“You ain’t heard singing until you’ve heard this little girl,” Clarence informed Des.
Rondell continued to glow in the girl’s presence. It was plain to Des that little brother was ga-ga over little sister. Des wondered if it was mutual.
“She’s not just a sister with a set of pipes,” Tyrone pointed out. “She hears a song one time and she can sit down at the piano and play the whole thing by ear. Been that way since she was, what, ten?”
“Younger. Five, six years old.” Jamella smiled at her. “My baby girl’s a prodigy.”
“Stop it,” Kinitra demurred as she sat down next to her. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Don’t be bashful,” Tyrone said to her. “Be proud. Trooper Mitry, this little girl is going to be the next Rihanna. Except with class and decency. No photos of her naked titties on the web. And no thug’s ever beating the crap out of her. We’re taking our time and doing it proper. She’s only eighteen. A fresh young sister from Houston. But she is going to be huge. Tell her, little brother.”
Rondell nodded his head enthusiastically. “She has an incredibly diverse repertoire-hip-hop, jazz, blues, folk. What’s critical now is how we fuse all of those flavors together. We intend to craft her sound before we present her to a label so as to retain full creative control.”
“And her career will be a family enterprise all the way,” Tyrone explained. “I have the resources to launch her. She’s why I installed a recording studio in the west wing. Cee knows everything there is to know about sound mixing. Rondell will manage the business end. And Jamella is choreographing her whole image-her dance moves, what she wears.”
“I’m designing a clothing line for her,” Jamella said. “Similar to what we have on now. I made these. They’re inspired by our mother’s Bahamian ancestry. Mama passed two years ago. It’ll be our way of honoring her.”
“I like the look,” Des said admiringly.
Jamella arched an eyebrow at her. “Do you really?”
“Absolutely. I’d wear it. It’s not as if I always go around in a uniform.”
“I’d like to see you in a bikini,” Clarence said.
“Oh, shut up, Cee,” Jamella snapped.
“Put on her demo for the trooper to hear,” Tyrone told him. “That old Joan Baez song. The one Bob Dylan wrote.”
“Do you have to?” Kinitra protested.
“Get used to it, girl,” Tyrone said to her. “People all around the world are going to be listening to you soon.”
Clarence reached for a remote control device on the coffee table and powered up the house’s sound system. Des heard a bluesy piano with a bit of a hip-hop beat. And then she heard Kinitra singing “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word,” the folk hit from the sixties that had showcased Baez’s amazing vocal range. Kinitra’s own range was equally astonishing. The girl could soar way up there into Minnie Riperton territory. And she didn’t just have range. Her voice was so angelic, so achingly beautiful that the hairs on the back of Des’s neck stood up.
When the song was over Clarence flicked the system off, smiling hugely. They were all smiling. It was something magical. This bashful young girl who couldn’t take her big brown eyes off the floor had it.
“She’s the real thing, am I right?” Tyrone asked Des.
“Yes, you are.”
“Hell, yes.” He squeezed his wife’s hand and said, “How do you feel, baby? Can I get you some orange juice?”
“That sounds good.”
“I’m on it. You just hang right here with your girl. Come on, trooper. I’ll show you around.”
Tyrone led Des back toward the entry hall, Clarence and Rondell tagging along. He had a bodybuilder’s rolling gait, arms out wide to his sides. And he limped slightly on his surgically repaired knees.
“Do they give you trouble?” she asked him.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“No pain, no gain?”
“No pain, no pay. Our bedrooms are up those stairs right there. Except for Cee’s. He’s down there in the east wing. This here’s our home theater,” he pointed out as they passed a plush screening room. Next door to it was the recording studio. The piano was in there. “And this here’s my game room.” He paused so Des could check it out. The game room had a pool table, poker table and a half-dozen old-school arcade games. His many trophies and awards were crowded into a floor-to-ceiling glass case that filled an entire wall. “That there’s Rondell’s office,” he said, continuing down the hallway past a closed door. “And this here’s my weight room.” Training center was more like it. Not just free weights but Nautilus machines, treadmills, stair climbers and exercise bikes. “I work out here every day with Cee. He used to start at small forward for Clemson until his scholarship was revoked due to an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
Clarence’s jaw muscles tightened but, for once, he had nothing to say-joking or otherwise. Des made a mental note to run a criminal background check on him as soon as she got near a computer.
“I’m taking it easy right now. Giving my body a chance to repair itself. Two hours of lifting in the morning. Two hours of cardio after lunch.”
“That’s your idea of easy?” Des asked.
“The game doesn’t get any easier after you turn thirty. I’ve been watching my carb intake, too. Eating a lot of chicken and fish. Kitchen’s down this way.”
It was a commercial-sized kitchen with a six-burner Viking range, two ovens and the biggest refrigerator Des had seen in anyone’s home in her life. It was very sunny in the kitchen. A set of French doors opened out onto the patio, swimming pool and pool house. Des could also see the dock where his cigarette boat, Da Beast, was tied up.
A mountainous gray-haired woman was putting groceries away in the walk-in pantry. She wore a lavender fleece sweat suit, sneakers and somewhere between six and eight chins.
Tyrone smiled at her. “Hey, Moms. You made it back from the store.”
“That I did, praise the Lord,” she replied, wheezing slightly. She needed to lose at least seventy-five pounds. Take off a hundred and she’d still qualify as meaty.
“This here’s Trooper Mitry. Came to say hello.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Grantham.”
“It’s Chantal, honey,” she said to Des warmly. Chantal Grantham had attracted a great deal of attention after her son was selected in the first round of the NFL draft. The lady was a recovering crack whore who had totally neglected her two young boys until she found God and fought her way back from the gates of hell. “Skinny thing, ain’t she?”
“I think she’s cute,” said Clarence. “We’ll have to get her out on Da Beast. ”
Tyrone nodded in agreement. “You like boats, Trooper Mitry? I took Moms out one time but she won’t go again.”
“ Never again,” Chantal said emphatically. “You bounced me up and down so hard I swear I lacerated a kidney.”
“Well, I ain’t going out either if Rondell’s behind the wheel again.” Clarence mimicked a bug-eyed Rondell gripping a steering wheel tightly in the ten until two position, swiveling sharply left, right, left, whipping his hands back and forth spasmodically. “He almost flipped us, I swear.”
“I was merely familiarizing myself with the boat’s handling capabilities,” little Rondell said defensively.
“You was merely freaking out!” Clarence laughed.
Des heard footsteps on the stairs that were next to the kitchen door. A barefoot girl in her late teens or early twenties came tromping down. She was a heavy, homely girl. Moon-faced, pimply and dull-eyed.
“This here’s Monique,” Chantal informed Des. “Daughter of a dear friend of mine who passed last year. I look out for her now. Monique’s not well suited to being on her own.” She tapped her own forehead to indicate that Monique was intellectually challenged. “But she’s a good girl. Helps me around the house. Keeps me company. It works out well for both of us.” Chantal smiled at her. “Monique, what were you doing up in your room?”
“Nuthin’ much, Chantal.”
“We need to finish stocking that pantry, hon.”
“Yes, Chantal.”
