The Daughters Take the Stage

by Joanna Philbin

  She turned on the water and splashed her face. Did I really have to run offstage? she asked herself, pumping some liquid soap into her hands. Couldn’t I have just walked gracefully into the wings? Or at least just hummed along? She knew what people upstairs were thinking. And texting. And posting on Facebook right this very minute. The one thing she had never expected people to say about her:

  OMG!! Holla Jones’s daughter can’t SING!

  She blotted her face with a towel, trying not to shudder. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe people didn’t really care. Maybe it just looked like she’d forgotten something, or like she had to go to the bathroom. Really had to go to the bathroom.

  She gazed at her clean, bewildered face in the mirror and shook her head. She’d totally screwed up. She’d completely and unforgettably blown it. But had it been all her fault? Holla had turned her into a wreck. For days, her mom had picked apart her voice, her body, her dancing, even her hair—especially her hair. And who told her kid when she went out onstage to sing for the very first time that “this has to be good”?

  She heard the door to the ladies room creak open.

  “Hudson?” said a hushed, familiar voice. “You in here?”

  Hudson stepped away from the sink to see Carina and Lizzie stepping hesitantly into the powder room. Both girls looked almost as worried and out of breath as Hudson felt. Lizzie’s hazel eyes seemed even larger than usual, or maybe it was that her red curls had been twisted up into a knot, away from her face. Her strapless, smoky blue gown showed off her pale shoulders. Both of her friends looked so pretty.

  “Hey, guys,” Hudson said meekly.

  “Holy shnit,” Carina said, rushing over and throwing her arms around her friend. “What happened up there? Are you sick or something?”

  Hudson hugged Carina and felt the knot in her stomach slowly loosen. “I wish,” she said. She stood on her tiptoes to hug Lizzie. “Sorry I’m a little sweaty.”

  “It’s okay,” Lizzie said, letting her go but holding her by the arms. “But are you okay?”

  Hudson’s face burned. She could barely look at Lizzie. Of the three of them, Hudson was supposed to be the performer, the professional. She stepped back and shrugged. “I just blanked out, you guys. I froze.”

  Lizzie and Carina traded a look, their faces strained with concern.

  Hudson looked down at the moss green carpet. “I got out there and I couldn’t do anything. All the stuff my mom’s been saying the past few weeks—that I’m singing the wrong way, I’m dancing the wrong way, I’m holding my arms too stiff, I’m not ‘selling’ the song enough… I couldn’t get it out of my head.” She glanced up at her friends. “Was it bad? What are people saying up there?”

  “Nothing,” Carina said, a little too quickly.

  “Alex is already spinning some songs.” Lizzie brushed some red tendrils out of her face. “People’ve already forgotten.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure they have,” Hudson said bitterly.

  “Look, Hudson, you can’t listen to your mom,” Carina declared. “She’d drive anyone crazy. She’d drive me crazy.”

  “You were just nervous, that’s all,” Lizzie said. “I would have had a heart attack up there.”

  “It’s my fault,” Carina exclaimed, kicking off her gold shoes and stretching her toes out on the carpet. “I made you do this. I put you on the spot with Ava. I knew you didn’t want to do it. It’s my fault. I should be arrested by the friendship police or something.”

  “No, it’s not your fault,” Hudson said soberly. “It’s my fault.”

  “How is this your fault?” Lizzie asked.

  “Because I shouldn’t even be trying to be a singer,” Hudson said. “Why would I even try?”

  “Because you’re incredibly talented,” Lizzie answered firmly.

  “But what good is that if I can’t sing on a stage?” Hudson said. And if my mom is always going to make me do things like her? she thought, but didn’t say.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Carina said, “Alex thought you were really cool.”

  Hudson smiled. “He’s cute. My guess is he’s an Aquarius. Which would be perfect for you.” Hudson loved checking up on whether her friends were compatible with the guys they liked.

  “So what are you gonna tell your mom?” Lizzie asked, bringing them back on topic.

  “I don’t know,” Hudson admitted. “If anyone has any ideas, now would be a good time to share.”

  “You should just come back up to the party,” Carina offered. “Just have fun for the rest of the night. Who cares about what happened onstage?”

  “I do,” Hudson said, walking over to the mirror and giving her damp curls one last shake off her shoulders. She tried to picture walking back into the ballroom upstairs, past all the people who’d just watched her run away. Maybe Carina could do that, but Hudson couldn’t.

  Lizzie put her arm around Hudson’s shoulders. “You’re gonna be okay. I promise you.”

  “Thanks, Lizbutt,” Hudson said. “Where’s Todd tonight?”

  Lizzie opened her purse. “I’m gonna text him now,” she said. “He wanted to stay home with his dad tonight. I guess his dad’s been really depressed.” Todd’s dad, Jack Piedmont, had been released on bail after being arrested for allegedly stealing money from the company he ran. Even though Todd was going through the worst time of his life, he and Lizzie still seemed very much together. They’d even dropped the L bomb a couple of weeks earlier.

  Carina opened the door. “You’re totally welcome to join us up there,” she said, wobbling a little on her heels. “If you want to put off the Holla fallout a little longer.”

  “Are you kidding?” Hudson said as they stepped out into the small, deserted foyer. “She’d find me in five minutes.”

  Just then, Hudson heard the unmistakable sound of stiletto heels hurrying across a marble floor.

  “There you are!” yelled a voice, and Hudson whipped around.

  It was her mom, running toward her with her arms outstretched and her silky, highlighted hair bouncing softly against her shoulders. “Oh, honey, come here,” she cried, throwing her arms around Hudson and pressing her firmly against the collection of necklaces resting against her chest.

  Holla’s amethyst-encrusted owl pendant dug into Hudson’s cheek.

  “Thank God,” she said, squeezing Hudson so hard she couldn’t breathe. “I’ve been looking for you all over this place.”

  Hudson pried herself away from her mom’s embrace. “I just went to the bathroom for a minute. I’m fine.”

  Little Jimmy, Holla’s linebacker-sized bodyguard, caught up to them, huffing and puffing slightly. Behind him was Sophie, Holla’s new, perennially frazzled assistant, her Bluetooth still secured to her ear. Hudson gave them both an embarrassed smile. They smiled back, before politely looking down at the gray marble floor.

  “Oh, honey, look at you,” Holla said tenderly, touching Hudson’s hair and then her cheek. “You’re a mess.” Holla pushed Hudson’s hair off her shoulder. “What happened to your other earring? Did you know that you’re missing an earring?”

  “Yes,” Hudson said.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened up there?” Holla asked, her voice softening. “Can you at least tell me that?”

  Hudson stared at her mom. Do you really not know? she wanted to say. You drove me crazy. “I’m not really sure,” she finally said. “I think it was just stage fright.” She couldn’t get into the truth. Not with so many people standing around them.

  Holla folded her arms and her expression changed from concerned to controlled. “Go back upstairs and tell everyone it was food poisoning,” she said curtly to Sophie.

  “Food poisoning?” Hudson asked.

  “She had some bad sushi,” Holla added, ignoring Hudson’s question. “And we’re all really sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “Do I say what kind of sushi?” Sophie asked, scrambling inside her purse for her pen and notepad.

 
; “It doesn’t matter,” Holla said in a clipped voice. “Just go.”

  Sophie turned on her heel and dashed down the hall, back toward the ballroom. Hudson glanced at Lizzie and Carina. They’d seen Holla flex her amazing powers of spin before, but they seemed stunned. “Mom, are you sure?” Hudson asked.

  Holla put her arm around Hudson’s shoulder and hugged her again. “Don’t you worry about a thing,” she said firmly. “Let me take care of this.”

  Before Hudson could respond, she heard Chris Brompton call out, “There you guys are! We got a little turned around.”

  She turned to see Chris approaching from the other end of the hallway, followed by Richard Wu, the executive from her record label. In all the chaos, she’d completely forgotten about them. She would have given anything for these men not to have seen her run offstage. Now they were going to comfort her. Ick.

  “Hudson, you okay?” Chris asked, coming to stand next to her and peering into her face with his bright blue eyes. He wore his usual Levi’s and a black button-down, instead of one of his vintage concert T-shirts.

  He dressed up for me, she thought.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

  Just having him standing next to her was making her feel dizzy. “No, I’m fine,” she managed to say. “Just a little”—she glanced at her mom—“food poisoning,” she said, wincing at the lie.

  “Really?” Chris said, touching her back. “Do you need anything?”

  His touch sent a lightning bolt down her spine. She wanted to just look up into his eyes and ask him to hug her, but she restrained herself. “I don’t think so.”

  Richard Wu flipped open his cell phone. Hudson had never seen him without it. “I’ve got a doctor I can call,” he said, already scrolling through his phone. “I think he’s an internist.”

  “She’s fine, Richard,” Holla declared. “It was just a little bad tuna.”

  Richard’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” he asked, glancing at Hudson.

  Hudson shrugged and nodded.

  “Okay.” He put his phone away, but he didn’t seem convinced.

  “I think I should probably get Hudson home now,” Holla said. “You girls should go back to the party. Especially since you look so adorable.”

  “Thanks, Holla,” they murmured, visibly uncomfortable.

  “You sure, Holla?” Richard asked, scrutinizing Hudson as if she were a jigsaw puzzle he couldn’t solve. “We’re happy to help.”

  “I think I just need to take care of my little girl,” Holla said sweetly, closing her hand around Hudson’s arm. “But I’ll let you know how she’s doing.”

  “You got it,” Richard said. “Feel better, Hudson.”

  “Thanks,” she said, unable to look him in the eye. “I will.”

  Chris waved. “I’ll e-mail you. Have a great holiday.”

  Hudson waved back. I absolutely won’t, she thought.

  Holla steered her in the direction of the lobby. “Tell Fernald we’re coming out now,” Holla told Little Jimmy, who pulled out a cell phone.

  “Bye, H,” Carina said. “We’ll text you later.”

  “Someone has to get back to her lov-ah,” Lizzie teased.

  Carina rolled her eyes.

  “Have fun, guys,” Hudson said as they backed away down the hall. She wondered what they thought of her, going along with such a blatant lie. But they knew the deal: Nobody said no to Holla Jones. She just hoped that they didn’t feel sorry for her.

  She caught up to her mom as they trotted down a short flight of stairs to the lobby. Behind them, Little Jimmy lumbered, still huffing and puffing. In all the years they’d had a bodyguard, Hudson had never seen Holla actually follow one.

  “I want you to look on the bright side,” Holla said, leaning in to speak into Hudson’s ear. “At least this happened here. And not somewhere important.”

  “But I thought this was somewhere important,” Hudson said. “Wasn’t that why you said I couldn’t make one single mistake? Isn’t that why you said ‘this has to be good’?”

  Holla fixed her almond-shaped eyes on her daughter. “Honey, what are you talking about?” she said, clearly puzzled.

  Little Jimmy jogged up next to them. “Looks like we got a crowd,” he said, gesturing to the lobby doors.

  Outside, through the glass, they could see that a mass of people had formed on the street. Apparently word had gotten out that Holla Jones was at the Pierre. Word always got out that Holla Jones was somewhere. All it took was a call to one of the paparazzi agencies, who usually paid handsomely for the tip.

  Holla pivoted on her toes to give Little Jimmy a stony look, and then he ran ahead.

  “Mom? Can we talk about this?” Hudson said.

  “Later,” Holla said firmly. She paused for a moment just inside the doors. Hudson watched her mom form The Face—the cool, tough-as-nails, mysterious exterior that she always showed to her fans. Holla dug a pair of black sunglasses out of her bag and slipped them on to complete the look. Hudson knew their fight was already history.

  Hudson let her mom go through the revolving doors first. When Holla emerged on the street, the crowd exploded.

  “HOL-LA!” people screamed. “HOL-LA!”

  Hudson pushed through the doors and then she was right behind her mom. Several hotel security guards rushed up to the crowd to keep them at bay.

  “HOL-LA!” someone screamed. “I LOVE YOU!”

  Holla gave the crowd a slight wave and they screamed even harder. Hudson darted over to the far side of the sidewalk, close to the hotel. Crowds always scared her a little. And she was still fuming. How could her mom have said this wasn’t important? Hadn’t three hundred people just seen the most humiliating moment of her life? How was she supposed to forget about it, when she knew that they never would?

  She spotted their SUV down Sixty-first Street and broke into a run toward it, eager to escape the screams. But Holla took her time, lingering near the crowd, deliberately egging them on with her cool detachment. Holla never wanted to sign autographs or shake hands, but she also didn’t like to rush past her fans. It was a little game she played with them—not wanting to leave, but not wanting to really do anything with them, either.

  Suddenly a girl’s voice rose out of the crowd: “I want to BE YOU, HOLLA!”

  No you don’t, Hudson thought, as she reached the car. I tried it tonight, and it really doesn’t work.

  chapter 4

  The SUV snaked through the narrow, cramped streets of the West Village, going farther and farther west toward the river. Hudson leaned against the tinted window, listening to Nina Simone sing “Here Comes the Sun” on her iPod. The argument with her mom still hung in the air, but they hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten into the car. Instead they sat in silence, Hudson with her iPod, Holla with her knitting needles. Knitting was Holla’s new hobby. She liked to make long scarves that neither she nor Hudson would ever wear. Holla claimed the hobby relaxed her, but judging from how fast her hands were working, Holla seemed anything but relaxed.

  Fernald, Holla’s driver, zoomed right past the front door of their four-story redbrick Georgian-style mansion and turned the corner onto Perry Street. The mansion was more than a hundred and seventy-five years old, and supposedly Edgar Allan Poe had lived in it, once upon a time. But Hudson was pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize it now. Holla had gutted the inside, leaving just the staircase, the fireplaces, and the crown moldings. She’d added a yoga studio, a fitness room, an underground parking garage, a screening room, and, on the roof, a swimming pool. Architectural Digest had called it “The Queen of Pop’s Dream Palace.” The only part of the house they didn’t show in the magazine spread was the black iron fencing that surrounded it. Holla liked things to be secure, which was good, because every photographer in the world seemed to know they lived there.

  As they coasted up to the garage door and waited for it to rise, several photographers leaped out of the shadows and aimed their zoom lenses at
the car. They were always there, camped out across the street, ever watchful for an arrival or a departure. Hudson waved at them; she figured it was the polite thing to do. Holla didn’t look up from her knitting. She only sighed as they drove past. “What do they think they’re getting?” she asked. “The windows are tinted.”

  Fernald steered their car down the curving ramp and into the garage, right next to Holla’s silver Mercedes and black Lexus. Holla owned three cars and didn’t drive any of them—not because she didn’t know how, but because she couldn’t park and walk away. The last time Holla had tried to walk down the street, she’d been mobbed in under five minutes.

  “Thanks, Fernald,” Holla said when they’d parked.

  “You’re welcome, Miss Jones,” he said.

  “And how’s your wife doing?” Holla asked. “Does she like the elliptical?”

  “She loves it,” Fernald said happily, turning around. “I think we’ve already lost five pounds apiece.”

  “Great!” Holla said, patting Fernald on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work!” Holla loved to give generous gifts to her staff, even if they did always seem to be tools for self-improvement—exercise equipment, a haircut, a free session of tooth-whitening. Fernald wasn’t even overweight—he’d just had a little potbelly—but that didn’t matter to Holla.

  Hudson followed her mom out of the car and walked behind her on the way to the elevator. She shivered in the unheated space, pulling her unbuttoned coat closer around her bare shoulders. “Honey, just put that on,” Holla said, turning around. “You’re gonna catch cold.”

  “I’m fine,” she said stiffly.

  At the elevator, Mickey, one of Holla’s iron-jawed security guards, held the door open for them. “Evening, Miss Jones,” he said.

  “Evening, Mickey,” she murmured in response. Hudson and Holla squeezed up against the wall to make room for Little Jimmy, who jogged toward the elevator, panting. The doors began to close before he got there, but Holla kicked out one leg and forced the doors back with a bang. He scooted inside.