Bump milk.
Even mah mama knows . . .
poured champagne on my Cheerios . . .
Raq was playfully arguing with Sir Gee now. He’d just taken a sip of something in a cup and, teasingly, wouldn’t let her taste it.
Sir Gee joked, “Ma, you talk more smack than a little bit. You know that, right?”
Maybe it was just the rush from the show, I don’t know, but I felt electrified, like someone had plugged me in and I was working for once, like I’d been lying dormant for seventeen years. All the excitement of a million amusement parks, yet I couldn’t bear to move and enjoy myself.
Raq, on the other hand, slid right into her biographical spiel. “I’ve been singing since I was born,” she said to Sir Gee. “You better recognize . . .”
Piper looked from under his rag and checked out Raq with a glance, finally noticing her presence in the room. “Yo, who’s shorty, man?”
“For real . . .” added Cyn 21, his face smug.
Sir Gee gave admiring eyes to Raq. “Tell ’em who you are, ma.”
Piper covered his face again. “Looks like somebody’s lookin’ for trouble . . .”
Raq rolled her eyes. “Not tryna be nobody’s girl toy, playa.”
Everyone laughed, letting out resounding oohs and impressed ahhhs.
Even Piper had to chuckle.
“I’m just sayin’,” Raq said. “My name is Raquel Marissa Diaz. But my stage name is Raq.” She swiped the cup from an off-guard Sir Gee and took a sip. “Don’t be gettin’ nothing twisted up in here. Your boy Sir Gee is mad cool, but we just trying to hang.”
Piper pulled the rag off of his face again and nodded. “All right. But yo . . . who is we?”
I picked something invisible off of my jeans, brushed a speck of glitter off my hoodie, and then stared down at my Pumas. I felt like a fool and I hoped I didn’t look like one, too. I wanted to speak up, to say something, but I wasn’t sure what. My gaze fell back on Piper. He was still looking from up under his rag. And now he was watching me.
“We,” Raq said, “is me and my best friend over there.”
They all looked at me then.
The new girl in the room who’d been there all along.
“Yo,” Piper said. “Homegirl over there lookin kinda scared. Matter-a-fact, a li’l pet-tro-fied, you ask me. She think on delay or something?” They all hooted and hollered and I felt the heat of a million spotlights on my face.
Raq waited for the laughter to die off and, with perfect timing to sound completely unbothered, she offered, “Hardly, playa. My girl is mad cool.”
Sir Gee chuckled. “Leave shorty alone. She over there mindin’ her own.”
I took a deep breath, my insides aching with nervousness. “It’s all good,” I said, purposefully looking right at Piper when I said it. “Just here to chill.”
Piper shrugged. “Yo.” He smiled that extra white smile. “So chill. Y’all cool.”
Then, just that quick, Raq and Sir Gee were happily back into their flirtation and the other hype men in the room got back to chatting. My heart was thumping in my ears as I looked around trying to make myself relax. Me and Raq were the only two girls in a roomful of guys we’d only hoped to meet, and yet I’d always imagined us being side by side if it really happened. Instead, she was on the other side of the room fitting in, engaged in conversation, and I was sitting here looking corny.
Then I caught an unexpected glimpse of myself in a corner mirror across the room and the image smacked me back into reality. had dripped down my face and appeared now like random splotches of glitter. The sparkle, though, was a reminder that I was Glitz—like Piper had called me—and that Glitz wouldn’t be scared in a situation like this. Glitz would be working the room. Glitz would be totally at ease. And so it was settled. I had to stop being Ann Michelle. Immediately.
6
The door to Piper’s dressing room flew open then, interrupting all the laughter and small talk, not to mention Raq’s animated storytelling, and all the chaos of the backstage crowd flooded in as a short, pudgy guy peeked in. “Ready, Pipe?”
Piper raised his fist in the air. “Yo . . . ever since my mama said, ‘My water just broke,’” he replied to immediate laughter.
Just as the door closed, I made eye contact with a ticked-off-looking hoochie standing in the hall, who immediately scowled at the sight of me. “Ugh! I know that skinny chick ain’t Piper’s girl!”
Another random girl whose face I couldn’t see sounded just as dejected. “He could do so much better.”
Piper was too busy getting off of the couch to pay attention to what they’d said about me. He sat up, his knuckles cracking as he reached down to fix his shoes, no laces of course—Run-DMC was often mentioned in his rhymes and always traceable in his style. Then Piper hopped up and prepared to leave.
I glanced up at the clock—12:11
Raq finally came over to me. “Sir Gee said we can go eat with them.”
I looked up at the clock again—12:12
An entire minute had passed that quick.
I was twelve minutes past curfew.
Raq was smiling at me. Waiting. Ecstatic. “You wanna go?” she asked.
Ann Michelle might have said no, but not Glitz.
I shrugged and smiled right back. “Of course,” I said. “Are you nuts?”
“Yes!” She laughed. “And you must be, too, I take it. Your curfew . . .”
I shrugged. “I’m already late now.”
She held her hand up for a high five. “My chica . . .”
Christmas. That would be the worst-case scenario. You can’t leave your room until Christmas. That wouldn’t be so bad, I told myself. Gramma wouldn’t punish me past then, would she?
Once we were all ready to head out, Cyn 21 opened the door again.
A skinny-faced chicken was standing in the hallway, kicking it with hoochies. Sir Gee immediately peeped this and stood up a little straighter. He announced to me and Raq, “Y’all cool. Don’t even sweat that dude. Y’all with me.”
Before I knew it, we were whisked down the corridor— forced into a tight formation with the crew—protected by the uniformed security that lined the halls and Piper’s homeboy security that helped make up his entourage.
We exited the heavy metal door to the outside where several SUVs were running.
The cool air of the night slapped my face. It even felt late.
Piper crawled in to the open door of a black SUV first before Sir Gee got in. Somehow, I got in next. On instinct, I crawled back to the third row, where Piper was. Raq gave a shove to the small of my back but I ignored her. What was I supposed to do, sit next to Sir Gee so she could ride next to Piper? Whatever. She’d sewed herself close to Sir Gee all night. Why stop now?
Just as Cyn 21 hopped in the front seat next to the driver, someone locked the doors. My neck jerked as we hot peeled it out of the parking lot and I let out a nervous chuckle.
Piper kinda laughed, too. “Yo! I think my scalp just flew off,” he joked. I tried to relax and laugh along with him, but my next sound came out sounding more like a cough.
I was sitting close enough to Piper to smell the minty-freshness of his gum. Meanwhile, Raq and Sir Gee were nestled close together in the middle row in front of us. Once again, Raq was talking nonstop. Unsure of what else to do with my hands, and not wanting Piper to see how raggedy my nails looked, I sat on them.
Piper yelled up front to our driver, “Ay yo, pimpin’! Too quiet up in here.” His dreads looked thicker up close than in pictures, almost like they were too heavy for his tiny face, but knowing he was Piper made him so fine to me.
A moment later, a slow jam banged from the speaker. It was an old cut by the Isley Brothers; I recognized the song as one of Gramma’s favorites, and my heart rippled at the thought of her. I pushed away the heavy feeling as best as I could as we breezed onto I-475, trailed by the two other SUVs in Piper’s entourage.
Piper stretched his hand
out to me. “Yo, my apologies for not properly introducing myself. Piper . . .”
I took my hand out from beneath my lap to oblige his handshake. I couldn’t believe it. As if he actually needed an introduction. His hand was a bit cold and his shake was firm.
“My friends call me Glitz,” I said.
No one but Piper had ever called me that, of course, but from now on things were going to be different in my life. New name, new me. It made complete sense.
He nodded. “Yo . . . Glitz . . . You enjoy the show?”
I felt a smile on my face. “It was the best concert I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Seeming pleasantly surprised, he said, “For real?”
I couldn’t get rid of the stupid grin that had glued itself to my face.
He took a moment before he spoke again. “Yo . . . I’m humbled by the gratification.” His lips crawling into a smile, he said, “Only a fool would take that answer for granted. And Piper takes nothing for granted, ya dig?”
I nodded, slipping my hand back into the warmth underneath my thigh.
“I dig,” I said.
“So, you listen to a lot of music?”
Still stuck in a grin, I said, “Yours.”
He laughed. “That’s what’s up.” Then he nodded to the groove that was playing. “You do like the Isley Brothers, too, though, right?”
“Yes.”
Again, he chuckled. “Yo ... you all right wit’ me then, Glitz.”
Glitz.
Wow.
“So yo ... What you dig with Piper’s music?”
Standing in a room trying to be cute and impress people and get guys’ attention? That made me nervous. That was something I would probably never do as good as Raq. But chatting about music? Piper’s music at that? Breezy.
I said, “Your lyrics. For one. You’re always so clever. . . . And you’re so smart.”
His face was pensive, though I know he had to have heard that compliment before. “I appreciate that,” he said.
I added, “And your delivery is just so cool. It’s like your words are just gonna have to speak for themselves. You’re not anxious to prove you can flow. You don’t shout over the tracks. You don’t change your pitch when you get to the best rhyme. It’s like . . .” I noticed the impressed smile on his face and I stopped talking.
He laughed quietly and turned his face toward the window, watched the traffic for a few moments, then mumbled the rhyme, “Asking her the questions, then I cold collect. Such humbling words from Glitz . . . the intellect.”
Double wow.
He looked back at me. “Piper appreciates that, yo . . .”
My heart at ease, I continued with confidence, “And I really love, too, how you’ll pick a wild track, something unpredictable, like heavy acoustic, and sound just as hot as you do on a Beatz Boys track. It’s like you don’t have to have bass to be comfortable, you know? I bet you could rhyme over a country track and it’d still be hype.”
He laughed. “Yo . . . I like you.”
I found myself laughing right along with him, totally comfortable this time.
He said, “You really do love music, huh?”
“Oh my goodness,” I said. “A lot.”
All of a sudden, Sir Gee shouted into his phone. “Man, look! Tell Mun I said we’ll be there. Just keep the AC on in the room so it’s cool up in there when Pipe walks through the door. Feel me? We gonna grab some grub and keep pushing up the e-way.”
Piper leaned in and whispered to me then. “Don’t mind him. He’s just very hungry.”
We both laughed.
Piper closed his eyes and nodded a gracious nod. His eyes closed, he seemed to be talking to no one in particular, mumbling “Yo . . . She loves Piper’s music, Piper wonders why. Why love Piper’s music . . .” He shook his head, scrunched up his eyebrows and kept mumbling other things.
He opened his eyes, looked inquisitively at the ceiling, and then closed them again. “Thankful.” Then he said, “You love Piper’s music, means you gotta love me. Because yo . . . My music? All any of it really is, is my life.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me. He said. “Ya dig?”
I nodded. “I do.”
Raq peeked over her shoulder to glance back at me. Piper’s knuckles were touching my knee and Raq noticed this just as Sir Gee’s arm pulled her closer. She yelled over the music, her loudness seeming out of place with how mellow Piper was now.
“What up, my chica?” Raq’s voice sounded like she was having the time of her life. She’d gotten us here and she seemed more than proud.
Piper chuckled and said to me. “Yo ... your girl is a lively one.” And then, his voice was a bit quieter, he said, “But y’all seem cool as a fan . . . Real cool. . . .”
He leaned back, nestled his head into a comfortable-looking position, and fell asleep. There was a moment of silence as the music changed to a Shirley Murdock song. Piper’s knuckles were warm on my knee, and I felt calm inside as I listened to the soft, steady sounds of his breathing. I’d never heard anyone breathe as nice as him.
He turned his face toward mine and his breathing was weighty on my neck. Eventually he would awake and I would wake up, too, from this crazy night that was so amazing it must be a dream. For now, though, I watched him sleep. The girl with glitter melting down her face. The girl who sported backpacks instead of purses, whose fingernails were stubby. The Fan Five outcast. I was here.
Maybe time wasn’t on my side. Maybe the carriage would eventually turn back into a pumpkin, the horses into mice, but for now it was real. So real.
The bright yellow lights of the Waffle House screamed, instantly waking everyone as we pulled into the parking lot. The driver turned off the ignition and the sudden lack of music made the silence too loud. I recognized where we were—this was the Waffle House in the Central Avenue strip mall—and calculated that we were about twenty minutes from home. I, too, had dozed off. What time was it now? A part of me didn’t even want to know. If only I were grown and free, I wouldn’t have to worry about such things.
As Piper’s entourage unloaded from the three SUVs, I followed Raq into the bathroom. Sir Gee, Piper, and everyone else grabbed tables.
Because there was only one toilet and I didn’t have to go, I washed my hands while Raq took a squat. She tossed me some gloss and laughed real loud. “My chica!” She screamed with excitement. “You wanna believe this?”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I could only smile. “All because of you!”
“I’m gonna be in with Piper,” she said. “I’m so freakin’ close!”
“I can’t believe I was actually sitting next to him,” I said.
“Oh, and Greg says we can come with them to Detroit, sit in at the studio,” she sounded even more ecstatic.
“Greg?” I asked.
“That’s Sir Gee’s real name,” Raq told me. Interesting, I thought. Now she and Gee were on a first-name basis.
“So we can really go with them to the studio?” I asked. “When?” I was already wondering how I’d get off of the punishment I was sure to get from Gramma so I could go along. I’d never tried to sneak out the window, but hey, there was a first time for anything.
“Now!” Raq said. “Tonight. After we eat. Detroit is just fifty minutes away. Well, with dude driving, make that like twenty minutes away.” She laughed.
“Tonight?”
“You know how we read about it, how they stay up in the studio all night? How Piper’s always posting updates online saying, ‘Yo. Piper just got in. Been putting genius to tracks,’ at like six, seven o’clock in the morning?”
What she was saying was true. We had read about how Piper and a lot of people in the music industry stay up all night recording.
She said. “So what up, chica? You wit’ it?”
“What time is it?” I asked.
She whipped out her phone. “One twenty-two—”
“Are you serious?” It took all the determination I had to n
ot look over at Raq, who was still sitting on the toilet. I stared wide-eyed at my own reflection as I used a wet paper towel to wipe the remaining remnants of glitter off my cheek. I shrugged. “Well, I’m definitely going to be grounded through Christmas, and I guess I can forget about spring break, too.”
I had made my peace with being a few hours late for curfew, but coming home the next morning? That was another thing altogether. There was no way I could go all the way to Detroit in the middle of the night with a bunch of rappers and not have my grandmother lock me away for the rest of my natural-born life.
But how could I get out of it now? It wasn’t like I could ask Piper’s driver to drop me off at home on the way to the studio. Maybe that was something Ann Michelle would have done, but not Glitz.
“Motor City Soundz,” Raq shouted the name of Mun-E’s famous studio as she flushed. “Here we come!”
I stepped back from the mirror so Raq could slip in front of me and wash her hands.
She started fixing her makeup—which was actually still pretty flawless—and said, “Mun-E’s even gonna be there!”
If I’m dreaming, I thought, please don’t wake me up.
I screamed. “Yes!”
She screamed, too. “Yeah, chica. Tonight is our Jack. Pot.”
Mun-E was Piper’s manager, known around as one of hip-hop’s up-and-coming heavyweights. When Raq and I had imagined her making it, we’d said things like, “We gotta meet Mun-E someday.” But who would have imagined we actually would?
“Raq,” I said, “this is too good to be real!”
“I know.” She laughed. “But I was sitting right there when Mun’s assistant called Gee. You probably thought I was pushed all up on him ’cause I was digging him, right? Please. I’m just trying to stay in close, you know? I’m trying to do this thing for real, chica. This ain’t just a dream. It’s my life!”
Still in awe, I said, “So Gee said he’s gonna introduce you to Mun-E?”
“Noooo . . .” She laughed. “But he said Mun was going to be in the studio tonight. I said I’m going to meet him. Are you crazy? You think I’d go all the way to Detroit, be in the same room, and not bless him with my voice? That’s Mun-E, chica. That’s money!”
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