Jahleel (3 page)

I thought she was right. Because Lydia was
always
right.

But after focusing and achieving it all, after I blew up, got a name, became recognizable and respected, after
all
those hard earned successes, I realized she was dead, dead wrong.

About both things.

One: I never forgot Jahleel. Ever.

And two: becoming famously rotten rich with number one hits slamming the music charts still wasn’t enough for Jahleel Kingston to notice me.

Chapter Two

W
hat was life like before Jahleel?

Well I mean, before I knew such a striking fucking creature called Jahleel
existed
.

Life was crap. Stressful. Lame. Difficult.

You’d never believe how exciting being obsessed with another human being could make your life!

It could also be sad and depressing.

Anyway, I’d always been a loner, a struggler, a caretaker, a mother. Not to my own children, but to my siblings.

Sad to admit,
both
my parents were delinquent drunkards. As in, they both left us at home during the evenings to gamble and drank until they were piss-drunk and broke. Until one night their own sins inevitably consumed them in a car accident. They ran themselves off the road. Died instantly.

Did I miss them?

What was there to miss?

We impecuniously grew up on a small farm with my little sister Timberly and my older brother Ferburt—oh Jesus, that
name
! No idea what Mum and Dad were thinking when they named us. For short, I called him Ferbie.

Ferbie, he was kind of a dolt. A dumb-dumb. An imbecile.

Not being malevolent here, he was my brother, after all, and I loved him dearly. Plus I was the only person allowed to refer to him as such. But, he was naturally slow. Three years older than me, but had the brain of a toddler.

Ferbie was twenty when our parents died, Timberly fourteen and me, seventeen. The only family left was our Aunt Lizzie, a thirty-five year old self-centred lesbian, the girlfriend of Lydia.

Aunt Lizzie sold the farm, kept the money for herself and jacked us up in her claustrophobic one bedroom flat, from which she was almost always absent. She didn’t care two craps about us, so just as I’d always done since I knew how to spell my name, I assumed the mother role, taking care of my brother and sister.

The role was nothing I wasn’t used to since my parents were never at home once the clock struck 5pm. It was always all left on me. But being the mother became far more cumbersome after they died. I was forced to quit school and take on two jobs: a waitress by day, a flirtatious bartender by night. Some said it was a waste of time and money to send Ferbie to classes, but I did it nevertheless, because I had hopes for him. Timberly, on the other hand, was a nerd. A smarty pants. A know-it-all. Talked a hell of a lot and never shut up. Eyeglasses, cardigan, pleated skirt, but outrageously beautiful—that kind of girl.

And I, I was fucking stressed.

One night, Lydia, in search of Aunt Lizzie, popped up at the flat. When I told her we hardly ever saw Aunt Lizzie, Lydia was appalled. She explained that Lizzie sort of lived with her and disappeared from time to time, but she didn’t realize Lizzie had us three crammed in her flat, surviving on our own. After inspecting the apartment, she placed her hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eyes and told me, “
You’ve been incredibly strong, Kia. But you need help. You need your
own
life. Let me help you.
”

Distressed and close to losing all sanity, I wasted no time being prideful by refusing help when I clearly needed it; I accepted. Aunt Lizzie reluctantly agreed to us moving out of her apartment and in with Lydia.

Lydia, a sturdy, muscled butch, was from an affluent upbringing. She had glossy black hair perpetually pulled back in a tight ponytail, Stygian dark eyes, and a hard, masculine face: squared jaw, prominent cheekbones, crooked nose. Ninety percent of the time, she dressed in black three piece suits. Lydia was one of those people who, upon seeing her, even if you didn’t know her, you felt compelled to tilt your chin in respect, because her very presence declared she was
someone
.

Her surname was Henry—’Henry’s was one of the bestselling tea brands in London, black tea, green tea, mixed tea, the works. Her father’s death left her with a large share in the business, so she had a staggering net worth.

She moved us into her grandiloquent, old English country manor in Manchester. Quite a responsibility to take on; three people with no relation to her whatsoever: one lummox, one smarty pants, and one confused, wild-haired, pierced-up young adult.

However, I was grateful for the reprieve, which gave me time to pay attention to who I was, what I liked, and what I was good at. Lydia’s takeover didn’t stop my two siblings from calling me “Ma”, though. Lydia thought it endearing, but I wanted to punch them in the eye each time they called me that. But they never stopped, it was automatic for them. They considered me their mother because I was the one who always took care of them.

Even when we moved into Lydia’s home, Aunt Lizzie’s presence was still rare. But Lydia didn’t seem to care. She became like the mother I never had—in a fatherly kind of way.

After I started taking classes again, I began discovering
me
, noting my profound love for music and my jaw-dropping ability to effortlessly hold notes as long, loud and flawlessly as Whitney Houston.

Lydia thought I had something special. But I thought—I didn’t know what the fuck I thought. All I knew was I wanted to be someone better than who I was, better than my background, before I died. I wanted to take care of my siblings so they’d never want for anything,
anything at all
for the rest of their lives. I especially wanted to make life easier for Ferbie so people would never take advantage of him because of his slowness. I had an all-consuming desire for something better, and I had the most amazing person in my corner spurring me on and propelling me in the right direction.

So, when Lydia promised me she would make sure I became something, someone of significance, with a better, easier life…I believed her and held on to that belief. Because I had nothing and no one else to believe in.

With a Davidoff cigarette burning to weightless grey ashes between the slim crease of my index and middle finger, I stood on top of the world.

Alright, alright, a slight exaggeration, but I won’t apologize for feeling like
Scarface
while he sat in his bubbling Jacuzzi in the middle of his mansion.

My
‘on top of the world’ meant me standing at the edge of the all-glass balcony of my 10,125 square feet San Francisco home, sucking down the enriching taste of a Davidoff cigarette, staring off at the spectacular vista as the infinity pool below me ran off to nowhere.

From where my hilltop house was pitched in a tortuously exclusive neighbourhood, jutting out its balconies over absolutely nothing and creating the illusion of being suspended in the air, the view was priceless.

At 5:28 in the morning, the sky was a kaleidoscope of soft colours blending uniquely to make a creative artistic statement before the sun turned up its dominating hot heat and melted the sky’s beauty, stealing the blend of colours with its blinding shine.

On the norm, I wouldn’t be up this early to appreciate the beauteous effects of sunrise, but at 4am I’d slipped out of bed and came out on the balcony to smoke my nerves away because I wasn’t able to sleep much.

Throughout the night, I’d tossed and turned from excitement and trepidation, stomach in tight knots, knowing that today, this day, I would see Jahleel Kingston. Face to face. For the first time since I’d last glimpsed him back in Manchester five years ago.

When I moved to the U.S. four years back, I tried with repetitive failure to get near Jahleel, in his vicinity, anywhere I could run into him, but that proved to be as difficult as Trigonometry.

For one, Jahleel lived in San Francisco, and I in Los Angeles. Of course, I flew the short one hour journey to SF numerous times for interviews, shows, everything connected to my career. But I was never spared the time to investigate Jahleel. Life had been too busy, too hectic.

Had I not been the victim, I would never believe someone could dominate one’s mind, thoughts and entire being to such an intense degree even while living life in the fast lane.

But, he did. Not a single day started or expired without me thinking about that guy. Imagining what it would be like to be his. To be touched by him. To be kissed by him. To have him whisper sweet words in my ear.

See, ever since that night back in Manchester, I’ve been obsessed. All of a sudden, Lion T’mar’s music landed on my favourites list. Not because I cared for his crappy music, but because he was connected to Jahleel. I listened to his music daily, trying to feel Jahleel through them. I stalked Lion on YouTube to watch all his stage performances—well, not him. But
him
, the guy with the perfect brown hair dancing in the background—Jahleel.

Each new music video that came out for Lion T’mar, I watched a hundred times over, replaying the parts showing the fierce, gold-eyed dancer—Jahleel. Even if it lasted only for two seconds, I played his parts over and over again or paused the video and just stared at the pixelated version of him.

Before long, I had no more YouTube videos to watch and torture myself with because he quit working with Lion, opened a dance studio, and started his own choreography business, and I had no other means of stealing glimpses of him.

Lion hounded Lydia after our meet at his concert in Manchester, trying to convince her to convince
me
to move to the U.S. and cross over. He assured her he would endorse me, take me under his wing and make me a star in no time. Lydia stayed on the fence about it, and I was flat-out against it, so Lion gave up.

Or, at least, I thought he’d given up. Turns out he decided, almost a year later, to try one last tactic. Why?

Maybe because I, not so stealthily, asked him about Jahleel each time we spoke, or maybe Lydia divulged that I never got over the gold-eyed man who made me fall flat. Obviously, he put all those pieces together, grabbed that knowledge and ran with it.

Lydia handed me her cellphone one evening, a smirk on her face as she told me someone wanted to talk to me. No, it wasn’t
him
. It was Lion, of course. When I answered the phone, all he said was, “Move here, to L.A, and you’ll only be an hour away from JK. He’s still single so you just might have a chance with him. Think about it.”

Then hung up.

Did I ‘think about it’? Nope. The thought of being just an hour away from Jahleel had me packing my siblings in my suitcase and wheeling them behind me to Los Angles.

How had I not thought about this before?
Stupid, stupid
, I thought,
so much time wasted.

Lydia moved with me, but stayed only for about a year before moving back home when Aunt Lizzie landed on her death bed from pneumonia, thrusting me in the trusting care of Lion T’mar.