. I thought it’d be cool if she’s the one interviewing you.”

Niomi.

The name lands on my chest and compresses the air in my lungs for a second.

She was part of our little clique in J School.

There were a few of us, and it was clear from the beginning that Niomi Spencer and I were the most driven.

It created an affinity between us that, by all rights, should have evolved into something else.

Maybe it would have had I not spent that last year in Paris.

Of course, I’ve heard her name over the years.

If my career took me far and wide, indulged my wanderlust, Niomi’s planted her firmly here in the States as America’s sweetheart on the most popular morning show, served up like brown sugar in everyone’s coffee to start their day.

We’ve even been in the same room a few times for state dinners, award shows, and the like, but we never offered each other more than a cursory greeting, each interaction cool, but with something boiling underneath.

At least boiling for me. You don’t survive wars and hostile interviews with dictators without learning to dissemble a bit.

Maybe what you see with Niomi is still what you get.

It’s natural for friends to drift apart after college.

With a career like mine—one that takes you all over the world and keeps you on the move—there are a lot of people I lost touch with.

I just always wished Niomi hadn’t been one of them.

It’s irrational, but Niomi felt like the one who got away.

Can someone “get away” when you’ve never had them?

I clear my throat, needing to keep my voice even so Janelle doesn’t detect any spike of interest now that there is the chance I’ll get to see Niomi.

“You, uh, talked to Niomi about this?”

“No, I thought I’d have more leverage if I already had your buy-in.”

“But you don’t have my buy-in.”

“Yet.” She rushes on before I can interrupt again. “Picture this. That Thursday or Friday of homecoming weekend, we set up a huge screen on the yard so everyone can see and we could simulcast it on the campus radio station.”

“Nelle, I—”

“Your daughter is Finley’s centennial homecoming queen. Don’t you think it would be special to her having you so involved in her big weekend?”

“You are mercilessly using my daughter to get me to do this. It’s manipulative and beneath you.”

“Yeah, but is it working?”

I laugh because even seeing through what she’s doing, there’s something guileless about Janelle. Always has been.

“Lemme talk to Celine and I’ll get back to you. Is this number you’re calling from good?”

“Yeah, you can reach me here. It’s my cell.”

“How’d you get my cell, by the way?”

“Like you said, I run things now.”