“Chica! ” Raq forced me to look at her. “Mun played us—”
She sighed and then she shrugged. “Well, you’re the one they want. Not me. Judge and Kitty’ll be over me in no time. Your grandmother actually cares. Look how many times she called.”
“Kitty called for you, too!”
“And? That’s because me running away looks bad for them. Not like they really care.”
“She sounded terrified, Raq. I answered your phone the other morning. You were out when I woke up.”
“Who cares? And please tell me you didn’t fall for her dramatics. She’s a judge’s wife, a public figure.” Raq rolled her eyes. “It’s part of her job to be phony.”
“She sounded panicked. Could have fooled me.”
“So what?” she said. “It’s different for me. That’s not my real blood. My real blood doesn’t really care. Why should Kitty matter?”
“I think we should both just give up. Turn ourselves in. We had our fun. We got to meet Piper. We got to come to New York. Piper and Gee are gonna catch heat if we don’t. We—”
“Give up?” Raq said with a laugh. “Never,” she spat. “I’m not ever going back there.”
I said, “Well, then, now what? Because I gotta get home. You promised you’d get me home at the end of all this. Remember?”
“Chica.” She put her hands together and pleaded with her eyes. “You’re asking me to do all this stuff, you’re saying all these things, and I don’t know . . .” Her voice sounded so uncertain. “I don’t know . . .”
Those were three words I never thought I’d hear her say.
Never before had I known Raq to not have the answer.
Of course I knew, I always knew, that I’d have to go home eventually. This had started as a one-night adventure, and then it had turned into almost a whole week. For a minute there, it had seemed like it might even be forever. But now it was all over.
Poof.
Some people live their whole lives chasing after their dreams, going to school, studying hard or working two jobs just to put pretty dresses on their daughters.
Or granddaughters.
Some people stand in lines for hours or even days to audition—for one single shot—in front of four judges who can decide their fate as singers.
Some people run miles and miles every day, spend hours training and practicing just to be the best they can be at putting balls through hoops or jumping hurdles on tracks.
And some people have all the talent they’ll ever need inside of them, but they only know how to steal, cheat, and sacrifice their soul to share it with the world.
Some people will do anything to get famous.
I’d lost track of all the lies Raq told or the number of people she tricked to get ahead in our so-called journey. Including me. I guess Raq never even really had a plan. But she knew where she wanted to go and would do anything—literally—along the way to get us there.
Truth is, I always knew in my heart that there were other ways, that Raq didn’t have to rip credit cards or steal money from the two people in her life who had really tried to help her. And now I wondered about the people the credit cards had been stolen from. How had they gotten them in the first place? By working hard, I supposed. And that was something I could respect.
When I’d put on that fancy belt or that lace camisole, I hadn’t considered the lady who owned it. But I thought about her now. How hard had she worked at her job to make the money to buy those nice things? And how did she feel when she finished her workout at the motel to find her fancy stuff all gone?
I remember standing backstage next to Raq that night after the officer asked Piper about me, closing my eyes and gently pushing my head against the wall where we were standing. And I recall how quiet Raq was.
It seemed like an eternity, until finally I heard her say, “Chica, we’re gonna be cool. Everything is going to be okay.”
I’m sure that if I had opened my mouth to say anything, I would have howled, crying instead. So I just thought to myself, Okay.
Piper and Gee were waiting in the truck when we got outside.
Neither of them said a word at first.
The truck was running but the radio wasn’t playing.
“Yo . . .” Piper sighed. “Ann Michelle?”
So he had recognized me from the picture. Even in my fancy dress and makeup, even with my new name, I was still the same person after all.
Gee asked, “How old are y’all for real?”
“Look,” I immediately began, “I just gotta get home. Y’all can drop me on the way back to Detroit and I swear you’ll never hear from me again.”
Raq said, “She needs to get back to Ohio.”
“Yo . . . So you was, like, teenagers, the whole time?” Piper raised an eyebrow at me. “When we were talking music and philosophies and . . .” Then at Raq, “Yo . . . When we was . . .”
Gee shook his head. “Wild.”
Raq said, “Look, I’m not trying to go back to Ohio. I’m—”
The knocks at the window were so loud. All of us jumped.
Four uniformed cops were waiting.
The show was over. Take a bow.
Gee rolled down his window.
“Handcuffs won’t be necessary,” one of the officers said to us. “As long as you cooperate.”
Like a deranged woman, Raq just chuckled. And kept chuckling.
As for me, I started crying, and it felt like I might never stop.
An officer led me out of the Hummer to the police car. And twice my knees buckled as I walked.
Funny. Even though I knew the road back to Ohio was going to be long, I finally felt relief, like eventually things would be lighter again. No more stolen credit cards. No more stolen cash. No more late nights with sleazy photographers. No more running. No more.
I glanced back at the truck, tried to get one last look Piper, but, through my tears, I could only see the blur of his white wristband as he explained things to one of the officers. I never even got one last good look at his face. Gee’s either.
But then again, I didn’t have to. How could I ever forget them?
Raq rolled in a separate patrol car from me, and hers was in front.
I kept watching the back of her head the whole ride back down the turnpike, hoping that she’d turn around and look at me, offer an eye roll, a smile, that wink. But she never looked back. Not even once.
20
“I’m sorry, Gramma,” I said in between sniffles, pulling a crinkled-up napkin from my pocket.
Her stare was far scarier than any of her threats had been.
Gramma stood in my bedroom doorway, a fat black belt in hand. “Yes. You. Are. Any child that’d take it upon herself to leave a good home—all the children in the world wishing they had a warm place to sleep at night—you’re so right, you are so sorry!”
Now I was heaving.
“Slobbering and carrying on,” she said. “Naw. What’s up now? Go ’head witcha bad self. You grown. Be tough. Come on, now, sit up straight! Tell me now what you are and aren’t gonna do! Tough enough to be a heavyweight champion, huh? Huh, Ann Michelle Holyfield? Ann Michelle Tyson. You bad. Come on . . . Sending postcards and things. Name is Glitter now, huh?”
She walked the belt closer to me.
I waited until my heaving stopped and said, “I am so sorry, Gramma. I am. Really.”
“Left outta here with this bedroom a mess. Clothes strewn all over the floor in the closet.”
“I said I’m sorry. So . . .”
She gestured at my desk, a pile of books and a stack of papers waiting neatly. “All the work you’ve missed from school!” She gripped the belt. “I’d wear your behind out if I didn’t think I’d kill you, I am that upset with you, child.”
“I’m so sorry . . .” was all I could say. And it was truly how I felt.
She said, “Press a skirt real good tonight, you hear? And that blouse had better be crisp for church in the morning, ya hear me?”
“Yes, Gramma. Okay.”
“God’s gonna have to help me with this one, otherwise, I’d kill you. Jail is for that little friend of yours, but for you . . .”
She stood before me and raised a hand over my head.
I braced myself, waiting for a slap.
Instead, I felt the light touch of her warm, bony hand on my chin as she lifted my face. My eyelids fell closed, but she gripped my chin tighter until I looked at her again.
Her face was wild with anger.
And yet there was a tear welling in the corner of her eye.
“You listen to me.” She jerked my face a bit. “What y’all did was bad. And I mean real, real bad. You don’t even know what my prayers were . . . what I was begging God to spare you from out there. . . .”
She swallowed. “But you’re home now. And don’t you be ashamed, you hear? You go to school on Monday and you hold your head up. They might look at you strange and maybe even say mean things about you. . . . So be it! You was but a fool. Lord, Lord, Lord, you was a fool. You and me both know that. But that’s who God protects best, babies and fools. And we all got to be both at some point in our lives. So you forget telling me you’re sorry. Best if you tell God. Ya hear?”
My lip quivering, I nodded.
I felt her fingers let go of my face and watched as she left the room.
I love you, too, Gramma, I thought.
She hadn’t said it, but I knew she meant it. And I did, too.
Sometimes I like to imagine what it would have been like if the show had gone another way.
I picture me and Raq in the audience again, back out in our seats at the Apollo, rocking and head-nodding to Fat Joe.
Raq’s phone starts vibrating. It’s Pipe.
“Come backstage?” Raq shouts. “Already? For what?”
After hanging up, she looks over and tells me, “Buckstarr showed up.” Only then she says, “But Piper put her in her place. He said for me to come on and get ready to perform.”
Instead of watching from the wings, I imagine that I stay out in the house, fifth row center, and—ten minutes later—Raquel Marissa Diaz walks out onstage with Piper and Gee.
Raq.
She struts out onstage, the princess of hip-hop, all but a tiara.
And when her French-tipped fingernails touch the bright silver microphone, the spotlight catches the mic. I imagine a flash of magic spreading out over the entire place, forcing the audience into hush. They wait.
Piper spits his bars.
And then, she sings.
I have to resist the urge to dab my eyes with pride, throwing my hands in the air and rocking with the rhythm of the song instead.
I imagine Raq’s delivery—so heartfelt, so amazing, her raspy voice so sincere, that she owns the stage. And the night. The hook is so incredible that Gee and even Piper, too, soon go unnoticed by the crowd.
Raq used to propose scenarios for the future, how her talent was going to make her a legend, how she was going to grace the cover of every magazine imaginable—not just the ones for Latinas and hip-hop—and how she was going to say in her interviews that she always knew she was going to be a star. And how I was going to be right there with her.
She used to throw her head back and close her eyes, the sun adding heat and shine to her skin, and sit there looking like she was literally picturing everything she talked about.
I can still see it. And I probably always will.
Did I really know her for just over a month? It seemed like so much longer. Like a lifetime, almost.
Sometimes I still don’t know what to make of it all.
Sometimes it’s fun just to kick back and remember.
Sometimes, if I close my eyes tight, I can even hear us laughing....
Piper. Gee. Raq. And me. Toasting silly things like fine dining at Burger King.
It’s amazing how impossible it can seem, trying to get famous.
And yet how sometimes it can also happen.
Four months later, I turned on the television and could hardly believe it. Piper MC was doing an interview on the Music Entertainment channel. He was dressed in all white, with more tattoos than I recalled. At the end of the chat, with his right hand he formed the letter C and with his left he flashed the number two, and then the number one. Few people will probably ever understand why Piper always does that. But I do.
“Look at Piper,” I said to myself, feeling a grin on my face as I watched him talk.
I wanted to call Raq. “Can you believe it?” I longed to say.
But when I’d tried to call her after I got back home from New York, her phone went straight to voice mail, the box full.
A few days later, I had tried again. But I got a recording saying the phone was no longer in service.
As for school, Raq never came back. And I never resumed my place with the Fan Five. Raq may not have been the best friend I wanted her to be in the end, but my relationship with those girls had never felt right either. I was still looking for something real, for an honest connection with friends. And I was willing to hang by myself until I found that. My seatmate in anatomy, Corrine Carter, was back from being sick with bronchitis, so occasionally I chatted with her, but that was about it. Since I was on punishment for the rest of my natural life, it wasn’t like I was desperate for people to hang with anyhow. It was just me, Gramma, and homework for the foreseeable future. And I was fine with that, to be honest.
“When I’m ready to let you out of the house again, you can get a job to pay back Judge and Kitty,” Gramma had said. I tried to tell her I hadn’t stolen the money, but she quickly pointed out that I had lived off of it for a week, and I couldn’t argue with that. She was right. I’d made a mistake, but I also didn’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling as miserable about it as I did. Hopefully returning the money would help.
I always knew Piper was wonderful, from the first time I heard his voice, but especially after the first time I saw him perform live. I can still see him, his fist raised in the air . . .
“Yo . . . Y’all could’ve been anywhere in the world tonight . . .” No, we couldn’t have, Pipe. Most of us were stuck right there in Toledo, had nowhere else in the world to be. I was just lucky, I guess. I had a friend named Raq who wouldn’t take no for an answer and you let us into your world because of her. Thank you.
And thank you, too, Gee. For everything.
I’m going to be watching the Grammy Awards every year waiting, hoping, I promise!
The Soul Train Music Award, too. Make that all of the awards shows.
Wonder if Buckstarr will be there with them. . . .
I used to ponder whether Piper ever even thought about me after that crazy week we spent together, if he would even know my name should our paths ever cross again. After all, no picture exists of the four of us, no actual proof of those days that we spent together. I don’t know how we forgot to even take one, but I wish I had one snapshot to post on my bedroom door.
It was a Tuesday evening in May, a week before then end of the school year , and I was in my room doing homework. I heard the announcement on the radio about a hot new single, a debut CD in stores today.
“Dirt.” That was the name of the song.
Immediately, I knew it was Piper. And I loved it. Not just because the lyrics made so much sense, about how chasing money is the worst mind trip of them all, the most detrimental to relationships, to our culture, to our race—to the human race. That’s all good.
No, I loved that song because of a line somewhere in the middle . . .
Don’t get me wrong about dirt,
nice things don’t hurt,
I’ve known things that shine.
Yo . . . Glitz once was a friend of mine . . .
Ha!
I’ll never forget you, too, Piper!
And I’ll never stop buying your music.
On another day in May, soon after, me and Gramma pulled up at a red light on our way to church. I did a double-take.
Right next to us, a girl was sitting in her car, Latina and fabulous, looking in the rearview, fixing her hair, singing along to a song on the radio, loud enough for us to hear . . .
But it wasn’t her.
Of course not.
Raq had gone away to the Juvenile Detention Center months ago, after our time on the road, after she was charged with theft in the second degree and possession of stolen property for the credit cards she lifted from her job and the money she stole from Judge and Kitty.
We were so busy chasing what was real, and then came reality. Juvie.
Still, I prefer to imagine that Raq is out there somewhere, that she’s free.
She’s so busy rehearsing for tours.
Yeah. That’s why I haven’t heard from her. That’s it.
Maybe I’ll never see her again.
Maybe it’s best if I never do.
Raquel Marissa Diaz.
Mi hermana forever . . .
Whatever she’s doing, I just hope she’s okay.
And I hope she’s still singing!
Then again, I know she is.
Acknowledgments
To God be the glory. I am so thankful for His blessings, the opportunity to—again—use the talent that He has entrusted me with, and for the following people in my life:
Mom and Dad—Philip and Patricia Boles—you believed in me first and through it all and that has made all the difference. I am so blessed to be your daughter. My sister, Ginger, you always believe in me, support me, and have my back! Jada Marie, my niece, my friend, my honest critic, and the greatest junior consultant in the world. ✩ I love and appreciate you all so much!
Joy Peskin, you saw something in Glitz—and in me as an author—and it is my honor, my delight, and great fortune to work with such an enthusiastic, smart, witty, talented, and hipas-all-get-out editor! Yo, thank you for having faith in my talent and inspiring me so much. ✩ I simply could not have done it without you, nor would I have ever wanted to. Ever.
Thank you to Regina Hayes, President and Publisher extraordinaire, for your enthusiasm and stamp of confidence in Glitz’s story as well as in me, as one of your authors. I am so grateful. Thank you also and sincerely to Leila Sales, Janet Pascal, Rachelle Mandik, and the entire Viking family. I am truly honored to have such a remarkable and legendary publishing home.
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