Dame said nothing, but he shot me a brief look with a smirk on his face. He jumped out of the truck, and I was surprised when he actually walked around to open my door and help me out of the truck.
“Now, these are my people,” he went on as we walked toward the door before the glances of a few odd couples standing out front. Fat Albert’s was the kind of place where people could be seen but not acknowledged. For everybody’s protection, what happened back in the woods, stayed back in the woods. “Don’t come in here trying to bless folks and stuff,” Dame added. “It’s bad enough you have on that suit.”
“You think I’m overdressed?” I asked, pulling my shirt out from my skirt.
“I was just joking,” he said. “You look fine. Half the people in here are gonna have on work clothes ...”
When we walked in the doors, one of which was hardly holding on, the same two women, I swear, who’d been at the door ten years ago when Billie and I tried to get in, were still there—they looked exactly the same, only it was clear that the years in the back of the woods hadn’t been so kind.
“The same Dame!” the drunk one taking the money said, dancing around and shaking when she saw Dame.
“Dame!” The other one came limping over. “Wuh yah bin, baybe?”
“I should’ve known you were coming in here; Benji been here all night.” She pointed over to Benji, who was posted at a table with a group of girls.
They both jumped on Dame and he just grinned and hugged them back, tighter and more sincere, though, than he did the women at the restaurant the other night.
“Ms. Albertina and Ms. Essie!” Dame said. “My people. Damn, I miss y’all.” He hugged them both again and then turned back toward me.
“Ladies, I want ya’ll to meet my old”—he paused in anticipation—“friend.”
He looked directly at me when he said it and I just smiled pleasantly. I didn’t know if I wanted to be his “old teacher” in the moment anyway. It was my first time being inside of a place I’d imagined in my mind so many times as a girl.
“Das de passtas doughta,” the one with the same old cornrows, which were now gray, said.
I exhaled and waited for them to take my two dollars again.
“And you wit’ Dame?” the other one said cheerfully. “Well, that’s all right. Go on in, chile. Have some drinks and send one over here for me.” She laughed and smacked her hip, but I could tell she was serious. Dame later sent two drinks over.
Inside Fat Albert’s, it was dark and only a few spots had dim blue and red lights to show people’s feet where they were supposed to go and let the bartender and DJ see their hands. The crowd was a mix of some old people and some young, some couples, and some singles, and a whole heap of people I never expected to see inside. But I did. Only I knew not to say hello. I just nodded and kept on moving; the unstated agreement was, “You didn’t see me here.”
The DJ was playing a mix of old-school R&B and some hip-hop and every space on the dance floor was occupied. Even in the heat, they danced and danced, sweating until their skin had a slick sheen. After opening two more of the buttons on my shirt and feeling my hair completely curl up, I wondered which dancer would faint first.
“You having fun?” Dame asked, sliding an empty bottle of beer on the table.
“Sure,” I said. “The music is wonderful.”
I’d been watching Dame and noticed he drank a lot of beer and had on a plain white T-shirt that looked just like the one he’d had on at the school. And this was weird to me. It was so simple and nothing like what I would’ve expected it would be like to hang out with a rapper. He just seemed really ... cool. I caught myself smiling with my eyes on him and quickly turned the other way.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said nervously. “I think I need to go to the bathroom.”
“It’s to the back.”
He pointed across the dark dance floor to a red light hanging over a doorway.
“Great. I’ll be right back.”
I excused myself through the crowd, seeing more faces I knew along the way, and sometimes getting caught up in between partners, who moved me from side to side in an effort to make me join in. One man slid his hand around my waist and breathed heavily in my ear before passing me along and another pushed me toward his partner, who stepped closer to me as I fell back into her arms.
“Excuse me,” I said, looking at her heavy eyes. Only it wasn’t clear if she wanted me to keep going.
“What are you doing here?” I said to my reflection in the cracked and water-stained mirror above the sink in the bathroom. No one else was inside, but I didn’t bother to go into one of the stalls. I didn’t really have to pee. I just wanted to look at myself and get away from looking at Dame. I pat my hot face with a damp piece of toilet paper—there were no napkins—and dabbed on a bit of lip gloss. “Get it together and tell him to take you home,” I sternly demanded of my reflection. I nodded to myself in agreement and picked up my purse to return to the bar with that intention. But when I got to the door, a familiar face met me.
“Kayla?” I said. My body went from hot to cold very quickly. She might as well have been my mother walking in on me—an immediate witness to something I wasn’t even sure of. The situation had just gone from merely being odd to dramatically complicated. What could I say to her?
“Journey!” She smiled and opened her arms excitedly as if we were in the hallway at school. “I can’t believe you’re here.”