𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐄

𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

8. | THIS LOVE I HAVE

❝My words may not convey
just what I'm feelin' / but I hope you'll
recognize what's right before your eyes.❞

●

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK.
JANUARY 21, 1984.

At sunset, Manhattan was a beautiful place. The traffic and rush of the morning would melt away into a spectrum of purples, pinks, and oranges, unveiling a city full of life, love, and luxury. Children scurried the streets. Well-dressed men and women sat around tables with flutes of champagne in their hands, laughter in their eyes, and joy in their hearts. Cars glided down Broadway and Seventh Avenue in neat, closely stitched rows, and the hoods of every vehicle, from Chevys to Corvettes, caught the sun's final, ruddy rays of light. Buildings of all shapes and sizes bent to the will of the changing landscape, making the slow transition towards the familiar moniker, "The City that Never Sleeps".

Diana and Manhattan's sunset had been on a first-name basis since 1977. With new horizons in mind, she had packed her things and traded in the forever-warm for the temperamental. Manhattan was a welcome change. It wasn't so different from Los Angeles, but its skyscrapers, cracked sidewalks, and old eastern charm quickly became one of few things that gave her solace.

Back then, she would sit on the balcony with her knees to her chest. The glass door behind her would rattle with the sound of her daughters' high-pitched laughter and her mother's kind, but firm voice would echo not far behind. Diana's mind would be heavy, buckled under a weight she couldn't name. Her mother must have known. She barely questioned her moments of withdrawal. Ernestine would simply take the reins, letting Diana wander off into solitude until something roused her from her trance.

Oftentimes, it was a book of her latest obsession. It would be clenched between her knees, plump with notes and highlighted to Kingdom Come. Bessie, Billie, or Josephine would frolic through the corridors of her mind, bringing light to the dark spots, pointing her in different directions. As the city bathed in amber, she would be left to wonder. Were they meant to show her the right direction? She was never sure.

What she did know was that Manhattan was the place where she found new beginnings. Dorothy Gale had been lost, as disorientated by the question of what was next as Diana was when she had finally parted ways with Bob and California. The Wiz had been a path. Like anyone hungry for purpose, she fought long and hard until fate saw it fit to take a chance on her. Though it turned out not to be the force of nature she hoped, it had offered her numerous lights at the end of the tunnel, some of which hadn't come to fruition until recently.

She was expecting one of them within the next thirty minutes.

While she waited, she grabbed the phone and walked as close to the sliding glass door as the cord would allow. As the phone rang, she did terrible work of juggling a handful of pecans. At the sound of Suzanne's voice, they fell to the floor in a series of small thuds. She made a mental note to clean up before her esteemed guest arrived.

When the buzzer near the door sounded off, she and Suzanne were up to their necks in a discussion about the latest television projects in store for Motown. As Suzanne painstakingly went over the details, Diana scurried to the buzzer and pressed the button. Her visitor was on borrowed time. For every second he spent in the lobby, the chances of him being spotted increased exponentially.

"Diane, are you listening? What was that noise?"

She paused to scrutinize herself in the mirror. "The intercom."

"You've got a guest?"

The phone was propped against her shoulder. Diana fluffed her hair and dabbed away at a bit of eyeliner gone astray sometime between her last meeting and her trip back to Manhattan. "Yes, ma'am, I do, which means I'm going to have to call you back."