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But even by the afternoon of the second last date in a different city, Malikah knew that she was near the end of her reserves and just wanted to walk away. It felt absurd to think about, but she couldn't even manage that without taking a beefy security guy with her to go for a walk.
Damian felt like a lifeline to her and she called him from her dressing room almost on the verge of tears.
"I need some time in a place where no one knows me. I want to be alone, I think, and then I want to go back to a simpler life for at least a time.
Damian, everyone has helped me, but I have not learned how to make a place for me to live in peace. I have assistants and every day, there are more demands. At last I have found that they do not assist me so much as they tell me what I must do next for someone. I - I think I will go mad very soon."
Damian spoke to her, doing his best to soothe her. "This tour is about done, isn't it?"
"Yes" she said, "the last show is tomorrow night in Los Angeles. But they are already beginning to talk to me about the next one."
"That's because you're in demand and they're trying to do all they can in that direction," he said, "Do you have any commitments after that? Are you obligated to put out any more albums?"
"No," she said,"I listened to you about that. I specified that I would not accept a long deal.
I just don't know where to turn now. If I go home, they will be at my door and the phone will ring and ring. I am sure that if I agree to another tour or another album, then I will fall into the wind and be blown from one place to another all over again. I want to be Malikah for a little time.
Just Malikah - before I forget who she even was."
Damian sighed, feeling a little of the strain that she was under, "I'll need a day to see what I can set up. I'll try to catch the redeye out there and we can maybe meet up before your show. If not, then I'll be waiting for you afterwards."
They spoke for a little longer, Malikah feeling a little better to know that she had Damian in her corner and not out of a desire for personal gain. She wondered who he had to take care of him. They'd never had the time to even get to that, but she knew the likely answer.
He didn't.
She thought about him now and then anyway. She loved it when she could see him and he treated her so well, but there was always something that seemed to require his attention and no matter what her heart said to her during those times when she thought about it, he would only ever get so close to her after their four days together and she knew what it was.
He'd never stopped hurting, the same way that she hadn't.
Just like her, he'd needed those four days. In that time, their relationship had gone as far as they could take in their short time together.
Then it had ended. She knew how her heart ached afterwards and she remembered the way that he'd looked.
He'd looked like a man turning away from somebody that he loved to step off into oblivion. He'd never sounded quite the same on the phone ever since. She knew him enough to know that he'd given up.
She'd asked him about it once, "What if I give up my music and you leave Faisal?"
He'd sighed heavily, "Don't give up what so many people would kill to have, not for me, because I don't want that on my conscience. You need to ride it a little more, Malikah. Get what you can while you can.
As for me, I make more working for Faisal than I can walk away from. As much as I hate a lot of it, I know that he won't live much longer and it'll be over. I think I'll just go back to my dad's farm and see what's left. Take care of him in his last years and take care of my niece. I can't see myself sitting on a tractor all day, but anything can happen. I guess."
"Would you come for me?" she'd asked.
Damian had looked down and sighed, "I know that I'd want to. But you're an accomplished artist now. I'm an ex-Marine helicopter pilot. Doesn't sound to me like we'd have much in common.
These days, I try to tell myself that I don't believe in love, because I can't ever have it. Never have, and I can't see that I ever will. I just know it now, that's all.
I can do a lot of things, but I've never been able to do that one. No matter what, I always end up walking down a dirt road in the cold rain kicking a rock. That's how I left home in New Mexico a long time ago.
That's how I left your apartment in Chicago, only it was wet and rainy sidewalk that time. It hurt the same, just fresher, that's all.
It took them both to their tears again when he'd kissed her and quietly told her to take care of herself.
Malikah wiped her tears as the memory faded. She found that she was still looking forward to at least seeing him. Even if he was only going to be there to help her once again.
-------------
Angel Fire, NM
She'd heard the fuel truck coming and pushed the doors open before it had even stopped.
"I'm looking for, ..." the man said, searching for the name on his clipboard, "... Robert Sorrensson - Quicksilver's Air."
She rolled her eyes and looked at her watch, "Yeah, I'm from Quicksilver's Air. I need that thing filled and I can sign for the fuel."
He apologized for being late, "I'm still a little new here. I've never had a delivery to this hangar before."
"It's ok," she said, "You're pretty much right on time. I was just looking to see how much time I've got before I have to get going with something else."
Down on one knee on top of the wing, she tilted her head a little to try to keep an eye open for the first signs of the rising fuel level. As she noticed the slightly increasing sluggishness in the way that it funneled in, she had her first clue that she was nearly there. She gave a quick thought to the time of year and tried to factor in the degree of likely expansion that could be expected later as the day heated up.
"Did you fill up the truck first thing this morning?" she asked the driver.
He'd normally be handling the fill-up for most customers, but the owners of warbirds were often among the pickiest people about sloshed fuel.
"No," he replied, "I haven't filled it yet today. What's there is from yesterday, though I can guess why you're asking. The tank's still warm from being out in the sun all day yesterday so it won't expand much when it gets hot around here again."
She nodded, not looking as she watched for the first signs of the rising fuel level again. As she saw it, she let the lever of the nozzle go and closed the filler cover before moving on to the next one.
Christ, she thought, six tanks and that wasn't even counting the tip tanks at the ends of the wings that she wasn't going to have filled.
3882 gallons of aviation-grade gasoline.
She sighed as she worked in the cost.
Holy fuck ...
Paper airplanes weren't near as much fun, but at least she could afford them.
As she began to fill the next one, she felt the very beginnings of her sweat on her forehead. The day was going to be another scorcher for certain.
She sighed. Her life was one long full dance card these days without the enjoyment of a partner to dance with. Who the hell had time? All that she seemed to be doing these days was the dancing part - as fast as she could, all day long and into the night more often than not. She'd even resurrected her old Palm Pilot - just so she could have even a hope of knowing where she should be at any given moment, because trying to manage her phone just pissed her off.
She had her hands full just with her business and it left her pretty much nothing for anything else. She had to budget her time far in advance - even days ahead sometimes, and in her line of work, you'd better not forget a damn thing, because other than the cost of the lost work, there was another cost and that was lost work in the future, because there were always lot of other sharks out there ready to capitalize on what you'd overlooked. Her father was running the agricultural side of things and he wasn't ...well, he wasn't as available these days to help out on the transport side.
So these days, she was often a one-girl show stretched way too thinly everywhere.
But it was Thursday and the weekend was coming, and for the past two weeks, taking this little toy out of the toybox had been a thing to look forward to. It had been a hell of a thing to get done, but she'd actually managed to schedule two days off for herself.
She smirked. Two days that most regular folks took for granted.
She so needed this. And there was the other thing in it. She had no clue about where she'd find the time, but she did want to see if she could maybe work something out for a routine. She was far too late for most of them this year, but there had always been the tantalizing notion of picking up some income out on the airshow circuit.
And hers was a rather unusual bird.
The driver asked if he could handle the rest for her and she was about to decline when her cell phone began to clamor, so she nodded and shut off the nozzle to lay it carefully against the wing surface on a rag, taking her hand away slowly to see if it would stay. He was up the ladder there in a second and she stepped away to ease down before she answered it, a little annoyed with herself for forgetting to turn it off before she began to fuel up. The truck was grounded as was her aircraft, but still ...
"Quicksilver's Air," she said automatically, but in the next second, she found herself grinning. "Damian! Aw Baby, you can't imagine how good it is to hear your voice. It's been ... ok, it's only been like forever. What's going on?"
When she hung up ten minutes later, she stood there wondering. She just loved Damian to death and it had been so good to hear from him. She realized that she was still smiling and that her face hurt a little from it.
Ok, she admitted to herself, she WANTED to love Damian to at least about halfway to death on those days when she was really feeling needier than usual. She supposed that he was just that sort of guy, considering. Of course, it wouldn't ever happen and she kicked herself for even having the kind of thoughts that now passed through her mind.
Well considering that the thought wasn't perhaps the sort that she tended to have most times. Besides, they were related. There had been a time once long ago when they'd experimented, but that was youth and a ton of quiet desperation for them both. It was the lie that she could tell herself and not feel too badly about.
She tried not to think about those days too much or she was good for about a half-hour of crying in a private place.
But this request ... he'd made certain to tell her that her fees would be well-paid, but no matter how she looked at it, this was one hell of an unusual request.
---------------
Los Angeles, CA
The next morning Malikah called, but Damian didn't pick up. She worried a little and then finally called again after her crew had finished with the sound checks. She almost heaved a sigh to hear his voice then.
"I'm on the ground at LAX," he said, "I'm waiting for the person that I called to help you get away, since some of this is gonna have to be a little uh, ... covert.
Do your show and make an appearance if there's an after-show party, but DON'T go to the one they usually put on afterwards in a bar or something. Tell them that you've got a headache and have to take a pass. I'm having your luggage taken with you, so try to have it ready to go before you go on, ok?
After the show, about a half an hour, I'd guess, I'll have some people there from Farmborough Security Services to get you out of the building. It's going to have to appear that you leave in one of their sedans.
You will leave in one, but not the one that it looks like. They all look the same anyway, big, dark brown, Crown Victorias."
"Where are we going?" Malikah asked and he laughed a little bit.
"You said that you need some time away. You know that if you just try to do that yourself, they won't let you. Somebody will always be there wanting you to do this or that or talk when you don't want to. You'll need to tell your tour manager that you're stepping out and that you'll be making your own way home. Or if you want, I'll tell him for you if I can get there sometime during your show.
I can give you the private time, but to do that Malikah, you need to disappear. That's what I'm working on at the moment. I know somebody who can make it happen. I just hope that we can pull this off without too much drama once they find that you're nowhere to be seen. You'll need to make a call to your management company to let them know that you're ok or they'll lose their minds."
She got all of that, but, ... "Who is the someone that you mentioned? What will happen?"
"You're going to get a chance to relax and calm down before you go back. Bobby will take you to a place where nobody will know you. It might not be luxurious with a pool and lots of places to shop, but I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't want that anyway."
"Bobby?"
He chuckled, "We go back a long way. Don't worry, just think of Bobby as somebody you can trust - something like what I am for you, but in a smaller place and I'm pretty sure that you'll have an interesting time and you know that I'll still be just a call away, no matter what."
They hung up a few minutes later and Malikah didn't know what to make of it all. She only knew one thing; Damian wasn't looking for anything from her in a monetary sense. He'd told her time and again that she ought to cut more than a couple of the leeches from her staff. He wasn't on her payroll.
He was paid by Faisal, doing what the old man needed him to do, and from what Damian had said, other than them and this Bobby guy, only Faisal knew of what would happen - whatever it was.
-------------
When the show was over and the last encore played out, Malikah wanted to change into jeans and just tell everyone that she was taking a few days off and would be back in her Chicago condo before long. She got out of the clothes that she wore for the second half of her shows and just put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
For this tour, she'd always opened her shows dressed in fine yet culturally conservative attire. The second half had always been more upbeat and well, western in culture, yet it was overlayed onto the subtleties which had always been there for her.
It made her stop and look at herself in the mirror for a moment.
She was a little unsure of just who she was looking at these days. She'd always dressed conservatively in the way of her people - indeed the way that most people dressed there. It was clothing which she had after all and didn't need to buy. Western styles had always interested her, but at the time, it had always been more important that she had enough to eat and to buy the things that were needed.
Now, living in the west herself, she was much more used to clothing styles here, though she still dressed to reflect her culture rather often. For this tour, her music had evolved a little and to reflect that, her management had gotten her someone to help with her wardrobe for the shows.
Well, wanting success and a bit of a personal sort of change as well, she'd finally - though it had taken almost life and death arguments to convince her - Malikah had just acquiesced and gone with it all.
That was why she was now looking at a woman whose appearance she liked, but getting past the ways of a lifetime was hard and she was still getting used to things - such as her hair.
All of her life, she'd had long hair. She had a lot of Sub-Saharan features from her genetic make-up, and in her family, many of the people had fairly straight hair. The beauty consultant had taken one look at her and gone wild with joy. Malikah thought that the woman had lost her mind at the time.
The result was a shaved head with the exception of a large patch at the top and toward the back. Her hair now had extensions in it and the whole had been braided in long thin ropes which hung down to her butt.
Malikah smiled at her reflection. She'd have probably loved to see it on another person, and all in all she liked it, but it was still a shock to see herself in a mirror, even after months on tour.
And getting into a simple T-shirt with that hair was a bit of a challenge which made her laugh a little sometimes.
As she looked at the result, she hoped that this Bobby character could handle it. It caused her to have a thought where she hoped that he was like Damian.
She threw that one away the next instant. She didn't care what he looked like. She wanted Damian. She still wanted Damian. She sighed.
She still couldn't have Damian.
She finished up, wanting to get this over with now. She knew that a lot of this was her stress and it caused her to feel a little guilty. Everyone on this tour with her had been so wonderful to be with and musically, it had been amazing, giving her so many ideas, but as she was, she just knew that she was missing a lot of everything out of the effort that it was taking to hold herself together one day at a time.
She made the rounds and thanked everyone for their hard work and said that she looked forward to their next venture together. She slipped away then and true to his word, she saw Damian there with several large security types in dark suits and a younger-looking guy with longish hair wearing shades and looking a little like an undercover cop.
It was all that she could do not to run to him and grab him to try to hustle him out of the building to someplace quiet enough to beg him to just try to disappear with her to another place and live there together. She didn't care where; she didn't give a damn about anything but him.
Bur she knew that it couldn't ever happen.
Damian was already into it with the tour manager, but he invoked Faisal's name and asked the guy just how much he wanted to be a part of Malikah's next tour. Malikah's luggage was already gone and after only a brief hug, she left with Damian and his men.
But she didn't walk with them out to where there were three of the promised dark sedans waiting. She was escorted by him and the cool-looking one out of a different door to a fourth sedan, just like the rest and then they were gone, motoring quietly and heading for Highway 1. She looked out of the window.
The hug from him had said a lot to her. She guessed that she must be to him like he was to her, a constant. She couldn't do anything about it, but at least he hadn't changed.
"Bobby owns an air transport company out of New Mexico," Damian smiled, "They had a pickup to make out at LAX today anyway so this all lines up pretty well. That's where everybody else is going, but not us.
We're headed out to Torrance Municipal instead. It's a smaller place and the paparazzi likely won't think to look there for you. You won't be flying on a big airliner. You'll be on Bobby's Twin Otter and it's already waiting for you out at Torrance."
She looked up, not getting it, "Twin ... otter?"
"It's a twin engine short take-off and landing utility aircraft suited for rough and short fields. There'll be a cooler on board with a few sodas and sandwiches plus some Middle Eastern food if you're hungry. We're just driving out there and you'll be heading out of the freight terminal there. It took a hell of a lot, but I managed to bypass the passenger side of things since Bobby is giving you a lift rather than hauling passengers. You'll just need to show some ID."
"But where am I going?" Malikah asked, "I trust you for my little adventure here, but I would like to at least know something."
"Of course," Damian smiled, "I didn't have much to be able to tell you at first because even I didn't know. I've been putting this together on the fly. But I've been on the phone to Bobby half a dozen times and I've at least got a little that I can tell you now. There's a shipment of medicine on the plane that's got to get to a small airport out at an Indian reservation and after that, you'll fly on to Angel Fire Airport - which is located a little conveniently near the town of Angel Fire, New Mexico.
