1. Dindi （Jin Jee） Aria Paulson
OVER 27 YEARS LATER…
“Dindi, are you sure you want to do this?” Melody asked me for the one hundredth time.
Tomorrow was my last official day as a Los Angeles, California, resident, if everything worked out like I wanted it to. Melody was my first cousin, my auntie Kadence’s only daughter. She was two years younger than me and my manager/assistant. She’d been my best friend since she was born.
I waved her off before I aggressively told her to leave me the hell alone. My decision was my decision, and she would have to live with it. She got on my nerves.
Melody’s head bucked back. Now it was her turn to be aggressive. She put her pen down to use both of her hands. “Listen you deaf ass girl! Don’t you sign all hard at me. I can do the same damn thing. You wanna really word tussle, turn that cochlear on, bitch.”
We both stared at each other for a moment before we burst into laughter. She didn’t care what came out of her mouth, and I loved her for that. I loved that she didn’t tiptoe around my disability. From what my auntie told me, I was born deaf because my mother had COVID and influenza virus while she was pregnant with me. God, I miss my auntie.
My auntie died a little over three months ago from a series of strokes. It was the most devastating time of my life. She taught me everything and molded me to be the musical genius, as she called me, that I was today. My entire life was music. I could play multiple instruments, and I was an accomplished, award-winning music producer and songwriter.
I turned my cochlear on to deliver a very special message to Melody. “Fuck you!”
Again, we guffawed. I knew that she didn’t want me to leave, but I wanted to experience something different. I was tired of the city life. I told her that she was welcome to come whenever or if she ever wanted to. I loved my life here, but I wanted to be able to turn on my cochlear and not hear cars, people, and city sounds.
“You know I love you, Jee! Why South Carolina though? That’s all the way across the country and down south. You don’t know shit about being a country girl!” She was so damn dramatic.
My cousin was one of the only people who I physically would speak to verbally. Everyone else, I either didn’t speak at all or I signed. “Melody, first, you know why South Carolina. That is where my mama’s lake house is. You act like Lake Wylie is not forty minutes from Charlotte, a city! You know I’ve always said that I wanted to live at the lake house. Now is my time.”
“I know, I know! I just don’t want you to go. I’m going to miss you. Plus, all your clients are going to freak out when they realize that you’re no longer based in LA.”
She had a point, but they would be alright. “Once I get the studio finished, they can come there. Until then, only if needed, I’ll fly back here.”
Last month, I closed on a very nice building in the university area of Charlotte for a recording studio. I planned to use them myself as well as rent them out. I also had a team at my lake house building a personal recording studio. I’d been back and forth to my house to set things up so when it was time for me to move, all I had to do was ship my car and take myself. The music room at the lake house had been there since I was a little girl. All I had to do was redecorate and add a few instruments. I also updated the sound system inside of the house.
“Girl, they’re going to be more than ready to fly their asses out to you. Don’t tell them that you have a personal studio either. They’re going to be trying to get in your house then panties.” Melody cut her eyes at me.
I rolled mine. I was not a fan of fucking my clients, but it did happen once. That shouldn’t have mattered since we ended up being in a relationship for almost two years. We broke up when he told me that he didn’t want children with me because they would be deaf. Not that he feared they would be, but they would be. He had never asked me how it came to be that I was deaf to begin with.
“Trust me, I’m good on fucking my clients. Well, unless he’s like super fine with a big dick. I might let him hit.” I couldn’t contain my laughter at Melody’s scrunched up face.
She knew me better than that. I definitely wasn’t a virgin, but I wasn’t a ho either. I was an eccentrically, beautiful, deaf girl. Believe it or not, it was a whole kink. It was like this thing for a boy to hear a deaf girl make noise, as if we would sound like aliens. Well, I threw their asses all the way off by not making a peep no matter how good the dick was. Melody claimed that I just hadn’t had dick worth being vocal about, and perhaps she was correct.
Melody typed on her laptop before she said anything to me. “Please don’t have me come down to Charlotte to find out that you’re the new deaf ho in the city.” She chuckled. “But, no, I know this is what you need to do for you. I don’t like it; however, I’ll probably travel there more than I expect since I am your manager/assistant. That means all travel is on your tab, as long as it’s business, and it will always be business.
“I bet it will be. You know I’m going to have your room ready.”
We both loved the lake house. My auntie took us there every summer, and we lived our best lives. Since I was a teenager, I called it my silent slice of heaven. Why wouldn’t I not want to live there permanently? Since the studios that I was having built were a nice distance from my home, I also bought a townhouse in the university area for the nights that I didn’t want to drive to the lake. When I toured the model home, I fell in love with the furniture, so I negotiated adding it to the purchase of my townhome. Money talked because two weeks later, I closed on the townhouse.
“It better be at the lake and the townhouse. I gotta have somewhere to fuck the Charlotte dicks that I meet.”
I laughed hard because I knew she was serious. People often thought that Melody and I were sisters because of how much we favored each other. It made sense because people thought our mothers were twins, but they weren’t. They were Irish twins, being born only ten months apart. I would miss my cousin, but she had a life here. She was my manager and assistant at times, but she also had another client that she managed who was based here.
This was a new and fresh start for me. I needed it more than my cousin knew. The death of my auntie took a lot out of me. Kadence was the woman who raised me after my mama died.
I never knew my father. My auntie always told me that he was insignificant. I never wanted to dig, but I knew there was a lot to unpack with that. When I was eighteen years old, my auntie told me that there was a trust in my name that was released to me. She told me it was from my mother, but when I did my research, the deposits into the account came from Aaron Cooper, my father. I only knew him by name and nothing more. That was alright with me.
SOMETIME LATER…
“Girl, Bless and his people loved that beat and your hook!” Melody praised through the speaker on the video call that we were currently on. “I told you they would!”
She did just like she always did. “Cuz, you’re the reason they loved that hook so much. My song only comes to life once you put your voice on it.”
My cousin had the most beautiful voice with no desire for a professional singing career. When people heard her sing, they assumed she wanted to be an entertainer, but nope. When I made the choice that I wanted to become a true songwriter, I worried how people would hear my work. Singing was not my forte at all. Melody selflessly came to my rescue. When a song was bought from me, she received thirty percent of the initial buy and fifteen percent of the royalties going forward.
I would always make sure that my cousin was straight. She didn’t need my money because she was paid well as an entertainment manager. Her mother also left her a healthy inheritance. Melody was the product of invitro and donor sperm. Her mom always claimed that she was too busy with her career and us to be concerned with a man. She had her ‘male friends’ as she called them, but it was never anything more.
Melody put the back of her hand under her chin. “I do what I can for my big cuz.” We tittered for a moment before it was back to business. “Your studio Loud Silence isn’t even open yet, and the studios are already booked out for almost three months from the projected opening date. When the word got out that Harmony Kadence, one of the top beatmakers, was opening a studio in Charlotte, the industry went crazy. Half of the folks want to see the beautiful girl behind the beats.”
“You didn’t rent out my studio, did you?” I took a sigh of relief when she confirmed that she didn’t. I had a personal studio in Loud Silence that was only for me.
The building I purchased and renovated was amazing. I paid extra to my contractor to have it completed in under a year. He challenged himself and had it done in a little under nine months. The next two months were for the completion of the installation of all the sound equipment and necessities of the studios. There were thirteen recording studios total in the two-story building. Mine was connected to my office. There were different size options when a person chose one to rent.
My realtor was a genius because the building was within walking distance from multiple restaurants and was along the rail’s transportation. Melody wanted to have this big grand opening, but I declined. I didn’t like attention. In many ways, I was this musical genius myth. I worked under the pseudonym Harmony Kadence as a homage to my mother and auntie. When I told my auntie about my name, she cried.
For another twenty minutes, Melody and I went over my schedule, song and beat request, as well as how I was adjusting to my new country life as she called it. I absolutely loved it here. It was the smartest thing for me to move when I did. The weather was amazing. I got to sit out near the lake at night with the sounds of nature around me. It was like a permanent unplug. The only time I wore my implant at this point was when I was on a call or in the city limits of Charlotte.
“Well, let me go so I can get up into this attic. The cleaners moved most of the stuff out when they cleaned but told me there were some boxes that they didn’t want to toss in case I wanted something,” I told Melody.
Instead of turning one of the five bedrooms into my reading den, I figured the finished attic would be a great space for it. The attic of the house had a balcony that overlooked the lake. It was the most serene place.
“I know your books will be happy to be in their new home. Go handle your business. I’ll let you know if anything pops off or any updates that you need to know.” Melody blew me a kiss like she always did before we disconnected the call.
Let me get in this attic to see what’s in these boxes. I smiled at all the pictures that aligned the stairs that led to the attic. Once I was at the top landing of the stairs, I smiled at how well the cleaners did with the space. The wooden floors sparkled. The contractor was coming next week to build out the shelves. On the floor near one of the windows, there were two boxes. They could have brought these downstairs.
I sat in front of the boxes with my legs crossed. I opened the first box; I froze at the first picture on the top. It was a picture of my mom and a man hugging. They both looked so happy in the picture. Is this my father? I’d never seen a picture of him, nor had I ever really thought about it. Over the years, it was like I forgot it took a man and a woman to create me.
I picked the picture up, then flipped it over to see if there was an inscription. There wasn’t. Under that picture, there were more pictures and papers. A marriage license. I never knew that my mother and father were married. My father and I didn’t share the same last name. For almost an hour, I sifted through the papers and different photos of me and my parents.
Before I saw these photos, I had no interest in knowing my father. Now there was this itch to find out what happened to him. Why did he disappear from my life? I picked up one of the pictures that was only of him and took a picture of it with my phone. I put the image into my search engine to see if anything came up. A picture with three guys came up on an Instagram page: @CooperKing_Jay3.
I clicked on the picture to take me to the page. After a few minutes of scanning the page, I ascertained that this guy must have been my half-brother. Another picture had the other two guys tagged: @CooperKing_AJ1, @CooperKing_Cor2. On the Cor2 page, there was a picture of who I assumed was my father, hugging another woman. Although they were hugging, he didn’t look happy like he was in the pictures with my mama.
I was stuck like one of the best paid private investigators as I went through page after page, connecting dots. Eventually, I was led to the bluebook were all can be found. King of King Riders. They were all a part of the same motorcycle club… No, they ran the club, based on the page dedicated to it. My father was now married to a woman named Jennifer. They recently celebrated their twenty-sixth wedding anniversary. He didn’t have time to be in my life, but he had time to remarry shortly after his previous wife’s death.
My brothers were handsome, same as my father. I could tell that I took on most, if not all of my mother’s features. I loved my curly hair, pecan skin tone, and small stature. I was a preemie, according to my auntie.
I stared at a flyer that came up on one of the Instagram pages. Drag the Streets. It looked like some kind of drag racing event this weekend. I didn’t realize that street racing was legal, but that was none of my business. It had to be something if they advertised it on a public forum. I think my plans for the weekend were just set in place.
I put all the items that I pulled out back into the box so that I bring it downstairs to finish going through it. I got so caught up with my social media search that I didn’t finish going through the boxes. My time here was about to get a little more interesting.
DRAG THE STREET…
If I knew that there would be so many people out here at this event, I would have rethought my plan. On top of that, it was so loud! I turned my implant off to avoid a headache.
This whole scene was something out of a movie or book. There were numerous car and motorcycle clubs represented from what I could see. Men and women littered the sidewalks and curbs. The amount of food trucks was commendable. I should invest in a damn food truck or trailer. With the long lines, you would think that there were only a few options here when there weren’t.
From the sight of a lot of the women, I wasn’t sure if the stores had a booty shorts, fishnets, and bikini sale. My silly ass came out here in a pair of distressed jeans, a crop top, and a pair of combat boots. I made sure to wear my hair down, but one ear showed with an earbud in it. If people called out to me, I could use the earbud as my reason for ignoring them instead of the whole ‘I’m deaf’ thing.
All the clubs had banners near their section, I guess I would call it, that made it easy to identify who they were. I appreciated that because it meant I didn’t have to ask. I found where the King of King Riders were after about thirty minutes of being there. The steps I’m getting in tonight are going to be great.
My father and his wife were easy to spot in the craziness of his club. He stood leaning against a car with his wife standing directly in front of him. Her facial expression gave the I’m that bitch vibe. Her stance was very possessive; however, it didn’t seem like he could care any less about her. One thing that you got good at as a hearing-impaired person was people watching. You studied behavior, body movements, and facial expressions. My father and his wife’s vibes were not a match for each other.
There was a group of women in vests that stood not too far from where they stood. One of the girls turned her back to where I stood. Kings’ Kitties . Oh, that is tragic as fuck! Someone bring back shame as Maiya Briana, Mania Crew Member would say! I noticed some of the girls in the little group eyeing his ass seductively, and he seemed to feed into it. He gave them that I’ll fuck you later look.
Dindi, get this over with so you can go back to your quiet oasis. I pulled out the short note with my phone number on it. My plan was to walk up to him, pass him the note, then keep it pushing. If he reached out, then he did. If he didn’t, then my life would move without a skip of a beat. This current caesura was of my own making, but depending on how this played out, it wouldn’t last long.
As I walked toward the couple, eyes fell on me. I was sure my bright red hair drew a lot of attention to me, but I loved my hair color. I couldn’t hear the murmurs, but I saw the covered mouths, not sure why they needed to whisper. Before I turned my implant off, I wondered how everyone heard each other.
When I stepped in front of my father, his wife faced him with her arms around his neck. She had her lips on his neck, and he looked completely uninterested. After a few seconds, my presence caught his attention. I saw the intake of his breath and widening of his eyes. His reaction must have caught the attention of his wife, because she peeked over her shoulder to see what caught his attention. Her body quickly spun to face me. There was this expression of surprise before it turned into anger.
Before I could do anything, she came at me and pushed my shoulders back. I stumbled backward with shock. She was yelling, but I had no idea what she said. She kept pushing and pushing and pushing. I tried to keep my balance because she was much bigger than me. She put her all into the last push. I fell back off the curb into the street.
My body flew into the air. I felt myself scream before I landed on the ground. Chaos ensued around me. I was in too much pain and felt like I would pass out at any moment. What just happened?