“Anyway, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to let her know how I feel, and then I remembered, in one of her shows she said that it just has to be true to you, just has to be real. Say it in the way you know how. So this is what I know. I know how it feels when I get the perfect shot. When the light hits a certain way, and someone’s expression is the perfect display of emotion. It feels like you’ve hit on something sacred. That’s how I feel when I look at her. She’s the perfect shot. And the perfect shot isn’t about something being flawless, it’s about the truth. She’s the truth to me. Clarity. The world is doable when she is near me.”
Composure was threatening to leave my body. “Kai.” My voice was a hoarse vocal stumble. Blackwell was enraptured, camera phones up, interest piqued. I was frozen to the spot.
“I also know how my favorite movies make me feel. They pull me in and pull me out, I am totally in their world, but they also make me look in. I watch them and feel home, I watch them and feel like I can never know enough, I watch them over and over, always ready to discover the universe they create. That’s how she makes me feel. There’s a whole universe in her and I would be so lucky to live in it, explore it. Over and over.”
The film stopped. Aminah cleared her throat into the mic. Her eyes were glistening, and she surreptitiously pinched my waist. “Okay. Well that’s it from our sponsor. Now we have our first call.”
She smiled at me and passed me the mic, as if I were capable of working right then, as if my brain was capable of coherency. She nodded at me with such command that I found myself say, in a choked-up voice, “Hi. Welcome to ‘Brown Sugar Sessions.’ What’s your song request?”
Malakai walked through the doors, phone to his ear, hand in his pocket, looking directly at me, into me, revitalizing the butterflies, gaze moving like a defibrillator. The crowd turned around to see what I was looking at and immediately dissolved into low woops and cheers, braps and bloops and gun fingers.
“So I was thinking, ‘When We Get By,’ D’Angelo. You know it, right?”
I was going to faint.
“Vaguely.”
“See that song,” the voice said, “sounds like sunshine to me. Sounds like how I think love feels.”
I shook my head and bit into my smile. “Corny.”
“Rude.”
I snorted.
“But then I wondered—and I guess this is my query,” Malakai continued, “if, even that song isn’t enough. Maybe this demands the greatest love song of all time. And I wondered whether if I arranged for the Whitewell Wailers to perform an a capella version of ‘Thong Song’ for her, the girl I can’t get out of my head would forgive me for being a dick.”
I laughed at the in-joke. “Well, objectively, I think she’s sorry for being a dick too. And that you’re already forgiven. I think a performance from the iconic Whitewell Wailers would help, but just in case you can’t secure the third-place finalists in the regionals for the National University Nonconforming Singing Group Competition, we can just play it.”
Malakai nodded. “Sure, sure. Except—”
My jaw dropped, as a strong, baritone hum of bumbumbumbummm immediately burred through the doors of the ballroom, quickly followed by twelve of Whitewell’s second-finest choral group, walking toward the stage, dressed in white tees and black trousers and solemnly informing me, in pristine harmony, that my dress was so scandalous, that there was a look in my eye so devilish.
Malakai’s smile was wide and he shrugged, eyes bright with mischief as the hall exploded into whistles and cheers and my eyes watered and I was laughing and I couldn’t believe how much I loved this ridiculous man.
I turned around and Aminah was grinning wildly as she shooed me off the stage. I hopped off and was followed by trails of “Get it, sis!” as I twined myself through the tables to where Malakai was by the doors.
The Whitewell Wailers found an engaged and appreciative audience in Blackwell, and everyone was up on their feet, clicking in time, and it smoothed over the atmosphere, subduing all residual animus, warming the air. With everyone suitably distracted, Malakai and I were essentially alone. We both paused, the silence comfortable, hot, tingling with energy, faces firm in their self-aware coyness.
“Hey.”
Malakai brought his phone from his ear and slipped it in his pocket, releasing a slow, delicious half smile, and drank me in indulgently. “Hi.”
“Thank you for the serenading.”