“So you want to learn some of those moves after all?”
“Oh, no. I’m not doing that . . . what was that roll thing you did with your . . .”
“Body roll. It’s easy. You could totally do it.”
She demonstrates, starting the move at her neck and pouring it over her chest and hips and down the rest of her. I focus on everything from Brussels sprouts to global warming to keep my dick down.
“You overestimate both my ability and my desire to roll my body,” I manage to say.
“You’re probably right.” She grins and glances at her phone again, moving toward the exit. “Well, I need to run. The next bus comes in a few minutes, and I can’t be late for work.”
“More work?” I keep pace with her, determined not to let her make it to that bus stop. “I seem to remember you working at Grady’s and then me driving you to work here. Now, you’re going to another job?”
“Girl’s gotta eat and live indoors.” The smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes sits firmly on her mouth. “I need to run.”
“Hey, how about I take you?” I say casually. “I mean, I stayed. I’m here. Might as well. Where do you need to go?”
Her hesitation makes me hold my breath. Why does it matter so much to me? There are literally a dozen girls I could have tonight. I could swing by Wood. Some groupies would be hanging on while an artist is in the booth. I could hit it. Quit it. Zip and roll. But this one scrambles my brain. I haven’t thought about another girl since I saw Kai last night at Grady’s. I want a little more time, mostly just to sort out what this is. I’m sure it will pass, but it hasn’t yet.
She looks up at me from under these long-as-hell lashes, trapping her bottom lip between her teeth and toying with the end of the braid hanging over her shoulder.
Nah. Kidney stones pass. This girl, I’ll have to work out of my system.
“Okay.” Her face looks less convinced than what she says. “You familiar with The Note?”
“That place off Magnolia?”
“Yeah. That’s my next job. My last for the day.”
Once I’ve opened her door and then settled into the driver’s seat, we’re off. The clock is ticking. I have to tell her that I want to see her again.
Tell me I’m performing on Fallon, no problem. Number one album in the country? Unfazed. But this? Unfamiliar territory. I want to know her, and I can’t remember ever feeling like this before, responding to anyone like this before, so it’s freaking me the fuck out. Next thing I know, I’ll be sliding her a note that says check yes, no, or maybe.
I have to say something.
“So how does a half-white, half-Korean girl from the backwoods of Georgia learn to dance like that?”
Yeah, that’s actually what I came up with. I seem to find inventive ways to insult her every time I open my mouth.
“I just meant that, you . . . well—”
“I know what you meant.” She laughs a little and gives a “Wow, this guy” raise of her eyebrows.
“I’m really not that much of an idiot,” I assure her. “I’ve seen So You Think You Can Dance. I know everybody’s dancing now.”
Her face is half puzzled, half amused. She’s still not sure how to take me. It takes a while.
“That was a joke,” I say. “Apparently not a good one.”
“Oh, so you haven’t seen So You Think You Can Dance?”
“I’ve seen a commercial for it, and from what I could tell, it was a veritable rainbow of contestants.”
Finally we smile at the same time, on the same page.
“I used to get that question a lot, actually,” she says. “I’ve always loved to dance, and I took every class I could get into. It didn’t matter what kind as long as it made me a better dancer. The good ones were a thirty-minute drive one way. My mom drove me every day between shifts at her diner.”
“Grady mentioned that your mom passed not too long ago. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks.” A shadow passes so quickly over her face I almost miss it. “It was a long time coming, so we knew, but I still wasn’t ready when it happened.”
“And then you moved here?”
“I was way off schedule. I was supposed to move out here with San right after high school, but when my mom was diagnosed with ALS, I couldn’t leave her.”
It’s quiet again, and this time she’s not trying to break it. Her head is turned to the passenger window, and her arms are folded across her chest. She’s done talking. She’s sitting here, but her mind and everything that counts is somewhere else. Maybe in the past. Maybe on the future. Wherever it is, she’s there alone.
I lean back a little in the driver’s seat, draping my wrist across the steering wheel. We’re almost at The Note, and I’m no closer to defining what I’m experiencing for the first time or to letting her know I want to see her again. I’m not used to chasing any girl. I’ve never had to. Music has pretty much been the silver platter women have been served on for me. And though she’s been friendly, by all indications, Kai’s signaled me that she is not on the menu.
I pull into the parking lot. I’m a waste of space. I didn’t even write a speech when I accepted my first Grammy. Came right off the top, but I can’t tell this girl I want to see her again? Grab your balls and do it, man.
“So, Kai—”
“Rhyson, I wanted to—”
We both laugh a little because after riding so long in silence, we choose the exact same moment to speak.
“Ladies first.”
“I just wanted to say thanks for everything today.” She fiddles with the strap of her bag and keeps her eyes on her fingers. “The reminders about breathing and the compression exercises. Thanks for that, and for chauffeuring me around. I’m sure you had better things to do.”
“Nope. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do.”
She glances up at me and then away, but not before a little bit of a smile breaks through.
“Look, I may not have been lining up for your autograph or anything last night like everybody else, but I do love your music. I’m a fan.”
“Sure you are.”
“I am.”A grin as wide and sweet as licorice spreads across her lips.
“Okay, fangirl. What’s your favorite song?”
“Not the one you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“You probably think it’s one you won a Grammy for or one of the ones that went platinum, but it’s not. It wasn’t even a radio release.”
“All right, hit me with it. What’s your favorite?”
“Number nine on your first album.”
I couldn’t have heard her right. No one says number nine. It’s one of the most personal songs I ever wrote. So personal and so mine that no one ever gets it. The producer at the time called it a self-indulgent choice, but I insisted we include it.
“‘Lost’?” I ask, just to make sure. “‘Lost’ is your favorite song?”
She clears her throat before speaking.
“‘I’ve lost my way. I stumbled into the woods, but can’t see the forest for the trees. How did I get here? Where am I going?’”
The first line of “Lost.”
“Why is that your favorite?”
“I fell asleep to that song for months when I was taking care of my mom. There I was, still living in a tiny Georgia town and working at Glory Bee, my mom’s diner. Making biscuits before sun up, dancing only when I could squeeze it in, and taking care of Mama in her final days. It was overwhelming and it all had to be done, but it was nothing I had ever planned to do. That song was how I felt. I loved it because I was so lost.”
She lowers her head, blinking fast and pursing her lips. I don’t think she means for it to, but her voice falls to a whisper.
“Because sometimes I still am.”
As much as she lights up a room, dancing, laughing from time to time, I’m beginning to see that just beneath the surface of Kai, there is as much shadow as there is shine. I don’t know if it’s because of her mother’s recent death and the long illness that came before, or if it’s more than that, but I connect to it. As someone who had to battle my parents in open court for my freedom and survival, I understand shadow. I could step into it with her, or I could pull her out.