“You are,” I say, enjoying the feel of the silky strands between my fingers and the fire that rises in her eyes. “All we need are these lips”—I drag a finger over the bottom one—“saying my name”—I smile, and I swear to God, I think she shudders—“into that camera. You think you can do that for me, sweetheart?”
For a second, it’s like the hustle and bustle of the beach fade away. It’s just her and me standing there, my finger poised over her mouth while I’m wondering what the inside looks like. Her tongue sneaks out to one side.
She stares at me for a long second, and just then, I wonder if she can see through more than just my bravado. Shama’s eyes are dangerous. They pierce right through you.
Yeah. Sparks, for real.
“But I’m not a video girl!” Shama suddenly bursts out. “Look at me. Do I look like these girls?”
She gestures wildly toward the models and extras milling around the set, all of them in the smallest of small bikinis, asses oiled, done up to the nines. They’re hot, yeah. A few of them I’ve probably hooked up with at some point. But so is Shama, with her jet black hair and skin that looks dipped in gold. And she’s got one thing none of those girls have: spark.
“Shama,” I say. “You want me to get this video done today, right?”
She opens her mouth, then presses it shut again and nods succinctly.
I shrug and hold my hands out. “Well, you better get to makeup, sweetheart. Because we ain’t got time to run new auditions, right?” I tap the watch on my wrist. “Chop, chop.”
Shama opens her mouth like she wants to argue all over again. But instead, she turns toward the tent set up for wardrobe.
“Fine!” she shouts as she stumbles over the sand. “But I am not parading around in my underwear. I have to work between takes, you know. And one more thing: under no circumstances will I twerk.”
Chapter Five
Shama
Two seconds into this shoot, and I’m already regretting it. It’s chaos on the beach, we’ve got about two hours to get a party together that will last for five hours, and I have a director, crew, and about two hundred extras to wrangle. Instead I’m sitting around playing dress up with the makeup and wardrobe people.
At least I get to choose my own damn clothes instead of wearing the dental floss the models and extras considered bikinis. If, by some chance, my parents stumble upon this video, I’d rather not horrify them more than I have to by my association with someone like DJ Cairo.
And so, the DJ himself and I end up sitting in makeup at the same time, me getting rubbed all over with gold shimmery body makeup before I put on the magenta cover-up, him getting smeared with and oil and water substance that makes him look like he just walked out of the ocean.
“She’s a class act,” he keeps muttering to himself, winking at me when he catches me looking at him.
It would be easier to do this if he wasn’t so damn good-looking. Most musicians aren’t, really. People love them because of their talent, their glamor, but when you’re up close, nine out of ten of them look like regular people.
Not Cairo. I see now why the studio courted him so hard. The second the guy takes off his shirt, it’s clear he either has a really good metabolism or a hell of a trainer. Abs for days. Coated in a light sheen of oil, just enough that he looks like he’s been diving into the ocean recently. It’s all very…lickable.
Curiously, he cringes when they settle a few of the thick gold ropes around his neck and give him a pair of diamond-encrusted aviators sent over from Gucci. This is basic stuff. A music video is just a marketing tool, and you have to speak to your audience. People are looking for the next Daddy Yankee, even if the guy looks more like Enrique Iglesias.
“Come on, Cairo,” I jeer from my chair, where another hairstylist is putting the finishing touches of beachy waves into my hair. “Can’t you handle a little bling?”
I hold up my own wrists, which are loaded with gold bangles to match the diamond-laced hoops the costume designer assigned me.
Can you imagine if you brought him home, Shams? Layla’s voice giggles in the back of my mind. I chuckle with her. I can imagine perfectly the expressions on my stolid Indian parents’ faces if their daughter brought home a Puerto Rican rapper.
“Carlos,” Cairo says quietly as he stares at his newly ringed fingers. He looks up, and his eyes pierce, even though the sunglasses. “That’s my name. Not Cairo. I used to be DJ Carlos when I first started mixing. But I did this tour opening for Abel Rodriguez in Europe when I was maybe twenty, twenty-one. The German announcer couldn’t read my name or something and pronounced it Cairo.” He shrugs. “My manager thought it was hot, so we kept it. It’s dumb, but I can’t lose it now.”
I can’t deny its appeal. DJ Cairo is a much better stage name than DJ Carlos, which just sounds like some kid messing around on turntables in his dad’s basement. But his voice lacks the bravado it had ten seconds ago, and when he looks up, his eyes are pleading. I’ve been involved in this industry for years, but still I forget how lonely it can be. When everyone thinks they know some version of you, eventually no one knows you at all.
Time to put on the nice producer hat. Sometimes talent needs their ass kicked. But sometimes they need a little coaxing to get the job done.
“Hey,” I say, sliding off my chair and padding across the tatami mats to where he stands. “Are you okay there, slugger?”
All right, so empathy isn’t really my best face.
Carlos tips the aviators down and examines me over the rims with a sardonic expression. The sun hits the silver edge and gleams. “Why, you gonna cheer me up, pretty?”
The cocky musician is back.
I scowl. “I just need to make sure you can perform. I’m not your fluffer, asshole. I’m the producer.”
“No, I’m the producer,” he corrects me.
“Not on this video, you’re not.”
This time he takes off his glasses completely, and I’m struck once more by how penetrating his gaze is. “Do you always talk to talent this way?” he asks.
I snort. “Did you just refer to yourself as the talent?”
His gaze doesn’t waver, but before he can answer, Blake pops up between us.
“Okay,” he says. “We’re about ready to film the first sequence. The original plan was to juxtapose three separate parties, back and forth between them, so the audience can see how Cairo rolls. The pre-party, the beach party, and the one at night. Make sense, Shama?”
“I like it,” I said. “What comes first?”
“First we need to do the pre-party. The set-up. Just a few friends hanging out at the beach. Cairo starts rapping. It’s chill, everyone is drinking, laughing, having a good time, and as the beat heats up, so does the party. We’ve already done a lot of the basic shots of the beach crap—hot bodies, volleyball, you know. But we need you two. This is where you meet.”
Carlos grins at me, his teeth bright white. “You should give me a dirty look like you did in the studio.”
I glare at him.
“Yeahhhh,” he says. “Just like that.”
Blake smirks.
I just shake my head. “Okay, so after that, then what?”
“Then we’ll do some work with the group as the sun starts to go down,” Blake says. “That’s got to move the fastest so we can get the light. I’ll be working with Cairo while the other cameras are on the crowd.”
“Show me,” I say, beckoning for the shot list. It’s pretty simple. There are five cameras rolling at the same time to get as much as possible to edit later. I’ve seen Blake’s videos before. His work tends to be on the spontaneous side.
“The end is at night. After everyone goes home.” He looked to Carlos. “Originally we were going to shoot you by yourself, but since you added Shama’s voice to the hook, I’m thinking it should be with her too.”
Carlos nods. “Yeah, I like that. Sort of what happens when the lights go out?” Again, he shoots me his cheeky grin. “The afte
r party, right?”
The way his voice slides over the words leaves no doubt what kind of party he’s envisioning.
I scowl even more.
“Just like that,” Carlos says again.
I hand the shot list back to Blake. “Everything else ready?”
He nods.
“Good,” I say. “Because thanks to this guy, we don’t have any time to lose.” I yank on Cairo’s arm, ignoring the way his slick, oiled skin feels warm and very hard under my hand. “Come on, you. Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter Six
Shama
Two days later, I’m tired, hot, and really cranky. Unfortunately, Blake is as much of a perfectionist with his videos as Carlos is with his songs. Shot after shot after shot after shot, which meant that when I wasn’t actually being filmed myself, I was working double duty to make sure the extras wouldn’t wander off, help the crew prepare for the next shots, while we were all racing the sunset.
So now I’m sick of the beach, sick of this song, sick of baby sundresses, sick of being covered with gold body paint, and really sick of watching silicon-lipped models gyrate all over Carlos. It’s not because I’ve spent approximately eight-five hours with the man staring into my eyes like I’m the only person he sees. It’s not because we had to pretend to almost-kiss for at least an hour or because I can still remember what his cologne smells like. It has nothing to do with the fact that I fell asleep last night with my vibrator in hand because I cannot get the asshole out of my head.
And he knows it. He has to fucking know it. Every time he catches me scowling at one of the girls, he smiles. Every time he sees me staring at his finely-formed ass or those should-be-illegal arms of his, he smirks.
It’s getting harder and harder to keep others on task when I’m losing my focus. That’s what’s making me cranky.
But finally, it’s Saturday night. It’s the last scene of the video, the one where it’s just me and Carlos, alone on the beach at night. The “after party.”
“You two can rest on the blanket for a while if you want,” Blake says, gesturing toward the giant setup at the top of a dune. “Just don’t move, okay? We don’t have time to start from scratch.”
Carlos and I sink down onto the rug. The designer basically created any woman’s dream date, with a giant kilim rug dotted with cushions, candles, scattered fruit, and tiki torches all around us. It’s basically a sex pad in the middle of the beach, and if we weren’t surrounded by a crew, it would probably be doing the trick.
We sit for a long time while the lighting crew works to get things right. No one knows how much waiting happens on a video set.
Carlos lays back on the rug, and eventually, his eyes closed. Not for the first time, I notice how thick his eyelashes are, resting against his pale skin. In the moonlight, he looks almost ghostly, like a pirate.
His eyes open, and he offers a lazy smile. “You checkin’ me out over there, pretty?”
I snort. “Just making sure you don’t pass out.”
“Whatever. You’ve been staring a hole at me for two days, mami. How long has it been? One year? Two?”
My jaw drops. “Um, excuse me, Mr. Sexual Harassment. That is none of your business.”
He shrugs, lying back again and closing his eyes. “You gonna tell Blake on me? Report me for a couple of jokes when you’ve been throwing shit at me for days?”
Finally, I lie down too. I’d rather look at the stars than his smug face. “I just want to finish this crap tonight so I can start my vacation properly.”
“Vacation? What vacation? Don’t you live here?”
I shake my head. “Technically, not anymore. I was taking a few days on the beach, staying at a hotel when Gary called. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Leaving for where?”
I toy with the hem of my skirt. “Delhi. I’m taking a year off to do some documentary work.”
I wait for that familiar “how nice” or something equally trite. It’s the response I always get when I tell people my plans. They look at me like I’m a child who wants to play make-believe, not a grown woman with her own dreams. I might as well say I’m leaving L.A. to find a frog to kiss.
“Passion project?”
I turn. There isn’t a drop of placation on Carlos’s face. In fact, he’s watching me intently.
I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. I’m just really tired of producing.”
“Well, it’s not your work, is it? It’s managing someone else’s.”
I perk up more, surprised that he gets it. “That’s right.”
He sits up and balances his arms over his knees. I sit back up too.
“It was like that with this album. I worked on it in secret for...shit...two years? Maybe more?” He draws a line in the sand with his finger, tracing a box and then a circle inside it. A turntable. “For ten years, I made music for other people. Wrote their beats. Mixed their shit. Charted artist after artist.”
“Hey, you did win a couple of Grammys.”
That sly smile makes another appearance. It’s tinged with an adorable shyness, though, instead of the cockiness that comes out around others. “I was a producer, like you. I wasn’t onstage or nothin’. Those wins never really felt like mine.”
I shrugged. “It’s still an impressive achievement, especially considering how many voters don’t like hip hop.”
“Impressive, maybe.” Carlos shrugs, his big shoulders rippling under the moon. “But a real artist has their own voice. They need to speak their truth.”
His words echo my truth, the truth that was driving this whole crazy trip I was about to begin. “So what’s the documentary about?” Carlos asks.
“I...I don’t know yet.” I stare at the weave of the kilim rug, wondering who made it. If it’s authentic, lifted from a souk in Marrakech, or if it’s a knock-off from Bangladesh. Both places sound worth exploring with my camera. “I’ll have to see what I find.”
The other truth is, I want to create my own art, but I don’t know if I’m really an artist. I won’t know if I have a real voice, a real truth, until I try to speak at all.
The idea is terrifying.
Carlos sighs and looks up at the stars. “I’ll never get tired of this.”
I look up too, welcoming the change of subject. “The stars? I guess there are a few out tonight. Better than most nights.”
He nods. “You can’t see them in New York at all, ever. It’s the only thing I like better about the West Coast.”
I nod. After spending four years at NYU, I remember yearning for my parents’ house in New Jersey. The glow of Manhattan obscures everything but its own corona.
“So where’d you grow up, Sparks?”
“Montclair,” I say. “Not far from the city, but close enough.”
He whistles. “Montclair is nice.”
I nod. “Yeah, it is. I was lucky.” I consider my parents, who still live in the same split-level house where I grew up. Still have the same La-Z-Boy furniture that smells faintly of cardamom and coriander. Every day, my mother cooks and cleans, tending to her empty nest while my dad goes to work. In another few years, maybe he’ll retire.
“What about you?” I ask. “You’re from the Bronx, right?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, the Kitchen. Forty-ninth Street.”
“Really? That’s funny.” I smile. “I actually have a friend who grew up on that street too. Well, he’s my best friend’s husband. You don’t know a Nico Soltero, do you?”
For a second, Carlos gives me a funny look, and again, I’m struck with that faint sense of déjà vu.
“Ah, I’ve heard the name,” he says. “It’s a big city, though.”
“He and Layla are the best,” I continue. “They live in Riverdale now with their kids. Tiny happy little family.”
“You sound a little jealous.” Carlos lies back on the rug.
I sigh and lie back again too. Above me, Cassiopeia spreads her arms wide like she wants to give me a hug. It really is
a magical night. Usually you can’t see more than the brightest of stars here.
“Maybe I am a little,” I admit. “I don’t know. I’m not in a hurry to get married or anything, but I think it would be pretty amazing to have the kind of partnership they have. It’s hard to explain if you don’t know them, but from both sides, it was love at first sight. They had their hard times, but I have never met a couple more devoted to each other.”
My parents suddenly spring to mind with their quiet dedication. Not all love is passionate—they are a good example, an arranged marriage that evolved into a beautiful partnership over the years. That’s not something I could ever do, but I respect them for it.
“It would be pretty amazing,” Carlos agrees. “Ambition has its own price. It’s tough being alone.”
I turn. “Are you really alone? It seems like there are always people with you. Or who want to be.”
Carlos just shrugs. “You can be with all sorts of people and still feel alone.”
I ponder that for a moment, considering who has been around him. Video girls. Techs. That kid Joaquin who seems to exist just to pump him up. I definitely spotted a few people trying to slip him tapes or cards. To DJ Cairo, the hitmaker.
I wonder if anyone knows his real name.
“Yeah,” I say. “I can see that.”
For a few more minutes, we gaze up at the stars, and it’s like the crew bustling around us doesn’t exist. All I can feel is Carlos’s warm shoulder against mine, sense the gentle shift of skin on skin as our breath causes our bodies to move.
For a moment, I don’t want to leave L.A. at all. Not if I could stay on the beach with him.
Whoa. Where in the hell did that come from?
“All right, guys, ready?”
We stand up to find Blake poised with a couple of camera guys. The hair and makeup team come in to fluff my hair and straighten my dress (blue this time).
Carlos gives me another shy smile. “Ready to finish this thing, Sparks?”
Unaccountably shy myself, I nod.
Bad Idea- The Complete Collection Page 110