Something She Can Feel (34 page)

Read Something She Can Feel Online

Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: Something She Can Feel
8.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
 
 
The phone call to my mother might have been better if I'd made it the morning Dame tried to put it in my mind, but I wasn't ready to face her yet. So I waited three more days before I even looked at the phone and then two more before I picked it up. I wasn't sure what I was afraid of, but I knew what I was avoiding. By now, there was no way she didn't know where I was and who I was with. The camera crews on the ground in Atlanta had arrived in Accra and Dame could hardly leave the hotel without a reporter or photographer spying his every move. Apparently, there was more to the trip than he'd let on. Dame's label troubles were growing and gossip was spreading that he was in Africa to escape some of his contractual duties. Between journalists trying to get a few quotes about this and Dame's Ghanaian fans, who greeted him in the street like the crying European fans at the Michael Jackson concerts in the eighties, I was sure someone had taken my picture and sent it over the airwaves. The only good thing was that no one seemed to know my name. I was still “the mystery woman.” But not to the Southern woman who'd just picked up the phone.
“Mama,” I said after she answered. “It's me.”
“Journey Lynn?” I heard her toss about a bit and then I realized it was very early in the morning there and that she was probably in bed next to my father. “What are you doing there? In Africa? With that boy!”
“Okay! Nice to hear your voice, too,” I said.
“It's all over the newspaper,” she whispered, ignoring me, and I could tell she was sneaking out of bed. “Everyone down here knows it's you. They're all talking about it. Everyone.”
“I know, Mama. I'm just—”
“They're saying you're having an affair with that boy. Is that true?” she asked.
“Well, we're—”
“Poor Evan. The man is sick. Just walking around here like a ghost. It's embarrassing really.”
“Evan knows,” I said. “I told him.”
“You told him what? That you're a grown woman who's running around behaving like she's a child?”
“I'm not a child,” I said.
“Precisely. You're a married woman. A woman of God. I didn't raise you to be running around God knows where with some boy—”
“You didn't raise me to do a lot of things,” I said, looking out onto the street from the hotel room window.
“Don't you sass me, girl. Even with everything that happened over here, I'm still your mother.”
“Mama, I didn't mean to upset you. I just ... I really like him.” What should've felt like lead in my throat instead came out like song lyrics. It was the most sincere thing I'd said to my mother in years.
“He's a child. And you're a damn fool if you think he'll be more of a man for you than Evan. Mark my words. I've been on this earth long enough to know the start of something bad. He'll only bring you down. What do you even know about him?”
“Oh, Mama, why can't you just be happy for me?” I pleaded.
“The way you run off out of here like a scared child? Abandoned your family when we needed you most? How could I be happy about that?” She started to cry. “It's like I have no control over you anymore. No say.”
“That's just it, Mama,” I said. “I felt like I had no control over me anymore. No say. I'm just trying to get that back.”
“And you had to go over to another continent to do it?” she asked, and there was silence.
“Yes,” I said finally. “I guess I did.”
“Well, when are you coming home? Your father is sick of everyone talking about this thing,” she said, and I could hear the real worry in her voice, but I hadn't decided if I was supposed to care about his feelings again. He was part of the reason I'd left in the first place. “He's afraid someone's gonna go telling the press who you are and then folks are gonna start coming down to the church.”
“Mama, no one's coming to Tuscaloosa. Believe me,” I said. “Look, I'll come home soon. I just need to do what I'm doing here ... whatever it is. And then I'll come home. I promise.” I expected my mother to argue, but she didn't. I guessed she just heard the finality in my voice and accepted my position. It was the strongest I'd ever felt in her presence. “I love you, Mama,” I said. “And I'm sorry about everything that happened.”
“I love you, too,” she said, resigned. “And I'm sorry ... about what happened.”
 
 
The studio Dame was always working at was more like a glamorized hut with shoddy music equipment. I hadn't seen nearly as many studios as Dame, but even I could see this when I arrived there after the long phone call with my mother. The place was mediocre at best, and it made me wonder why Dame would really travel so far from the comfort and familiarity of the choice of studios he had in the States for this. It didn't make sense. Maybe the gossip was true. The room, which was just a few feet larger than a standard-sized bedroom back home, was at the back of a single-story building that looked like it used to be a community center.
When I walked in, I saw dozens of women, dressed in skintight spandex and outdated club gear, all beautiful and clearly awaiting one of the men in the studio. I recognized some of their faces from the hotel lobby and while I tried to smile, few returned my glance long enough for any communication, leading me to understand that the man they were waiting for was Dame. They clicked their tongues and I was sure what they were sharing wasn't far from the disdain the women in Atlanta expressed in my presence. These were different faces with the same goal. This made me feel both powerful and jealous at the same time. I was powerful because, as Naima said at the hotel, I had Dame's eyes, but jealous because as I looked at these women, I wondered just how long I could keep his eyes. I was almost fifteen years older than many of these girls and I knew I wasn't willing to do half of the things they probably had promised Dame in whispers in his ears. Looking at their perfect brown skin and flawless bodies, I knew some probably had gotten past the promise and provided.
“You came?” Benji said, walking out of the back room. His skin had tanned, too, and he was now sporting a little face towel over his bald head to block out the sun. He came over and hugged me as the other women looked on disappointed.
“Yes,” I said. “I was getting bored at the hotel.”
“Well, let me take you back there. Dame will be happy to see you,” he said, and I heard one of the women groan in disgust.
In the studio, Dame presented a picture of what people expected a real artist to look like when he was working. While his body was in the room and he was communicating with the people around him, his mind was gone. It was off somewhere creating a masterpiece that was being ushered to sonic reality. He was focused and intentional and in his eyes, I saw love for music that changed, once again, what I'd thought of him. What listeners heard on the radio—the rhymes set to beats—was only a piece of what Dame was in the studio to develop.
“Whoa?” Dame hollered into the microphone when he finally looked up to see me sitting on the other side of a piece of glass that separated him from the man working the soundboard. “What are you doing here?” A smile washed over his face and he pulled off his headset.
“I see the fans are in full effect,” I said, nodding toward the women pressed up against the window once he came over to me.
He kissed me on the cheek and smiled. “Don't be all jealous. That's just the industry,” he said. “I told you that.”
“Yeah, you did. I just didn't think they'd be here, too.”
“They're everywhere.”
A woman with breasts double the size of mine and a waist that could fit into a bracelet waved at Dame, and he smiled back.
I couldn't hide my annoyance. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my not-so-ample breasts.
“See, that's why I was a little nervous about you coming.”
“Coming where?” I asked. “To Ghana? You asked me to come.”
“Yeah, but I just kept thinking maybe this would be too much of a peek into my world. I don't want you to get the wrong impression.”
The woman slid her finger into her mouth seductively and started sucking it like a baby with a lollipop. Even Benji stopped to stare; his mouth was hanging open like Dame's.
“Oh, I have the impression,” I said.
“Let's get out of here,” Dame said, turning back to me. “Maybe we need to leave Accra.”
Over lunch, after we left the studio, Dame admitted that the gossip was correct. He was planning to leave his record label. Apparently, he hadn't been happy there for a long while, felt they were controlling his sound and not allowing him to grow into an individual artist who couldn't be compared to others on a list. So he wanted to start something from scratch with a new label. He explained that one of his friends who'd worked with world music with an international label was transferring to lead a new imprint. Dame was switching over there as soon as his contract was up. They were trying to create a new, international sound.
“World music?” I asked, hearing drums and other primitive beats in my head.
“It's not as crazy as it sounds. It'll reinvent the sound and add a more developed edge to the music. Like what jazz did for the blues and hip-hop did for jazz. It's the next level,” Dame said passionately.
“You sound like a chef.”
“I am a chef,” he said, sitting back in his seat and looking out into the road with me at trucks passing by. “They're trying to turn me from a man into a slave. But I'm not having it. I want to do all of the production and the business,” he protested. “Like James Brown, I'm going to own my shit when I leave here.”
“All of the contracts and endorsement deals you have, you already own your work,” I said.
“Yeah, but they still have a say when it comes to my art. I want all mouths to close when I'm doing what I do. I do the wax and I do the deals. After this imprint, I'm opening my own distribution and everything. That's where the real power is. I can do it on my own.”
“That's a big undertaking.”
“I have big shoulders.... My granddaddy gave them to me.” With his eyes, he followed a blue truck passing by. “That's what happens when you work on a plantation all your life. You get big shoulders ... pass them down. Anyway, enough about me. So how was the phone call with your mother? How did it go?”
“It went.” I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing to tell him that wouldn't complicate the situation.
“She hates that you're here. She hates me. She wants you to come home.”
“That about sums it up,” I said, laughing with Dame. “I don't know. I just wish she could understand.”
“Understand what?”
“What I feel.” I looked at him “When I'm with you. When we're together.”
“And what's that?”
“Like I'm free and this is all I need. Just you ... and my freedom.”
“You need more than that,” he said. “You need something for yourself.”
I looked down and then back out at the street. A mother was crossing with a baby tied to her back.
“I don't know what that is yet,” I said, watching the baby sleep peacefully.
“You've got to find out. Everybody has to have their thing.”
Chapter Twenty-six
T
he streets of the Gold Coast weren't paved with gold. Just lots of golden earth, for as long as the eye could see. If I squinted, just when the sun hit it as I rode along during the highest part of the afternoon, the earth looked like gold and sometimes glints of what could actually be small pieces of gold, so tiny the eye could only see them from far away, sparkled like stars.
Dame and I rode along one of these golden roads in a car he'd gotten from Brother Kofi. After days of visiting him in the studio and running out of things to do with myself and ways to impress the crowd of ladies waiting to catch Dame's eye, I insisted we take a break from everything and go on a vacation from his working vacation. I wanted Dame and Ghana to myself. To get farther away from the world.
“Kumasi isn't too far,” Dame said when we set out. “Just make sure you don't have to go to the bathroom. There won't be one for miles.”
I watched golden roads and sparkles the entire way to Kumasi, wondering what was ahead for Dame and me there and happy that we'd finally be alone. No driver. No Benji. No Emily with her BlackBerry. Just us.
 
 
“Now, this is a beach,” I said when we'd unpacked our things and slipped out of the front door of our hotel room. The water was so blue it mixed in with the sky, and the sand, as white as flour, was without a footprint or reminder of the world beyond our eyes.
“It's just for us,” Dame said.
“A private beach?” I asked.
“You wanted privacy,” he came up behind me in the doorway. “You got privacy. You wanted me to yourself... . You've got me to yourself.” He kissed me softly on the neck and shockwaves went quivering through me, but I still felt I had to resist.
“Yes,” I said, stepping forward and away from him.
“How long are you going to play this game?” he asked.
“Game?” I turned to him.
“What are you trying to avoid?”
“I ...”
“I can wait,” he said. “But I'm a grown man. And you're definitely a grown woman.” He looked at my hips, which were poking through the flat shape of the African sundress I was wearing.
Dame stepped closer again and started kissing my neck. I could feel his body grow and harden. He pulled me into the room and we slid behind the door as he continued to caress me.
“Housekeeping,” a small, soft voice called from the other side of the door. Dame and I jumped as if it was old Roscoe opening the door to the janitor's closet at the school. “Anyone here?” She knocked.
“Yes, we're here,” Dame said, smiling at me and walking out from behind the door. I eased out slowly, too.
“Oh,” the woman said, putting her hand over her eyes when she saw Dame and me. “The door was open, so I thought I'd—”
“No need to apologize,” I said. “We were just making sure the lock worked.”
“Sure,” she said, placating my assurance, but also making it clear she believed not one word I was saying. “I'm Farrah. I'll be keeping your room for you. If you need anything, just ask. For it is my pleasure.”
“Thank you,” Dame said, giving her a dash from his pocket. “In fact, you could be of help to us right now. We're going out dancing tonight and my ... lady”—I watched as she looked at my hand and saw my wedding band and then back at Dame's bare hand—“needs a nice dress. Know where we can get one?”
“Certainly, sir,” she said. “I know the perfect place.”
 
Downtown Kumasi was a little quieter than Accra. There were shops and lots of people, but it had the slow, peaceful tone of any beach town in the States. There were lots of tour buses, and Dame, who visited the city whenever he was in Ghana, explained that mostly Europeans came there to see the slave dungeons and buy kente cloth from the original knitters. Just then, as we rode along through the sandy Kumasi streets, I realized that I might have seen ten or so white people the whole time I'd been in Accra. In two weeks, I'd conducted business, had moving interactions, and even disagreements with only black people. It seemed like a small point, but to many people, even my own people, that would've sounded impossible.
After walking through dozens of craft tents in what seemed to be a spontaneous flea market, Dame and I managed to find the shop Farrah told us about. It was owned by her daughter, Akosua, a woman as short and adorable as Farrah. Hung up on wires and along the length of a table were Akosua's dresses. A mix between the African dresses I'd been wearing and some I'd seen back home, they were sexy and revealing, yet also unique and ethnic. Akosua, Farrah told us, was twenty-two and wanted to go to Paris to study fashion; she'd already been accepted, but couldn't afford the expensive airfare and a year's boarding. She was designing her own clothes now to sell them, so she could save enough money to go.
“You have a beautiful body,” Akosua said, touching my hips. “It is a blessing to be shaped like this. That's what I try to show in my clothes.”
“That's what I try to tell her,” Dame said, repositioning a ball cap on his head. He'd been wearing it everywhere we went, hoping no one would notice him.
“Thank you,” I said. “Both of you.” I looked over the table and saw a few special patterns I recognized from the shops in Accra. One of the tailors there told me each pattern was once used to represent a different tribe. As I looked the dresses over, trying to imagine which ones were different from the ones I already had and would look nice on my body for the special evening Dame announced, a red dress hanging on the last wire caught my eye. It was a simple red wrap dress with an open chest and African-styled skirt. It was gorgeous and without putting it on, I knew it would fit over my body like a second skin.
“I want that one,” I said to Akosua.
“That dress?” Dame pointed to the sexy dress.
“Yeah.”
“You like that dress?” He looked at me with a grin on his face.
“Yes.”
“That isn't an African dress. That's a red dress.”
Akosua and I laughed at Dame.
“I know what color it is,” I said.
“Just so you know.”
“Know what?” I asked.
“That's a red dress. And it ain't only red. Against your skin ... with those hips ... that's a dangerous dress ...”
“A dress like this,” Akosua said, jumping in, “can make a man do bad things.”
“Things he doesn't want to do,” Dame added.
“Maybe I want you to do bad things,” I said and without blinking, Dame pointed to the dress.
“Take that one down and put it in a bag,” he said to Akosua.
“Certainly,” she answered, retrieving the dress.
“How much is it?” I asked.
“No,” Dame said before Akosua could answer. “How much is a plane ticket to Paris running these days? That and a bedroom in one of those student dorms by the Eiffel Tower?”
Akosua stood there looking at Dame like he'd just told the girl her darkest secret.
“Excuse me, sir?” she asked, her voice suddenly formal.
“How much is all of that?” he asked again.
“How do you know that?” Tears were coming to her eyes.
“Your mother, Farrah, from the hotel, she told me you're trying to save money to go to school,” Dame said.
“Yes,” she answered. “I've been accepted, but we have no money to pay.”
“Well you just sold your last dress in the marketplace, so I guess you have the money now.”
I looked at Dame. He was reaching into his pocket.
“Call this number later this evening; it's my assistant's and she'll be expecting your call. Tell her how much all of that stuff is,” he said, handing her a card. “We'll get that handled for you.”
“No,” she cried loud enough that the woman at the next stand came over and tried to comfort her. “You can't be serious. Never have I dreamed this would happen. Never.” Akosua jumped into Dame's arms and held him tightly. Now I was crying, too, and standing there was a crowd of people who'd gathered around them to share in the news.
 
 
By “night out,” Dame really meant “night out”—outside and beneath the stars. What I guessed could be called a nightclub was actually a bonfire on the beach with a DJ and a crowd of dancing men. Few women could be spotted on the sand and those that I could see were obviously prostitutes or the girlfriends of married men. When we first got there, Dame and I sat by the bar, listening to the music as they played hip-hop and a little reggae. The dancers, who seemed to all be starring in their own videos where they spent more time proclaiming each word of the songs than actually dancing, pounded their chests and looked up at the sky.
“Want another beer?” the waitress asked, picking up the empty bottle in front of me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Wait—” Dame stopped her. “Do you have any palm wine?”
“Yes.”
“We'll have two.”
“You sure?” She looked at Dame curiously and so did I.
“Yes,” he said.
“Okay.” Her voice was a mix of warning and fear, the kind of gesture a bartender made when he was sure he'd just given a drunk patron one drink too many.
“What's palm wine?” I asked, concerned when the woman left us.
“It's a local wine made of palm leaves,” Dame explained.
“Oh, that doesn't sound too bad,” I said. “She looked so afraid.”
“Yeah, it's like moonshine. Just made from palm leaves.”
“Sounds great,” I said, overhearing the music shift from its slow reggae vibe to a more polyrhythmic African beat.
“Two palm wines,” the waitress said, returning and putting label-less bottles of liquor in front of us.
“Great,” I said, picking up my bottle. “To us,” I added, tapping Dame's bottle.
“To us.”
Like moonshine, the wine was bitter and burning at first, but after the first five sips, it went down smooth and cooled my insides. I didn't know if this was because it was already taking effect, or if I was getting used to the taste, but looking into the emptying bottle, I decided I'd ask for another.
“You look so nice tonight,” I said to Dame, who was looking into the crowd and bopping his head. Now most of the men out there had a partner and they were grinding heavily into each other.
“Thank you,” Dame said, turning to me. He was just wearing a pair of loose-fitting khaki shorts and a button-up linen shirt, but it was such a shift from his usual T-shirt and jeans that it might as well have been a tuxedo—one I wanted to see him out of. He'd twisted his hair and tucked it into a bun. “I know I already told you that you looked amazing in that red dress a dozen times at the hotel, but let me get another look.” Dame stepped back and watched as I poked out my butt in the dress. As I imagined, it was a perfect fit and somehow Akosua made the bust just tight enough that my breasts were held in perfect position. They were even perky.
I threw my head back and took another swig of the wine.
“Whoa!” Dame took the bottle and held it next to his. He was still at the top neck and mine was almost at the middle. “Slow down. This is strong stuff.”
“Really?” I said and I heard that my voice was louder than usual. “I don't feel anything. I just feel good. Like loose.” I got up and started dancing a bit to show Dame how loose I felt.
“Oh, shit,” Dame said, laughing. “That's the work of palm wine. You feel good.”
“I sure do,” I said, suddenly feeling the beat from the speakers coming up into my feet. It was as if there was a drum right under the sand beneath my feet. It was pounding and pushing its way up my body. I jumped forward and felt my chest bow toward the sand.
“Let's dance, baby,” I said, looking at Dame. “I want you to feel what I'm feeling.” The drums were now at my hips and building toward my stomach.
“Okay.” He took a long sip from his bottle and took mine from me. “I don't think you need any more of this.”
“What?” I reached for the bottle playfully. “I need my wine. My palm wine.” I laughed at how my words swayed into each other and then the next memory I had was of Dame and I in the middle of the crowd by the bonfire, our chests knocking into one another as the drum took over our bodies. My hands were up over my head toward the moon above and I touched everyone around me just to feel the vibrations.
“You all right?” Dame asked, holding me up in his strong arms.

Other books

Night-World by Robert Bloch
Temptation's Kiss by Michelle Zink
Deadly Desire by Keri Arthur
Books Do Furnish a Room by Anthony Powell
Slightly Spellbound by Kimberly Frost
The Few by Nadia Dalbuono
Hellblazer 1 - War Lord by John Shirley
Dead of Night by Gary C. King
Attitude by Robin Stevenson