Chapter 15
NOVA
I was halfway into my coat when my phone lit up on the table, Simone’s name pulling my attention before I had fully turned toward the door.
My cousin Yolanda’s in town. She’s coming by the Archive soft opening. You’ll like her.
I smiled as I read it, already reaching for my bag. I had heard enough about Yolanda over the years to know she was Brooklyn, not just from there, but shaped by it.
I slipped my phone into my coat pocket, but it buzzed again before I made it to the door.
Woke up with you on my mind… and I’m not mad about it.
Good morning, D, I typed back, my thumb hovering for a second before I added, Miss you, too. OMW
The Archive wasn’t open yet when I got there, but it would be within the hour.
Lights on, door unlocked, the room already halfway between set up and something people would soon walk into.
The shelves had filled out, with comics, vinyl, and merch finding their places, a few early arrivals moving through it quietly.
Deion was near the back with his landlord Gerald, angled toward him, listening with his full attention the way he always did, his presence anchoring more of the room than he would ever claim. He looked up when the door opened and found me without hesitation.
There was no pause in what he was doing, no break in the conversation he was already in, but something in his posture shifted all the same, a quiet recalibration that moved through me before I had taken three steps inside.
I set my bag near the turntables and moved into my space, letting my hands fall into their rhythm.
The records I had pulled the night before sat in a couple of canvas totes, each one chosen with care but without overthinking, the way my mom had always told me to trust the first instinct and then refine from there.
Miss Lorraine stood near the front, already settled like she had been waiting for this room to open for longer than any of us had been willing to say out loud.
Jerome was working the food table with the quiet authority of someone who understood that feeding people was part of the atmosphere.
A few of Deion’s students, including Terrell, stood near the main comic display.
He was pointing something out to a girl with a confidence that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago, his voice steady, his shoulders no longer pulled in on themselves.
I reached for the first record from the bag and set it on the turntable, running my fingers along the edge before placing the needle. Soon The Intruders filled the room sharing how “I’ll Always Love My Mama.”
The pressing was early, before the label had settled into what people would later recognize, and the sound of it carried that same sense of becoming, something forming in real time.
The room responded the way it was supposed to, with a collective settling, shoulders easing, conversations lowering into a register that made space for what was playing.
I didn’t look for him. I didn’t need to.
There was a way you learned to feel someone in a room when you had spent enough time near them, just existing in the same space long enough to understand the shape of their presence.
He was to my right, closer now. He didn’t hover, was just there in a way that felt intentional without being announced.
I slid into Barbara Mason’s “Yes, I’m Ready.
” A young woman saying something true before she had decided whether she was ready to carry it.
Three women near the center of the room turned toward each other at the same time, and when I registered the way they recognized the song, I knew I’d chosen well.
I let the record breathe before moving on, giving the room time to hold it with Blue Magic’s “Sideshow.” A man near the listening station closed his eyes, settling back into the chair like he had been waiting for that exact note to land.
Another told the guy beside him how every boy band from New Edition on owed Blue Magic for giving Brooke Payne a blueprint to work with.
I felt if Mama were here she’d get a kick out of the conversation.
By the time I moved into the second sequence, the room was with me.
“To Know You Is to Love You” by Syreeta Wright is a record that lived in the spaces people overlooked, which made it exactly right for this room. Patrice Rushen followed with “Remind Me,” the piano line unfolding like a conversation you didn’t want to interrupt.
I reached for the next record and felt him shift closer, not enough to draw attention, just enough that I was aware of the space between us in a different way than I had been before. When I glanced up, he was already watching, present in it with me, his attention steady and unguarded.
I teased him with Marlena Shaw. “Go Away Little Boy.” The room leaned in before I shifted it to “Woman of the Ghetto.” The same voice, stripped of restraint, carrying something heavier and more urgent.
The transition landed the way it was meant to, not as contrast but as expansion, the room catching it fully, people moving with it without needing to be told they were part of what was happening.
I let that sit, the weight of it, the way the room had settled into something deeper than background music, then shifted it forward without announcing it.
The line between what came before and what came after had never been clean.
It just kept talking if you knew how to listen.
Mary came in first through “Be Happy.” Familiar in a way that didn’t need explanation, the groove finding its place without effort.
A few heads nodded before the hook even found them.
I let it ride just long enough, then eased into Aaliyah.
“At Your Best (You Are Love).” The Isley Brothers reimagined through her, softer, lighter, but still carrying the same core underneath it.
A woman near the front closed her eyes, her shoulders dropping an inch like she’d been waiting for something she didn’t know she needed.
From there I moved into Musiq. “Halfcrazy.” Philly sitting right where it belonged, conversational, unforced, saying something complicated without raising its voice.
By then the room had shifted again, people leaning into the music instead of around it.
I reached for something that sat a little closer to me.
Jazmine’s “Need U Bad.” Not for the obvious of it, but for the control.
The way she held the line even when the feeling pushed against it.
Someone near the comics let out a quiet laugh, and I imagined they recognized themselves in it.
Then I carried it forward with H.E.R., “Focus.” Stripped down, direct, no extra space between the feeling and the way it was said.
It didn’t break the room. It fit into it, like it had been waiting its turn.
I let that one linger a little longer than the others.
When I looked up, Deion was still there, watching me the way he had been all morning, like he understood what I was doing without needing it explained. Like he had been following the thread from the beginning. And maybe he had.
Simone’s cousin had crossed to the listening station midway during my set, lifted the headphones, and sat down for what was probably about fifteen minutes.
She didn’t fidget. Didn’t check her phone. She listened, fully, the room moving around her while she stayed exactly where she was, letting the sound tell her what it needed to tell her. When she eventually stood, she came straight to me.
“You have your mother’s ear,” she said.
“You knew my mom?” I asked.
“I did,” she said. “We crossed paths more than a few times. She had a gift of reading rooms.” Her gaze stayed on mine, steady, certain. “Looks like you got that from her.”
I received it, for once not accepting the urge to deflect, without trying to soften it into something easier to carry.
“I learned from watching her,” I said. “Took me a while to trust it.”
Yolanda nodded once, like that tracked.
“How long you been working like this?” she asked.
“First time holding a room like this,” I said.
She smiled, just slightly. “That makes more sense.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a card, holding it between her fingers for a moment before passing it to me.
“I’m opening a vinyl cocktail space in Fort Greene,” she said.
“Built around the music, not dressed up around it. I’ve been looking for someone who understands what that actually requires to help me curate the space.
” The card rested in my hand. “Take a look. If it feels right, call me.”
“I will,” I said.
She held my gaze for a beat longer, then moved back into the room, leaving me with the weight of it sitting quietly in my pocket. When I looked up, Deion was already looking at me.
He didn’t interrupt the moment. Didn’t step into it before it was done. He waited until Yolanda had moved away, then came to stand beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him along my arm.
“That wasn’t casual,” he said, his voice low.
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t. She asked if I’d be interested in curating her cocktail lounge.”
He glanced to where Yolanda had disappeared into the crowd, then back at me.
“You’re going to call her,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I met his gaze. “Yeah.”
Something in his expression shifted, not tightening, not pulling away, just settling into a place that felt steady and considered at the same time.
“Good,” he said.
I held his gaze for a moment longer than I should have in a room full of people, aware of the way the space between us had changed and the fact that neither of us was pretending it hadn’t.
His hand brushed mine as he stepped back.
Then someone called his name, and he moved, easy and unhurried, back into the flow of the room.
I turned back to the turntable and set the next record, letting the music carry forward.
When I closed the opening out with Jill Scott, “A Long Walk,” the room received it with the kind of recognition that didn’t need explanation. Conversations softened, people leaned into each other, and the air held something that felt complete without feeling finished.
I let the record play out, my hands resting lightly on the table, taking in the room, the people and the way it all held together without force.
Across the room, Deion stood with Marcus, listening, laughing at something that landed between them, his body relaxed in a way I had not seen before, or maybe had seen and just hadn’t allowed myself to fully take in.
He looked up, caught my eye again, and this time the smile came slower, unguarded, moving across his face without interruption.
I felt it where it landed as the room held. And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t trying to decide what came next.