Chapter 29
29
The love of my life…I’m much too young to answer that question.
Aretha Franklin
In “Day Dreaming,” Aretha Franklin sings about the kind of guy you’d give your everything to—your trust, your heart. She says that with him, you’d share all your love until death do you part. I always wondered if I’d find the kind of guy Aretha daydreamed about. One who’d say, as the song goes, Hey, baby, let’s get away, let’s go somewhere far, Baby, can we?
He’d be my escape and I’d be his, and as long as we were together, it wouldn’t matter where we were going.
Growing up, on the nights when my parents stayed out late attending galas hosted by the local chapter of my dad’s Boulé fraternity, I’d walk down the hill of our View Park neighborhood to my grandparents’ house. Mimi would be in the kitchen, sneak sipping her dirty martinis. And Grandy, he’d be out on the back patio with a crumpled detective novel and his tobacco pipe. Then I’d invariably end up alone, in the front room with vinyl spinning on the record player—probably waving a hairbrush like a microphone in front of their grand mirror, singing for an audience of potted plants.
When I look back, that old soulful music probably sparked the fantasies that ripened me for a guy like Elliot Majors. For an only child who was content with being alone more often than not, music was my way of imagining the people and spaces I’d hope to one day belong to. So it made perfect sense that this “daydream guy” would be one who spoke my same language. But after the night I just spent with Miles, I might have discovered a new way of speaking.
I’m awake now, blissfully tangled in his sheets and arms, with the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest pressed against my back lulling me into a calm, quiet comfort I could stay in for hours. But today is Sunday, and he won’t play again until tomorrow. So I have plans to sneak out of bed and make him the only breakfast that’s in my culinary repertoire.
Gently, I lift his arm away from my stomach, and he’s so knocked out, he barely stirs. I slide to the edge of the bed, turn to look back at him and nearly lose my breath at the view of his beautifully naked cinnamon brown body laid across the white sheets like the most gorgeous stretch of rock-hard mountains peeking above a bed of fluffy white clouds.
Last night he told me if I got cold, I could help myself to any of his clothes. So, after taking a quick shower, I pad into his walk-in closet for a fresh pair of boxers and a crisp, clean white T-shirt. Then I zip downstairs to the kitchen in search of all the provisions I’ll need to make my specialty…jelly pies. Essentially, they are grilled cheese sandwiches made with strawberry jam in lieu of cheese.
Miles’s pantry puts the aisles of Erewhon to shame. With everything neatly jarred, canned, color coded, and labeled, it’s not long before I’ve successfully procured the butter, sourdough, and preserves for my jelly pies—along with the Nutella, eggs, and cured meats I want for my sides.
Once back in the kitchen, I sync my phone to his surround sound system and turn on my meticulously curated Sunday Kind of Love playlist. Then, in the warm glow of the morning light, I start to prepare Miles’s feast to the soul-stirring rasp of Otis Redding’s treatise on loving someone too long to stop now.
Miles joined me in the kitchen at around the time Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love” entered its second chorus. I’m almost positive he stood there, watching me dance while I toiled at the stove, for far longer than I was aware of. But it wasn’t until I set off his fire alarm by charring the salami that he made his presence known.
After dumping the crisped-up meat and disabling the alarm, we brought the edible remnants of my efforts out to the cabanas by his pool. I’ve just popped a cube of cantaloupe into my mouth and am chewing slowly, anxiously awaiting his reaction to my jelly pies.
He sinks his teeth into the buttery grilled toast, and his eyes flutter closed. When he hums and does a little shimmy, my stomach swoops, and you’d think I’d topped the charts. “You don’t hate it?” I ask, in search of his verbal affirmation.
Still chewing, he smiles with his eyes and gives my ankle an affectionate squeeze. “Mmm…it’s perfect,” he says. “Tastes like being a kid again.”
My heart gallops hearing this, and the swell of emotion catches me off guard. Growing up, I was never taught to cook or clean or do any of the “traditional” gendered domestic things. Still, when I got married, that never stopped my mom from nitpicking all the ways I’d fallen short as a wife. And as far as Elliot was concerned, there were “people for all of that,” so he never expected or even wanted it from me. As long as I looked the part on camera, kept the records and tours on schedule, and didn’t make too many demands of him, we were good in his eyes. The chances of me making him a breakfast this basic and him even pretending to enjoy it were laughable. But watching Miles take pleasure in the smallest things affects me in ways I didn’t expect. It’s possible that this relationship, whatever we are, is changing me—like sensing a shift in the tectonic plates of my inner world in real time.
“What’s churning in that head of yours?” His question draws me back to the moment.
And instead of telling him that what’s been happening between us these past two months has only magnified what I was missing for a decade, that each micro-instance of intimacy and affection—like him watching a Blu-ray of You’ve Got Mail simply because I mentioned it once in passing, or trusting me enough to tell me about his mom’s recovery, or devouring my silly jelly pies in minutes, or lending me the literal shirt off his back, or showing me what it feels like to make love, because after what we did last night in this very cabana, everything else could only ever be just sex—has only made me love him, helplessly. Instead of telling him all of that, I choose this moment to, as Jamie would call it, freak the fuck out .
I should be basking in this revelation—rolling around and rejoicing in the overwhelming joy of it. Instead, I feel myself clinging to the ledge, terrified of the fall. But I spare him all of this with my response, by reducing it down to its simplest form. “Just thinking about us,” I tell him. And even though it’s the truth, it is so watered down that it feels like a lie.
“Mmm, same over here,” Miles says. And he’s smiling a smile that tells me he’s blissfully unaware of the chaos churning in my head.
I swallow hard as my chest continues to thump violently. “Oh yeah? What about?” I ask. And my breathing kicks up as I try to mask my growing panic.
“I…w-was just thinking about a question I want to ask you…” Then he shakes his head, like he’s mustering the courage to say it. He looks at me with gentle eyes and an expression so open and hopeful, I want to preemptively say yes to whatever it is. “Come…to my game tomorrow?”
Chances are, whatever reaction he was looking for from me is not the one I just gave him. Because in a flash, all the vulnerability that was evident in his open, raw expression visibly crumbles.
“I’m s-sorry,” he rushes to say. “It’s too soon. I shouldn’t have done th-that.”
I’ve made him anxious, and it’s the last thing I wanted. “No, no. It’s okay,” I tell him, although nothing about this is. We’re a race car seconds from spinning out. “I just…I don’t know if we’re ready for that?” I try to mask how rattled I am by keeping my voice calm and steady.
And again, I’ve clearly said or done the wrong thing, because his look of confusion has now shifted to one of hurt. “Just s-so I understand you, what is it we’re not ready for?” he asks. And his voice has taken on a weightier tone.
Any of this. All of it, I want to say. I want to tell him that if it’s possible to want things you’re not sure you can or should have, that’s the spot I’m currently occupying. But it all sounds wrong and insufficient. “Miles, I’m not sure this is fair.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “You’re probably right.” When he speaks, his words are flat, lacking their usual full, rich texture, which strikes a discordant tone that rings harsh to my ears. “But I think that’s my answer either way.”
“Please, Miles, no,” I beg, without knowing what I’m even asking for. “We said we didn’t know what this was, right?”
At this, he moves to stand. “Right,” he says, gathering the plates and flatware. “And that’s how you feel now? After last night?”
“Damn it, Miles. I don’t have all the answers,” I practically shout as I scramble to get up from my seat and follow after him as he heads back into the house.
He stops and turns back to me. “Ella, I don’t need you to have all the answers,” he says, his eyes pleading. “I just need you to have one. What do you want?”
I take one long deep breath in, hoping, reaching for some level of divine clarity. Then a rush of memories floods in. One particular night, I was maybe eleven years old, my parents were off at my father’s Boulé chapter’s holiday party—I remember thinking as I watched them leave, How can two people fight so ugly but look so beautiful together? Those nights at my grandparents’ house, after Grandy went off to bed and Mimi had had her second or third martini, she often got loose-lipped about things. This time I asked her how they’d made it work, why she’d stayed. And I remember her linen apron, how it was covered in burnt-yellow peonies. The curving smoke from her Marlboro Light as it wafted out of the kitchen sink window, the aged mahogany of her elegant hand as it clasped her martini glass, and the sparkling diamond that adorned her left ring finger. She snuffed out the cigarette and set down her drink, then looked me square in the eye. “I was young and dumb,” she said.
Then she turned out the lights and went to bed.
The moment of clarity comes when I release a slow and steady exhale. “I don’t want to belong to anybody,” I tell Miles, and my voice breaks apart on the words.
Miles’s face softens, and he sets the breakfast tray down on the island. “And, baby, that’s okay. I’m good with that. After what you’ve been through, I understand it,” he says. “But what if I want to belong to you?”
His confession puts a crack in my shield. It amplifies the thoughts I’ve been trying to silence since realizing I’d ventured far beyond letting go and acting on my desires, to a place of uncharted territory—a point of no return. What if he’s different? What if we could be different together?
Female artists…you’re all the same, Elliot told me once, when I asked to bring in a new producer on my latest album. You just want to be different in all the same ways.
The dissonance is too much, and I need some space to breathe. I trust Miles. I love this man. I am in love with him. But I have been this way before. I have been completely overcome by a feeling—by a man. So, this time around, it’s me that I don’t know if I can trust. I want to be ready to lean into what I have right now with Miles, but to do that in front of the world? That would be like taking a trust fall right after just barely surviving a crash landing.
Stepping forward, I take his hands in mine. “This.” I gesture between the two of us. “It’s so good sometimes it’s scary. It scares me, Miles. I’m scared.” The words are barely above a whisper, and my voice ripples when I say them.
“I know, Dream Girl, I know,” he says, pulling me closer to him and wrapping me up in his arms.
Otis Redding is playing again now. This time it’s “These Arms of Mine.” And maybe it’s without thinking, but Miles begins to rock us back and forth to the melody.
Then, beneath the music, I hear him softly whisper the words “I am too.”
I’ve really fucked up this time. I could have shut up, gone to that game, worn a wig like Jamie suggested, cheered on my guy, sat there, and ate my food. Instead, I’ve plunged us into an existential crisis on the morning we should have been able to bask in the afterglow of the night things shifted for us. Irrevocably. But what if I want to belong to you? he’d asked. After what he’s been through—the betrayal, the hurt and shame. Sure, he’s had more time to heal. But his wounds from Monica are no less deep. His past no less painful. And still, he presented me with an open door to his heart while I stood frozen in place.
I guess post-traumatic stress really does a number on a person.
Miles and I left things unresolved. Like a scratch in a record, my alarm sounded in the middle of our slow, rocking embrace, and instantly, I remembered the recording session I’d booked in Studio City. If I hadn’t been trying to coordinate with this artist for the past six months, I would have considered pushing it—but flaking on studio time is one of the industry’s highest forms of disrespect.
I didn’t lie to Miles, but I did withhold a truth in a moment when I think he needed it most. And I’m not sure, but that seems like the bigger transgression. I could have and probably should have told him that I’m in love with him right there in his kitchen. Instead, as I was leaving and he asked me what I needed from him, I took the safer route and simply told him I wasn’t going anywhere, that there was nothing to worry about—that I’d see him before and after his game tomorrow, but that for today, I just needed some space to clear my head.
I park in front of the studio, when a call comes in over the Bluetooth speaker. Checking the display, I see it’s Janet. “Please tell me this is a good news call?” I ask as I answer, probably sounding like I haven’t slept in days.
“Well, I am billing you on a Sunday. If it was bad news, I’d at least wait until tomorrow,” she says with her custom brisk delivery.
“Praises up for small blessings,” I muse in jest. “So what have you got for me?”
“Mamie Houston is stepping in as chairperson and CEO of Onyx Records,” Janet explains. “And she’s requesting a meeting with you tomorrow.”
“Uh. Wow. Okay. I…I hardly have words,” I stammer. “Mamie is a legend. She’s an artist, and a producer. She’s an advocate for marginalized creators. She’s…well, she’s Black. My goodness. How did this happen?”
“That’s not the kind of question I’m paid to know the answer to, Ella,” Janet says flatly.
Touché. “Okay. Well…how about this one,” I try again. “What should I expect from her on Monday?”
“Now that I can work with,” she says. “I sent over some preliminary terms based on what you and I discussed regarding what you’d require in order to stay on with the label. The fact she’s proactively asking for a meeting with you, I’d say, is a sign that she’s willing to play ball.”
“Janet, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I say. “Actually, maybe I do. I’d be sliding down a wall staring blankly ahead into the unknown abyss of my future.”
“This is what I do,” she replies. “Work to keep the inevitable wall sliding and nihilism to a minimum for my clients when they are at their lowest point. Sometimes I get lucky, and the arc of the moral universe does its job…it bends toward justice,” she says. “Now, if you don’t have additional questions, I’ve got to roll some calls.”
And with that, she’s off my line.
I’m still twenty minutes early for the studio session, which is more than enough time to sit and dwell on the current status of my professional and personal lives, which both appear to be suspended in a state of flux. Mamie Houston taking over the reins at Onyx could be the catalyst for the career shift I’ve always wanted—one that surrounds me with a team that believes in the ways I’d like to evolve as an artist and not just the tried-and-tested image that Elliot Majors crafted for me when I was nineteen. The possibility that this could be within my grasp is a heady feeling.
So, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror, I nearly jump upon discovering that I’m smiling, probably for the first time today. But that smile doesn’t quite reach my eyes. And that likely has to do with a certain someone on the other side of town whose future I can’t quite picture my place in just yet.