Like a Sister(81)

I scrolled to his response, a mass of unpunctuated messages sent line by line that let me know he’d yet to master the talk-to-text function.

I was happy to give it

You know all you had to do was ask nicely ha ha

Glad I got to see you

Go enjoy your birthday

She’d responded with more red-hued emojis. Ooh a text back! I’m glad we did too. Though we woulda had a cute-ass baby. She’d ended with the three heart-eyes emojis in a row.

That answered one burning question. The $250K hadn’t been a blackmail payoff or hush money. It’d been a birthday gift. She must’ve told him some sob story to have gotten more money out of him, since the baby money would have come through months before. I scrolled back up further, hoping to have missed a mention of a video and instead hit a succession of naked pictures. At least she’d been smart enough not to show her face.

I dialed the number on my cell, but he didn’t pick up and hadn’t bothered to set up his voice mail. The only thing that stopped me from calling back was not wanting to annoy him. Instead I texted, praying he was the type to check his Unknown Senders list.

He wasn’t. Over the next six hours, I called twice with the same lack of response and left a couple more texts—caring less and less with each one about staying on his good side. The only time I stopped obsessively checking my phone was during hour two when Aunt E came upstairs to tell me lunch was ready, then it was right back to me and my iPhone in a staring contest. The texts I got were false alarms. I ignored both Omar and Erin, who asked for updates while sharing she was still looking for someone who had worked at the bar the night of the DUI. For shits and giggles, I looked up where Free had been when Desiree got her DUI. His world tour had been stopping in Toronto.

It was close to dinner when my desperation reached peak levels. Beyond calling and letting it ring enough times to spell out “Pick up” in Morse code, I had just one other idea.

Desiree’s phone.

Apparently getting a call from your dead lover’s number was enough to make someone pick up.

“One sec…” His voice was calm, the quick answer the only indication he might’ve been freaked. It also wasn’t the sole voice I heard. There was damn near a cacophony in the background, a buzz of people all speaking over each other. I was trying to make out where he could be when the voices abruptly disappeared. When Free spoke again, his was the only one I heard. “Who is this?”

“Lena.”

He audibly exhaled.

“Been trying to reach you all day. Finally realized this was the only way I could get you to pick up.”

“That’s ’cause this one’s mainly for pictures.”

“I know.” Even though I didn’t want to. “When we met up, you mentioned you only saw Desiree for a few minutes on her birthday.”

“Yeah. She left to meet someone.”

Maybe she’d gone to see Zor-El. Maybe she’d gone to see…someone else. “She say who?”

“Nope. Didn’t matter to me. Just know she had to pick something up. Figured it was a gift.”

Or a video. “She didn’t say where either?”

“No.”

“I’ll let you get back to…” I trailed off. It could be anything from the studio to an orgy. “Let me know if you think of anything. I texted you from my own number.”

There was a long pause and then, “You okay?” Said like he meant it.

Of course I wasn’t. There was a whole laundry list of things I could share, but I stuck with the one directly related to him. “Mel knows I came to see you. Don’t know how he found out.”

What’s the saying? The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

“I told him,” Free said.

Or in this case a snitch. Ironic, considering his profession. The popular narrative was Free and Mel hadn’t spoken in years, that they hated each other so much the Grammys once beefed up security. But I guess them not talking—like so many things related to hip-hop—was BS.

“You two chat often?” I said when I was finally ready.

“Only when it’s important.”

“Snitching on me was important?”

“You were important, Melina. I called him because I was worried.”

If this was some scripted ’90s sitcom, this would be where teenaged me said, “I already have a father.”

Grown me just wanted to hang up. Instead, I put the phone on speaker and dropped it on the counter. “I’m twenty-eight. Older than both you and Mel when you started Free Money. I’m not a kid.”

“But you’re his kid. Doesn’t matter how old you are.”

I guess because Free spoke to my family more than I did he felt he could explain it all away. “Oh, right,” I said. “Mel needs a Father of the Year plaque next to the platinum records. You’re acting like he’s some sitcom dad when he wasn’t even speaking to the one child he actually cared about.”

“It’s hard to be a father when you didn’t have one yourself. It doesn’t come with a manual. And as much as Mel wants to act otherwise, he’s just human.”

I rolled my eyes before I remembered he couldn’t see my disgust.

“He was there when he needed to be,” Free said. “How he needed to be.”