JOJO: Nya, there is something I have to tell you. Not right now. I’ll tell you over the phone. Just give me just a few days. I’ll see what I can work out. I love you, baby. I don’t want to lose your love. Just be patient with me.
ME: I would never take my love away from you, Jo.
Fear burnedthrough me like a brightly consuming wildfire. What could he possibly have to tell me that might make me stop loving him? Was my sister right, and he was married?
“Are you ready?” Aoko asked, looking over her shoulder at me as we stepped off the elevator.
I sighed dully and muttered, “Not really.”
“Get over it and move your ass.”
We stepped out of the hotel and into the bright afternoon sunshine. It was a beautiful day outside in Louisville, Kentucky. I wondered if he was worried that I might laugh at his country ways. I had heard his voice, and it was smooth and deep, like a well-steeped chamomile tea. It did have a southern twang to it, but I liked to consider that the lemon in his tea.
Before I started my modeling career, I, too, had a southern twang.
“Ladies, are we ready for some fun?” my best friend, Tangie, asked when I dropped into the front passenger seat of the convertible Mercedes rental. Aoko sat in the back.
“Hell yeah!” she yelled out as Tangie floored the gas pedal.
No one should let her drive,ever. She was the worst driver in my opinion. She rode people’s asses, cut them off, went at least twenty miles over the speed limit, and had road rage and language that would put a trucker to shame.
Tangie fiddled with the system for a couple of minutes, while I stared out the window at the passing scenery. They settled on Chris Perry and sang to the top of their lungs. Four songs in, they turned it down as we pulled down a long dirt road.
I pressed my lips together. I wasn’t a snob. I really wasn’t, but I hadn’t expected him to live in a trailer park. Maybe he had been ashamed of where he came from, and that was why he hadn’t wanted to meet in person. If that had been the issue, I wish he would have told me.
There was no amount of money I wouldn’t be willing to spend on him to make sure that he had nice living accommodations and a safe place to live. Tangie glanced at me as she navigated down the rocky road.
My hands trembled as I stared at the phone where we had last texted.
JOJO: I wouldn’t survive without your love. Your messages every day give me a reason to go on.
“Uhm. . . What did you say that he did for a living again?” Aoko asked.
“He’s a managing director of a frozen goods distribution company.”
“Uhm, . . . sweetie, I think that company is ‘Ice So Good,’” Tangie declared, pointing at the ice cream truck on the side of the trailer.
“Yep, and that managing director isn’t anything more than an ice cream man,” Aoko added.
My heart thudded wildly in my chest, and I was embarrassed. Not just for myself, but also for him. Why did he have to lie to me? I didn’t want to humiliate him this way.
“Maybe coming out here wasn’t a good idea, girls.”
“Yes, it was, Sis. You’ve been in a relationship with this man for a year now. He owes you some answers,” Aoko argued.
“Yeah—and we’re not leaving until we get them,” Tangie chimed in. She turned off the ignition and was the first to hop out of the car.
I finally got out with leaden feet, trying to catch up to her and my sister, but they had already rung the doorbell by the time I climbed the tiny steps.
“This is bad. So very bad,” I mumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and tucking my hands in my pits.
The door opened to reveal an older, middle-aged woman in a muumuu, hair curlers, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of her lips. A little kid of about seven or eight peered from behind her.
“Yeah?”
“I’m here to see JoJo.” I spoke up, surprised that I could speak.
The woman frowned. “What you want with JoJo?” she asked at the same time that I heard a man shout, “JoJo! You’ve got company.”
