She hesitated, and when I nervously began to apologize, she interrupted.

‘‘You know, when I started to experience the difference — or even have my race be highlighted — it was mostly when I would do business deals.’’ Business deals. Meaning that everyone’s cool with a young black woman singing, dancing, partying and looking hot, but that when it comes time to negotiate, to broker a deal, she is suddenly made aware of her blackness. ‘‘And, you know, that never ends, by the way. It’s still a thing. And it’s the thing that makes me want to prove people wrong. It almost excites me; I know what they’re expecting and I can’t wait to show them that I’m here to exceed those expectations.’’ She sounded like a young black professional trying to make it in the corporate world, and I guessed she was — just on a very different scale.

‘‘But I have to bear in mind,’’ she continued, looking right at the voice recorder, ‘‘that those people are judging you because you’re packaged a certain way — they’ve been programmed to think a black man in a hoodie means grab your purse a little tighter. For me, it comes down to smaller issues, scenarios in which people can assume something of me without knowing me, just by my packaging.’’

While none of us are only our skin or clothes, we do increasingly expect megastars to deploy their whole being through packaging — a tidy and consistent message. If Rihanna has a ‘‘thing’’ it’s that she changes her thing so often. While a performer positioning themselves in relation to the art world might try to make this into a more overt performance, something that would reassure the intelligentsia, Rihanna isn’t meta like that. She hasn’t created a persona around herself like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna or so many other stars at her level. She doesn’t have to manufacture dimensionality, because she actually is soulful, and this comes across in every little thing she does.

Souls are funny things. They stay constant even when the outside changes, or when the heart makes mistakes. Souls don’t really care about good or bad, right or wrong — they’re just true. Everlasting. It makes you sound dumb to talk about this stuff, which is why no one could tell me exactly what it was about Rihanna. But millions of fans don’t seem to need it explained to them. A soul just knows a soul. I never told you she was pretty because that’s not what I experienced. My understanding, from the moment she sat down, was that we were in love. We were the most in love any two people had ever been. The sun was finally setting. We’d been talking for almost two hours. I just had one more question.

OUMAROU DIDN’T ASK. He didn’t have to. I was dying to tell him how incredible Rihanna was. ‘‘I knew it,’’ he whispered, merging on to the freeway. ‘‘I showed her the picture of you two together,’’ I said. ‘‘She couldn’t believe the coincidence. And she said you were very well-dressed.’’

‘‘No!’’

‘‘Yes. And she answered your question.’’

With a shaky finger I rewound the voice recorder a little bit. Somehow this was the most exciting part of the whole day. ‘‘O.K., here it is.’’ Oumarou nodded solemnly and I pressed play: ‘‘You know what? If I ever go to West Africa, it would probably be for a free concert.’’ Rihanna’s slight Barbadian accent was familiar to me now. ‘‘I would want to do something for the people there. Maybe we can make a whole event, the way Bob Marley would have done it. Just for the people. And if they climb over the gate, let them climb over the gate.’’

Night fell as we drove across Los Angeles. It took hours to get to Rihanna, but I was home in half that time — too soon. Oumarou and I agreed to keep in touch and waved goodbye. Before stepping inside my house, I lifted my blouse to my face; her perfume was still there. The problem with this kind of romance is that it all falls apart in the retelling. My husband and 3-year-old son tried but couldn’t really understand how overwhelming and profound my connection with Rihanna was. And I’ll admit that as the days go by, even I am beginning to doubt whether our time together meant quite as much to her as it did to me. It doesn’t matter. My heart still jumps every time I see her face.