Episode Three | Full | Exclusive

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S1: Episode Three - "Run to Daylight" - MEMBERS ONLY

In basketball, the team plays two guards, a center, and two forwards.

In baseball, it’s three outfielders, four infielders, a catcher, and a pitcher.

In football, there’re 11 on offense, 11 on defense, and 11 on special teams.

In music, the team is made up quite similarly. And the only difference between the teams in sports and those in music is that in music they all have the ball at the same time.

You have A&R (artist and repertoire), which is probably the most glamorous position on the team. These are the gals and guys that go out and “discover” talent, and then oversee the creative direction for the artists’ projects.

New media takes care of everything considered “new” media--as opposed to old media--so that includes everything concerning the Internet; and believe it or not, music videos are considered a “new” form of media, so they oversee promoting those as well.

Publicity, contrarily, works with “old” media--landing local and national newspaper features, interviews and album reviews, radio and TV interviews and appearances. Obviously there’s overlap between new and old given the rise of blogs and online newspapers, which may blur the department line. And artists often have their own publicist, for a more personal approach, that works with the label’s department in these efforts.

Promotion takes care of the radio airplay and promotional efforts, such as contests and giveaways.

Sales works closely with the label’s distribution company and oversees retail and sales activity for the label’s projects.

Art handles designs of products, advertising and press material.

Marketing makes the unique plans for all of this, respective to each project the label is going to release.

And then there’s Business Affairs, which takes care of the books, finances, and payroll. They’re the money people.

And then you have Legal, which handles, well, legal stuff.

This team makes moving a finished project from the computer to the consumer a seamless process. At least, that’s the way it was designed in the beginning.

But like in sports, the idea is to have a bunch of positions work in concert, all focusing on their area of expertise, in order to facilitate a specific goal—winning.

For us, things work a little bit differently. First of all, the team is a whole lot smaller. And the playbook?

“So. What’s the next play? Because I have some ideas.”

Tk had a room in his place dedicated to music just like I had, but his was devoted more to production and recording rather than business.

He was sitting behind a self-customized desktop (with extra everything for more power and speed) and two flat-panel monitors that only showed audio files.

Tongue-like, a CD quickly slid out from a recorder. He quickly grabbed it and pointed it at me, not bothering to put it in a case.

“Dude. Why are you still using CDs?” I asked, looking at the CD in his hand for a moment. I actually didn’t want to take it because, despite being a purest and avid collector of vinyl, I actually hated physical objects when it came to music. There was really no need for me to have this CD when he could’ve just uploaded the music and sent me the link.

But he kept his hand extended, waiting for me to take it, not bothering to answer my question.

So, reluctantly, I took the CD and slid the naked disc into my bag.

And then he finished his thought, “I say: do as many shows as we can. Hit college radio. Get local press. Show my face as much as possible.”

I just stared at him without saying a word, waiting for the “ideas” he said he had.

“That’s not an idea,” I said. “That’s... the definition of insanity.”

“It worked last time,” he said in defense.

My eyebrows immediately went up, taking the place of me actually coming out and asking, Are you kidding me?

“Yeah, we did some overseas shows, had some decent play with the videos, and we sold a lot of singles—”

“And don’t forget the press,” he reminded me. “I got some good press—”

“Yeah, but if barely selling 5 thousand total units constitutes ‘working’ then…” I took a deep breath, “we need to redefine what working actually means.”

 

Although it may not be the first place you think of when music comes to mind, a city like DC has its upsides. As one of the most occupationally diverse places in the world, it's never hard for me to gain the insight I need on those rare occasions when Google just isn't enough.

I requested some time with my friend and mentor, January Reed, so she had her assistant invite me to her office on Connecticut Avenue with a scheduled hour-long allotment of her time.

“Kenya!” she said with excitement, flashing a smile that I’ve literally seen stop cars before. She got up from her desk to meet me with both a hug and kisses on both sides of my face.

Her assistant, who was much taller standing than she appeared before she stood up, had walked me into the office and disappeared back out before I could even thank her for the coffee she’d fixed during my brief stint waiting.

“It’s been, what? Six months?” January asked.

“No, that was last year when we had lunch—”

“It has not been that long!” she exclaimed in disbelief. “Please. Have a seat, kiddo.” She directed me to the sofa sitting in the middle of the floor across from her desk.

I untangled my messenger bag and placed it on the floor, gingerly, although it still made a thump.

“Damn. What you got in that thing?” she asked, probably not really expecting an answer.

But I replied anyway, “My life.” And she got the joke (although it wasn’t a joke). “Just my computer, couple hard drives, music, you know.”

She smiled and shook her head. It was a smile of delight—one she gave me often, almost every time I said something that reminded her, perhaps, of herself at some point in her life.

January was a 40-something, mixed-race transplant from London, who came to New York when she was 18 with the hopes of becoming an actor. She landed a few small jobs early on; one included being the love interest in a Johnny Gill video. She was wide-eyed the entire time she was on set. Not because she was in the room with her childhood crush, but because she was in awe watching how everything was coming together around her.

She had always been interested in music, but more so the art, not the behind the scenes stuff. But before that video wrapped, she got the chance to talk to Johnny’s manager, who told her about internships at the label to which Johnny was signed.

The beauty of being in New York was that the very next day, she was able to be at the office filling out an application to essentially volunteer her time to learning more about how things worked. And, of course, get coffee and lunch for everyone.

She never acted in another music video again. In fact, she never acted again at all. She did, however, work her way up in that record label, eventually becoming a senior VP before switching companies several times to take jobs that always came with more money, fringe benefits, and sexier titles.

At the height of her career, January was one of the most successful and most powerful women in music, reaching vice president status at the biggest music company in the world. But even she wasn't immune to the economic crash that plagued the music industry.

So she moved on, reluctantly. She’d spent the past few years working in a "less volatile industry," as she called it—advertising. And from the looks of her office, she was apparently doing pretty well here too.

I hadn’t been in the place five full minutes and I was already knee-deep in a story about my last visit to New York for a performance with Tk. January was half-sitting on the edge of her desk, hanging onto my every word.

“And so, the show at the Apollo ended at 11, but he got invited to get on at this spot down in the village. So… midnight, we're on the train from Harlem. He rocked that show too! We left there after 3 and had to be up by 6 to get to Brooklyn for this high school event the next morning...”

Advertising brought the stability she sought. But January couldn't forget that music, however, brought excitement that couldn't be found anywhere else. So she lived vicariously through me.

“Boy, I remember those days,” she said, staring off into the distance, perhaps recollecting one of her own stories about long days and late nights and early mornings and no sleep… All in the name of music.

But she chose to keep whatever those memories were to herself.

She looked back at me, smiled, and said, “So… tell me more about Tk's show at the Kennedy Center!”

She missed the music life. So whenever I needed insight about business, she was there. Whenever she needed to reminisce, I was her girl.

My hour with her at the office bled right into the time she was scheduled to take lunch, so she insisted that I come with her to this “awesome Tex-Mex place down the street,” and who am I to turn down good Tex-Mex?

You ever have the feeling you’re talking too much? Well, I got that feeling when I looked down at the table after telling another story and realized that all my food was still on my plate, but January’s was all gone.

For a woman with such a skinny frame, she sure could eat. And the fact that her food was gone didn’t stop her. She turned her attention back to the bowl of tortilla chips and salsa that was placed on the table as a makeshift appetizer when we first sat down.

“Like I always say: I admire the shit out of what you're doing. But you know the old music business model is so fucking antiquated...”

She shook her head just think about how much this obviously still annoyed her.

“The reason why you're having trouble coming up with a marketing plan for Tk is because you're going to have to totally create something new, something that's never been fucking done—minus the resources. It's not impossible, just… It’s going to be difficult as shit.”

She took a tortilla chip, scooped up some salsa and bit into it.

I was used to her making me wait for the knowledge she was about to impart. So I watched, eagerly waiting as she took her time chewing.

“I don’t have to tell you that the traditional record label is nothing more than a bank with a fucked up marketing department. You know that. I mean, we would shell out money like shit and expect it back with interest!” she said in outrage.

“Sure, in return, we might help 'em out by putting their record in stores and getting them on fucking BET or MTV or some shit… You, my dear, don't have the luxury of doing this with your artists. But... I don’t believe that you need to. Believe it or not, you are in the perfect position right now because...”

I listened without interruption to January's opinion about what my next play should be. She didn’t use a sports analogy, but the gist of her advice to me was: I was in the game, I just needed to figure out how to score. Fortunately, she had a few tips on how I could do that, so I finally got the chance to eat my lunch because she talked until that entire bowl of chips was gone.

The waiter, a cute Mexican guy with tattoo sleeves up his arm and a glossy Mohawk, brought the check and flashed me a smile before he walked off.

“He’s cute. Short as hell, but still cute. Why don’t you say something?” she asked, smiling teasingly.

“Say something like what?” I asked, as I picked up the check to see what the damage would be.

Before I could get a good look at it, January snatched it from me.

“Don't worry about it. My treat,” she said.

Picking up the checkbook was my way of, at least, showing effort. I’d never paid for a single thing while out with January, and she wasn’t going to have me start today.

“You wanna do something for me?” she asked. “Stand to my right as we walk out.”

She'd had it planned out, play-by-play, Xs and Os, hand signals, secret words even. I had been recruited to play the position of wingman. Or... wing-woman, I suppose.

Unbeknownst to me, she'd spotted him when we came in. The table she requested opposite the window was a move made for positioning. During that first bathroom break was when she made herself noticed to him: a clean-cut man in his early 40s, in business casual attire, sitting alone.

As we prepared to leave, she'd already timed the waiter's exit from the back so that she could use me to intercept his last drink as she approached him from the blindside.

“Excuse me,” she said, making her presence known. “My friend here and I were trying to figure out where we know you from. Were you at the Minority Business Leaders Conference this year?”

He said that he wasn't, but that he was, in fact, a business owner: ice cream parlors. January told him that maybe that's where she knew him from because...

“I love ice cream,” she said.

It played out as if scripted and it felt about as hackneyed as a Katherine Hiegl movie. But five minutes in and they were exchanging phone numbers with plans to talk again.

I could only stand back and watch in awe.

“It was... amazing! It was like she knew just what to do. Just what to say. Like she knew what he would say,” I said, as Ty and J concentrated on tasting every single one of the cheese samples at the table. Being a two-month-old vegan, I passed on the cheeses, although the smoked cheddar was calling my name.

The lady, who proudly let us know that she had made the cheese herself, smiled as she watched them enjoy every piece they tried. This was her first time as a vendor at Eastern Market, a historic farmer’s market that featured all kinds of local vendors, in addition to fresh food and events. So maintaining a smile was probably the woman’s way of saying, nonverbally, that she hoped they would make a purchase.

Ty selected a loaf of Monterey Jack, despite J’s insistence upon the Gouda.

“Why don’t you buy it if you want it so badly?” Ty said.

“Because,” J explained, “I don’t really buy cheese like that.”

“But you want me to buy it,” Ty concluded.

“Well, you’re buying it anyway. I’m just saying that you should buy the kind I like. You’re not going to eat a whole—what is that? Five pounds?” J asked. “You are not going to eat five pounds of this shit.”

The smile slowly slid off of the woman’s face.

“Not that your cheese is ‘shit’,” Ty said, trying to lessen the apparent blow the woman felt from J’s words. “It’s just an expression… I’ll take the Jack, please. Thank you.”

J sighed and shook her head. “Fuck are you gonna do with five pounds of cheese? I’m not coming over to help you eat that,” she warned.

“You promise?” Ty asked with a teasing smile.

The lady finished bagging Ty’s cheese, and they exchanged pleasantries before we moved on.

“But you were saying—about January and the guy?” Ty reminded me.

“Yeah. She suddenly had game. I mean… she was almost as good as…” And I looked at J. And then Ty looked at her too.

J was in mid-sip, with the disposable hot/cold cup still at her mouth, when she looked over it realizing that I was comparing the new January to her.

“So, she's not normally like that?” Ty asked.

“No,” I said, insistently, while shaking my head. “No. She's usually all business. But now... I don't know. It was like meeting this man was a top priority.”

“How old is she?” J inquired.

With a shrug, I answered, “42, maybe.”

“It is a priority,” J said, with certainty. “Single women over 35 think time is running out. It’s the silliest fucking thing.”

“But I get it,” Ty responded. “When you really want something, time always feels like it’s running out. And when you factor in having kids of your own? I’ll just say this: the medical industry has done a good job of scaring us into believing that when it comes to having kids, if you’re not too young, then you’re too old. My mother was 45 when she had me and I’m perfectly fine.”

“Mm. If you say so,” J joked.

Ty smiled and repaid her with a shove on the shoulder.

I interrupted them by simply holding up a card—black, printed on silk, with gold writing. On it was simply the name “Kenneth Gold” and a phone number.

J took it from me and examined it.

“She said it was all thanks to this guy. Says he's one of her clients. She calls him a genius.”

J said, contemplatively, “Kenneth Gold, huh,” with a familiarity in her tone.

“Jesus,” Ty said. “Don’t tell me—”

“No. He's married. Happily. 10 years.”

“Well, how do you know him?” I asked.

“How do you not?” J asked back. “Everybody knows him.”

I looked at Ty who gave a slight shrug because she obviously didn’t know him either.

J went on: “We featured him in the magazine—well, it'll be on newsstands next month—but he's like a dating coach. He used to exclusively help men, but then he started working with women a few years ago and his career really took off from there.”

“A coach,” I repeated.

“Yeah, I mean, for women, he gives insight on how and what men think to help you attract who you want and talk to them with confidence,” J explained.

Still holding the business card, she looked at it once again, and then looked over at Ty. “Hey, maybe you should give him a call since your strategy doesn't seem to be working.”

Ty sipped her tea, choosing not to entertain J on this topic.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Ty's morning schedule allowed for a coffee stop at the Peet’s Coffee near her office.

Between 8:04 and 8:11, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, she would find herself trying not to stare at Ryan, who apparently finished his morning run with a ‘Large Café Americano, extra hot.

“'Large Café Americano, extra hot! Ryan!” yelled the barista, which was the only reason Ty even knew his name was Ryan.

Ryan stood about 6’2”, had a swimmer’s lean, but muscular physique, dark brown hair that seemed to highlight his bluish gray eyes. He always smiled at whoever was working that day just before picking up his coffee. He’d snatch a couple of the brown napkins from the dispenser, two packs of raw sugar, and a wooden stirring thing before heading out.

He was so beautiful to Ty that she sometimes caught herself with her mouth partially open, watching him while waiting for her own order.

For months now, it never changed. The same fit, good looking white guy in running gear would walk in, order, wait, walk over to retrieve his drink, and then leave without her ever saying as much as a “Hello” to him. And he never seemed to notice her any more or less than any other person there.

But every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she would time it just so she could get there the same time he did.

Some mornings, she was too early—leaving just as he was coming in.

Some mornings, she was too late—coming in just as he was leaving.

Some mornings, maybe Ryan just wasn't in the mood for the 'Large Café Americano, extra hot, and he didn't show up.

Scheduling her morning around seeing him was the only play Ty had… If you want to call it a play.

As we prepared to leave Eastern Market, I watched J, as she and a caramel colored brother buying handmade African soap behind us, caught eyes for probably the fifth time since we’d been there, and I thought to myself: If Ty only knew how easy it truly was to meet the man she wanted…

Before we made it five more steps toward the exit, I heard a baritone voice behind us: “Excuse me, ladies.”

And we all turned, none of use surprised to see that it was the guy from the soap stand.

“Hi,” he said to J with a teeth-showing grin. “I couldn't help but notice that you hadn’t stopped smiling at me since the moment you walked in here—”

“Oh really?” she cut in, still smiling. “You know, I could say the same about you. “

“You could,” he agreed. “But then you’d have to take the blame for it.”

“Oh, I already know I’m responsible. It’s my special power,” she said, almost discreetly, which caused him to chuckle even more.

“Now, I just have to be able to put a name to the beautiful face. I'm Cam, by the way.”

“Hi, Cam. I'm J,” she said, accepting his handshake.

By this point, Ty and I had stepped away, but we could still hear them talking and giggling.

“Hey, what’d you end up getting from that vegetable stand back there?” I asked.

But Ty barely heard me, as she stood there studying J and Cam a few feet away. It was almost as if she was taking mental notes, watching J’s every move.

After a few minutes, J retrieved her phone from her coat pocket and began the number exchange with Cam, who was also holding his phone.

When it was all done, J walked back over to us as if nothing had happened.

“Alright, y’all ready to go?”

I nodded, but Ty just stared at her, finally blurting out, “How the hell do you do that?”

J smiled and led the way as we began our walk back to the Metro station.

She was a few feet ahead of us when Ty looked at me and said, “Seriously. How the hell does she do it?”

The question was obviously rhetorically, because she was seriously asking the wrong person this time. I simply smiled and shrugged.

 

Lucas had never stepped foot in a professional recording studio until I brought him to one a few weeks ago to show him where he’d be making his first project. He tried to maintain his cool, but the instruments, microphones, the boards, the buttons, even the egg carton-looking foam padding that lined the walls had him breath taken. He couldn’t help himself; he had to touch everything.

The engineer was a friend of mine, Alana Joseph, a woman I met during my internship at Universal. She was their marketing rep for the Mid-Atlantic region at the time and always helped me execute my ideas for promoting their artists on campuses in the area. We connected because of a shared love for Reba McEntire.

She left the company the same month I left school, but we kept in touch. Now, she was a fledgling engineer at a studio in northeast. I was impressed by her work on similar projects, which is what prompted me to call her about working with me on Lucas’ album. I wasn’t expecting the good deal she made me on the rates, but I certainly welcomed it.

I arrived at the studio a few hours after Lucas was set to record his second track with her. So I stood in the control room with Alana watching Lucas through the glass, sitting in the recording booth on a stool, strumming his guitar with his eyes closed, singing his little heart out. He had no idea I was there.

The song was a semi-acoustic ballad, contingent upon a strong, flawless vocal. Listen to Paramore’s “The Only Exception” and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

It told the story of boy growing up having lost both of his parents and the agony he feels everyday that they can’t contribute to the person he wants to be—a person that makes them proud. But the second verse reveals his struggle having been raised by a bad, bad world—hence, the title, “Bad World.”

When he finished, he opened his eyes to see me clapping for him, and this made him blush uncontrollably and smile contagiously.

Alana pushed a button so that we could talk.

Lucas asks, already knowing the answer, “So, you like it?”

“No,” I said. “I love it!”

“Really?” he asked, with his insecurity shining through. “I wasn’t sure about the bridge riffs and…”

“No, it’s incredible,” I said. “If it sucked, you know I would tell you. It don’t suck.”

He smiled, very happy about that. But then he looked up at me and said, “Well. Mario said the shit was too soft.”

And my smile was immediately taken hostage by a grimace. I had so many questions about that statement that I didn’t know where to begin.

So Lucas asked the obvious one for me: “Who the fuck is Mario?” And then he answered it, “He’s my cousin.”

That really didn’t tell me anything, but apparently, Lucas thought that it answered everything. He picked up his guitar and started strumming chords for another song and singing to himself.

Alana hit a button to turn off the intercom and without looking at me: “Still confused? You should hear the song they did together.”

“The song who did?” I asked, knowing that she wasn’t—she couldn’t—be talking about Lucas.

“Your boy here and his cousin.”

And then she used the mouse to instantly pull up another audio file and hit play.

“They recorded it last night with another engineer.”

She didn’t start it at the beginning; we were right in the middle of the first verse when the loud, mixed-genred, weird sounding, bad rap/R&B collaboration began playing. After about one bar, the hook came in and right away I recognized Lucas’s voice, singing something about “Asian bitches” and his preference for the way they “like to get fucked.” It was a poor man’s version of that DMX song with Sisqo from back in ’01.

My face was frozen in shock/disappointment/anger. I actually felt dirty just listening to it. Not because I was prudish and couldn’t stomach misogynistic rap (because I actually really like misogynistic rap). It was the fact that Lucas—my little Lucas—was involved, singing his little heart out like he really believed the things he was saying. This performance had the same heartfelt passion as the one about his parents that had played a minute ago.

“Yeah. I figured you’d like it,” Alana said with a facetious smirk.

I looked back over at Lucas in the booth. He was oblivious in more ways than one.

I wasted very little time calling Kenneth Gold. And after about five minutes on the phone, he requested that we meet in person, which had me thinking: “Gee, was I really that bad?”

He and his wife, Juanita, stayed on the 4^th floor of the Atlantic Plumbing building just off U Street. They didn’t have any kids, and from the looks of things, they were enjoying their life without them.

I’m not the type that likes to take off my shoes when I come into places, but this condo looked like something out of some type of home design magazine. The floors were a java colored bamboo that brought out all the whites they used throughout the kitchen, dining and living rooms, which could all be seen in one glance, given the open concept.

I had no desire to track anything from outside into this place, but Kenneth insisted that I leave my shoes on.

“It’s fine. Really. We have a guy that comes in, takes care of everything,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

So I didn’t worry.

“Come in. Come in. Make yourself at home,” he said, leading me from the foyer where I’d been stationed since Juanita first opened the door and welcomed me in.

Kenneth didn’t look how I thought he’d look. Even the pictures online didn’t depict him the way he presented in person. He photographed much bigger than he was—standing only about 5’8”—and the camera certainly added 10 pounds, which means he was a bit thinner in real life.

But he had this movie star presence and an intoxicating personality that made you feel like you had a friend before you even got to know him. He looked right at me when I talked —right in the eyes—which made me feel uncomfortable. But it was almost as if he didn’t believe in multitasking; everything I said felt like top priority to him at the moment, even down to the simple instructions I gave for how I liked my coffee.

“Here you go,” he said, joining me on the couch while making sure I had full control of the mug he was handing me. “Coffee with frothed coconut. Funny: Juanita does this same thing with hers where she adds the ghee and the coconut oil,” he said with a smile.

“It’s delicious,” I said after my first sip. “Thank you.”

He took a seat on the chair adjacent to where I sat and made himself comfortable by bringing his bare feet up and crossing them under him so that his whole body was in the seat.

“So,” he started, giving me that uninterrupted stare. “Tell me why you’re single.”

Wow. He was coming with the heat before I could even get set at the plate. Just the thought of that question—or rather, the answer to that question—made me very nervous because I didn’t actually know the answer. And I didn’t know why I didn’t know it.

“Ah. Well. I guess I don't know how to meet guys I'm interested in,” I said.

And Kenneth took a moment to actually think about this, even providing a long: “Hmm…” to go along with his thoughts.

And then: “So... If I take you to a place that's overflowing with guys, all in whom you're interested... What would happen?”

I couldn’t answer that. So, I didn’t.

But he did. “I'll tell you what: You'll glance at them discreetly, never really making eye contact. When they do look in your direction, you’ll look away, at the floor, at another person, just somewhere else, right? Am I in the ballpark?”

He was not only in the ballpark, he was standing on the pitcher’s mound, and somewhere in the distance, I could hear the umpire call, “Strike two!”

All I could do was smile, guiltily.

“Yet,” he continued, “you're hoping that they just come over and give you that romantic comedy moment, say and do all the right things to make you not only smile, but fall madly in love. But guess what: It's not gonna happen. You know why?”

I shook my head no, I didn’t know why.

“Because you're not doing your part to create it. It's not that you don't know how to meet guys. You don't know how to make them feel like they have to meet you.”

I sipped my coffee as he held a very uncomfortably deep gaze at me.

“So how does it normally happen?”

“What do you mean? Me meeting guys?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “You’ve had boyfriends—”

“Not nearly as many as I should’ve,” I joked.

He smiled and went on, asking, “How do you normally get to part where you’re going out with guys? How do you usually meet them?”

“Shared experiences, like school, work, or some kind of situation where we would see each other on a regular basis. I’ve never picked up a random guy, like, in a store or on the street.”

“Why? What do you have to lose?” he asked. “It’s just conversation, maybe drinks. What are you afraid will happen if you talk to a random guy on the street?”

I didn’t have an answer for him. In fact, I’d ask myself that same question every single time I pass up the opportunity to talk to an attractive random guy out of fear.

After a moment of thinking and not coming up with an answer to his question, I asked, “So. What do I need to know?”

I didn’t get to finish my homemade coconut latte he’d made me because the field trip he’d planned couldn’t wait any longer.

Before I knew it, I was standing with Kenneth inside one of the last actual bookstores left in the city. It was reasonably sized, although it felt claustrophobic because of the books everywhere—on the window seals, on tables, in rolling bins—including where they belonged on the shelves that lined the walls and floors. Despite being used as the holding spot published plays and artistic memoirs, the windows let in decent light and made for perfect places to sit and sip the special Kenyan and Guatemalan roasts that the place was known for.

I felt tempted by the aroma of the coffee, especially considering I hadn’t had my full daily dose that day, but Kenneth insisted on continuing his lesson. At this point, I was starting to feel like he was taking this session more seriously than I was.

“First thing you need to know is that it all starts with you,” he said. “What and how you think and feel about yourself is the energy we feel. And by ‘we,’ I mean men.”

I began having flashbacks of all the encounters I’ve had with men I found attractive, and I thought about the physiological change that I underwent just standing beside them or talking to them, and I just kept repeating the phrase in my head, “It all starts with me.”

And I remembered being at a loss for words and being subjected to rambling because I couldn’t complete a single thought. It all started with me.

And I remembered actually literally running into a glass door one time like a damn cartoon character or something when I was trying to sneak a better look a guy I would never in my wildest dreams approach. It all started with me.

And I remembered all the times I unconsciously tried to impress boys with my vast knowledge of “guy things,” like The Walking Dead comic books or Tom Brady’s completion percentage or Nas’ discography and why I thought he was the greatest MC of all time.

I thought about the uncontrollable sweating, the hot flashes, the heart palpitations, the utter inexplicable distress I would feel, which triggered the lack of confidence, comfort and control—all the complete opposite feelings I'd have when conducting my business in music.

It all started with me.

“Don't worry,” he said, breaking my concentration and bringing me mentally back into the bookstore with him. “It's not an overnight thing. It’s something you work on every single day, okay?”

I tried to agree, but I was still too caught up in those previous thoughts, so I smiled—or at least I think I did.

“Next, you gotta get in tune with your sexuality. Men, we're visual, okay—”

“Hold up,” I cut in, assuming there was a line that I needed to draw here. “So you’re saying I need to wear a revealing dresses and high heels to a bookstore?”

“That's what your sexuality is to you—high heels and a revealing dress? Do you even own high heels and a revealing dress?” he asked.

And he and I both know that I didn’t have to answer that verbally. The answer was obvious. But I went ahead and said, “No,” anyway.

“No,” he repeated. “That has nothing to do with your sexuality. Being in tune starts here.”

And he pointed to my head.

“It’s how you think of yourself. You're a woman. Key into that. That's innate power right there. You have to be confident, even if you don't feel confident. Like I said, we're visual. Do you know what the sexiest thing in the world is?” And before I could start guessing, he said, “The sexiest thing in the world is confidence, okay. The only thing that matters is that you are comfortable with you.”

And right then, he looked over at a guy standing in the History section, almost as if he was expecting him to be there.

“You're going to talk to him.”

“What?!”

I looked over at the guy—average height, average weight, nondescript shirt, well-groomed—and I was starting believe my own theory that this guy was an actor, strategically placed here for this very situation. That being said, I still didn’t feel comfortable with this and Kenneth could read that.

“In order to be comfortable talking to a guy you're interested in, you gotta start talking, period—to everybody, about any and everything. You have to practice. I want you to go over and browse the books for a few seconds, then turn to him, smile… Now, that part is very important. Smile. And say: ‘Can you recommend anything?’ Got it?”

I repeated three times under my breath, “Can you recommend anything? Can you recommend anything? Can you recommend anything?”

“It’s a guy thing. We like to give our opinion on stuff.”

He was skimming the back of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee when I came over and picked up the exact same book and started reading the back.

I wasn’t really reading the back of the book and I think the guy noticed. He glanced at me once after feeling my eye on him, and he gave a pleasant smile.

And then, a few moments later, he glanced over from his book again, and again he caught eyes with me as I used the book as a prop.

He looked back at the shelf as he placed the Wounded Knee book back in its place—

“Boy. Expansionism was a bitch, right?”

And that was it. I didn’t have anything else.

He gave me a slight smile, but it was more awkward confusion than it was shared sentiment. He took that opportunity to nod at me as if he was already on his way out, and he walked off.

I went back over to Kenneth with my proverbial tail between my legs.

“Really? What was that?” he asked.

“I didn't know what to say—”

“What do you mean you didn't know what to… I told you what to say!”

“Well see, I didn't know how to say it,” I justified. “Is the emphasis on ‘you’ or on ‘anything’ or...”

Kenneth inhaled extremely deeply and let it out very slowly, like he was meditating, and said, “Recommend. Emphasis is on recommend.”

During our adventure that day, I found out that Kenneth was working on a new book to help women, such as myself, get comfortable meeting the men they wanted, as opposed to settling for the ones that approached them. So over the next week, he coached me. And since I agreed to be a featured subject—anonymously, of course—my training was part of the exchange.

I learned that once we tell ourselves something and we chose to believe it? Boy, it’s hard to change our mind about it.

In my head, I was the kinda cool, kinda funny, kinda smart, but kinda like a sister to the hoards of male friends I had over my lifetime.

That’s what I felt when I was 14. And almost 14 years later it was still how I felt.

To try to be kinda cute, kinda flirty, kinda girly, kinda somebody who has any kind of sexual effect on guys is just... un-me.

But Kenneth said that being uncomfortable is the key to growth, so I committed to getting uncomfortable.

That evening after we were finished for the day, Kenneth looked at me and dealt an exhausted smile as he said, “When this finally takes, you are gonna have me looking like a miracle worker.”

He was right. And I thought to myself, clearly, this is going to take more than a week.

 

Later that week, I met up with Soloman in Georgetown for an art show.

“Alright, I got the tickets, but we have about an hour to kill. Food?” he asked.

“I'm not really hungry. Plus, you know I gotta save room for popcorn.”

“Well I need a burger or something,” he said. “I'm starving.”

He began in the direction of the burger joint just a half block away, having already made up his mind about where he wanted his food.

“So... Are you like a dating expert now?” he teased, referring to my recent coaching with the dating guru. “Will you be going out with different guys all the time? Am I going to have to make appointments to meet you for a movie?”

“Please,” I said, brushing off this thought. “Even if I was that good at it, I don't have it in me to be a player. My memory ain't even that good. I'd be getting the guys all mixed up.”

Soloman laughed.

“Nah. One at a time. That's about all I have time for anyway,” I clarified.

“You remember the woman I told you about, the one who I met last month at that ah... book signing thing?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The teacher—”

“The teacher! Yes. I know this sounds silly,” he said, “but wouldn’t you think a teacher’d be a nice, nurturing type of woman? Maybe looking for stability?”

“Nah, teachers be freaks.”

He laughed at me and added, “Well, yeah, this one’s got a crazy rotation. I'm one of at least... 3 guys she's seeing—”

“What?! Wow,” I said.

“I mean… we are just dating,” he justified. “Some people have different definitions of what that is. To me, dating is getting to know one person you're interested in. To her, it's spending time getting to know many persons you're interested in.”

“And you're okay with that?” I asked.

“No. But I look at my father and grandfather, and I realize—men have not changed at all. Women, though? Are always changing. It's a new game. New rules. It's either adapt and play along. Or stay at home alone.”

He watched his steps for a few moments before adding, “I'm trying to adapt. The thing is, I hate playing games.”

I wondered if Soloman was right. Are we all part of a new game for which we have to learn new rules? Or are we just making up rules as we go along?”

Enjoying episode three? Cool! You know, you can show your support for the project by becoming a supporter, either one time or monthly. Or you can get yourself some OM&M Merch to show your love.

In a day and age when the print magazine was inching closer and closer toward extinction, FACE was doing as well as ever. The monthly publication was founded in 1995, but was one of the first magazines to focus more than half of its attention on the online segment of the market before the height of the Internet boom in 2000.

Today, they’re one of the top brands in the fluttering magazine business with their print version still doing as well as any monthly on the market, and the fact that it was based in DC was even more impressive, given that all of its main competitors are in New York.

J started there as an intern while in her junior year of college. She was hoping to learn about how to become a chief editor someday, but instead found herself fetching tea with Stevia for the manager of business development. For a whole semester, she was missing all the “good stuff,” as she called it, being cooped up in that stupid business office, writing emails for some lazy guy who probably couldn’t care less about the serious women’s issues that the magazine addressed—the kinds of things J was desperately hoping to add her two cents to some day, like how to assert yourself in an office full of men when you don’t have a deep voice, or what to do in a job interview to get the same pay that any man would get, or how to give the perfect blow job every time while still having teeth. Important stuff.

So, she quit her internship at FACE when the fashion editor at Essence Magazine offered her a production assistant job in New York. It wasn’t exactly what she saw herself doing—considering the meager salary in a place like New York—but it was a job and it was in her desired field, and at the time, she was just two months from graduating. She had to think about her future, which didn’t include getting tea and writing emails for other people.

Of course, she didn’t say any of that to the people at FACE when she told them that she would no longer be with them come May after she left Howard. She simply thanked them for the opportunity and the experience, to which they replied that they hated to see her go since they’d planned to offer her an opportunity as an editorial assistant once she graduated.

By this time, she had interned under four executives in four different departments during her four semesters there, and all of them had ample writing samples from all the different forms of writing they’d had her doing—the writing that she often complain had “no point” to it other than making their jobs easier.

Anyway, after she was offered the assistant opportunity at FACE, she decided to stay in DC. And now, seven years later—venturing off to contribute to nearly every notable publication in the country as a freelancer—she was now again at FACE, but in a more official capacity on staff.

The magazine was broken up into four major sections: Art & Culture, Fashion & Beauty, Lifestyle, and Sex. J’s department was Art & Culture.

Surprised it wasn’t another department, aren’t you?

She told me that her choice to major in Sociology and minor in Philosophy in college over, say, journalism, was a direct effort to contribute to her unique style of writing.

J always had a special way of putting thought into the thought of things.

And now, as a writer, she had the unique, innate ability to—as her boss referred to it—“find the story within the story.” Which is exactly what she’d been tasked to do that weekend.

Blythe Rocha was a performance artist from Brazil, who had been popular in the art world for years, but had recently become mainstream after a prominent appearance in a Sia music video.

Now, she sold out shows all over the world, mostly to people who had no concept of her true artistry, but who were simply fascinated by the idea of Blythe in real life.

Incidentally, that was the name of her show, “Blythe in Real Life.”

She was a painter, an author, a poet, a sculptor… all at the same damn time. All of this happened on stage, every show. It was an experience that could only be received by experiencing it. Blythe was in DC for two weeks at Studio Theatre, and because of J’s aforementioned eye for “the story,” FACE sent her to the opening performance to try and capture this experience with words.

Despite the impossibility of the job, J was optimistic considering her all-access pass to hang out with the artist after the show.

Blythe wasn’t a very big woman, but she had an enormous personality. She was enigmatic, but demonstrative at the same time. She was closer to 50 than 40, but her energy did a fine job of disguising her age. J described her as being “Weird as fuck,” but she loved and appreciated every minute she was with her.

They sat in a hotel room, devoid of any real privacy as Blythe’s “people” went in and out of the room at will, ignoring the would-be distractions by focusing on their conversation.

J asked her why, other than herself, were there only men in her show. And this might’ve been the only question she managed to ask in their two hours together, but the answer she got took on a life of its own.

“God created man. And God created wo-man…”

J noticed how she always separated the “wo” from the word “woman” every time she said it, but instead of asking her why she pronounced it that way, J just reminded herself to Google it later—whether there was a root word for the term “wo” and if there was reason for this odd separation when saying it with “woman.”

Blythe would go on: “The word ‘Adam’ is the Hebrew word for ‘man,’ as in human or humanity. So God called man (the male) ‘Adam,’ and God called woman, ‘Adam.’”

And J nodded as Blythe went on.

“But Adam the male was the one who called Adam the female, ‘Eve.’ He changed her fucking name! Both, male and female, were called ‘Adam’ by God. So if this is the case—that woman and man are Adam—then who was taken from whose rib? Was man really first? Or was woman first?”

J couldn’t answer this question, but luckily for her it was rhetorical.

“Motherfuckin’ patriarchy would have us believe that the male came first, of course,” Blythe said, dismissively. “But we should know fucking better! XX chromosomes are perfect. XY is a fucking defect. The Y is a defect.”

She looked at J as if she was trying to follow something that was moving on her face. She examined J’s unwavering countenance, every centimeter from her hair to the bottom of her chin.

And then she said, “You are a very beautiful woman.”

Knowing this already, J didn’t fall into gracious bashfulness with a blush. She simply said, almost matter-of-factly, “Thank you.”

“Yes,” Blythe continued. “Do you conform to one man? Or are you free?”

J almost smiled. She liked the use of the word, “free,” here.

Before she could respond—because she didn’t have to, for Blythe knew the answer—Blythe then asked, “Do you guide your men?”

“Excuse me?” J said, confused.

“Guide,” she said again. “Do you guide them? You know, lead? You are a leader, no?”

J said, “Yeah, I’m a leader.” But she didn’t say it with very much assuredness.

Blythe sensed this and said, “Did you get my show, J? I mean… did you truly understand the point?”

J wanted to say that she did. She was usually so good at interpreting all forms of art. Even if it wasn’t exactly what the artist meant, she would see something that spoke to her and gave her some meaning.

And she was sure that she would find this with Blythe’s show, because she really liked it and truly enjoyed the experience, but it was one that she would have to stew over for a bit.

She’d planned on going home and thinking about it into the night before falling asleep. She was certain that by morning, she would have more thoughts about it and that something would resonate with her. But right now—just minutes after the experience—she had nothing.

So, instead of trying to answer Blythe’s question, she said in return, “What do you want us to get from your show?”

Blythe didn’t have to think about this, but she decided to pretend that she did—taking several moments to ponder her thoughts before coming out with, “It’s about you, the woman, taking your place as the leader. You have to show them the way, or they will be lost and you will never have the life, the love… the pleasure that you want and deserve!”

This spoke to J, deeply. Because earlier in the week, she’d invited Cam over after drinks—the guy she’d met at Eastern Market. They’d talked every single day and had seen each other a few times since meeting the week before.

When it came to men, J considered herself to be the ultimate talent scout. And when she recruited Cam, she saw him as an ideal prospect—great on paper, looked really good in practice, had all the right “measurables:” big hands, big feet, could jump high and run really fast.

But when she put him in the game? His play left a whole lot to be desired.

It only took her about ten seconds to see that he just wasn’t very good. But she wasn’t going to give up. In fact, she found herself making excuses for him. She thought that maybe the position was the problem, so changed positions several times.

First it was the Cowgirl, and when that failed, she went with the Reverse Cowgirl…

Then she went with The Giddy-up. And then before calling it a night, she decided to give the Wheelbarrow run. Still, same thing: nothing.

A shot in the dark, she decided to just give good old-fashion Missionary a go. Surprisingly, it was one of her favorite positions because it was known to get the job done. But nope, didn’t work either.

J seldom ever made excuses for men, but because Cam was so damn good-looking, she figured it had to just be something like nerves or stress.

But the next night? The same thing.

But she figured she’d get clever this time. She started with the Scoop Me Up, and then the Flat Iron—two of her most reliable positions.

No matter how much she tried to throw hints, he just wasn’t receiving them. His routes weren't smooth. He was darting all over the place. No direction, no goal. It was sickening.

Refusing to give up so easily, she tried the Upstanding Citizen, another favorite. But when that didn’t work either, she figured she’d just dumb it down with plain old Doggy Style, which she was sure would do the trick. Anybody could do this one, even a dog for crying out loud!

But for the second time in as many nights, J was left frustrated and unsatisfied.

This was unacceptable. She knew that if she was ever going to see Cam again, something had to be done about this.

So after experiencing Blythe’s show and initially not really “getting it,” she went home after the interview, got into her bed alone, with Blythe’s words circling around in her head.

This lasted all night long, but at around 5 am, she sat up with bright eyes illuminated only by this light bulb moment and literally said out loud in the empty room, “That’s it!”

Meanwhile, it was clear that “coffee shop guy” wasn’t the only thing Ty had her eyes on, but didn’t exactly know how to approach.

Dr. Sterling Mayock was well known as one of the most respected doctors in the field of psychology in the DC area. He sat on numerous boards, was a member of several prestigious organizations, and even split time between his offices and The George Washington University where he also served as Dean of the Medicine and Health Sciences department.

Mayock, Singh & Associates was often whispered about among Ty’s coevals as one of the most sought-after places to secure a postdoc fellowship, not only because of the level of intense training they’d become famous for, but also because of what happened once the program was complete. All of their fellows went on to do great things—write books, become keynotes speakers, and eventually start their own practices—in addition to being some of the best doctors in the field.

Dr. Mayock had handpicked Ty to work with him at Mayock, Singh & Associates. He worked with her and personally oversaw her career to this point, and they even shared an alma mater in Princeton and often exchanged inside jokes and anecdotes about the school that only Princetonians would know.

Regardless of this foot up, postdoc fellows know that securing a respectable job in their desired field after completing the fellowship can still feel next to impossible, particularly for someone who wants to stay in a specific area. So when word got around that Mayock, Singh & Associates was expanding and would be looking for a new associate for another office in DC, Ty immediately started positioning herself to be their next hire.

Ty was used to being selected for things. Her unspoken philosophy was one where all she had to do was be the absolute best, and everything else would of course fall into place—people would call, doors would open, and everything would work itself out just the way it should. Because that’s how it had always gone for her her entire life.

She was one of three fellows in the practice. All highly educated. All equally qualified. All roughly the same age. All women. So, she had spent the past ten days putting forth her best effort in order to stand out so that she would be the one selected for the job.

“So, tell me what happened exactly?” her father asked.

That day, Ty found out that she wasn’t the one selected for the job and she didn’t exactly know how to handle this, so she needed advice and her father was the only one in the world who could give it to her.

Although they communicated at least several times a week, she never went to her father about things of this nature unless it was to tell him about an accomplishment. But he happened to be in town and they were meeting for dinner at the recent two Michelin Stars, Pineapple & Pearls. And so she gave him the details about what happened.

She had come into work that day, just as she had every other day over the past week, thinking about that job opening. If she got it, it wouldn’t start for another 10 months, which was when the new practice would open, but that was perfect; it would coincide with the completion of the fellowship and leave about a month or so for her to take a vacation before she started work.

In her mind, she was going to get this job. She had done everything she felt she needed to do in order to paint a picture of the ideal candidate: she had a few patients write favorable reviews on her behalf, she presented new ideas in the weekly meeting about how they could better serve the patients using technology, which all of the partners loved, and she made sure they saw her putting in extra hours in the evening.

But all of Ty’s game planning went out the window that morning when Kimberly Smith, another one of the young doctors, walked into the break room holding an empty coffee mug.

Instead of getting coffee, she immediately started a conversation with Ty that extended well past their usual morning chitchats.

“So, I know you heard about the new practice they’re opening and the job that’s coming with it.”

Ty tried to play it cool and said, “Yeah, I heard—”

“Well, I know you’ve thrown your hat in the ring and talked to Dr. Mayock already about hiring you for it,” Kimberly said with a smile. “You’re his favorite. We all know it—”

“No, I’m not his favorite,” Ty tried to correct.

But Kimberly went on: “No, it’s cool. All the partners have their favorites. Dr. Kamen loves Madison, and I’m Dr. Singh’s fave… I think,” she added jokingly. “Either way, I already talked to her about it. She said she thinks I’d make an excellent choice.”

This had caught Ty off guard. She didn’t expect to already be behind in a race she didn’t think anyone else was running yet.

“Well, I plan to speak to him this evening,” Ty said. “I checked his schedule and he has an opening just before 5 today, so I’m going to speak with him then.”

“Good luck,” Kimberly said, seemingly very genuinely.

And not even two seconds after this exchange, Dr. Mayock, a tall, slender white-haired white guy who loved vests under his blazers, walked into the room, whistling. He greeted them both with a nod and a “Hello, ladies,” as he headed straight to the coffee.

“Dr. Mayock,” Kimberly said, meeting him at the coffee machine. “Listen, I want to talk to you about the position at the new practice…”

And Ty stood there—with her jaw figuratively on the floor—watching without the strength or the audacity to do anything about it, as Kimberly swooped right in and put herself in perfect position to score the job she wanted.

For three minutes straight, Kimberly held her own job interview, listing her strengths and weaknesses, and what opportunities and threats she could capitalize on or combat as a new member of the practice. It was perfect, and although it was obviously rehearsed, it didn’t even sound like it.

Dr. Mayock was stunned. But then he looked at Ty and said, “That’s a pretty impressive spiel, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Aldridge? You have anything to add to that?”

He held a long gaze, hoping that Ty perhaps had something to say on her own behalf. He was actually shocked that he hadn’t heard from her about interest in the job already.

But the only thing Ty could come up with to say was, “I think Dr. Smith is a phenomenal therapist. And like she said, she absolutely would bring a lot to the new practice.” She then looked at Kimberly and forced herself to say, “Good luck. I’m rooting for you, Kimberly.”

Dr. Mayock, through squinted eyes, asked, “Is that it, Dr. Aldridge?”

Ty didn’t know what else to say.

She had spent over a week passive aggressively applying for this job. But sometimes when you pass—even when it’s aggressively—you get intercepted.

She didn’t sit there and tell her dad all of this because she wanted him to do anything for her. She even started this conversation prefacing this fact because—although this didn’t have anything to do with her being chosen by Dr. Mayock for the fellowship—her father and Dr. Mayock had known each other since before Ty was born. But she actually did earn her place in the office, so she didn’t want her father’s friendship to be a factor in this situation.

But again, she said, “Daddy, I’m not telling you this because I want you to do anything—”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to.”

This response shocked her because he always wanted to do something for her in situations like this. She would’ve at least liked the opportunity to fight him on it this time.

She then said, “It’s just… I feel like an elitist. I should have that job and I don’t know how to feel any other way,” she confessed.

“You are an elitist,” he told her matter-of-factly, which surprised her, especially when he added, “And it’s my fault. This kind of thinking is formulated when you spend your entire life being chosen for things. When you’re chosen… it means that somebody else was not chosen. Here’s you up here,” he explained, holding one of his hands up high. “And here’s other people.” He held his other hand about a foot lower to show the difference.

“You don’t think about it when you’re the one being chosen. It feels good. You just start believing that you’re better. That you were the one chosen simply because you are the best,” he said, watching her as she digested his words while staring into her wine glass. Although she’d had these same thoughts about herself, it took hearing this from him to make them true.

“So, you’ve been better than everybody your entire life. I’m sure you never actually thought this consciously, but you’ve been setup to believe you are because of how you were raised, the schools you went to, which all had to chose you to get into; everything that you’ve earned up to this point has been something that’s been given to you through a selection process. Including the fellowship you have now.

“So now that it’s finally time for you to go out into the real world—finally get a real job and start a real life—you were waiting to be selected for it. But the thing is,” he said to her, “in the real world, there are a lot of people who are equally qualified and often much more talented. Almost always, it comes down to the one who wants it the most. You prove that you want it by going after it. Not by sitting back and waiting for it to come to you.”

And that was just what Ty needed to hear. She could always count on Dad to give her little nuggets of wisdom like this.

But she could also always expect him not to know when to stop.

“The girl who got the job,” he asked, “what’s her story?”

Ty hid an eye roll as she revealed, “Went to Dartmouth, Black, same age—”

“So she’s you,” he concluded, “only she’s got a job to go to in ten months.”

Ty sunk into herself after he said that.

Her father could be a very intense man, although he was much less hard on her than he was on her brothers. She was his princess. But he still expected the best from her, and partly because she had never given him anything less than that.

He noticed and said to her apologetically. “Princess, I meant no harm.” And then he teased, “This is my fault. I spoiled you.”

Ty grimaced and looked over at him, taken aback this statement, as she remembered how hard he made her work for everything—all the jobs she had while in school, all the volunteer work, all the things she had to do in order to, in his words, “earn” the life he was giving to her. He had done a lot to try and build her character, but he knew there were some things that only time could build. Patience for an extremely privileged child was one of them.

“Sweety, what can I do?” he asked.

She simply shrugged.

“Well I am going to tell you what I think you should do,” he said. “I think you should start your own practice—”

“Dad—”

He interrupted her in order to finish his thought: “After you earn yourself some respect and credentials. You do that by getting a job. And that may have to happen elsewhere, another state.”

“I like it here in DC.”

“DC will be here when you decide to come back,” he said. “We have a place in New York. You could—”

“Yeah, but that’s not New York city.”

“Regretting not having that driver’s license now are we?”

They shared a smile.

“Listen, Princess,” and he sighed before he finished. “I wish I had something else to tell you, but…”

And he left it there. They finished their meal and spent the rest of the evening talking about other goings-on in their lives, politics, and he upcoming travel international plans.

After she got home, Ty spent the entire night thinking about how things could’ve gone differently. She’d had the same view of the field as the other girl, but when the ball was in her hands, she fumbled. Because the thing is: she wasn’t used to having to run with it.

There were some parts of the general DC area where I seldom ventured. Not that I had anything personal against them, I just never had any business in those parts. Germantown, Maryland was one of those places.

It was too far to be close, but too close to use as an excuse for being too far. It was just past the outstretched arms of Metro’s red line, which means that I was forced to drive—a chore that almost always accompanied a deep sigh with just the thought of it. Plus, that rumor you probably heard about DC having some of the worst traffic in the country was far from just hearsay. Even my attempt to avoid it by venturing out on a Sunday at 1:30 PM still proved futile.

After picking up Lucas, we arrived just before 3 at a sketchy looking industrial type of place where apparently companies not in the business-to-consumer market, but still needed office space to conduct work, were housed.

A buzzer sounded, which indicated that we were now allowed to come in, but as soon as we opened the door, the sound of rock-rap, which could’ve passed for someone’s makeshift interpretation of Limp Bizkit, hit us like a bag of bricks.

We were at some type of dirt bike shop, where you could buy parts, come to get your broken bike fixed, or get your stock bike suped-up.

Before we could process where to go, a guy appeared out of nowhere, yelling apologies about the sound.

“Let me get that! Sorry, the mix isn’t right yet!” he said, although I was skeptical about whether the mix was the only problem with it. “Follow me!”

He was overweight but attempted to hide it with a big t-shirt and even bigger jeans, and was probably my age, but his pale skin was weathered—perhaps a mixture of bad diet, substance abuse, and poor choices in beverages. And that’s not a judgment; the smell of weed clouded the place, and the half empty quart of Brandy sat near an open toolbox, right beside an empty McDonald’s bag.

After he cut the music down, he turned back to Lucas, smiled, and said, “What up, L?!” as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages.

Lucas gave a hesitant smile as the two smacked hands.

“Mario, this is Kenya. Kenya, this is my cousin, Mario,” Lucas introduced.

“The record label chick, right?”

Embarrassed by his cousin’s unprofessionalism, Lucas gave a hesitant smile while sneaking in a glance over at me to check my demeanor before responding, “Right.”

Mario extended his hand to me and I accepted the handshake and returned the, “Nice to meet you,” pleasantries.

“So, L told me that you wanted to talk some business with me?”

Considering where I should start, I just started. “Yeah. Well. See. I'm not exactly sure how much Lucas told you about his and my relationship—”

“You're his manager,” he said, cutting me off, conclusively.

“No. I'm not a manager. I own the record label that he's on,” I corrected.

“Well, you tell him what to do, what to sing, how to sing it... Sounds like a manager to me. Which is why I don't have one,” he added with a smile. He looked at Lucas almost expecting him to join in on the joke.

Lucas gave another halfhearted smirk, but neglected to give a full laugh.

I thought to myself, Which is also why your music sounds the way it does, but of course I wouldn’t say this out loud.

“Listen,” I said. “I'm not here to do the whole semantics thing, okay. I came to ask, respectfully, that you reconsider using Lucas' vocals on the song you did with him—”

“What?” he asked, very confused. “Why? Why would I do that?”

Already seeing that this wasn’t going to as easy as I’d hoped, I shot Lucas a disdainful glare and he folded into himself like a disobedient puppy.

“Because—and this is with all due respect—the quality and the content of the song does not... meet my approval.”

And instead of taking me serious, Mario just erupted with laughter right in my face, and ended it was a long, lingering, “Wooooooow.”

He looked at Lucas, still in disbelief, and then back to me.

Trying to find it in himself to calm down and continue this conversation seriously, he held back his laughter, looked and me and said, “Okay, so let me get this straight... Since you don't like the song, he can't be on it.”

I didn’t answer right away. I allowed this straight-faced pause, accompanied of course by a non-blinking stare right into his eyes, to tell him exactly what I was thinking at the moment. I didn’t appreciate being laughed at and not being taken seriously, and certainly not by someone like him.

Finally, although my expression had already given away the answer to his question, I said anyway, “No. He can’t.”

Still holding back a smile, Mario simply nodded and considered how he was going to proceed.

“Well you know what?” he said, and then looked at me without a trace of that smile in sight. “That's between you... and him.”

“Look,” I reasoned, “I know how much of an inconvenience this is, so I'm here to try to work something out with you.”

Mario stared into the floor, now avoiding looking at me.

“Because,” I went on, “I really cannot have Lucas anywhere near a song like that—”

“Alright,” he cut in, calmly, nodding. “I'll work with you.”

“Thank you,” I said, relieved. I let out two lungs full of air and relaxed my shoulders a bit. I was so happy that he understood where I was coming from. Sure, he was little hostile and kind of disrespectful in the beginning, but I could see that he was starting come around.

“Again, thank you so much—”

“I mean… considering the time it’ll take to find somebody else, record them, mix them, and master another track… I think a thousand sounds about fair.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d hear him correctly, so I raised my eyebrows expecting some clarification.

“One thousand dollars,” he repeated.

Oh, yeah. No, I’d heard him correctly.

“What?!”

“Cousin or not,” he said. “This is business. I paid this mothafucka $500 to sing that hook because he needed it to pay his rent. So if you don't want him anywhere near my music, then you need to figure out a fucking way to get him paid singing that soft ass Jason Mraz shit you like, so he won't have to come to me.”

What more could I say? How was I supposed to argue this?

As Lucas and I walked back to my car in silence, shouting across the parking at Lucas was Mario, “Aye, I’ll catch you on PS tonight?” referring to the video game they played together online.

The car ride back into town was quiet. But the good thing was, there wasn’t any traffic.

 

TK wanted to be there at my place when the delivery guy arrived with the CDs. And when they came, he wasted no time ripping into them with a blade.

“You know what?” he asked, as I stood by, watching. “I'm excited about this project. I honestly actually think it's my best work.”

This statement sounded incomplete to me, and I waited patiently for him to add the “but” before going into some other thought. But he finished opening the first box and took out one of the discs—a shrink-wrapped matte covered digipak with 14 tracks and two bonuses.

“I thought you were ordering more than this,” he said.

But I didn’t respond, because he would soon know why I’d decided to order a fewer number of discs than we had originally planned.

He looked at the one in his hand for a long while, and then he looked at me and finally decided to finish that thought: “But I don't feel the urge to go and sell it out the trunk of my car like I've done before. I feel like we are beyond that. We're two young, intelligent business people—”

“Who need a better sales strategy than one that's barely a step above panhandling,” I completed. And then sighed. We’d been consumed by the same thoughts, but neither of us had shared a solution.

I had, in fact, come up with an idea. That day with January, something she said sparked the thought, and I shared it with her just to see what she would say. January thought it was brilliant. Risky. But brilliant. However, I had spent the last week or so trying to figure out how to sell it to Tk in a way that he would buy into it.

“I admit,” I said to him. “This part is always the hardest for me. I want us to be able to do enough through our marketing—”

“Which we need more money to do,” he finished for me. “Look, you're doing what you can do—you got all those bloggers lined up to do interviews and reviews, college radio stations will be playing it; ten, twelve performances already set up. And I know we'll sell CDs at the shows—”

“But it's no different than before,” I said.

“Yeah, but each time we do a little better—sell a little more, get a little further. Look, I know I'm not the businessperson in this relationship, so can you please explain to me why doing it the same way is a bad thing?” he asked.

“Because the difference between a business and a hobby is that a business runs even when the owner is not there,” I explained. “I want this to be a business. But if I have to be there every time in order for a sale to take place, then...” I almost didn’t want to say, but it needed to be said. “After all these years, I'm afraid this is... It's not a business. Not yet. And that? Honestly? It bothers me.”

“Well, let me know when you have a better idea.”

And I looked at him to see if he was serious about this. Because I did have an idea.

He sensed my gaze and looked at me suspiciously. “What?” he asked with a bit of skepticism.

I took my time before I started.

“Listen. I want you to hear me. Don’t judge this idea. At least, not just yet. I want you to sit with it, sleep on it,” I said. Gently, I continued, “I know you just quit your job. I know you have a family to support. And honestly? If after you think about this, you feel strongly that you don’t wanna do it…”

I could see that he was starting to look a bit fearful of what I might say. He was barely breathing and hadn’t blinked once since I started this intro.

“I’ll understand,” I said. “And I’ll just have to come up with something else. But man, I really think this is the best way to go.”

And instead of just talking, I grabbed a typed and printed document from my desk and handed it to him. It was the first draft of the marketing plan I’d put together for this next album.

Tk sat there quietly, listening as I shared the details and how it would work. As agreed, he didn’t say one word for or against it. And he left my house an hour later without me knowing how he felt one way or the other about my radical plan.

At the front of the large room that had met its capacity 20 people ago, FKA Twigs, the special guest performer, put the finishing touches on an incredible three-song show. As a huge fan, I wasn’t going to miss this chance to see her live for free, so I ignored everything and everybody as if I was in my own personal concert.

It wasn’t a formal event, so the attire was just as casual and artsy as the attendees themselves appeared to be.

Face Magazine was one of the sponsors for a fundraiser on behalf of the Duke Ellington School of Arts, the city's most prestigious high school. Anybody who was anybody in DC was there. And although I wasn't particularly a “somebody” in comparison to the folks there, my connection at the magazine made sure that none of that mattered.

Lucky for me, because I’m not one for spending time concerning myself with the minutia of fashion, I have two friends to lean on in such desperate times. With their occupations, both of them had reason to care more than I did about fabric, so in situations like this when my cluelessness couldn’t be overlooked, I at least didn’t feel helpless.

Since it was her event, tonight was J’s turn to play dress up with me. She knew my comfort level, so I almost never had to fight her or question her fashion choices. But the best part was, I didn’t have to think about it!

Once there, J and Ty found a pub table with two empty bar stools not far from the food.

“It's like, anybody who's anybody is here,” Ty said.

“This school means a lot to this city, so they usually bring out a lot of VIPs in support of their programs,” J explained. “You know Kenya graduated from there, right?”

“Yeah. Where is she anyway?” Ty asked.

From the moment we arrived, I’d been pulled into at least four different conversations by a former teacher, Mrs. Dorsey, who wanted the new teachers at the school to know that she’d taught me and that I was doing something she felt was worth bragging about. Perhaps, she believed that her social studies lectures had a major impact on my decision to discontinue college and become an entertainment industry entrepreneur.

I stood in the small group, surrounded by five apparent current instructors whose conversation had become more tangential than focused on my involvement in entertainment.

For the life of me, I couldn’t find a way out without seeming rude, but I couldn’t help but be distracted by the mostly recognizable faces sprinkled throughout the place: the owner of the Washington Mystics was at the bar talking to the owner of the Capitals and Wizards; the president of DC’s film commission chatted with a city councilman; the chief of the fire department was secretly fanning-out while getting to meet the star outfielder for the Nationals.

I was enjoying watching all of this, but was pulled back in by sweet little Mrs. Dorsey.

“Kenya,” she said to me, “I’m thinking that maybe you should come and talk to my class. They will be so impressed. A former student in the music business...”

Suddenly, I could no longer hear a word she was saying. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything at all. The entire room had fallen silent. Or at least it felt that way to me. For a second, there was nobody else in the room besides me… and him—Dream Guy.

Looking past Mrs. Dorsey’s shoulder and way across the room, I spotted him, just casually standing with a small group, laughing, talking, and nursing a drink in a small glass.

My god, I didn’t think a person could get better looking in just a matter of weeks, but he proved that it was true, it could happen. Maybe it was the more suave attire he had on for this event. Maybe he had done something extra in his grooming routine that he hadn’t the other days. Maybe nothing had changed and I just needed this quick reminder of how damn gorgeous he was.

I hadn’t counted on ever seeing him again. I had written him off as just another missed opportunity due to fear. But there he was.

And just as I caught myself nearing salivation, about three or four girls entered his conversation; one of them apparently requesting a hug from him, because he reached over and hugged her.

It probably should’ve been a quick, sweet greeting, but she held on, quite tightly I might add, which caused him to chuckle with embarrassment. And while still being held hostage by the girl, he happened to look up, and he caught eyes with me staring in his direction across the room.

His eyes squinted with familiarity for a moment, but that’s when she finally let go and he was able to stand upright again. Not one to be interrupted, he looked back over at me. And I had to literally tell myself, Do not look away.

I repeated the phrase about five times in the three additional seconds we held eye contact, before I convinced myself to offer up a wave. Don’t ask me why I did that. It wasn’t part of my training with Kenneth. I don’t know where that came from.

And with this, he started to wave back. He went to bring his hand up, but the girl caught it, as she took it and pulled him away to meet someone else.

When I tuned back into Mrs. Dorsey, she was finally realizing that she had a lot more talking to do with other people, so she agreed to email me before letting me go.

But I was entering a hailstorm coming back to the table with J and Ty, as I found myself walking in on one of their debates.

“It’s not about your strategy,” J explained. “You have to be willing to take risks in order to get what the fuck you want sometimes, or else people who are will be the ones getting the positions, the promotions, and the raises that you think you deserve.”

Ty had actually stopped debating and was listening to J this time. I was shocked, but kept the thought to myself.

Almost whispering, J said to her, “That’s the fucking problem. You’re not leaving it all out there. That’s just like with that coffee shop guy.”

And then she looked to me for backup on this. “Kenya, please, would you tell her that coffee shop guy is not going to just come over to her.”

I looked to Ty and said, “Coffee shop guy is not going to come over to you.”

We all laughed.

“See?” J said, having proven her point.

Ty disregarded us. “She’s just saying that—”

“Listen to me, okay,” J reasoned. “He's not going to come over. You'll be telling us this same damn story in a year because you're not doing what the fuck you need to do to make this shit happen.”

“Well what am I supposed to do?” Ty asked. “What is it that you think I should be doing?”

“The first thing you wanna to do is stop talking to us about this shit. I mean sure, we don't mind listening to you, but don't ever ask women for advice about men.”

Ty said, “Well, I didn't ask for your advice—”

“You're just complaining to me. Same thing. You want me to tell you something to make you feel better.”

Ty tried resisting her smile as she shook her head.

“So. Since we're having this conversation, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you what to do. I mean, I am already helping you.”

“Are you, J? Are you?” Ty asked, loaded with sarcasm.

“You ready?” J asked, ignoring her unappreciative language.

Ty rolled her eyes and glanced at me with a smirk on her face, like she almost couldn’t believe that she was even about to listen to this. But reluctantly agreed to hear it. “Sure.”

J gave a dramatic pause for about three seconds before coming out with, “Smile.”

Ty looked at her, waiting for the rest. And then she looked at me as if I had something to add, which considering my recent training with Kenneth, wasn’t farfetched, but I was all out of pointers for the evening.

“Smile?” she repeated.

“Smile,” J confirmed. “That's it. Just smile at him. It shows that you're open. All men are looking for is an opening. From there it'll be easier. And stop thinking about all that other bullshit about who approaches who first and who says what when and how... None of that matters. All you want to do is have a conversation with the man. Meet him. That's it. And if anything else happens—”

“Nothing else is gonna happen,” Ty cut in.

“I'm just saying,” J said with a smile. “You never know.”

Funny. Had J really put her mind to it, she could've had her own coaching business like Kenneth. Women would pay her handsomely to have the knowledge she had about men. But I guess active players can't coach and be in the game at the same time.

I was in need of some fresh air, so I stepped away without either of them realizing it. Their conversation had gone back to Ty’s job situation and what her next steps should be.

Considering the sub-50 degree weather, there were only a handful of people out on the terrace, drinking and conversing, despite the venue’s effort to heat the area with those decorative outdoor lamps. I tried to tell myself that “fresh air” was the reason I’d gone out there, but that was just a rehearsed excuse if I was asked. I was really trying to low-key look for that dude.

Did I know what I was going to do? Nope. Did I have something prepared to say? Not in the slightest. After five days with one of the top dating experts in the world, I was still a bit gun-shy. I mean, this wasn’t a random guy in a bookstore; this was Dream Guy… from the Apple Store.

Yeah, now that I say it out loud, I realize how silly it might’ve been to be so nervous. He was just a guy.

I peered out at the perfect view of the White House in the near distance, illuminated by its surrounding light. And right at that moment, I looked down the railing to my right to see Dream Guy about 10 yards away, perhaps also in need of some fresh air and solitude to go along with this gorgeous view. He hadn’t looked to his left, so he didn’t see me.

Just then, two girls came out and went right over to him, and I could hear one of them say something about joining him. He turned to them and responded very politely, “That’s okay. I’m good alone. Thank you.”

And they both reluctantly turned and walked away.

But just as he was motioning back to his original position—leaning on the railing, looking out at the nighttime skyline—that’s when he saw me. I could feel his eyes when they landed on the side of my face, as I was pretending to give DC my attention again.

After a few moments, I turned and he was still looking in my direction. In that moment, I had forgotten everything I’d learned over that week with Kenneth, but the one thing I’d just heard J tell Ty inside was what stuck out in my mind—smile.

And so that’s what I did. I didn’t look away. I didn’t walk off. I just flashed him one of my best, most sincere smiles.

And what do you know? He smiled back!

“So... What? Is that your fan club or something?” I joked.

And he laughed.

“I thought you had to be famous to have fans,” he said.

“No,” I responded with absoluteness while shaking my head. “They let average Joes have them. It's usually capped at about three though. From what I counted, you are way over your limit, mister.”

And again, he liked my joke. Only this time, he started to step closer and I decided to meet him halfway.

“Hi. I'm Kenya,” I said.

He reached for my hand in order to greet me with a shake and I gave it to him.

“Nice to finally meet you, Kenya.”

“Finally?” I asked.

“Yeah. I mean, I've seen you around,” he said, still holding my hand.

He noticed me?! I thought. I started to feel silly about wasting all of this time. We could’ve met weeks ago!

Looking at me, his eyes quickly went down and back up to mine as he said, “You look... amazing tonight.”

Now, I couldn’t hide my blush. I almost giggled, but stopped myself and just went with, “Thank you—”

“I'm sorry,” he said, shaking his head as if he’d made a terrible mistake. “I'm Derek.” And then he also realized, “And I still have your hand.”

We both started laughing as he finally let my hand go.

“Derek St. Cyr,” he said, this time giving his full name.

“Derek St. Cyr,” I repeated, letting him know that his name sounded familiar to me.

Derek St. Cyr was a Texan who had recently become somewhat celebrated in DC, which is not always the easiest thing for a Texan to do, considering DC’s football rivalry with the Cowboys. His community work, particularly with children and his involvement with DC’s missing girls epidemic, had also been getting quite a bit of news and social media coverage. He now had a name around these parts.

“I guess you're a step or two above an average Joe,” I joked again.

And he laughed and said, “So I'm not just the creepy dude with the random fan club.”

“No. I’ll admit, though, I do admire your work. Although... not enough to join the road show. Sorry.” I was kidding about the flock of girls that seemed to follow him around the place here. In fact, as we talked, the two that wanted to join him had not left; they were standing within earshot, pretending not to hear our conversation.

Derek took a relaxed breath and continued to smile. I could tell that he was finding my charm comforting.

Discreetly, he said to me, “They keep asking me if I want company.”

“Well... When you make a name for yourself like you have lately, people gravitate toward that.”

“And yet... you didn't even know who I was.”

He had me there.

I couldn’t look away from him. And I guess he felt the same, because he wouldn’t look away either.

His eyes were a bold, deep brown, the kind you could easily get lost looking into. And as I kept looking, I found myself far away from that terrace on which we were sharing this exchange, in a place where Derek was somebody I knew very well and laughed with very often, and shared meals and secrets and hugs and kisses with. He was there with me, and when he wasn’t, I certainly wanted him to be. And when we were together, nobody else existed in whole world.

And then suddenly I was back.

“So, are you one of Duke Ellington’s donors or—”

“Not exactly,” I said. And then with a smile, I added, “Well, I donate my time, if that counts.”

He smiled.

“No, I actually graduated from here,” I said.

“Really?” he asked, sounding impressed. “I bet now you’re a big time artist that maybe I’ve had my head too far in the sand to have heard of. Am I right?”

“No. I’m actually a… I own an indie record label.”

“Wow! An entrepreneur. I wanna be an entrepreneur when I grow up,” he joked.

“Trust me, it’s much harder than it looks,” I warned. “Especially when you have very limited resources and you reach a point where it feels like you’re not sure what’s the best move to make for the future of everything and everyone involved. It can be a lot of pressure having control over other peoples’ livelihood, you know what I mean?”

He didn’t agree that he actually knew what I meant, but he nodded and took in everything I was saying, while staring blankly at the floor as if he was putting some extra thought into it.

And then he asked, “You ever heard the phrase 'run to daylight’?”

I shook my head and replied, “No.”

“It’s something one of my old mentors used to use all the time. It was coined by Vince Lombardi, a legendary football coach,” he said.

And then he took his time to finish because he apparently wanted to get this part right: “In football, the coach will design a play that should create the best opportunity for the guy with the ball to score. But,” he said, “the designed pattern may not always be the best route toward the goal. So… ‘run to daylight’ is a way of telling the runner to break away, take off to where he sees an opening. Create his own lane, essentially.”

I nodded as I followed where he was taking me.

“I say, don’t overthink it,” he continued. “Don’t stress yourself out. You’re a brilliant woman, I’m sure. The right move will come to you.”

A guy two times Derek’s size appeared beside us. “Hey D, we gotta go, man.”

“Alright,” Derek said to him. And then he looked back to me, noticeably searching for what he was going to say next.

“Ah... It was nice to finally meet you, and get to talk to you, Mrs.—”

“Miss,” I corrected. “Shaw.”

He caught the implication of my correction—that I was not married, but in fact, very, very single—and smiled. “Miss Shaw. Kenya.”

And he smiled again.

And I smiled again.

And the big guy, who was not smiling, realizing that Derek wasn’t leaving as quickly as he’d hoped, so he just decided to step away to wait.

So, I said, “How about we... we talk again some time if, you know… you would like to—”

“Yeah. Absolutely,” he said, pulling out his cell.

I quickly retrieved mine from my clutch, gave him my number, and watched as he called me so that I would have his too. As we both listened for the call to connect, I seized the opportunity to return the favor and make him blush: “You have an incredibly beautiful smile, by the way.”

And just as my phone started ringing, showing a 972 area code, Derek dropped his head in an attempt to hide his smile, which of course made me smile too.

I would call my coach, Kenneth, the very next day to give him the details about the night, and he would inform me that Derek will tell his friends about how he picked me up at a charity art show. But come on. We all know that it was me who put in the real work to make this happen, right?

Derek took my hand again for a farewell handshake and said, “We'll be in touch.” And then he smiled and nicknamed me, “Maestro,” before walking away to meet the big guy who was patiently waiting.

I watched him as he walked away—yes, absolutely checking him out from behind—until I could no longer see him.

Left behind was that intoxicating aroma of chocolate.

I turned back to continue looking out at the clear night sky, reflecting on what had just happened with Dream… I mean, Derek.

Who am I kidding? I was a fan from the moment I first laid eyes on him.

We left the event around 10 that night. By 11, J was standing outside of Cam’s condo door with a special gift she’d personally spent several hours the day before making for him.

When the door opened, he smiled expecting her to come in. But she stood right there at the threshold pointing a three-ring notebook at him until he finally took it, suspiciously.

“What is this?” he asked, grimacing before opening the cover to look inside.

That night, J presented Cam with a playbook.

She simply said, “I'm gonna need you to study that.”

Cam’s face contorted more and more as he turned each page. There were Xs and Os, optimal routes for offense and defense, diagrams, and what looked to be equations; there were even actual pictures in there of was obviously the female anatomy.

“This is… Did you draw these?!” he asked in disbelief.

But the answer to that wasn’t important to J.

She just said, “Look, do you ever want to fuck me again?”

At first he didn’t think this was a question. But then he looked at her and saw that she was really expecting an answer.

“Yeah! Yes, of course.”

“Well then I'm gonna need you to study it,” she said, sternly. “It's a playbook, okay, of the optimal moves and approximate amounts of time you need to spend doing each of them in order for me to reach climax, got it?”

He nodded, still is a bit of shock.

“There’s even a list of exercises… Squats, for instance, really help strengthen the quads, lower back, and the core. Just saying.”

He looked back down at the notebook again as he mechanically turned another page.

“Is this a—”

“It's the inside of a woman,” J confirmed. “But not just any woman. Me.”

“But how do you know what—”

And then he realized that he didn’t need to ask that question because he really didn’t need to know the answer.

He closed the book finally getting what was being said to him, and without looking at her, he concluded, “So... you're saying I don't know what I'm doing.”

J could see that he felt bad about this, and the last thing she wanted to do was make somebody feel bad. So with as much sympathy as she could muster, she said to him with pity in her eyes, “I don't have to. You say it. Every time you attempt to pleasure me and I'm not... well, pleasured.”

She failed. He felt like shit and she could see it.

“Listen, I wanna work with you,” she reasoned. “But you gotta meet me halfway.”

Cam took a deep breath, looked back down at the notebook in his hand, and then took another deep breath. He knew this would be a very daunting task.

But then he looked over at J—starting at her feet, his eyes crawled all the way up, bending each and every curve of her frame—and by the time his eyes met hers he was damn near salivating.

And right then, he realized that if he ever wanted to score with her again, he needed to be coached up. So he stepped aside and welcomed her in.

 

First thing Monday morning, Ty went to Peet’s Coffee as usual. Ordered her usual medium mocha latte. But only this time, instead of peering at Ryan from behind as she waited for her name to be called, she walked right into his line of vision and chose that spot to wait for her order.

She didn’t want to come across creepily, so she didn’t stare, but she definitely looked at him enough to draw his eyes up and in her direction. And when he finally caught eyes with her, that’s when she did exactly what she had been coached by J to do—she smiled.

And just as J predicted he would, he smiled back.

Just then, the barista yelled, “Ty: Medium mocha latte! Ryan: Large Caffé Americano, extra hot!” and placed the two cups side-by-side on the counter.

As they went to pick up their drinks, she said, “I'm Medium mocha latte, Ty.'”

And he said, “Hi. I'm 'Large Caffé Americano, Ryan.'”

They shared another smile while shaking hands. And because both of them had a few minutes to spare before they had to be on their respective ways, they decided to spend a few minutes while sipping their drinks to engage in small talk.

She didn’t give him her number or get his. They didn’t agree that they should see each other outside of their run-ins at the coffee shop a few times a week. Maybe that would come later. Maybe not.

But Ty felt so good about finally breaking the ice with Ryan that she went into work later that morning and straight to her boss’s office.

“Dr. Mayock, I want to talk to you about that therapist position at the new practice—”

“Okay, Dr. Aldridge. But that position has been filled. You know that—”

“Yes, I do. But it’s not filled with the right person.”

And when she said this, Dr. Mayock stopped and looked up at her, half shocked, half impressed.

“Maybe I should say the ‘best’ person. I want to be considered… No,” she stopped to correct. “I want that therapist position.”

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier when you knew we were—”

“I’m saying it now,” she said, more forcefully than she intended, considering she was talking to her boss. So she rephrased: “I mean… I made a big mistake by not speaking up last week when I had the chance. But Dr. Mayock, you’ve seen the way I am with these patients here. No one cares more. No one works more. No one does more than I.”

He listened. And he heard her.

“I don’t want to be a great addition to your practice. Any good doctor can do that,” she said. “I want to help take it to the next level.”

And that made him smile.

“Dr. Aldridge, you have all the talent in the world. I believe you were made for this,” he said to her. “And trust me, I know how much you’re loved here. I know you can be great. But let me give you a bit of advice: you’re not going to get any extra points in life by always being a cheerleader.”

And Ty knew this now. She looked him in his eyes and she nodded, accepting his constructive criticism.

Looking back at her, he exhaled and said, “From now on, I want you to carry this assertiveness with you, and when you need it, use it, okay?”

She nodded as she watched him yank a pen from the holder on his desk and begin writing on a Post-it note.

“My colleague, Dr. Aikman, has a small practice in southeast.” He tore off the note and pointed it at Ty. “But she works exclusively with children.”

Ty held her breath as she accepted the little paper, and looked at it to see a name and phone number.

“She will be looking for someone around the time your fellowship ends. You’re going to call her today, and you’re going to tell her exactly what you just told me this morning—that no one else is better for that position, and that she should hire you.”

Ty tried to hold back a smile.

“I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting the job on your own,” he told her. “But if you need it, I’ll give you stellar recommendation.”

Showing more emotion than she ever has in front of him, she said, “Thank you so much, Dr. Mayock!”

“Alright, get to work,” he told her. “You’ve got patients waiting to see you.”

She turned to leave—

“Oh, and Dr. Aldridge,” he said, stopping her before she left. “I’m rooting for you.”

Ty felt good that day for the first time in a long time. And although nothing was promised, she still felt as though she’d at least made the right moves to get herself closer to the goal.

That same afternoon, I was at Lucas’s door holding a big brown bag, which I handed to him as soon as I walked in.

He took it, peering inside as he closed the door behind me.

“What's this?” he asked, reaching inside.

I didn’t say anything, I just watched as he retrieved an 8 x 10 frame. Inside it was a black and white photo of him playing on stage. It was an incredibly epic picture taken by a wonderfully talented photographer—the kind of photograph you see years later that remind you of the greatness that was yet to come.

“You remember that?” I asked him.

And he smiled, trying to remember. He doesn’t.

“That was at that showcase at—”

“Blues Alley. Yeah. I remember now,” he said, smiling reminiscently, still staring at the photo.

“I didn't even know you had this,” he said. “I didn’t even know it existed.”

“It was just a few months after we met. We took 75 CDs to that place. And didn't come back with a single one. I don't know if there was a person there that didn't buy it.”

I watched him still staring at the photo, remembering.

So I asked, “You remember that feeling?”

His eyebrows went up just as he answered, “Yeah. And I remember you promised me you would see to it that I multiply that crowd by 1000 someday. You said: 'these are your people.'”

“That’s right,” I said, still watching him.

And then I reminded his of this: “Lucas, Mario's people aren't your people.”

He finally looked up at me with his eyes filled with regret.

“That,” I said, referring to that photo, “is our goal, right?”

And he nodded, agreeing.

“So… I know the need for money can toy with our decisions. But you have to keep that vision in mind for who you want to be and where you want to go. We—you and me—have to make decisions now with your future in mind. Those people who wouldn't let you leave that show without giving you $10 for a CD? They expect to hear your heart and soul when they spend their money. Not something you did just because you needed money.”

The room fell silent for a long moment. I could see Lucas trying to formulate something, but was having a difficult time putting it together. I gave him his time.

And then finally he came out with it. “So… what about that song with Mario? Is it going to ruin my reputation?”

Oh yeah, that.

“Don’t worry about that,” I told him. “I took care of it.”

And I left it at that. Lucas didn’t need to know that after we left Germantown that Sunday afternoon, I went home, got on my computer, and researched cease and desist letters. After I found about three very good ones, I did some cutting and pasting in order to make a really nice, long, wordy one that highlighted the illegal use of the voice and likeness of Lucas and the incorrect use of a trademark. And on and on I went, listing a few other laws and grounds that were being “violated.” The letter also stated that if the song somehow “leaked,” that 16:9 Recordings, my record company, would take appropriate legal action, which would result in it becoming the sole owner of a Germantown dirt bike shop.

That evening before the art show with Soloman, I stopped at the shipping place so that I could send this letter certified next-day delivery. And first thing Monday morning when I knew that he’d gotten it, I sent the very same letter in an email.

He called the same day and agreed not to use the song. And I agreed to pay back the $500, although I had no idea where I was going to get that kind of extra money, but figuring it out was sure as hell less stressful than trying to figure out how to pay $1000.

 

I felt like I had already put in a week’s worth of work and it was only Monday. After washing off the day with a warm shower, slipping into my in-the-house uniform of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and fixing a quick dinner, I had retreated to my sanctuary in the basement to just chill for the first time all day.

I lay across the sofa on my back with my laptop propped up on my knees as I surfed the web, juggling reading emails, skimming various nonsense celebrity news sites, and scrolling through my social media feeds.

Any Given Sunday played on the TV. I was tuning in and out since I’d seen the movie 5 or 6 times already, and although I thought it was over stylized at times, I enjoyed the story and didn’t mind seeing it again whenever I caught the chance.

"Life’s this game of inches. So is football,” Pacino exclaims.

This drew my attention and I looked over at the screen to watch the scene.

“Because in either game—life or football—the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half step too late or to early, you don't quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us..."

My phone pinged right at that moment indicating the incoming text.

It was from Tk. It just said, “Let’s do it.”

I smiled, knowing exactly what he was talking about, and sent back a “thumbs up” emoji.

When I met with January a couple weeks ago, I wanted to hear her ideas, but I mostly wanted to her to hear mine, because although I felt strongly about the direction in which I wanted to go with Tk, my insecurity about the risk called for objective reasoning from someone I trusted.

And so, January was the first person I shared the idea with, as we sat eating Tex-Mex.

“I think the art should be free,” I said to her. And I watched as her eyes narrowed and she became more intrigued, moving in just a few inches closer, resting her chin on her fists as she listened.

“I believe that the art should be free, but that we sell the experience. The experience is the shows, the merchandise, which includes the CDs or vinyl—anything that brings you closer to the artist is what we sell. But digitally, you should be able to download the music if you want it. I want to focus my efforts and money on marketing my artist as an experience, not a plastic commodity you can throw away.”

Of course, the “how” part of my strategy was more detailed, but January found it fascinating, and just as I’d wanted, she challenged every aspect of this idea with question after question after question. And I provided answers. No, I didn’t know everything. I didn’t even know if this would work. But she agreed that it was worth a try. Which is half of what I needed to hear.

The other half had just come to me in the form of a text from Tk. I’d wait until tomorrow to get the details of his decision to jump off this cliff with me. But tonight, I would revel in the fact that I was not epitomizing the definition of insanity—we were not going to be doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result.

No, I didn’t know what result we’d get this time, but that was something that only time would tell.

"Because we know when we add up all those inches,” Pacino says, “that's going to make the fucking difference between WINNING and LOSING..."

And right then, my phone began ringing. I picked it up and looked at it, and the sight of the 972 area code caused my temperature to rise and my heart to skip a beat or two. It was him.

In life, just like in football, sometimes a play will be called for you. Maybe it’ll be the best play; maybe it’ll earn you a few inches, maybe not. Either way, patience and vision is the key to reaching your goal. And along the way, you have to take the time to see what develops—to notice that slither of opportunity. And once the ball is in your hands... run to daylight.

END of THREE

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