As the lobby emptied out, Piper did a few neck rolls and stretched his arms.
He looked at Raq. “Ever been in a studio?”
“Nope,” Raq answered. “And it feels good to be home!” She laughed.
Sir Gee chuckled. “Dame wants to get in that booth like she wants her next breath.”
“That’s right.” Raq smiled. “Better ask about me.”
“Yo,” Piper said. “Mun’s probably not in the best mood for experimentation tonight. Y’all are cool to come in and chill, but ... I’m sure you understand.”
Raq’s face was blank. Then she looked at Sir Gee.
He shrugged. “All I said was maybe. You heard the man. Might as well come witness the flow, though. You’re here.”
A flash of irritation crossed Raq’s face. She was actually disappointed that she wasn’t going to sing in front of Mun-E tonight? As irate as he’d been? How could she have even thought it was a possibility after that? My girl was certified delusional as far as I was concerned.
Sir Gee nodded at the door leading back into the studio. “Let’s do this, Pipe.”
Raq looked at me, her eyes excited regardless, and I could tell she’d already recovered from the let-down. Or at least she was doing a good job of pretending. “Let’s roll, chica.”
Immediately, I was cold. The air conditioner had to be set on North Pole, it was so freezing in there. I was standing in the doorway of an overcrowded studio swollen with producers and tough-looking guys. Conversations had adjusted to a hush when Piper entered the room. I zipped my hoodie just as I realized that this was the very room where Swift-Katt, a would-have-been rap star from Detroit, had been gunned down last year.
Rumor had it that it was all the result of a middle-of-thenight scuffle over the absence of cheese on his burger and that Mun-E ordered the bullet to be fired by one of his men. Now Swift-Katt walks with a limp and has given up recording. I read that Mun-E had put a grip of money behind Swift-Katt, too, just like he did for Piper. Maybe that’s why he’s so serious now, like he’ll be damned if he loses another investment over some foolishness. Piper was his plan B turned plan A.
I glanced at the clock on the wall—3:51.
In the wee hours of the night—when normally I would be asleep—these studio rats were wide-awake like it was two o’clock in the afternoon. I took mental attendance. Three guys were intent on finishing up a card game, four were holding cell phone conversations—all of which sounded like arguments—and Mun-E was sitting in front of the sound boards and audio controls with a bored expression on his face as he incessantly tapped a pencil on his knee, waiting.
There was a female in the room, too.
Sitting atop a monitor in the corner, she had an impossibly long jet-black weave and was wearing too much makeup, silk black leggings, and a fitted lace blouse. She eyed Raq and then noticed me, looking totally amused at the sight of both of us: two little wannabe fly girls who had nothing on her. Even with all the added hair since the last time I’d seen her on the dating reality show Love Flava, I recognized the attitude. Buckstarr.
I’d heard Mun-E mention her name, but it hadn’t occurred to me that she was actually going to be there.
Her shimmery red lips produced a big fat pink bubble and she popped it loud. Known for her banging body, soprano voice, and raunchy lyrics, Buckstarr was on minute ten of her fifteen minutes of fame. I’d read the buzz about her on several gossip Web sites lately, how she’d been hired to harmonize hooks on a few of Piper’s songs. I knew she had a decent voice from the season finale of the show, when she’d dramatically sung “And I Am Telling You, I’m Not Going . . .”—the theme song from Dreamgirls—as the show’s security carried her off the set, kicking and crying. What made that last episode so memorable wasn’t seeing the bachelor guy elope with his pick, it was the shot of Buckstarr after the commercial break. There had been a close-up of her—eyes completely dry of crocodile tears now—promising America that it wasn’t the last time we were going to hear from her.
“Yo.” Piper unzipped his jacket. “Kill the air now?”
Buckstarr hit a switch and a previously subliminal hum was silenced. She hopped off the monitor, at which point I noticed she was about seven inches taller than Piper because of her patent-leather stiletto boots. Then she followed him into the booth.
“Ay, Glitz,” Sir Gee called back to me before going in, too, “step all the way in the room? Let the door close.”
I kicked out the doorstopper and joined Raq on a velvet cushiony bench. The door snapped shut and someone dimmed the lights. Simultaneously, the inside of the booth lit up. It was wood paneled with two impressive-looking microphones inside. Piper, Buckstarr, and Sir Gee reappeared on the other side of the glass. Like magic.
Raq whispered under her breath, “Who’s Glitz?”
Quietly, I murmured right back, “Me.”
“Word? ”
“Just roll with it.”
She chuckled. “Alrighty, then. . . .”
I looked cautiously around and hoped that no one would tell me and Raq to leave now that Sir Gee—our advocate—was locked away in the soundproof booth. I breathed slowly. Please don’t let Mun-E’s big fat Milk Dud head turn back around.
High-pitched feedback screeched from the speakers as Piper, Buckstarr, and Sir Gee settled into headphones and adjusted the mics. Piper was on the right mic while Buckstarr and Sir Gee shared the other.
Mun-E slapped a button and, with utter disgust in his voice said, “All right. Let’s get it!” What a beast. But there was something about him that commanded respect. Suddenly, even I wanted to impress him.
One of the sound guys said to the other, “Roll the track?”
The melody was so soulful, it reminded me of something funky and spellbinding that Gram—don’t say her name—had played before, something from the seventies. A couple of seconds later I realized it was just that indeed. The beat was a sample from the Teena Marie and Rick James song “Fire and Desire.” I recognized it despite the tempo being sped up a bit. Buckstarr started humming, her soprano voice commanding every person in the room to look at her. Sir Gee watched her get into her groove like he was a hungry bulldog—licking his chops—and she was a juicy T-bone.
Riffing off the original, she sang, “Ooooohhhh . . . A liar I desire . . . Set my heart on fire . . . I lovvvve you . . . Oh yeah.”
I peeped the new expression on Raq’s face. Damn, that should be me, she was probably thinking. This made me wonder how the song would’ve sounded if it had been Raq on the track. Buckstarr’s voice was real high-pitched, whereas Raq’s was heavy and gutsy, full of soul. Buckstarr sounded pretty, no doubt about that, but Raq’s voice was more powerful. Buckstarr’s voice was cute, but Raq’s was for real. Raq had a way of making you feel what she was singing about. And in an actual studio? With Piper? Man, she’d have rocked that song if given the chance to do so.
Piper jerked a braid away from his face and stepped closer to the microphone.
Look ma.
Don’t wanna make you cry, that’s why,
can’t help myself—I gotta lie.
Can’t stand, it’s so hard, seein’ you sad.
Other girls wanna be you bad. And when I’m alone on this road
and I’m wishing it was me you had,
I grab the next plump ass and they be girls gone mad.
Don’t wanna let our love thing die.
But if I give you the truth, I kiss my piece, your mind good-bye.
Then he spoke the last bar.
See girl . . .
Yo . . .
I love you, too, but . . .
That why Pipe’s gotta lie . . .
Sir Gee was chasing every one of Piper’s rhymes with a baritone echo, and the sound was so haunting it should have been illegal. Piper’s “Lie,” was chased by Sir Gee’s, “i-i-i ... .” Then Buckstarr would come back in . . .
Ooooohhhh . . . A liar I desire . . .
Set my heart on fire .
. .
I lovvvve you . . . Oh yeah.
I looked at Raq and saw that glare was still in her eyes.
“You sound way better than her,” I said. “Any day.”
She smacked her lips. “Look better than her, too. Stank ho. While she’s all up on my man . . .”
I wanted to laugh at her reaction but didn’t for fear of Mun-E turning around. Instead, I just smiled. At least she’d referred to Sir Gee as her man and not Piper.
Buckstarr backed into Sir Gee, who—unlike Piper—was taller than she was. Sir Gee grabbed Buckstarr by her tiny waist and pulled her even closer.
Raq had it all. Looks. Body. Talent. Determination. Personality. Courage. No way could I stand to see her beat by a video vixen.
“Don’t sweat it,” I reminded her. Clearly, we’d just witnessed the recording of something really special, but for some reason that made me feel even more determined for Raq. She would record a song one day too, and I knew it. One day soon.
Raq side-eyed me and blew on her fingernails like she was sitting in a salon after having a manicure and smiled. “Just waiting my turn, chica.”
9
Gramma would’ve taken one look at where we went after the recording was finished, and she would have declared it all a postcard from the devil.
She’d have fainted, too, to see me so gleefully walk in.
It was five o’clock in the morning and we had just pulled up to Sir Gee’s crib on Livernois Avenue in Detroit. I could see through the window that the place was full of folks chilling as though it was mid-afternoon. It was like a Tales from the Streets movie or some gangster rap video that was being filmed on location. Only this was real. And I wasn’t just some extra on a set. I was invited to be here . . . in actual life. It was the sweetest thing I’d ever imagined.
The music in the SUV had been so loud on the way over I could only tell that Raq and Sir Gee were talking a lot, but I couldn’t hear any of what they were saying. As soon as we’d pulled away from the studio, Piper had slipped into a catnap while the driver whisked us over to Gee’s house. Mostly, I’d just focused on hoping we’d get wherever we were going without crashing. I had imagined a mansion, something worthy of the Music Entertainment channel’s Pimped-Out Homes, but we ripped through an alley and pulled up at the back fence of a simple two-story house in need of a paint job. The driver waited on the four of us to climb out before peeling back out of the driveway.
I had told Gramma I’d be home first thing in the morning. First thing was coming up pretty soon. As I watched the SUV pull away, the thought occurred to me that I could have banged on the window and asked for a ride home. But I knew the night wasn’t over yet. More was going to happen. And I didn’t want to miss it.
“Welcome to our humble abode.” Sir Gee’s voice was so loud and deep. He led us in through the back door and said, “Watch your step.” We walked through the old-fashioned and messy kitchen. On top of the table—which was surrounded by chairs that did not match—were greasy pizza boxes, empty cans of root beer, and empty cans of regular beer, too. There were half-eaten bags of Hot Cheetos and Cool Ranch Doritos and a plastic pumpkin holding a few mini bags of Sugar Babies.
“Don’t mind my homies,” Gee said before swiping a brew from the counter and leading us up the hallway. I could hear the voices of people laughing in the next room and the sound of things crashing together followed by cheers. “My sister had a little Halloween set,” he said. Does Piper live here, too? I wondered. I heard him yawn as our footsteps sounded against the hardwood floors.
Up ahead I could see the foyer, the dining room, and a gigantic front door. There was a front porch, too, full of lively people. Real people doing real things. Real life. The real world. Finally. Ch-yeah . . .
Guys with gold grills on their teeth nodded their approval as we entered the dining room. Instead of a table to eat at, there was a pool table. Someone took a shot, the balls clanked, and I realized that was the crashing sound I had heard on my way in.
A few guys were shooting dice in the corner, and the one who spotted Raq first started whistling. She strutted a little harder when they did, showing off her butt.
Sir Gee chuckled and called to his friends, “Don’t act like y’all ain’t never seen a sexy young woman before.”
The dining room was connected to the living room. In there, four girls—looking unnecessarily sexy and excessively dolled-up for a house party—were sitting around watching America’s Funniest Home Videos on the flat screen. You couldn’t hear the TV, though, because the stereo was pumping Piper. Everyone was nodding their heads to the bass while they laughed at the screen.
“What up?” Sir Gee asked them.
“Hey,” one said, though she didn’t turn to look at him and no one seemed excited that Piper had just walked into the room. What would that be like, for seeing Piper to just be an everyday kind of thing? I couldn’t imagine.
“Hey, Piper,” said another.
“Yo . . .” Piper kicked back on a beat-up La-Z-Boy and looked up. “Y’all good?”
Sir Gee turned to Raq and me, then headed toward the steps that led to the second floor of the house. “Make yourselves comfortable,” he said before walking up the creaky stairs, the faint pop-pop and then fizzzz of the opening can fading as he got farther away. “Be right back,” he called down to us.
The crew of Miss Thangs sitting on the L-shaped couch may not have been too interested in Gee or Piper, but now they were eyeballing me and Raq, taking their time, checking us out, unabashedly trying to make sense of the new chicks on the scene. Despite their stares, most of them kept on nodding as if the same silent song were playing in all four of their heads, which I guess they thought was cute.
Finally, one of them spoke. She looked to be in her early twenties and had a horse’s tail attached to the side of her head, but she at least scooted over to make room for us. “Here you go,” she said without enthusiasm, gesturing to the spot she had cleared for us on the couch.
“Thanks.” Raq played it cool and sweet as she sat down on the edge so that I could squeeze in between her and Ponytail Girl. Her attitude as thick as the royal blue eyeliner she was wearing, the girl turned back to the television before continuing with her nodding. Forget these two, she and her friends seemed to be thinking. It’s all about us.
“Yo . . .” Piper said, raising his hand in midair.
On cue, the girl on the far end of the couch tossed him a couch pillow. Piper tucked it behind his head and closed his eyes. Within moments his face relaxed and he was asleep. At first I thought, He sure sleeps a lot, but then I considered his schedule—how he’s always traveling and performing somewhere and then has to go to the studio in the wee hours to record and it hit me—No, he just sleeps when he can.
With attitude, one of the girls demanded, “So where y’all from? ”
Raq, playing it cool and nice, answered in a friendly voice. “Toledo.”
Another girl said. “So y’all caught the show?”
“It was cool,” Raq said. “Real cool.”
Then Raq added, “I’m Raquel, by the way.” She was so polite that it sounded like any second she would stand up and give a curtsy.
“Toya,” Ponytail Girl offered, her big chandelier earrings moving as she spoke.
Following suit, they all introduced themselves like this was a routine that they were used to.
“Rishana,” one said. She had big lips and gold shimmery lip gloss on top of them.
“Dee-Dee,” the tiny light-skinned one with a messy, crinkled blonde weave down her back said.
“Kim,” the thick one with braces said as she cracked her bubble gum.
And then they all just kept on nodding.
“I got some friends that live in Toledo,” said Toya. “Heard they be having mad fun down there at the Quality.”
“Oh, the Q?” Raq nodded and smiled convincingly. “That’s our spot.”
I kept a straight face but wished I could laugh. You had to be
like twenty-five to get inside the Quality Bar.
“Y’alls zoo is kinda fly, too,” offered Toya. “When we was kids, Granddaddy took us there once. Me and Gee.”
Granddaddy? Gee had said his sister was having a Halloween party, so I guessed this meant Toya was his sister. I looked closer at her face. She and Gee were the same skin complexion, but that was about it. I never would have known they were related. He was so big and burly, and she was so small and wiry.
“Yeah,” said Raq, who had—I knew for a fact—never been to the Toledo Zoo. “Our zoo is definitely tight.”
Toya said, “My big-head brother hated it though. Complained the whole time about all the walkin’. He lazy.”
The conversation went on like this—staggered fluff talk—for a while and eventually Raq and Toya seemed like easy buddies.
I just have my laws for power, Raq would explain to me the next day.
Be charming and kind when you’re new on the scene.
Make calculated small talk.
Never—ever—try and trump the queen on your first move.
Raq would also explain that she could tell Toya was the queen because she had offered us a seat. She was the shot caller.
Tapping her toe to mine, Raq jerked her head a bit and bugged her eyes, a clear gesture for me to talk. Was she serious? The dead serious look in her eyes said yes, she was. I’d have much rather just sat back and watched. Raq was at ease with lying. I wasn’t. I wasn’t good at any of this.
But no. Sitting back and watching was what Ann Michelle would have done.
Glitz.
Glitz.
Glitz.
Just. Be. Glitz.
Despite my nervousness and the sweat in my palms, I unzipped my hoodie and felt around in my pocket for nothing. “Hey, I’m Glitz,” I informed them. Then, to Toya, I said, “Cute ponytail.”
“Glitz?” She grinned. “That’s dope.” Then she stroked her hair. “Yeah, I wasn’t about to pay thirty dollars for a ponytail in a plastic bag when I could make it myself.”
“I know that’s right,” Rishana co-signed. “These costume places kill me. Charging all that money . . .”
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