“It does,” Jake said, nodding. It made perfect sense, in fact.
“If y’all want to be changing key in the same tune, I’m gonna need two vinyls with E major tunes cued up and two with G major tunes cued up. And I won’t have an extra turntable for variations in the tone like I normally have, so the melodies are all gonna have to be pretty much the same throughout.”
“Actually, that shit won’t be necessary,” G said.
“What you mean?” Ricky asked. “There ain’t no other way for me to modulate.”
“You won’t be modulating,” G said. “You’ll only need the E major set up for the verses. There ain’t gonna be no DJ sound in Jake’s parts. He’s gonna grind that shit out on his Les Paul.”
“No shit?” Ricky asked.
“No shit,” G told him. “That’s the whole point of this tune. It’s a fusion of hip-hop and hard rock.”
“Damn,” Ricky said in wonder.
“Let’s go through it again,” Jake suggested. “Everyone try to feel the melodies, particularly the rhythm section. Once you start to feel it, we’ll switch up and I’ll show you what my part sounds like with distortion.”
“All right,” Ricky said. “Fire it up.”
They fired it up. The second rendition was even smoother than the first.
Since it was a winter weekday, Neesh had no problem finding parking near the pier at Redondo Beach. The weather was pleasant enough for December, fifty-eight degrees with a steady onshore breeze blowing, the sun out and shining. Just barely sweater weather and both the ladies were wearing jeans and sweaters.
They had chatted freely with each other on the drive over, as two women who were friends would, and the subjects had stayed well away from girl-time or anything related to it. Laura was more than a little nervous about this outing with Neesh—it was to be the first test of Neesh’s promise to not try to seduce her unless she was begged—but as they got out of the car and started checking out the shops on the large, seemingly endless pier, she gradually started to become more comfortable. After all, even if Neesh did not keep her promise, it took two to tango, didn’t it? And she was a married woman now, with all the responsibilities that went along with such a relationship. Even if Neesh did try to seduce her again, she had the willpower to resist her. Didn’t she?
She thought she did. True, she could not deny that she was still attracted to Neesh, quite powerfully, in fact. She felt a little flushed every time she saw those full lips and remembered what they had felt like kissing her on her lips, on her nipples, down below. And when she saw the shape of Neesh’s breasts beneath her sweater, when she saw the jiggling of them as she walked, she could not help but remember what they had felt like in her hands, in her mouth.
Steady, Teach, she told herself. Attraction and fantasy are fine. You can rape Jake all you want as soon as the two of you get home. You just can’t act on anything that Neesh does.
They shopped for almost two hours without ever leaving the pier, both of them burning holes in their virtually limitless credit cards. Neesh bought a new dress and several pairs of shoes. Laura bought a couple of sweaters that Neesh had declared would look good on her (Laura knew she had little to no fashion sense and relied upon her friends to make her shopping decisions for her) and a few pairs of designer jeans. The two of them even went into the dressing rooms together and stripped down to bras and panties (and what a mouth-watering sight that was, Laura thought helplessly), but Neesh made no move, not even inuendo.
When their parcels started to border on too much to carry, they strolled a little further down the pier and found an intimate little seafood restaurant. There, they shared a bottle of wine and a shrimp appetizer plate. Neesh then had grilled halibut with rice pilaf while Laura enjoyed a seared scallops plate with grilled vegetables. The wine made them giggly and their talk turned a little risqué, but the innuendo remained confined to heterosexual matters.
Since Neesh had driven, Laura picked up the check and left a generous tip. After securing her credit card back in her purse, they left the restaurant and walked further down the pier, going further out over the ocean. The smell of the sea was strong and the onshore breeze had picked up a bit, bringing a little more chill with it. A couple of sea lions were playing in the water below and Neesh smiled as she saw them.
“Anybody down there you recognize?” she asked Laura.
“Very funny,” Laura said good naturedly, but also realizing that this was the first indirect reference to girl-time that Neesh had made.
They reached the end of the pier and stood side by side, looking out at the ocean. The sun was sinking in the sky but still had a few hours to go before sunset.
“Definitely a better view than anything we could’ve found in Compton,” Neesh remarked.
“That is a scary place,” Laura said. “The drive in made me very uncomfortable.”
“It makes me nervous too,” Neesh said. “And I’m a sister ... well, kind of anyway.”
“Why does G keep his rehearsal studio there?” she asked. “I’m sure he could afford to rehearse in Beverly Hills if he wanted to, right?”
“It’s for street cred,” she said. “For a rapper, street cred is everything, almost more important than the music. As long as he maintains that cred and keeps putting out good tunes and isn’t perceived as a sellout, he’s perfectly safe there, as are all of us.”
“Does that mean that Jake has street cred with the black community as well?” Laura asked.
“I don’t think the community thought too much about him one way or the other until Step Inside came out. Now he has some tentative cred since he played guitar for G and it’s known that he hangs out with him and they appeared at the awards ceremony together. Once this new tune they’re working on comes out, and if it’s as good as G and Jake seem to think it’s going to be, I think Jake will be made an honorary member of the community, with all the rights and privileges.”
“All the rights and privileges?” she asked.
“Girlfriend, the two of you will be able to walk into a bar in South Central or Watts and order drinks and nobody will kill you. In fact, they’ll probably buy those drinks for you; especially if it becomes known that Jake is paying college tuition for Elsa’s grandkids, or that you used to teach in the ghetto.”
“Wow,” Laura whispered, imagining that. “I don’t think I’d ever be comfortable doing something like that.”
Neesh chuckled. “I’m not suggesting you should,” she said. “I’m just saying that you could if you wanted to. And the street cred has more practical applications as well. Run into a couple of hard-hitting niggers while you’re walking the streets down in Hollywood and they’ll leave you alone instead of robbing you. Walk into one of those soul food joints downtown and you’ll get premium service, extra portions, and they won’t spit in your food.”
“Are you making all this up?” Laura asked.
“No way, Teach,” she said. “This is the gospel. Look at me. I’m from an upper-middle class family and didn’t even know where the ghetto was until I met G. Now I’m a sister that other black women look up to. G is considered quite the catch, you know. As is Jake. Rich and powerful men who didn’t sell out to get what they have.”
Laura nodded as she thought this over. “Very interesting,” she said.
“Isn’t it?” Neesh asked.
They stared out at the ocean again for a few minutes.
“How’s the married life treating you so far?” Neesh finally asked.
“I like it,” she said. “I know it shouldn’t feel that different than before; after all, we’d been living together and sleeping in the same bed and all that before we were married; but somehow, it is different.”
“Hell yeah, it’s different,” Neesh said. “You’re married now. It’s legal. He can’t just break up with you if he gets it into his head to do so. There’s paperwork involved now, and division of assets.” She shook her head in admiration. “I still can’t believe he didn’t ask you to sign a prenup before you said, ‘I do’.”