Love Me Read Free Page B

Tentatively I went into a couple of the big chains and dented my already quite negligible paycheck buying some bangles, earrings and a pair of very skinny jeans. I fantasised about how I was going to feel in my sexed-up wardrobe, with Zed on my arm. I could finally do something about my hair. People would think I was pretty. They’d be envious of us.
    â€˜Now all you need is a little facial surgery and you’ll be supermodel material.’
    I stopped, letting my bags fall on the ground.
    â€˜What?’ he said. ‘I was kidding.’
    I said nothing.
    â€˜Damn, it was a
joke.
’

salt.
    I FOLLOW ZED and Max sheep-like into the club, a high-concept affair in blinding white with low ceilings and lighted floors, and booths designed to look like bedrooms. Everywhere there are throw cushions, canopies, fur and feathers. It’s not any cooler inside than it was outside in the filthy summer streets and I’m sweat-slicked without taking a single dance step. My Afro is shrinking at a rate that’s likely to make my skull implode sometime around three a.m.
    All I want to do is run home and sleep deep into Sunday with a duvet pulled over my head, because absolutely no good can come from this night. But that would be an admission of defeat.
    Max asks me if I want a drink and I say, like a robot, ‘Rum and Coke thanks.’
    I don’t look at Zed as he introduces me to Lisa, a black girl draped in a nine-foot hair-weave. Shocking. At her scalp you can see the places where kink meets fakery.
    â€˜Hey,’ she says, cutting me a look. Maybe I’m just sensitive right now, but I could swear it’s the same look my mum used to direct at my head Sunday nights before she’d had a chance to attack it with the pressing comb. ‘How ya doing?’
    â€˜Cool,’ I lie. ‘Your hair,’ I tell her, ‘is truly unbelievable.’
    When the drink comes, I swallow it so fast it should make my head spin, but it doesn’t. I’m introduced to a couple more people but instantly forget their names. When a girl with an enthusiastic ponytail offers to buy drinks,I have a rum and Coke. And when Nine-Foot Weave offers to buy drinks, I have yet another. The world starts to swim, lengthen and stretch. All the edges stand out: my hand resting on my bare thigh, Max’s red mouth and white face, my empty glass dizzy with flashing lights.
    My body floats up and my head is a lump of brick.
    â€˜Hey Eden, you ready for another one?’
    â€˜Yes, please. Whisky and Coke.’
    Blondie matches me drink for drink, but she’s on vodka.
    When it’s time for Zed to go on stage I have to muscle my way to the front of the room just to get to him, through a forest of carelessly waving limbs. The DJ fades out the record, and a tiny woman in red introduces the entertainment. She says his name. I grip my drink. There he is, looking even bigger than usual. Shiny. I take down a sip, grateful for the burn.
    Zed raps with his chin tilted up, generous lips curled in a faint snarl. His flow is seamless. He doesn’t dance. One hand is in its sling and the other lightly cradles the mic. He drops one sharply delivered punch line after another, battle rhymes and boasts, women and money. He’s agile in the lips and tongue and brain. There’s barely any space to breathe in between lines and no story to speak of and no glimpse of flesh through the cleverness. This is hip-hop for ADD sufferers. But he is a master. Look at all the faces, all the bobbing bodies. They love it and I hate them for putting their greasy gaze all over his talent. Especially Max. By the end of the twenty-minute set she’s wearing this proprietary grin like this show was for her personal amusement.
    After fierce applause all the vultures turn to each other and begin their appraisals before he’s even completely melted from view.
That was alright innit? – Yeah, not bad!
–
He
sounds a bit like