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I need to check on Talia.
Tapping Mosely’s speed dial, I listen to it ring and ring. He’s inside for the show. There’s probably no way he can hear the phone.
My footsteps thump as I hurry inside.
I’m immediately inundated with the smell of fog smoke, a mishmash of highly fragrant perfumes and the stench of cigarettes.
The show is an exclusive event with the most prominent influencers in attendance. Every seat is filled. Kudos to the PR team. I know how hard they worked on this.
An LED stage fills most of the room and seats are set up all around it. Electronic music is blasting, and a camera flashes each time a model arrives at the very front of the stage.
I’m scanning the semi-dark room for Mosely when I feel a shift in the air. An invisible hand snakes over my face and wrenches my head around so I’m looking at the stage.
All the lights in the room follow one model.
I hear a heavenly chorus.
She’s there.
Yaya.
My dream, my destiny, my destruction.
She’s in the Tru Essential’s limited edition formal wear, a bright and flowing dress with fabric that trails behind her like a stream. Long brown hair bounces with every step. It seems like she’s floating over the stage, long legs eating up the distance to the edge.
Every eye is locked on her. She’s art and poetry and inspiration in motion. The very definition of a painter’s muse.
I wish I had the right words to describe how perfect she is, but my brain goes blank. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my head, vibrating through every part of me.
Yaya walks to the front of the stage and throws her skirt back, showing off the scandalous slit once hidden by all the folds of cloth. My eyes hungrily devour the brown skin glowing under the lights before the skirt whooshes back into place like a flirtatious dance.
She turns swiftly, and it stuns me that she’s just as glamorous from the back as she is from the front.
Someone touches my shoulder, and it feels like I’m waking from a dream.
“Sir?” Mosely yells to be heard over the music. “I saw your missed calls.”
I stand there, my brain re-booting from the system-wide shock Yaya delivered to me. Finally, I remember my niece and my need to check on her.
It’s only because I held Talia in my arms when she was born and I think of myself as her stand-in dad that I leave. Because every… single…partof me wants to stay. Wants to pull up a chair and sit as close to the stage as I’m allowed. Wants to get more glimpses of Yaya. And have her watch me back. And maybe then my world will be right again.
It physically hurts to climb into a vehicle and drive away. Mosely keeps checking on me in the rearview mirror but, thankfully, he doesn’t ask me how I’m feeling.
Because I wouldn’t know how to put these cavern-deep aches in my body into words.
At Talia’s school, I’m greeted by the principal who comes out to see me in person.
“Mr. Sullivan!” She grabs my hand and pumps. “It’s good to see you again.”
I note her entourage of administrators. “I didn’t mean to disrupt your work.”
“Nonsense? A generous patron like yourself deserves at least this much pomp and circumstance.” She flashes a grin so wide that I second-guess the number of zeroes I added to that cheque.
Twisting my head slightly, I give Mosely a questioning look.
My assistant lifts both shoulders subtly.
“Right this way, Mr. Sullivan. We’ll announce for Talia to leave class so you can see her.”