So they were wearing costumes? I had thought that was just the way they dressed.
Toya and the other girls turned back toward the TV and they all quickly became preoccupied with watching some old lady chase a dog down the street with a stick on AFHV. Raq joined them in laughing, but I did not. It was all still sinking in with me. I was here. This was really happening. I was sitting at a house party in Detroit. With Piper.
As if he could tell I was thinking about him, Piper stirred and cracked one eye open. “Yo . . . What’s so hilarious?”
Dee-Dee, who had thrown Piper the pillow, said, “Pipe, take yourself on back to sleep.”
“Yo . . . I’m not sleep . . .” he slurred.
In unison, all four girls finished his sentence: “Just relaxing my eyelids.”
I studied what they were wearing, trying to guess who they were supposed to be dressed as. I didn’t have a clue.
Dee-Dee caught me looking and chuckled. “What’s wrong? You looking all confused. . . .”
Something about the way she was smiling and waiting made me feel comfortable enough to be honest. “Just trying to figure out the costumes,” I said.
Toya laughed, too. “Well, I’m supposed to be Sister Souljah. Bet if I woulda walked up in here looking like Lil’ Kim, y’all woulda got it right.”
Oh! Come to think of it, Sister Souljah was known for that ponytail on the side of her head. I looked back at Dee-Dee.
“Duh,” she widened her eyes and laughed some more. “I’m Beyoncé!”
And sitting next to her, all fancy and glittery, I realized, was the rest of Destiny’s Child. . . . Kelly and Michelle.
“Old-school.” Dee-Dee smiled.
The longer I sat, the heavier my eyes got. And then my back began aching from sitting still for so long.
I wondered what was keeping Sir Gee from coming back downstairs. I couldn’t tell if Raq was speculating as well, because she was just leaned back watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which had come on after America’s Funniest Home Videos; listening to Piper on the sound system; and looking breezy like everyone else.
Finally, the pool and dice games ended with sporadic curse words and the guys who had been playing came into the living room. From the questions like, “You ready, baby?” and “Where the keys, baby?” I could tell that they had come to gather their girlfriends. All but Toya got up to leave.
She clicked off the television and the stereo, then walked everyone to the back door. Moments later, the house much quieter now, I could hear her clogged heels clicking as she made it back up the hallway and reappeared in front of us. Other than that, there was only the sound of Piper snoring softly and me and Raq breathing.
Piper was asleep. Sir Gee was AWOL. And Toya was staring at us with a bored expression. What now?
She put her hand on her hip. “Up the steps, down the hall, last door on the right,” she said. “That’s the stray room.”
“Excuse me?” Raq said with some attitude. Finally the real Raq was back. “Where’s Greg? I don’t know nothing about—”
“My brother is knocked out,” Toya explained sans pretense or sass. “He real cool people and everything, don’t get me wrong, but he’s flat-out rude when he’s tired. Straight up? He probably took a drink and hasn’t thought twice about y’all since his feet hit them steps. In fact, tomorrow, you’ll probably have to remind both of them who y’all are and how y’all even met.”
I shot a look at Raq. Great. Now how was I gonna get home?
But Raq didn’t bother to look at me. In fact, she didn’t even flinch.
Then I thought about it. Raq wasn’t the average chick. No one could forget her. Maybe they wouldn’t remember me, but Raq would be etched in their minds.
Toya said, “They do a show. Some random groupies latch on, hard pressed to hang with dudes they think about to be all the way large, and then they end up here. Then I gotta show’em the stray room. And Pipe?” She shook her head before going over to the closet, grabbing a green blanket from the shelf, and—in one grand sweep—tossing warmth over Piper’s body. She said, “My cousin has never known how to rest like a normal person. Sleeps in spurts.”
Wow. Sir Gee and Piper were cousins? I hadn’t read that one anywhere.
“Y’all from cross the line so, unless y’all got a car—which most of y’all strays don’t—it’s too late to be headed back to Ohio. So if y’all trying to stay, I don’t mean to be ill, but I do call it the stray room for a reason.”
Toya headed toward the steps and, realizing our limited options, we creaked up behind her. The upstairs hallway was unusually wide and everything smelled sock-drawer stuffy. We followed her past a couple of doors until we reached the last one on the right.
“You gone haveta excuse my brother,” she said. “His manners are just whack sometimes, you know? But he’s a dude, so . . . But hey, here you go . . .”
She pushed open the door to reveal two twin-sized beds with nonmatching flowered comforters and a long metal dresser. It looked more like a small army barracks than a bedroom. But at least we could catch some Zs.
Toya stood there rubbing her eyes for a second. “I don’t know nothing about either of you so I’ll just let you know now, I’m a real light sleeper and I don’t deal well with drama. Nursing school is kicking my ass, and I need all the rest I can get. Shoot. So let’s just get some sleep, all right?”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Oh,” she continued, “don’t bother trying to wake Gee. He hibernates like a big-assed bear and it’s straight ridiculous if he wakes too soon. Piper, though? He gets up randomly. He never sits still for long, no matter how tired he is. I keep tellin’ him all that stop-and-go stuff is gonna catch up with him, that he’s gonna have a sleep disorder or somethin’, but he’s got his own mind, you know. Always had.” She laughed. “I don’t have no kids, but I got my brother and my cousin. . . . Crazy, right?” She yawned through a chuckle.
“Yeah,” Raq added. “And thanks. For the room.”
Toya said, “Oh, it’s cool. But, um, basically, if you need something, bother Pipe, not me. Y’all set?”
Raq plopped down on one of the beds. “I think so.”
“Thanks again, Toya,” I added.
“Yuuuup,” she replied, pulling the door closed behind her.
Raq waited until Toya’s footsteps faded up the hallway. She shook her head. “You believe this? The stray room.”
I shrugged. “And she seems so used to it. . . .”
A loud ticking sound demanded that we look at the clock on the dresser—5:59.
Whoa.
If Gramma only knew where I was.
As long as I was home first thing in the morning, she would never know. “Hey,” I asked Raq, “You do think they’re gonna take us home when we get up, right?”
Raq took a deep breath and fell back on one of the beds. “Would you chill? Of course,” she said. “Quit worrying. In a few hours, you’ll be home and your grandmother will be so over it, all right? ”
I walked over to the dresser and set the clock for 7:30 A.M., which is when I’m usually on my way out the door on school days. Today, though, was Sunday. I just needed to make sure I had enough time to get home before Gramma got in from church. She would skin my behind if she knew I was about to lie down in some complete stranger’s house, that in the morning while she was getting ready to play piano for the choir I would be trying to make it back to Toledo from Detroit after having been in the hood all night at that.
The beds looked lumpy but comfortable. I crawled onto the empty one, took off my hoodie, and rolled back the comforter. The sheets were stiff and fresh pressed like a hotel room’s and the pillow was too soft for my liking, but I wasn’t about to complain. I just wanted to rest.
I could feel Raq staring at me and I could tell she was still sitting up in bed wanting to talk. I didn’t look at her. Instead, I buried my head in the pillow and closed my eyes.
She said, “So what’d you th
ink of Buckstarr?”
I waited a moment. Was she talking about her singing or her pushing up on Sir Gee? I couldn’t tell. “She sounded all right,” I said. “Not as good as you, though.”
Raq sucked her teeth. “That skank.”
I wanted to laugh. Too tired. “Hmmm ...” came out instead. Raq slapped a switch on the wall and the room slammed into darkness.
Moments later, her voice filled the room again. “I wish I didn’t have to go back.”
“Back where?” I replied.
“Dang, chica. You that sleepy?” She chuckled. “Where you think?”
“Oh.” I fought my mind to stay awake longer, but I was so exhausted and I’m sure my voice was slurry. “So stay. You could live here in the stray room,” I joked.
She was quiet and I got the feeling she was actually thinking about it. That was the difference between me and Raq. I knew when to stop fantasizing. She, on the other hand, did not. Sure, being with Piper and Gee had been amazing, but tomorrow we could just snap a picture and remember it always. At least we’d had tonight.
“Don’t—I mean dooooo not—think for a second that I would do anything to jeopardize your education . . . or your precious little safety, chica,” she said. “We’ll make sure you’re back in Gramma’s house so you can be back in school on Monday morning to work on your—what—seven-point-nine grade point average? We wouldn’t want her to worry aboutcha, now would we? ”
“Whatever, Raq,” I said, feeling a bit irritated by her suddenly sarcastic tone. “I’m just tired.”
She cleared her throat. “Gee said he made a grand and a half tonight. And he’s just a hype man, you know that? Following Piper around onstage, echoing his words. That’s it. That’s all he’s gotta do. So imagine me on that hook, stacking paper just for doing my thing, chica! Can’t you see it?”
“Of course, Raq,” I said, thankful that it came out sounding convincing. Maybe now she would shut up and shut her eyes for a little while.
Finally, I heard her crawling under the covers.
But no. Still more.
“Gee said the crew is gonna be mad pissed. Well, really just Cyn 21. He said Cyn is all touched ’cause he didn’t get in the booth tonight and he hasn’t recorded in weeks. Cyn is really gonna flip when he finds out he’s not even going on the road with him and Piper this week. . . .”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“You ever notice,” Raq said, “every place I go, I’m a stray?”
She went on and on about how she had been a resident of countless juvenile detention centers, a foster child at so many houses she lost count after her twelfth placement, and always the new girl at school.
When it came to being a stray, she definitely had experience.
I was too tired to talk any more, though, so I faked a snore.
She whispered, “Dream about me, chica.”
Raq’s voice lingered as I drifted off to sleep.
“Picture my name in the sky.”
And so, as exhausted as I was, I imagined her name—Raquel Marissa Diaz—in glittered-out hot pink graffiti, the “i” dotted with a star, right up there shining.
10
“It’s like that?”
The sound of someone shouting jerked me out of my sleep and for a moment I had to consciously try to remember where I was. The walls, more dingy in daylight, were startling and unfamiliar and so were the shouting voices. The digital clock read 8:28. There was the faint sound of the radio playing, a station not completely tuned in, and I realized that I’d slept right through the alarm.
I heard the door creaking open and then I saw Raq tiptoeing back into the room. I sat up in bed and stared out in the hallway. What was all the commotion about? And where was Raq coming from? I looked over at her bed. It appeared to have barely been slept in.
Another voice was shouting now. “You heard me! That’s right . . . That’s right . . .”
I looked at Raq. “What’s going on?”
She shrugged. “Cyn is here. Him and Gee are going at it.”
I crawled from underneath the covers and we tiptoed out of the room.
From the top of the stairs, we watched their heads. Sir Gee. Toya. Piper. And an aggravated Cyn 21 pacing back and forth, his face tight and fuming.
Toya’s ponytail was replaced by a tight-fitting and brightly multicolored silk scarf. Standing in her fluffy house robe, she was snaking her neck back and forth, chandelier earrings she hadn’t bothered to take off from last night now knocking her upside the head as she did. “Y’all all need to chill the hell out!” she shouted. “Take this mess outside! Fight in my house, I bet you I’m about to be done with all three of y’all.”
“Yo ...” Piper reached out for her hand. “No disrespect, Toya.”
Toya snatched her hand away. “Too late,” she said. “I’m tired of dealing with this again!”
Piper turned his attention back to Cyn 21. “Man, it don’t even gotta be like this. You upset at the wrong people. This is me. Pipe.”
“Sheeit . . .” Cyn 21 grunted. “Y’all all be on some real grimy stuff, I swear man. Y’all—”
“Y’all?” Piper’s hand went to his chest and his knees bucked. “Cyn! Are you serious? Me? Piper?”
Cyn 21 didn’t answer, but shot dagger eyes at Sir Gee.
Gee, dressed now in sweat clothes and a do-rag, threw his hands in the air. “Oh, so I guess now I’m shady, huh? Now you think I’m trying to play you? Okay, first it’s Piper . . .” Gee chuckled at the thought. “Piper’s tryna play you. But now it’s me, too? This paranoia is gettin’ outta hand, Cyn.”
“Yo . . .” Piper shook his head.
Toya was mumbling. “Take it outside . . . Take it outside . . .”
“Yo . . .” Piper pleaded, holding his hands as if he were praying, “Cyn, man, this is us. Me and Gee. Us three. We go back like eight tracks!”
Cyn smirked. “This really ain’t got nothing to do with none of that, Pipe. That was some stupid stuff from back in the day. This here is for real. We grown.”
Gee offered. “Well, you need to take it up with Mun. Me and Pipe didn’t have nothing—”
Cyn eyed Gee. “Okay. So Mun told you to cut me out?”
Sir Gee groaned, “Man, I swear if you quote me on that, I’ll—”
“Gee!” Cyn 21’s chest swelled up and he stood, man-to-man, chest-to-chest, in front of Gee. “I’m not scared of Mun.”
I inhaled. So did Raq. Together, we kept listening.
“Or you!” Cyn spat through his teeth. “Man, I stepped to you after the show, you like, ‘Later, man . . .’ Then I try and holla at you up at the Waffle House, you like ‘Later, man . . .’ Mun’s buggin’ in the studio, you like, ‘Tomorrow, man . . .’ I’m up all night, no missed calls from you. So tell me”—Cyn glared—“how in the hell can we all play our positions when only you and Pipe on the field? ”
Piper shook his head. “Cyn, man . . .”
Cyn 21 looked over at Piper and backed away from Gee. “Pipe, I got a son to feed. You know this.”
Sir Gee fumed. “What? You think I’m tryna stop you from feeding your seed? It’s like that?” He huffed. “And you got one more time to step up to my face again—”
Cyn immediately stepped to Sir Gee, tip of the nose to tip of the nose, nostrils flaring, “I call it like I see it, punk.”
Raq shot me a look and both of us held our breath.
Sir Gee glared at Cyn 21and Gee glared right back at him. Toya stood with her hand on the wall and head lowered, pleading for them to stop. It sounded like she was crying. Piper stood with his hands clasped and his eyes closed. Clearly, he was praying. And then ...
“Yo ...” Piper eased toward them. “Cyn”—he touched his shoulder.
Cyn jerked away and was staring Piper down now. He may have been much skinnier than Gee, but at least they were closer in height. Cyn was looking down at Piper.
“Yo . . . ” Piper said, unaffected by Cyn’s deadened eyes. “We gon�
�� let this divide us, man? Some damn money? Paper? Man, you know I’m puttin’ everybody on once I get on. I stack this paper this week, my word, you can have every dime.”
Cyn cocked his neck. “Oh so now you tryna play me? Like I’m the only sucka lookin’ to stack ends. What, you better than me? All you care about is music now? Since when?”
“Yo . . .” Piper shook his head. “All I’m sayin’ is that we all gotta eat. But if this is what it is—money—then all I’m sayin’—”
“I know”—Gee, who had been locked into a frozen position, stepped closer to Cyn now—“you did not just come to my home with this bull.”
Now Cyn and Gee were back in an eye war.
Toya shouted, “I-said-take-this-mess-out-of-my-house!”
That’s when Cyn 21 reached into his pocket and grabbed hold of something.
Gee didn’t budge. “Oh, so now you wanna shoot me? Who’s the punk now?”
“Yo.” Piper reached for the doorknob. “Cyn, you heard Toya, man. You can’t be going there up in the crib like this.”
“Y’all ain’t even worth it, man.” Cyn offered Gee one final face growl.
Piper grabbed Cyn’s arm just as he went to leave, his voice pained but calm, “Yo—”
“Back off me, Pipe. Don’t put your name on this bullet, either.”
Piper let go. Took a step back. Hands up.
Cyn 21 shook his head, went to say something, changed his mind, then just shook his head again.
Sir Gee, however, was glaring as Cyn pulled open the door to leave. He said, “Cyn, you ever step to me again—ever in life—man, I swear you better—”
Just as the door slammed, Toya shouted, “Gee! He’s gone. Just drop it!”
“Yo . . .” Piper tapped his forehead a few times in aggravation. “Gee, we’re talking dirt, man. Dirt. That’s what we’re coming to? My homie? Talking bullets. Over paper? Paper from trees? Trees that grow from the ground? The ground, which is nothing but dirt?” He scrunched up his nose like he’d just smelled something disgusting. “Stankin’ . . . Meaningless . . . Expendable . . . Dirt?” He waited. No response.
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