Into the Starry Night

Sixteen

A persistent screeching in my ear cut through the pleasant cloud of sleep.

I tried to ignore it and reimmerse myself into the gentle embrace of slumber but the shrieking was making it impossible.

Still half asleep, I groaned and reached out to blindly feel my bedside table. The shrieking continued as my hand connected with the lamp and small items that clattered to the floor, everything but the source of the offensive noise.

Finally, my hand closed around my phone and I tapped the screen to silence the alarm.

The noise died but my relief was only fleeting as it started up again.

I had never loathed the sound of Taylor Swift's voice until that very moment.

As another tap did not silence the device a part of my brain thawed from the sleep-induced hibernation and made me realize it was a call, not my alarm.

"Urg," I undulated into the soft pillow beneath my head as I placed the phone to my ear.

"No oh, you for no pick am. You for let am ring and go into voicemail for the thousandth time."

"Huh?"

"Are you seriously . . . Amarachi Blossom Okon! Wake the fuck up!"

And just like that, I was wide awake.

I checked the Caller ID and groaned.

"I really need to cultivate the habit of checking the name before I pick up the call."

I managed to get my sleeping body into a sitting position against the headboard.

"You think you can avoid me forever, bah?"

"And good morning to you too, Ashlee. To what do I owe this displeasure? You do know it's 4:30 am, right?" I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and fixed the hair that had escaped my hair band back.

"And where would that be? Because it's just 7:30 by my watch, and that's an early evening."

I looked around my semi-dark room lit partially by my favorite nightlight - the one in the shape of a benzene ring - and took a deep breath to steady myself.

"Ashlee-"

"What the fuck happened, Amara? Where the fuck are you? I have been trying and trying and trying to get a hold of you but it's like you just fell off the face of the earth after that Vogue shoot. I reached out to Fred and neither he nor his people want anything to do with us anymore. Then a few days later I find out you broke up. What the hell happened? Why did you not think to tell your publicist about the break up before the media got a wind of it? Why did you fall off the face of the earth? Why haven't you been answering your messages? I had to send an email. An email, for God's sake! Do I look like someone who'd use an email to you? That's for grannies and the unemployed. Where the hell are you?"

I would be surprised that Ashlee was able to get all that out in one breath but I was used to it.

Long reprimands were basically her trademark.

Ashlee had been my publicist-cum-agent for the past three years and even though she was the best at her job, I had this unshakable feeling that she didn't really like me. Her dislike was still there even after the name change and the acceptance of her sexuality.

The only reason she had even lasted this long was that she was the only one who was able to keep me in line. And that was partly because she was fucking terrifying sometimes.

"Ashlee, if you could just-"

"I need to remind you that you have responsibilities, ok? You have people to see, hands to shake and babies to kiss, you cannot just disappear!"