I felt myself smiling inside as I touched his arm. Traced the letters. Ink over a big solid muscle. “Nice tat,” I said. “Pressure, huh?”
“Without it, we wouldn’t have the most beautiful gem in the world,” he said through a yawn.
“Diamonds,” I said.
“Oh yeah.” He sounded impressed. “You know about that, huh?”
“One of my old friends back home, she comes from a family of jewelers. Jones Diamonds. They even named her Jewel.” I thought back to the time when Jewel had taken me on a tour of a back room of one of their stores and one of the gem setters had explained to us how diamonds are made. He reminded me of a librarian, excited about helping me find a book on a shelf, when I’d asked where diamonds come from.
“Diamonds,” he’d told me, taking special care as he placed one on a white cloth, “are formed under tremendous heat and pressure. These extreme conditions only exist beneath the earth’s surface, where temperatures can reach thirteen hundred degrees. Atoms ultimately form into crystals and the crystals eventually make their way to the earth’s surface through pipes and channels. The pipes or channels contain volcano magma, which rises with the diamonds and deposits them on the earth’s surface. That’s when we find them.” His voice was a cautious whisper as he let us take turns holding it. He added. “It all starts with heat. And pressure.”
“Know how to tell a real diamond from a fake one?” Gee asked me.
I smiled. That had been part of the jewelry lesson as well. “By its shine,” I said. “If it’s been cut correctly, a real diamond reflects light on all sides. A fake one doesn’t.”
Gee nodded.
The music next door shifted to another song and seemed to grow even louder.
PRESSURE. Must be an everyday reminder, I thought as I looked at his arm, tracing my fingers along each letter again. Maybe when Gee looked in the mirror—stressed about all the weight Mun-E was always putting on his and Piper’s shoulders—that’s what Gee uses to remind himself of what all the pressure can eventually produce.
18
The skyline of New York City was like a scene from a Batman movie. It looked like Gotham for real! Smoky and dark. Huge. So ugly and mean and yet so impossibly beautiful and alluring. I wanted to take a giant can of spray paint and spell out the words GLITZ WAS HERE right across it all. I had never seen so many high buildings! And they were all so cluttered and hemmed up next to each other. Endless dreams and endless possibilities. And so many determined people! Even the old lady crossing the street pushing her fold-up shopping cart looked to be on a mission.
Okay, I said to myself, my face pressed against the cold window as we swerved and jerked along in traffic, where is it?
And no sooner than I’d thought it, I heard myself gasp. There it was.
It reminded me of a tall stack of gray LEGOs with a tall steeple atop. I took a deep breath. Right underneath what looked to be an antenna was an illuminated section of New York City’s tallest building and I knew that that was it. The eighty-sixth floor. Where he proposed. Where she said yes. My parents ...
I felt Raq tugging at my arm. “We’re here, chica! We made it!”
A hot tear stalled in the corner of my eye, and yet a smile crept across my face. Yes. I had definitely made it.
They were up there once.
Happy. Smiling. Laughing. So in love.
Their whole lives ahead of them . . .
And then, when I couldn’t look any longer, I closed my eyes. By the time I had opened them again, Gee had made a turn. Now we were facing a sea of tall apartment buildings. Gee was whipping through the potholed streets so fast that it was hard for me to turn around at first. Still, I craned my head the best that I could.
But my view of the Empire State Building was gone.
Just like my parents.
Harlem. You could hear the mouthwatering thud of bass coming from the theater as we pulled up at the Apollo that night. The vertical marquee was yellow with red letters, just like on television. It had been hard to get ready in the Hummer, but I felt amazing in my black satin minidress, knock-off pearls, and faux fur shawl. I glanced over at Raq, who looked ready for a performance at the Grammys. Her makeup was worthy of a magazine cover, flawless, and her getup—a sequined halter jumpsuit—was incredible. I couldn’t help but be happy for her, despite what she’d done last night. In her own way she’d made it, even if—in my eyes—she’d compromised too much to do so. After this, her performance with Piper, who knew how things were going to blow up for her!
Pimped-out cars and SUVs swooped in and out of the security-protected car line, drivers hell-bent on showcasing the arrival of their hot-fashioned rappers who’d come to help honor the late and incomparably great Jam-Master Jay.
When Sir Gee hit the brakes and the Hummer screeched to a halt, I literally had to remember to breathe. I turned around and sucked in the skyline once again. We were really in New York City! Sir Gee showed the guard his ID, signed a paper, and parked in one of the coned-off spacesbehind the building..
Piper rubbed his hands before getting out. “Yo . . . ” he said. “Let me at ’em.”
Tugging down my minidress so it wouldn’t ride up when I got out of the truck, I pushed back my shoulders and gave my head a quick feel, making sure that my hair was tidy in its bun, smooth and classic according to Raq. With my head held high and a confident face securely fastened on, I looked over at Raq for a quick check. She reached in and—with her fingertip—made sure my berry-colored lipstick was just right.
She shot a confused look at me. “You have on eyeliner?”
I shrugged. “Special days call for special things,” I said. “I can’t believe you just noticed. I borrowed yours.”
She pressed her finger on my arm. “Hot, chica!” she said, then made a fizzing sound.
“You’re the one. Rock the mic tonight,” I reminded her.
And I knew she would. Raq had been practicing with Piper in the car for the last hour. Raquel Marissa Diaz was more than ready for that stage.
Together, the four of us headed toward the back entrance.
A guy wearing earphones and holding a clipboard approached us in a hurry. “You’re on in about forty-five minutes,” he said, giving Piper and Sir Gee some dap before taking the track for the deejay from Sir Gee. “Welcome to Harlem.”
Piper stopped then, double-kissed two of his fingers, and then double knocked his fist to his chest. He nodded and allowed a solemn expression to form on his face. “Yo . . . appreciate that.”
Sir Gee added, “Thanks, man.”
Backstage was congested and confusing. Too many people and not enough room. Unlike the show at the VFW in Ohio, there weren’t any random groupies or people with passes, though. The only people who were backstage were either working or getting ready to perform.
Immediately, I recognized faces.
Nelly. The Beastie Boys. Young Joc. Damon Dash. Trick Daddy. Oh my goodness! MC Lyte. And Lil’ Kim!
Everyone who was anyone in hip-hop was there. There were the bigwigs and all the eager-to-be-next up-and-comers like Piper and Sir Gee. A man with platinum grills and a floppy fur coat rushed past us, drenched in sweat from having just performed, and instantly I recognized him. Sike-it MC. He gave man hugs to Piper and Sir Gee, the MCs taking over his position on Mal’s tour, before pressing on with his crew.
“Hey, chica.” Raq turned to me and smiled.
I shrugged and gave her a smile right back. “You’re gonna kill it,” I told her.
And then we go home.
Neither Raq nor I—and not even Piper or Sir Gee—was born yet in the 1970s, when rap music crept into the souls of African and Latin Americans, inching up the walls of every club, basement, and bedroom radio in the Bronx, caressing ears and changing lives forever. Decades ago DJ Kool Herc, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, DJ Hollywood, the Sugarhill Gang, and Afrika Bambaataa labored into birth a complete new lifestyle called hip-hop, and look at us now—me and Raq, Piper and
Sir Gee—backstage in Harlem, one borough away from the Bronx, where it’d all begun. I wasn’t alive yet when it all happened, but boy was I glad that it had.
Hip-hop.
Highly. Intelligent. People.
Helping. Other. People.
The paparazzi’s eyes were on us as we made our way through the crowd. Raq was treading enviable water, and of all the chicks lined up and appearing primed to sing hook, she was the prettiest, no doubt.
And I knew once she was out on that stage, she was going to make it impossible for anyone in the house to do anything but clap.
The backstage coordinator led us to the wings. “Meet here in exactly thirty minutes. Until then, your seats are in row five if you want to sit in on the show.” He handed each of us our passes. Our own—ahem—VIP passes.
Raq winked at me. “Chica . . .”
Piper said, “Yo . . . Y’all go on and enjoy the show. Meet y’all back here.” Raq and I both squealed. And hurried off.
The blue-toned illumination on the stage was beautiful against the wood, and the sudden absence of any house lights signified the beginning of the next act. The very stage where the Jackson Five had performed. Ella Fitzgerald. Billie Holiday. James Brown. The Isley Brothers. Luther Vandross. Fat Joe. Lauryn Hill. Even though I was sure Gramma was ready to kill me, I had to believe a small part of her would be excited that I was here, where so many of her own idols had performed.
Everyone clapped and cheered as Bow Wow appeared onstage. We were in the fifth row center, so close I felt like I could reach out, stretch my arm a bit, and touch his pant leg.
I glanced over at Raq, her eyes glistening with so much hope.
So much had happened. So much had changed.
But we were here. We were really here. And only the two of us knew how much that meant.
Without looking at me, Raq slapped my thigh. “We did it, chica.”
And then, with her energetic smile, Raq the dreamer, the no-nonsense good-time girl, playfully jerked her head and looked at me. “Let’s just kick it, all right?” Her way of apologizing, of wanting to pretend like things were all good again. I wanted the same.
“All right. Cool,” I replied. And I turned back around and got comfortable in my seat.
After Bow Wow’s hyped performance, time passed in a surrealist slow motion as Arnold Crane, the rickety-looking president of some local youth outreach center that had cosponsored the event, read from a series of note cards. His words pounded in my head like slurred mumbo-jumbo. Line after line after line of boring statistics on the perils of just about anything that kids were facing in America. I had no idea what-all he said, because after a while I just tuned him out. I didn’t want to hear about delinquent kids. I was one of them now. But not for long. Just one more night, I thought. Then tomorrow I’ll be home.
A radio station manager, rocking a Hot-97 T-shirt, was next.
Inside, I smiled.
In every city . . .
Always a ninety-something.
He gave a few shot-outs to some of the other event sponsors, pulled a couple of names for door prizes—hair products from Dark and Lovely, a gym membership, and subscriptions to a bunch of hip-hop magazines—and then he introduced some local comedian who was actually pretty funny. He kept the crowd energized until Fat Joe came out.
When he hit the stage, Raq offered me a smooth smile and her signature wink, the one that means It’s all good. We kicked it so hard while Fat Joe performed, not missing a beat of his set as an opportunity to swing our hips.
Judging from the screams throughout the crowd, they were definitely feeling Fat Joe, too. He was incredible.Wait, I thought to myself, until they hear Piper MC featuring Sir Gee . . . and Raq.
Once we got backstage, Piper briefed Raq. “Me and Gee are gonna work the stage. You just stay posted up off to the right,” he said. In other words, it was Piper’s show and Raq had to remember to play the background. No fancy tricks.
I got it, and Raq got it, too. “Whatever you say, Pipe,” she responded.
“Sounds good,” Sir Gee added.
“Yo . . .” Piper bowed his head to pray in silence.
I did the same.
It was showtime. And no one in the house was more hungry for that spotlight than Raq. I was one hundred percent positive that she could handle what sounded like a full house. And I’m sure she would have if she had been able to perform.
It all happened so fast.
“Excuse me,” a soft voice said from behind us.
And then, there she stood.
Buckstarr.
And an entourage of cameras filming her.
Guess she brought the reality show reunion with her.
Reaching in to tap Piper on his shoulder, she was tall, fancy, and impossibly stacked in all-pink leather. She had seemed amused by the sight of Raq and me in the recording studio late last Saturday night, but tonight her face looked equipped for war.
I felt like crying out to God to protect us. Please let us get through this without a fight breaking out.
Raq caught a glimpse of Buckstarr, saw how smooth and easy Sir Gee and Piper reacted, and I saw a flicker of something cross her face—anger? Disbelief?—before she hid it under a blank expression.
Dreams. The closer you get, the harder the reach.
The harder the reach, the more you want it.
The more you want it, the more you’ll do to get it.
Raq looked at Piper. Shook her head. “Don’t even play me, Pipe. . . .”
Piper looked at Gee. Gee looked at Buckstarr.
And Buckstarr turned around so she was eye to eye with Raq. They stared each other down until Raq glanced at the camera, filming it all, and looked away.
In that moment, I knew it was set. Raq wasn’t going onstage that night. But she wasn’t going to fight about it either. She was gonna grin and bear it. And for the first time ever since I’d known her she looked like Raquel to me, not Raq. Not exactly soft, but not hard, either. Human.
Mun-E was right there, too. He looked like a bulldog hungry for a bone. It was like he could taste all the money he was going to make off of Piper and Buckstarr’s song and he was licking his chops.
Buckstarr smiled, shrugged, and said to Piper, “You ready?”
On cue, Piper, Sir Gee, and Buckstarr followed the stagehand out to the wing so they could enter the stage. Had to give it to her, Buckstarr definitely looked like a celebrity.
Buckstarr’s performance with Piper and Gee was hot, no denying that. Raq and I watched from backstage. And I learned a big lesson in the cutthroat music business that night. After they sang “Liar, Liar,” after the crowd went bananas, an army of soldiers toting big cardboard boxes appeared in the crowd. Buckstarr had had a gazillion silk-screened T-shirts pressed with pictures of Piper, Sir Gee, and her—dressed in a patent-leather bodysuit—on the front. Across the back were the words LIAR, LIAR, PIPER’S NEW SINGLE FEATURING SIR GEE AND BUCKSTARR.
It’s not always the best singer who gets the gig. Sometimes it’s about the hustle, the person who’s most determined to eat. That night, Buckstarr was the one who trumped.
When Buckstarr, Piper, and Sir Gee left the stage, the cameras and screams exploding, Raq and I both knew that “Liar, Liar” had hit the ball all the way back to Fifth Third Field in Toledo, where the Mud Hens played baseball.
But before then, ever so gracefully at the end of his set, Piper had folded his hands together and rested his eyes. With the spotlight upon him, I remember seeing the sweat pouring down his face. His voice echoed from the rafters.
“Yo . . . Y’all gotta follow Piper. I’m gonna be doing major things. . . .”
19
After the show, we were pressing through security, doing our best to keep up with Piper and Gee, trying to get from backstage out to the truck, when a woman wearing a stiff business suit—she looked clearly out of place—hurried out of nowhere, stopped in front of Piper, and got his attention. A serious fan, maybe?
&
nbsp; She flashed a badge. “Excuse me,” she said. “May I have a moment with you?”
Piper raised an eyebrow and tried to keep stepping. “Who, me? For what?”
She held up a picture and said, “Do you recognize the girl in this photo? Know someone by the name of Ann? Ann Michelle Lewis?”
My heart landed with a thump in my shoes. Raq and I both slowed.
Simultaneously, we backed up and blended in with the crowd. I ducked my face behind Raq and she was careful to keep enough distance between herself and Gee, whose big body was blocking the view of Piper and the lady.
Gee laughed. “Ann Michelle?”
“No ma’am,” I heard Piper say. “I’ve never met anyone named Ann Michelle.”
The lady looked at Piper for a couple of seconds and then at Gee.
“Do you,” she asked him, “know the whereabouts of a teenager named Ann Michelle?”
“A teen—? Yo . . . ” Gee said. “Um. Lady . . . No thanks.”
I couldn’t tell if they really didn’t recognize me from the photo—it was my class picture from school last year and I was wearing my uniform, looking totally corny—or if they were just covering.
The lady seemed to be saying something else, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I peeked over Raq’s shoulder. The woman was pressing on through the crowd away from us. Whew. But Raq didn’t move yet. So neither did I.
I heard Mun’s voice next. He was having words with Gee.
“You wanna tell me what that was all about?”
“Man, how would I know?”
“You wanna tell me why one minute Hitz is bugging me about some Latin girl, then you’re calling me, telling me you got some Latin girl you want to sing with Piper, the next minute I got five-oh knocking at my office, sayin’ they’re lookin’ for a Latin girl of interest from Toledo—”
“Man, what?”
“Listen to me,” Mun’s voice was firm. “Don’t be a liability. KFC is hiring.”
With that, Mun stormed past without giving Gee a chance to respond.
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