"Yeah," Damali murmured. "Me, too. Thanks, Jose."
Nervous glances passed around the group. Rider pushed off the wall, his gaze sweeping between Carlos, Damali, and Jose. "We'll get a room together for you. It's already set up, actually. All you have to do is bring some clothes, and we can wait here while you throw some stuff in a bag."
Shabazz exchanged a look with Rider and Big Mike. "Carlos, man, you might wanna consider crashing with us, too, for a coupla days. If something untoward went after one Neteru, it might come for the other one--you. Not that anybody is saying you can't handle your business, but like Father Pat said, better safe than sorry."
She watched Carlos bristle at the suggestion. Yeah, she thought, so how do you like feeling boxed in? Ain't fun, is it? "There's three extra suites in there," Damali said, now looking at Carlos. "One in each wing, plus a guest room on the third floor for when the clerics roll through. You can have your space; I can have mine. You take whichever one you want."
For a moment, he just stared at her. She didn't care; she wanted it on record that she wasn't living with him. She wasn't cohabitating in his suite. He wasn't running her under any roof, especially not within the compound. He needed to know that just because she was taking a few clothes home to recharge her batteries, that wasn't a green card to invade her space, get in the way of her creative process, or to otherwise be a pain in her ass.
"I think that is a wise suggestion," Father Patrick said over the speakerphone. "That way, at the very least, we'll all sleep better at night."
"I'll go with you on this one, Father Pat, only because you said so, and your instincts are usually dead on." Carlos glared at Damali. His tone was salty. He shot a glance at Shabazz. "Good lookin' out, man."
The situation had disintegrated to a point beyond her endurance. Damali abruptly stood and walked out of the room. The meeting was over. She needed to throw a few clothes into a duffel bag to deal with the inevitable. Why Carlos was irking her, she wasn't sure. Yeah, they'd had a fight, but he had come when he thought something was seriously wrong. She kept weighing the two extremes, vacillating between being moved and enraged. If she could just forget about his most recent walk on the dark side with Juanita, she knew she would have mentally filtered his response an entirely different way.
All she knew right now was, for some unknown reason, he was working her last nerve. She didn't feel like playing twenty questions. She didn't feel like mind locking to get to the root of some unknown source of visitation. She didn't feel like being smothered by his overprotective presence. She didn't feel like having him all up on her and in her world. Right now, all she wanted to do was pick back up on the strand of music that was splitting her skull. There was a sultry sound within her that had become her pulse, and that demanded a response. She sought sanctuary in her bedroom.
Yanking her dresser open, she dug into it and found some T-shirts and jeans, and then pulled out her underwear drawer so hard it almost fell. Marlene's quiet presence made her look up, and she watched Marlene calmly shut the bedroom door behind her. Marlene slowly walked across the room, stood next to her, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"I know how you feel," Marlene murmured. "Every time you get out of the house and on your own, some crazy mess happens that sends you back into the family clutches."
Damali stopped rooting in the drawer and closed her eyes. She took in deep breaths, surprised to find herself on the verge of tears. "My art is suffering, Mar," Damali whispered on a mucus-filled swallow. "I need to get back to my music. A year away from it has been too long. I haven't even collected any new stones or anything spiritual lately--not even when we went to Tibet. Tibet!"
"Yes, it has," Marlene said quietly, referring to her music and not commenting on the stones. "There have been a lot of distractions."
Damali nodded, sniffed, and opened her eyes. "Tell me about it."
Both women looked at each other and a silent understanding bonded them.
"Have you ever felt like this, Mar? Like every time you carve out some quality private time just for you, something comes crashing in on it?"
Marlene smiled and then chuckled, pulling Damali into a brief, warm embrace. "Baby... oh, Lawdy. I have stories for you."
The gentle communion and gracious validation made Damali smile and then chuckle, too.
"Damali, girl... just like children, a man can soak up the universe, it seems. He can expand, take up space, and move your planets out of alignment. That's all that's the matter. You are demanding your own orbit, and he's fighting you with all the gravitational pull of a jealous male." Marlene laughed softly, shaking her head. "He thinks he's the sun and everything should revolve around him. They all do. When we get home, me and Marj will teach you a few little tips on how to relegate him to just being the moon." "Why do they do that shit?" Damali said through her teeth. "He goes off, does his thing, runs with his boys--and like what? I'm supposed to be on his schedule, his timetable, ready to stop, drop, and roll when he's ready to hook up? Puhlease."
"I know, chile," Marlene said, her eyes twinkling with mirth and the magic of hard-learned wisdom. "You have to train him to your schedule. Make your music a nonnegotiable thing. You can have both, namely, your craft and him, too. But you have to put boundaries around your art, give it the same level of importance that he gives the things beyond you in his life."
Damali nodded, the validation coating her with a sense of peace and making her lower her defenses. Oddly, that was just what her muse had said--give him his due.
Marlene sighed and released Damali from her hug. "Girl, they act like you have another man when it comes to your career or creative solitude. My momma used to say my daddy acted like that about her church, was as jealous of her time there as if she was out having an affair with another man. He used to--"
Damali snapped her head up and her eyes got wide. The reference to an affair pulled the muscles in her back into a tight chord. "For real? He was jealous of church?"
Marlene gave her a curious look and measured her words. "Yes . . ." Marlene's smile faded to a tight line and she dropped her voice. "Let's go into the bathroom. Just me and you."
Damali shook her head no. "Mar, listen... uh . . ."
"No," Marlene said in a tense whisper. "You listen. Been there, too. I don't even have to remind you of that drama that went down in Brazil and Arizona when my skeletons jumped out of the closet."
Both women giggled as Damali closed her eyes and Marlene pressed on in a private whisper.
"Now, honey, I'ma say this once. All that glitters ain't gold. Carlos is all male, typically so, and at times, a natural pain in the butt-- however, he loves you and you love him. Work it out. One night on the wild side isn't worth losing everything you've built. And none of them are perfect, so, just because he did some mess, doesn't mean you have to retaliate to show--"
"I'm not retaliating. Mar, he's the only guy I've ever been with and now he's talking marriage, permanent lockdown. Sure, he's ready, cool with it, because he's been around the block enough times to make your head spin, but I never even allowed myself to sorta look around, and check out the horizon... what if I'm missing--"
"You do the testing and trying on new shoes before you find the one. After you've found him, it's the rare male animal that can accept that you've tried on another pair after him. Before is hard enough for them to swallow--after, it's not done."