Glitz

by Philana Marie Boles

  The house was packed when we got there. Even with a party going on, not a thing looked out of place. The décor was simple and meticulous, and the girls all looked like wannabe fashion models with curious expressions on their faces. Who are these new people on the scene? they looked to be wondering. And are they any competition for me? I suddenly felt overdressed in all my shimmer. Most of them were in classic black.

  “Right over there . . .” I heard someone tell Gee, pointing to a door leading to a patio out back.

  At the doorway we were greeted by two men, both of whom were hesitant to let us onto the porch, which was lit by what seemed to be a hundred tiny tea lights. Gee explained who we were, and they stared too hard into all of our eyes before finally letting us past.

  As soon as we stepped out onto the deck, large enough to hold a party itself, I felt like going back inside. There were heat lamps all around, sure, but something was cold about the mood out there. No one was really talking. And everyone seemed to be watching. A waitress in a tiny white dress with a tuxedo cummerbund was walking around with a silver platter of shrimp and cocktail sauce aplenty. Man. I’d never seen something like that at a house party before. The ones I’d gone to, usually after a football game, generally consisted of laughing, dancing, shooting darts, and eating Gino’s pizza.

  Piper and Gee eyed the host of the party, the photographer, who was sitting at a table near the ledge with a couple of sleazy-looking guys. Another waitress offered us her tray, filled with flutes of champagne.

  “No, thanks,” I said. I’d had enough at the club.

  Raq, however, took a glass and immediately began downing it. “Be right back, chica,” she told me as she followed Piper and Gee over to the table where the photographer was sitting. And then, not knowing what else to do, I found an empty platinum stool and round table in the corner and sat down.

  A woman’s voice said, “Hey, sugar? You all right?”

  She came up from behind me and took the other seat at the table. She looked like a hooker with all that makeup on her face and wearing a too-tight dress, but still, amid the flow of stuck-up strangers—and considering that Raq had dipped on me—this woman’s greeting was welcome. She extended her hand, her long fire-red fingernails..

  “Chocolate,” she said. She didn’t have a tray so I knew she wasn’t offering me any.

  “That’s your name?” I asked.

  “On my birth certificate, too.” She laughed, too loud to be serious. “You work around here?”

  I shook my head no. I didn’t even have a job. Never had.

  She took a sip of her drink and eyed me. “How do you know Johnny?”

  I shrugged. Who was Johnny?

  Chocolate laughed again, but eyed me. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a little girl. A teenager or something. . . . You don’t even know who Johnny is, do you?”

  Piper, Gee, and Raq were sitting with the photographer now and the other guys were up mingling.

  “Of course I do,” I lied. “The photographer.”

  Her expression told me I was right.

  Then, convincingly (I hoped), I asked, “So how long have you known Johnny?”

  She said, “Honey, hush. How old I look to you?”

  I studied the cracked makeup framing her eyes—wrinkles from stress, I guessed—and factored in the wig she was wearing—probably covering gray—and said, “Hmm, maybe forty, forty-two at the most.”

  She clasped her hands together, her brass bangles clinking, “Heee . . .” She leaned in. “Just turned fifty-six. Thank you, sugar.”

  “You’re welcome.” I smiled at how pleased she was by my accidental compliment.

  “You here to model?” she wanted to know.

  I felt my face scrunch up. “Yeah right. No.” As if anyone would ever pay me to take my picture.

  She smiled. “What about your friend?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “She sings.”

  “Ah . . .” She looked over at Raq knowingly. “I see. Well, I met Johnny when he was seventeen years old, making eight dollars an hour bussing tables at the diner near my job. Part-time, at that. Poor thing. He was always stressed, depressed, and carrying on when I went in there for lunch. I introduced him to my friend DaddyMan. That’s how Johnny got started taking pictures, you know.”

  I swallowed. DaddyMan. What kind of guy is named DaddyMan?

  “Next I know, he’s blowing up. Wanted to know if I was tired of working the corner and how long did I plan to keep doing it. I said, ‘Till something better comes along. . . .’ His business was boomin’ by then. I’ve been his eyes and ears ever since.”

  I looked over at the table where Raq was sitting.

  What kind of photographer hires a prostitute to help with his business?

  And I listened some more.

  She said, “All these years later, here I am. He’s like a son to me, now.”

  She seemed so cool that I felt I could be honest. “Chocolate?” I said.

  “Yeah, sugar?”

  “Just keepin’ it real, I actually don’t know Johnny. I’m just here with my friends.”

  She smiled a bit more. “Uh-huh.”

  Looking over at Raq, at Gee, at Piper, and thinking about home, so far away, I sensed the heat of tears on my face. I was sitting there with Chocolate, yet I had never felt so totally alone. “I’m not even from here,” I said, my voice quivering a bit.

  She gave me a napkin that was wrapped around her glass, “Here you go, sugar. . . .”

  “Sorry,” I said, dabbing my eyes dry. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long . . .” I shook my head and wiped away my tears.

  She nodded her understanding. And this time when she spoke, I noticed her teeth were stained with lipstick. “Young girls nowadays, y’all got soooo many options,” she said. “Wasn’t so easy in my day.”

  I sniffed. “What do you mean?”

  She looked over at Raq. “Your friend”—she nodded—“she wanna be a model?”

  “A model? No. I told you, she’s a singer.”

  “Well she’s over there with a phot-tog-gra-pher, sugar. She must want to do some posing for him.” Chocolate sighed. “Now, I know Johnny—been knowing him for years—and nobody comes to his house unless they wanna deal with Johnny. He’s a businessman.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. Then I gestured to Raq again. “We met him at a club earlier, he took pictures of my friends with Millionaire Mal. We’re just here for the after-party.”

  She looked sympathetic, but in a way that seemed kind of phony to me. She all but said what it looked like she was thinking: Poor baby. You’re so stupid.

  I said, “Raq’s trying to be a singer, really. She’s good, too.”

  “She got a demo?”

  “No. Not yet. . . .”

  Chocolate looked at me, her long, fake eyelashes too distracting for me to be comfortable looking directly back at her.

  “You ain’t nothin’ but a baby,” she said.

  “Whatever,” I said. “I’m not a kid.”

  Then she added, “Look, I’m in the position—thanks to Johnny—where I don’t have to see dollar signs for every young pretty girl I meet. Twenty years ago I’d have introduced you to a whole ’nother world, sugar. I worked the streets for a long time, helpin’ young girls just like yourself get on their feet, learn the hustle.” She leaned in closer. “I know a runaway when I see one, okay? So quit the bullshit. I can smell it. And the fear.”

  Runaway. The word hit me like a burst of cold air, and I almost shivered.

  “Johnny, on the other hand?” she said. “He ain’t nice as me. Man had to learn to fly with no wind for his wings. Born into a slum life. Had to rise up, do the best he could. He’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong. I love ’im. But he spares no one. Guess he figures he had to look down the barrel of desperate times and do desperate things, so others should, too. He’s no joke, sugar. A hawk.”

  I lo
oked over at Johnny. Just then he was taking his hand to his hair, his fingers stroking his ponytail as he leaned back and chatted away.

  “Your friend? I know her type. So much defiance in her eyes.... They fall the hardest sometimes. Either that or they make it the furthest. I was just like her, I’m tellin’ you. Looks. Sass. Oh, Johnny’s over there loving her right now, trust me. She’ll do what she gotta do to survive. But you . . .” Chocolate looked at me and smiled. I shrugged. “What? I said I don’t want to be a model.”

  She laughed. “I know. And your friend, if she’s smart, she’ll walk away, tell him no thank you, find another way to support that little career of hers she wants, but look at her . . . you see she’s still sitting over there.”

  “What’s the big deal about modeling?” I asked.

  “This kind of modeling?” She laughed. “Oh, sugar. It’s a big deal all right,” she said. “I don’t know where you’re from, but trust me, you don’t want to be here. Take yourself on home.”

  I was shaken by a creepy feeling.

  Raq would do anything for her dreams, I knew, but anything?

  Really?

  From the first time I met her, from the time she was born, probably, Raq had talked of one thing and one thing only. Fame. Tonight, she was willing to take what I guess she believed would be a giant leap in that direction.

  From across the room, we finally locked into eye contact.

  She was smiling. Triumphant.

  17

  It was two o’clock in the morning and we were sitting in Johnny’s basement office. Nasty-looking nude photography was hanging on the wood-paneled walls like family photos would in a sane person’s home. While Piper and Gee were still upstairs, mixing with the rest of the after-party crowd, the king of this wicked jungle—Johnny—sat across from me and Raq as she signed paper after paper rescinding what was left of her innocence.

  “Are you crazy?” I had whispered on our way down the steps.

  “Uh. Not,” she had quipped. “Do you know how lucky I am? Everyone’s gonna know my name.”

  A frazzled looking model Johnny had introduced as his assistant peeked in.

  She said, “Something to drink? Soda? Tea?”

  “I’ll take a tea,” Raq said. I’d have asked for the same if I thought I wouldn’t hurl after a sip of anything hit my stomach. I was so disgusted.

  Up close, Johnny was handsome. His eyes, though, seemed dark and shifty, and they never met with mine.

  After Raq finished signing the papers, he got up from his desk.

  “Be right back,” he said before leaving the room.

  The assistant returned with a mug of hot water and a tea bag.

  “Thanks,” Raq said as casually as if we were in a café back home.

  Raq blew onto her brewing tea. “I was just thinking about my first song,” she said. “We should probably do something up-tempo, you know? Like with a crazy snare drum. A club banger. Follow that up with a ballad . . .”

  “Okay, so just never mind the trifling mistake you’re about to make? Let’s ignore all that and just talk about a song you might get to record someday? Raq!” I wanted to shake her. I wanted to scream.

  She nudged me, her voice more mellow than usual. “Chica ... I’m the one who should be nervous. Do you know how famous I’m getting ready to be?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Are you serious?”

  “My first photo shoot . . .” she said, looking around the office in awe. “Everyone does a photo shoot like this when they’re just starting off.”

  “No. They don’t,” I said. And I really didn’t even care if she got mad. She didn’t, though. Not at all.

  “You’ve got so much to learn,” she said matter-of-factly. “About life. About the industry. Mira. No matter how hot you are vocally, they really don’t care ’less you’re at boiling point in the looks. If men wanna see you on the page, wanna download you on the Net, shoot, that’s buzz. Plus, we’re from Toledo? Please. I gotta come with it hard. This is gonna be a good move for me, chica. Trust. And be happy.”

  I faked a smile. “Cheers!”

  She said, “Look, I know I got talent. But break down the book value for me if nobody knows who I am, chica.”

  “Right . . .” I sighed. “Gotcha.” Apparently I just wasn’t going to get through to her no matter what I said.

  “There comes a time in life when you’re gonna have to grow up, chica. You’re gonna have to learn that being an adult means doing grown-up things.”

  Yeah, right. Lying so much had Raq believing that we were actually adults.

  “Look,” she said, pointing to a picture on the wall. Up there was Buckstarr sitting naked on the hood of a sports car.

  “So what if she is famous?” I snapped back. “She slutted herself on reality television and porn magazines to do it. Is it really worth it?”

  Raq laughed an annoying laugh. “Oh, chica . . .”

  I made a ticking sound with my tongue and rolled my eyes.

  Johnny returned and I could’ve hacked back and spit at his face. His smile was wicked. “Are you ready, Raquel?”

  “Born ready.” She placed her mug on the desk and grabbed her bag, a quilted purple trendy clutch she’d bought at the King of Prussia Mall, and made her exit.

  My heart was beating harder than I’d ever felt it, even up to my ears, and my neck seemed paralyzed in tension. What do you do when the person you want to rescue willingly walks into the fire? What if she doesn’t even flinch at the heat, but says “Back in a few, chica” instead?

  In the next room, I could hear Johnny talking to Raq through the paneling. I guessed it must have been his photo studio.

  Are you ready, Raquel?

  “She goes by Raq,” I wished I had said.

  But then again, maybe I didn’t even know what she wanted to be called anymore, or who she was.

  I wondered if I’d ever really known.

  First Gee had eyes for my best friend.

  Then he’d helped her put her body, her soul actually, up for sale.

  How could he continue to pretend that he was digging me, too?

  And how could I continue to act like the sight of him didn’t repulse me?

  Gee’s mouth on my neck again was making me nauseous.

  It was late Wednesday—or really, early Thursday morning—our last night in Philadelphia. We were back at the hotel after Raq’s “photo shoot.” I should have been hyped. Tomorrow was the Jam-Master Jay tribute at the Apollo and I was finally going to see New York City, but it was hard to feel happy after all that had happened. On top of that, I was lying in a hotel room and Gee was stuck with me, the overflow.

  I didn’t know why he was trying so hard to act like he was digging me.

  Or why I didn’t punch him when he nonchalantly crawled into bed next to me.

  He said, “What’s up with you?” I took a deep breath and really tried to sound cheerful. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m good. . . .” I scooted away from him. And then over some more.

  Poor Gee. Thought he was a hustler. Whole time he’d been got. He believed the lie about Hitz from the beginning. Ha! For all we knew, Hitz might have never even swatted a fly in his life, let alone hit a woman. Hitz never even knew Raq’s name.

  Gee took off his white T-shirt and crisp denim jeans, meticulously placing his blinged-out belt buckle on the nightstand. My heart completely froze.

  What was he getting ready to do? Oh, God. But he just lay there in his boxer briefs and platinum rope chain. His body was solid, not at all flabby, like a middleweight boxer’s, and for the first time, I noticed the tattoo on his left arm. In Old English lettering, it read, PRESSURE.

  Part of me wanted to explain to him what was really going on in my head, but I wasn’t sure he’d understand. How I wanted to be in the arms of a guy who was really digging me, not one who just kissed down my neck when it was convenient for him, when the girl he actually wanted was distracted. Mentally, I was already heading home. Physically,
though, I was still on the road. In a room with Gee.

  He said, “You just layin’ over there starin’ at me. Like something’s wrong. . . .”

  It is. I don’t belong here.

  And I never really did.

  But I sat up. And I looked at him, straight-on. “Just tell me. Whose idea was it?” I asked. “The photo shoot?”

  “Oh, my goodness,” he said. “Is that why you’re over there on mute?” he joked. “Because Raq got buck?”

  I grimaced at hearing the reality of it. But then I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He said, “Look, it was her idea. We just made the introduction.”

  “Oh,” I said. Even if that was true, it didn’t make me feel better about what had happened.

  “What?” he joked. “You her personal guardian now? The moral police?”

  “No.” I frowned. But then I thought about it. “But . . . I am her friend.”

  “Look. She’s a grown woman,” he said. Then he got up and went to the other bed. “Turn the light off when you get done with your moral patrolling.” He yanked back the covers and looked determined to just get some sleep.

  I glanced out the window, noticing the thump of a hip-hop beat coming from next door. Piper and Raq. I said to Gee, “It’s not that I don’t think you’re cool, Gee. . . .”

  “Can’t tell. . . .” He pulled a pillow over his head, drowning out the music.

  I got up, went over to his bed, and crawled in beside him. I understood what he was feeling. Rejection is a rough thing. For whatever reason, I reached in and wrapped my arms around Gee, pulling the pillow off of his face. He let me. But didn’t move otherwise.

  He said, “We should probably leave out for New York about noon. It’s about a two-hour drive. When we get into the city, we can swing down to Times Square, maybe unload a few more CDs.”

  “Can you see the Empire State Building from there?” I asked.

  “The Empire State Building?” he said. “Are you serious? You can see it from everywhere in New York.”