EPILOGUE

Two weeks later, after MaKayla was completely and publicly exonerated of all charges and MBI had packed up and gone back to where they came from, they sat at a small table at a rooftop nightclub and watched the Paris lights flame brightly around them. The breeze caused MaKayla’s long dark hair to blow sweetly in the wind and Brent sat there mesmerized. Beautiful inside and out. The total package in his view. “How do you feel?” he asked her.

“Like I have a new lease on life. Like I can enjoy this long-needed vacation without a cloud hanging over my head. I felt fabulous, Brent. Just wonderful.”

“You look fabulous,” Brent said. But he also noticed, whenever she was at her happiest, that a small spark of something else would appear in her eyes. Like now. “What’s that about?” he asked her.

She leaned her head back and then looked at him. “I know I wasn’t the prosecutor on the case, but I was in charge of the DA’s office when he was convicted and sentenced to Death. Had we looked further. Had we asked more questions. Had we--”

“Stop, Kayla. Don’t you dare do that. We don’t even know if what he said was even true. It seems to me he was more blinded by racial jealousy than by any interest in justice for his boy. Don’t you dare. The evidence led where the evidence led and there was nothing you could do about that. A jury found him guilty. Don’t second guess anything. It won’t do anybody any good. Just be grateful to be free.”

MaKayla smiled. Because that was it, wasn’t it? Freedom.

But when the music changed from some French singer singing some beloved French tune to Wild Cherry, a band Brent loved, he stood up and walked over to MaKayla’s chair. “May I have this dance, my lady?” he asked her.

That kind of language and gesture was so not Brent that it made her laugh. But it was so much so the new Brent that it made her heart sing. And she placed her hand in his hand, got up, and allowed him to lead her all over that dance floor. She couldn’t believe it. That white boy could dance! And Wild Cherry, one of his favorite bands, made him dance even harder:

“Play that funky music white boy.

Play that funky music play.

Play that funky music white boy.

Lay down that boogie,

and play that funky music till you die.

Till you die!”

And that was exactly what Brent and MaKayla planned to do. They decided to forget all the troubles of their past and to enjoy life for a change. To embrace the present. To just play.

They laughed as he dipped her, brought her back up into his arms, and then they kept on dancing to the music, all kinds of music, all night long.