A few months short of receiving my degree, I was in New York interviewing with law firms. She was assistant to a vice president at one of the big record companies. Still a recent immigrant to the North, Taleesha found it amusing—or perhaps she defensively pretended to be amused—to integrate such a WASPs’ nest. I hadn’t seen her in three years. “The job’s great,” she said, after we’d observed the pleasantries and ordered iced tea from a uniformed black waiter. He and Taleesha exchanged a fleeting look that seemed to me like a secret signal, and then suddenly she was back with me. “I’ve had a promotion and two raises in less than a year and I’m learning the business. Everybody at the company’s fascinated that I quit singing. But I never really had that hunger. I’d rather be backstage, thanks.” “Like Will,” I said, experimentally, dropping the taboo name. Though they were living apart—Will was still in Memphis—the terms of their separation were still not clear to me, and Will had been characteristically obscure on this subject.
What do You think about The Last Of The Savages (1996)?
