Pop Singer: A Dark BWAM / AMBW Romance (4 page)

“And we’re off,” Latasha said.

Because our jobs were really close, we often carpooled together. Latasha drove better than me. So we rode in her car. I always got into the passenger seat first, calling shotgun even though neither of us needed to.

I kicked up my legs, turning the air-conditioning on high. Even in the springtime, the humidity in Dallas, the heat—it really was cray.

It was almost as if God was angry for all of us down on planet earth. I swear. Like he was beating a drum or smashing his radiant fist right on our heads.

My skin turned into a limp noodle always. I closed my eyes once I was against the hot leather seating of Latasha’s beat up convertible. She might’ve been a manager at a bank, but she couldn’t afford a new car with her student loans. She still had a lot—up to her eyeballs in debt.

“Now,” she said, “where are we headed to?”

I played along. “To work.”

Latasha turned the wheel. She pulled out of the parking lot. Around us, there were glittering steel roofs, the entire apartment complex lording over us with its huge shadow, its protection of black about to unveil us into the hot sunlight. I put my hand down by the air vents, cranking all the way to maximum cool. I looked over to Latasha, as she tilted her head backwards.

“We’re going to work,” I said again.

“That’s right,” Latasha said, her earrings swinging about her face. “And what are we going to do today?”

“We’re going to have a great time,” I said.

I turned on the music. Some R&B tunes, a quick beat to bring us out of our sadness. The post-college world was not what we expected it to be. Filled with dreary tasks and all sorts of deadlines. People to answer to and bills to pay. Being an adult definitely sucked.

Of course, I had my out: in the form of a letter in my right hand, my sweaty, right hand. My two weeks’ notice, clutched close to my thigh, underneath and next to my purse. My two weeks’ notice!

What would absolve me of all of my duties at the daycare.

No longer would I have to answer to the rude and unwashed.

No longer would I have to deal with the enormous task of handling other people’s children.

The thankless task, I should say. Because so many people would come on in and expect five-star service for so little pay.

I kicked up my feet and stared at the horizon. Latasha turned the wheel again, pulling onto the road.

“So,” Latasha said, “we’re going to have a great time. Now what does that mean?”

“It means that you’re going to make a lot of money and I’m going to finally quit my job!”

Latasha laughed. Then I giggled along with her, turning up our jam. We rocked back and forth to the music, enjoying the sultry voice. The song was called
Never Again
and it was sung by Lylyah Swinger. God. I loved her back then. We almost made the highway break in half from all of our car’s bouncing up and down. My shoulders slammed into the window next to me, and I had to roll them down so I could force my arm out against the sky.

“Yes, girl!” Latasha would say. “We’ve got so much going on for us, girl. We don’t have to answer to anybody. Think positive. Yes!”

Although both of us knew that wasn’t true at all. We would have to answer to bosses in the future. To bills. To all sorts of demands and requests from society.

We would have to deal with our adult world no matter what. No matter how gruesome it got.

“Now,” she said. “When you go to work, don’t think too hard about all of the stuff that you’re gonna have to do. Just think about handing in your two weeks’ notice and being done with that, girl.”

“I’m just so ready for it. But I’m nervous at the same time. If you were me, how would you feel about going abroad?”

“Girl,” Latasha said, waving her hand to the music. “I know that I sounded a little bit skeptical the other day. But I’m just telling you. I really want you to be successful. I’m looking out for you is all. And if I ever sound like I’m not on your side, it’s because I’m just trying to voice my concern. Look, if you’re gonna go to Korea, make your money over there, then fine. I think it’s great for you in the end. I don’t know anything about Asia. But if those are the kinds of guys that turn you on—”

I nearly rolled my eyes out of my head! Latasha had opinions no less better than my dad. About Asian people. About the Eastern world.

Whatever.

I knew they had misconceptions wrapped around their brain cells, constricting their logic and philosophies.

“I mean,” I said, “if it turns out that the people there are really horrible. I’m going to come back here with my tail between my legs. But there’s no way I’m going to pass up a chance to meet the guy of my dreams.”

I flipped out my phone again, bringing up Jong-soo’s face. When we were at a red light, I flashed it over at Latasha again. Tall, muscular, and chiseled, Jong-soo was an exceptional specimen of Korean beauty. I couldn’t imagine any other guy on all of America’s continental crust who had possessed any sort of good looks like he did. I’m telling you: spec-i-men.

And he sung
well
.

Of course, that was really the important part. Right? Meeting a good singer, another artist. Word had it on the streets that he wrote all of his own music by himself.

“But they all say that,” Latasha said, waving away my phone. She floored through the green light that came up, I think partly annoyed at my insistence about Jong-soo. “They all say that they write their own music. Look at any of the major singers in town. They’re all going to say that they do all of their shit by themselves. But, girl, I don’t know if they do, do they?”

“Even some of the painters of old used commissioned artists that were lesser renowned to do the easy parts. Wouldn’t you believe it? Some of the best painters in all of France and Spain had their apprentices paint the backgrounds of their pieces because they felt like they had to concentrate on the foreground. Even some sculptors have their apprentices do the wire work and the less sexy stuff of art. That’s what we have to do sometimes. We have a definite amount of time on planet Earth, after all.”

Latasha turned into the complex where the bank was housed. And where my daycare was located, right across the street. She simply shook her head. “I’m just on your side is all, I want you to know that. But at the same time, if it were me, I have to say, I don’t know if I would go. I’m not really sophisticated enough to understand the nuances of… the ahhts.”

I rolled my eyes one last time. I felt a strain at the back of my head. Ugh. “You listen to music, don’t you? So if you appreciate music, then you should respect all the art forms. Sculpting included.”

“Well, when you get rich and famous,” Latasha said, pulling into a parking space, “then you can come and call me. You don’t have to give me any money at all. You can just rub it in and tell me how wrong I was.”

We got out of the car, my purse at hand, the letter in my ever-tightening fist. Latasha patted down her dress, looking much more professional than me. We walked over to our respective working spaces, Latasha ready to put on her manager’s hat, and I ready to deal with the nastiness from the general public.

We said our goodbyes, knowing that we would meet each other for lunch eventually.

“See you later,” Latasha said, walking off.

I waved at her, walking in, head held high, not feeling any less than her.

Because at the end of the day, I was pursuing my dreams. And I knew that it would lead me to riches.

At least I thought so at the time.

***

I have to say though, the daycare center—Lila’s Daycare—was kind of low class. I’m sorry, but the people going there were the type of folk who didn’t know how to spell their names properly on their check books. Like, seriously, these were the type of people who didn’t even know how to drive properly, who couldn’t use the Internet to pay their bills, and who constantly complained about how much money they were paying for “high-caliber services.”

Girl, we were next to a strip mall.

Hell, we were
in
the strip mall.

“I expect so much more than this,” a woman said as I walked in. She was the usual customer who stopped by our place, a woman whose name I didn’t know and who I didn’t care to know. She yelled and yelled and yelled like always. “When
you people
charge me per week for your daycare—”

The woman was yelling at Lila, no surprise, considering that Lila was the one who absorbed all of the damage and heat. She wore head wrap around her head, wiping sweat from her brow, turning up the cheap white fan that she propped up on a stool to act as air-conditioning. “Ma’am, I’m sorry that you feel this way,” she said, “but you have to understand—”

“Understand what? This big rip-off that you’re running over here. Yeah, I understand that. I want my money back.”

This woman asked for her money back all the time. She and a legion of others. If the bathrooms weren’t clean enough, she wanted her money back. If she wasn’t given slave service, she wanted her money back. She was the type of person who wanted every single customer service personnel to basically prostrate themselves on the ground like she was a goddess.

“I’m sorry that you feel that way, ma’am…”

I walked past Lila, going into the back. She gave me a quick smirk, nodding at me. I met some of my coworkers, poor souls who basically gave me shy looks. I punched in my numbers, logging into our tracking system, and then I got to work, attending to some of the kids on the floor. They were already rowdy and loud.

But they were still not as loud as the woman screaming at Lila.

Eventually, the woman at the front calmed down, and Lila came to our side, sighing. I wasn’t exactly sure when I would drop off my two weeks’ notice, but it would have to wait until around lunchtime, when the craziness settled down. Lila looked incredibly stressed. You might have heard the saying, black don’t crack.

But Lila looked like she had cracked in her teens, girl. She was cracked all over the place. Cracked by her lips, cracked by her eyes. Even her voice cracked. She parroted her old commands as she did every single day, telling us all to, “get into place already and get to work!” Finding a good time to bring her aside and tell her that her best employee was going to quit…

Now that was the hard work ahead of me.

“Hey,” I said, around 11 AM, chasing a little girl in pigtails. “Hey, don’t eat the crayons!” I barely even knew the names of our clients. There were literally fifty kids stuffed into a room that had to be no more than 2000 ft.². They were running all over the place, standing on top of tables, singing at the top of their lungs, wiping their asses all over the ground, pulling on my earrings when I bent down low to grab at them, drawing on the walls, breaking apart the mats on the floor, peeing on the bathroom tiles, yelling, screaming, shouting.

Lila and us three who were at work—well, we had more than enough on our hands. Our establishment was borderline illegal. I couldn’t imagine Lila being in business a year from now. I could see on the face of my coworkers, fear and disappointment, a sadness creeping across their faces.

What the hell were we doing with our lives?

“Lila,” I said, at around 1 PM. “We have to talk.”

She predicted my speech ahead of time. I had stuck around for several months, the only one of many. The other employees booked it: they had left within only three or so weeks. I stayed on board for so long because I thought the paycheck was worth it.

But I was at my wit’s end. No longer could I tolerate having kids screaming and yelling at my face. Calling me a “black bitch” when they didn’t even know what those words meant.