Man Enough For Me (8 page)

“Yeah, Easy, we all wanted some more information about the
album,” ‘Dre said, clearly unaware of any tension in the room. “You know, so Jules can have something for her promotional stuff.”

Usually Jules would have been annoyed at ‘Dre’s clear misunderstanding of the PR work she did for Truuth, but she was too busy watching the ongoing exchange between Easy and Germaine. She glanced back at Tanya to see if she knew what was going on, but the girl just shrugged, showing that she was just as confused.

Easy stuck a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, and kept his eyes fixed on Germaine for a moment longer before answering.

“Yeah. It’s got fifteen tracks, including the two singles and one bonus track. We’re thinking of leaking another single in the next two weeks to generate some buzz before the album drops, but I can meet with Jules and give her the information later.”

From the way Easy was looking at Germaine, it was clear that what he really meant was, he would not be discussing anymore album information in front of him.

From across the room, Jules could see the tightness in Germaine’s jaw. Despite his obvious displeasure, he remained completely calm, barely moving a muscle. His demeanor reminded Jules of the quiet before a storm. In fact, as she watched him watch Easy, she realized that beneath his refined exterior was something hard and dangerous that was carefully being kept in check.

With Easy and Germaine not talking, and Jules too distracted to ask any relevant questions, the meeting soon came to an end. As soon as Tanya said the “amen” for the closing prayer, Easy disappeared to the studio, and Germaine went outside to the car.

“What was that about?” Jules asked, as she watched both men hastily exit the room.

“They’re both your boys,” Tanya said. “You tell me.”

“Well, they might be my boys, but neither of them ever tell me anything,” Jules said.

She gathered her purse and coat and headed for the door.

“Honey, I’m gonna go before Germaine leaves me,” Jules said. “Looks like he’s in a mood.”

“Okay, love,” Tanya said, giving Jules a quick hug. “I’ll call you later.”

“Talk to him,” Jules threw over her shoulder as Tanya closed the door. She hoped her friend was listening.

“Okay, so are you gonna tell me what that was about?” Jules asked fifteen minutes later.

They were halfway back to Jules’s apartment, and Germaine still hadn’t said a word about the earlier exchange between him and Easy, although he was much quieter than usual. What’s more, he had turned on the car radio, and was all but ignoring Jules.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the road.

“Um, you and Easy, and whatever it is that’s going on with you two.”

Jules waited, but still no answer. She realized that she was going to have to pull it out of him.

“Where do you know him from?” she asked.

Germaine shrugged. “I’ve seen him around.”

“Around where? I know Easy. He hangs out in some questionable places,” Jules said with a mix of skepticism and suspicion.

“We’re in the same business, Jules. We’re around a lot of the same labels and distributors at industry events,” he said, as he exited the highway.

Jules narrowed her eyes at him.

“So what’s your problem with him then?”

“I don’t have a problem with him, Jules,” Germaine said. But the tightness in his jaw told a different story.

“So why were you guys looking at each other like that? I thought I might have to jump between the two of you at any minute.”

“I don’t know, Jules, why don’t you ask him? You two look pretty close.”

Jules didn’t miss the suggestion in his tone, or the vein that was jumping at his temple. She felt her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. She half turned in her seat to glare at him. “Is there something specific you want to ask me, Germaine?” She didn’t like what he was implying.

Germaine sighed heavily. “Baby, it’s been a long day. I really don’t want to fight with you.”

The tiredness in his voice hit a chord in Jules, and just as quickly as it came, her anger melted away.

She looked at him for a moment before sighing herself and falling back in her seat. She couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that something was off with him. She couldn’t recall him ever clamming up like this about anything before. He was always less of a talker than she was, and that was okay most of the time. But at that moment it felt like he was intentionally shutting her out, and he wouldn’t even tell her why.

Lord, don’t I have enough people in my life who have problems communicating? Mom, Dad, and now Germaine? I don’t know if I can deal with this. Tell me if I’m wasting my time.

Just as she was about to drift deeper into her own thoughts, she felt Germaine take her hand and thread his fingers through hers. He pressed the back of her hand against his lips the same way he had the night at Leroy’s.

“Look,” he began quietly. “I know you want me to be more …”

“Open?” Jules asked, supplying the word he was obviously searching for.

“Yes,” Germaine answered. “But that’s hard for me. I’m used to doing things by myself. I don’t usually have to answer to anyone, you know?”

“Babe, I don’t want you to feel like you have to answer to me. I just want you to let me in sometimes. You can trust me,” she said gently.

“I know,” he said. “It’s just … there’s a lot of things…. It’s going to take some time for me.”

He pulled up to the front of her building and shut off the engine. Still holding her hand, he turned to look at her.

“Just bear with me, okay?”

Jules met his eyes and felt her resolve breaking. She didn’t know if it was the dimness of the evening, or the quiet urgency in his voice, but something was playing tricks with her emotions.

“Okay,” she conceded with a sigh. She would cut him a break now, but it wasn’t over. There was something going on with Germaine, and she needed to find out what it was.

“W
hat you doing with that dude?”

Jules looked up from her laptop at Easy. She had come into the office to do some work on the campaign because she felt she would be able to focus more. She didn’t particularly enjoy working on Sundays, but after last Tuesday’s meeting she realized that she had a lot of work to do. With Truuth’s album launch coming up in the not-too-distant future, in less than three months, she needed to keep on top of things.

She hadn’t even known that Easy had been working in the soundproof studio downstairs until he appeared in front of her, in the mini-conference room.

“What dude?”

“You know who I’m talking about, baby girl.”

“Germaine? What’s wrong with him?”

“What’s right with him?” Easy asked. “I don’t want you messing with no corny brothas.”

Jules knew Easy was a little rough around the edges, which was why she let him get away with a lot of things—like the way he was talking to her. Growing up in a tough community where everyone knew your mother had abandoned you was no picnic. Even though his grandmother had done her best to take care of him, Easy had spent most of his teen years defending himself
from the chides of others. And when he couldn’t manage that on his own, he had gotten mixed up with local gangs, from which he had barely escaped alive. Needless to say, the softer side of his personality had been sacrificed during the experience. But even now when he seemed a bit too aggressive for Jules’s liking, she knew it was only because he cared about her.

From the instant Jules and Easy had first met, they had just clicked. In fact, if he hadn’t been so raw and she hadn’t been what he called a “good girl,” they might have gotten together. But now as she watched his mouth curl in scorn at the mention of Germaine, she began to wonder if his overprotectiveness was not just a cover for some other feeling.

“What’s your deal with Germaine? He’s a nice guy.”

“He ain’t right,” Easy said, shaking his head.

“Why?”

Jules watched Easy clench and unclench his jaw. She could tell he wanted to say something but was holding back. She looked at him and tried to meet his eyes, but he wouldn’t let her. She remembered her concerns from a couple days earlier and decided that it was a good time to find out from Easy what was really going on.

“What do you know about him?” Jules asked.

Easy shrugged. “Some things I’ve seen make me wonder about him.”

“Wonder how?” Jules asked. “Did you see him with another woman? Does he have kids? Was he on
America’s Most Wanted
?”

Her tone was light, but she was only half joking. With the brothers she had encountered, anything was possible. Easy chuckled a little and shook his head.

“Talk to me, Easy,” she said softly, her eyes searching his face. Instead he took her hands in his and looked down at them.

“Just be careful, baby girl,” he said quietly, finally meeting her eyes. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Nervousness flitted through her chest, and Jules shifted uncomfortably in her chair as she realized how serious he was. She considered pressing him further about what he meant, but she suspected she wouldn’t get anything out of him.

“Well, how is that gonna happen if you’re breathing down my neck all the time,” Jules said, in mock annoyance.

After a moment, Easy cracked a small smile.

“All right, baby girl, I hear you. I know it’s your life; you ain’t gotta say the words.”

Jules laughed. “I know it’s only ‘cause you love me,” she said, pulling him down into the chair beside her and hugging him. “So where have you been anyway? I’ve barely seen you around these past couple months.”

“Been keeping it on the down low with my Grams. She’s been sweatin’ me about staying off the streets.”

Easy lived with his grandmother in Regent Park—one of the less stellar parts of the city. Jules couldn’t understand why he still lived there even though he could very well afford to be somewhere else. She thought sometimes, though, that he felt responsible for the younger guys he grew up with who still lived there. He probably thought leaving Regent Park would be like abandoning them.

“You know, you ought to move out of that mess,” Jules said in a slightly scolding tone.

“Geez, now you starting to sound like her,” Easy said. “Every day she be on that same trip, talking ‘bout I’m gonna get myself killed on them streets.”

Jules could understand his grandmother’s concern. In the last month alone there had been three separate gang related shoot-outs in the area that had left several people in the hospital and two people dead.

“You know she’s right though, Easy. Every day I read something worse about that area in the news. I wish both of you would get on up out of there.”

“That’s the thing, baby girl. She don’t wanna go nowhere—she just wants me to go. She says she’s too old to be moving into some new neighborhood. So I was like, why you think you gonna be safe here if I’m not? She says God will take care of her.”

“I thought you didn’t buy into all that God stuff,” Jules said,
using a phrase Easy had repeated to her many times before when she tried to get him to come to church with her.

“I still don’t know about none of that,” Easy said. “What I do know though is that one of them nights that she was extra heavy on me about staying off the road, was the same night them boys got shot at on the corner.”

“Well, you know your grandmamma is crazy close to her Lord. I wouldn’t be surprised if He’s been talking to her directly.”

Easy rolled Jules’s pen between his palms and stared pensively into the distance. She could tell that there was something bothering him—and it was more than his usual anger about his mother leaving. In fact, of late it seemed like Easy had more than his normal share of demons tormenting him.

He looked down at his hands and shook his head sadly.

“Them boys ain’t got nobody else but me, Jules,” he said, referring to the few young men he kept an eye on in the neighborhood.

“Everybody else done walked out on them. I know what that feels like. I couldn’t do that to them.”

“But if you’re lying dead in a gutter, you’re not much use to them there either, now are you,” Jules said. “You can’t take care of you, Easy. You need to let go and let God take care of you completely.”

Easy chuckled. “You don’t quit, do you, baby girl.”

He stood up and kissed Jules on the forehead before heading for the door.

“Don’t worry ‘bout me. I’ll be fine. You just remember what I said ‘bout that dude.”

“Easy …”

“All I’m saying is be careful,” Easy threw back, before disappearing through the door.

As Jules sat staring at the doorway through which Easy had just left, she silently wished that Easy would worry about his own self even half as much as he worried about her.

*  *  *

It was about 1 p.m. when Jules stepped through the doors of the Sound Lounge. She scanned the place quickly in search of Germaine. Instead she saw a heavy crowd characteristic of fifty percent Fridays—the one Friday in the month when the Sound Lounge sold all of their CDs at 50 percent off. It was a great marketing strategy, and an excellent way to clear stock before the new releases hit the shelves the following Tuesday.

Undeterred by the crowd, Jules weaved her way to the checkout counter, where she found a skinny cocoa-colored teenager working the register.

“Hey, Tina, is Germaine here?”

“Yeah, Jules,” Tina said, not taking her eyes off the CDs she was cashing out. “I think he’s in the back.”

“Thanks.”

Shuffling through the thinning crowd toward the back, Jules couldn’t stop the tingle that ran up her spine. She was glad that Germaine was here. She had actually taken a chance, showing up without calling first. But she had wanted to surprise him and take
him
out to lunch for a change.

The sound of muffled voices drifted toward her as she continued down the narrow corridor and followed the bend to the back where Germaine’s office was located. As she got closer, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar, and that there were two other men inside the office with Germaine. Their backs were to her, so she couldn’t see who they were, but from the expression on Germaine’s face, Jules could tell he wasn’t too happy to see them.