Nicky’s brow knit so deep I was afraid his forehead might stay like that. “Okay, fine. You said what you had to say. Now get out. I got to finish up this payroll.”
“So no lunch?” I don’t know why I felt disappointed. It’s not like I had ever known Nicky to have any friends outside of Leon.
“Not if you don’t let me finish up this payroll,” he said. “Give me half an hour, then we’ll go to that new Kabuki sushi restaurant up the street. I ain’t been yet. And after that maybe we can see that Denzel movie at the ArcLight. I heard okay things about it.”
I was so stunned, it took me a moment to realize that he was not only saying yes to lunch, but agreeing to be my best friend.
“Okay,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
And that’s how Nicky and me got over the whole cheating thing.
. . .
At first, it seemed like I was going to be awash in tests and papers for the rest of my life, but then one day college was over, just like that. Nicky, Mama Jane, Chloe, Russell and the band came out to cheer me on at graduation. UCLA handed me a diploma for a bachelor of arts in psychology, and suddenly I was right back where I started.
At the club.
Not that I didn’t like the club. Actually that was part of the problem. As much as I had taken a real shine to learning, I really couldn’t think of any career better than the one I already had.
Sure, I’d make more money if I put my degree to work, doing something like social work or maybe going into research. But other than better insurance, the appeal of a nine-to-five was lost on me. And to tell you the truth, I just didn’t think I could go into an office every day.
Still, I needed something else. A second job or something on the side to keep up with the bills. I mean I could’ve straight bought a house back in Glass for what I had out in student loans. Sure it’d be a small house, maybe a shack like the one I used to share with Cora, but the point was, my debt situation was no joke.
I think Nicky’s Spidey sense picked up that I was fixing to ask him for a raise now that I was back at full-time hours, because he’s the one that came up with the Big Idea.
I was rehearsing with the band when Nicky stormed into the main room.
“Davie!” he yelled over the music. “I got an idea.”
I waved at the band to stop playing.
. . .
His idea was Soul BunnyGrams, a business that sent me out in a bunny suit to deliver singing telegrams with soul. He would drum up the business, I would go out on the calls, and he would get a fifteen percent cut for all his labor on my behalf.
I immediately liked the idea because it meant I would be able to sing songs that were written after the fifties. But I’d learned a few things in the five years that I had dated Nicky, so I kept it cool and said, “Ten percent, Nicky. I’m already going to have to pay the government one hell of a commission, since it’s 1099 work.”
After a few days of hemming and hawing about ungrateful people and maybe needing to get some new blood onto the club stage, Nicky agreed to twelve percent. I said, “Deal,” because Nicky was truly ornery. And though I knew he was proud of me for negotiating him down, I couldn’t count on him not putting me out on the street if I didn’t agree to his second offer. He loved me, sure. He probably loved me more than anybody in this world besides his parents and Mama Jane. Still, business is business, and Nicky was always about the money. No matter what.
Soul BunnyGrams quickly became the first thing black people in Los Angeles thought of when they wanted to send their loved ones singing telegrams. And then the second or third thing creative white people thought of when they wanted to do something unexpected for their friends. We had almost no Latino business. But that was okay, because Soul BunnyGrams was better than huge. It was good enough, which meant that I had plenty of extra work to keep up with my student loan payments, but not so much that it ever seemed like a hassle.
All in all, I was happy. Even better, I was content, which is why what happened next in my life was so very, very fucked up.