The Most Beautiful

by Mayte Garcia

  Hi, my name is Mayte. I saw your show a few weeks ago. I noticed you had some Middle Eastern vibe in a song you played. I wanted you to see my Belly Dancing. I hope you like it. Oh and I’m 16 years old.

  The following day, as Jan and Mama and I made the two-hour drive to Mannheim, I started to have doubts about the length and quality of my demo tape, thinking maybe I should have done something new like Mama suggested, but it was too late for that now. I could only comfort myself with the certainty that there was no way on earth that Mama—no, not even Mama with her impressive Puerto Rican Mama superpowers—would actually get that tape to Prince.

  We arrived early again, intending to go straight for the barricades to make sure we’d be front and center like we were in Barcelona, but we weren’t able to get in. We had to stand outside the gate for a while.

  “Whoa,” said Jan. “Here comes the tour bus.”

  The windows of Prince’s bus were heavily shaded, but the band bus windows were only slightly tinted. Mama saw Prince and Rosie Gaines inside, and she started to get excited. I didn’t see them, but I was happy to be there, so I smiled up at the windows and waved.

  Years later, Prince told me that when he saw me standing there with Jan and Mama, he said to Rosie Gaines, “There’s my future wife.”

  “Really?” I said when he told me.

  “Yeah. I said, ‘There’s my future wife,’ and Rosie laughed.”

  “What made you say that?” I wondered—and I still wonder.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I thought I was joking.”

  He liked how the universe boomeranged that little joke back to him. Or maybe the universe smiled and nodded and let him think that it was a joke and not the memory of something about to happen.

  As we stood there, one of the dancers doing his after-party girl-patrol duty recognized us from Barcelona, and before we knew what was happening, he was leading us through the gate to the open area in front of the stage. In the brief moment we were home in Wiesbaden, Jan had managed to twist her ankle, so she was on crutches, hobbling along. I walked after her, clutching my bag to my chest, feeling the sharp corners of the VHS tape box until Mama took it from me and started scoping for the opportunity to accomplish her mission.

  The dancers, Tony, Damon, and Kirk—“TDK” as I would soon come to know them—were inside this huge warehouse sort of space, playing basketball with some roadies. We stood there watching, not knowing what else to do.

  “Whoa,” Jan whispered in Spanish, “he’s here.”

  Prince was not tall, but he was muscular, and there was an aura of vibrant energy about him. He was sure and light on his feet in a way that made him seem larger than life. I had to remind myself to take my next breath, and in that split second, Mama beelined over in that direction, brandishing my belly dancing tape.

  I gripped Jan’s hand. “Oh, wow. Oh, God. What is she doing?”

  Mama didn’t get within ten yards of Prince, of course. His bodyguard stopped her and said sternly, “Sorry, ma’am. You can’t be here.”

  She backed off but informed the bodyguard, “You haven’t seen the last of me.”

  I was mortified. Horrified. Dying a thousand deaths. Prince observed all this before he disappeared into the sound booth. I stood there feeling like the Incredible Shrinking Woman. Mama came back to where we were standing, not bothered at all by this small setback.

  “Mama,” I hissed, “why did you do that? You’ll get us kicked out.”

  “He needs to see you dance,” she said with great conviction. “Yo no tengo pelos en la lengua.”

  Jan and I heard this old Spanish expression from Mama a lot while we were growing up. Strictly translated, it means “I don’t have hair on my tongue”—Mama’s way of saying she wasn’t afraid to open her mouth and speak her mind.

  “Just—please! Just be cool,” I said, though I didn’t even know how any of us would be able to do that in this situation.

  The Dutch band Lois Lane, who had opened for him at the last concert, came out onto the stage and did their sound check. The other openers were Germany-specific; he often scheduled local or regional bands for opening slots on his tours. Something I truly loved and appreciated about Prince during the years we worked and lived together was the way he took artists like these—and like me—under his wing. When he saw talent that intrigued him, he got the artist in front of people, and his seal of approval meant a lot—in the audience and in the industry. He lifted them up above the noise so they could be noticed. Any band or artist opening for him would be seen by millions of people when all was said and done, and that gave him great happiness. He loved it when good art got the attention it deserved, so he surrounded himself with people who inspired and pushed him, and he inspired and pushed them back.

  I glanced toward the basketball court, where Jan was now smack in the middle of the game, stumping around on her tragic little ankle brace and still holding her own with the boys. When I looked back at the stage, some of the musicians who would soon become the New Power Generation were preparing to do their sound check. Prince was standing there looking at me. I quickly looked away. When I looked again, he was still watching us.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered. “We are so kicked out.”

  But the basketball game continued, and for a while, nothing happened. I was doing my best not to look at the stage, telling myself that, no, you cannot feel someone’s eyes on you from across the room. Eventually, he went downstairs, and the game broke up as the roadies went about their duties. Kirk, the nicest of the three dancers, came by, and Mama changed her approach.

  “Excuse me,” she said sweetly. “We don’t know how to do this, but my daughter—she’s a belly dancer. She’s been talking about how wonderful you all are ever since we saw you in Spain. She would just love for him to see her work. Do you suppose you could give him this tape?”

  Kirk laughed and said, “Sure. I’ll be right back.”

  She handed the tape to him, and he took it. Just like that. I can’t even guess at the look on my face as he went off down the stairs. If there ever was proof of the sturdy Catholic teaching “Knock and the door shall be opened unto you,” this would certainly be it.

  A moment later, he came back and said, “So I gave him the tape. He took it. He’s watching it now.”

  “Are you serious?” I said—and again, people, the expression on my face… I can’t even.

  “Yeah. He saw you standing out here, so he took it.”

  I heard myself say something like, “Oh. Okay.”

  A few minutes later, the second bodyguard—the one who’d intercepted my mom on her first attempt—came back to us and said, “Hi. Prince saw your tape. He wants to meet you.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “I have to ask,” said the bodyguard, “how old are you?”

  “I’m sixteen. Like it said in my letter.”

  He turned to Mama and asked, “Is it okay if she goes downstairs?”

  Obviously, he did not know my mom. Before the words were fully out of his mouth, she was nodding. Ecstatic. “Sure! Yes! Go!”

  A side note here: Yes, I was sixteen, and he was Prince, so there was an element of Oh, my god, I’m about to meet Prince!, but my mother trusted me to handle myself because she’d seen me handle myself as a professional for several years in a lot of different situations. Standing backstage at the Maimarkthalle, we hadn’t seen anything that looked like stereotypical rock-and-roll tour shenanigans or substance abuse, and I was so deeply honored that he wanted to meet me.

  I followed the bodyguard down a passage that seemed to have a thousand steps. The sound of our feet echoed off the cement walls. Or maybe it was the sound of my heart pounding. I remember thinking, Oh my god oh my god oh my god this is actually happening. We turned the corner, and Prince was standing there outside his dressing room, shaking one of those little Easter egg maracas. He looked every bit as put together as he looked onstage, but with a lighter touch, a bit more oxygen. His hair was long a
nd had been straightened to a soft wave that touched his shoulders. His eyelashes were unfairly lovely, and his beard was precisely tailored. (He always did this himself during the years we were together; the barber was never allowed to touch it.) He smelled like the most expensive shelf in the Sephora perfume aisle. I didn’t process it then, but I look back now in awe that this man wearing eyeliner, heels, and ladies’ perfume somehow managed to be more masculine than the burly bodyguard.

  He said, “Hi.”

  And I said, “Hi.”

  I felt calm, suddenly. A peaceful feeling passed through me. Not from him. From within myself. It was that feeling that I belonged here, in the right place at the right time. I hadn’t evolved enough at that point in my life to even consider the deep philosophical questions I’d soon be discussing with him—the third eye, the migration of souls, the great spiral staircase we climb up and down—so I didn’t question the feeling then, but these days, when I revisit that moment in my heart, I feel this reassuring ping. Oh, it’s you! Here you are. It comforts me to think that I’ll feel it again in another time and place.

  “I like your tape,” he said.

  “Thanks.” It sounded short and nervous in a trying-not-to-be-nervous way, so I added, “I edited it. I didn’t want you to get bored.”

  “Bored? How can dancing like that be boring?” He laughed the contagious laugh I would come to love.

  “I have the whole version if you’d like to see it. And more tapes. Other tapes.”

  “Are you really sixteen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.” He nodded and bounced the Easter egg on his palm. “Would you like better seats?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” We’d spent our time trying to get backstage instead of getting inside the barricade, so we didn’t actually have seats.

  “We’ll hook you up.” He glanced over my shoulder at the security guard, who nodded. “Well, I’d like to talk to you more, but I gotta get ready for the show. Can I get your number?”

  “Okay. Sure.” I felt something like a fire alarm going off inside my stomach.

  “Okay. I’ll call you.”

  “Okay.”

  It felt like my cue to leave. The entire encounter had lasted all of forty seconds, but it felt like we’d stepped outside of time. The security guard directed me toward the stairs again and said, “Prince wants your family to sit in the VIP seats. I’ll get your information after the show.”

  The VIP seats turned out to be folding chairs next to the sound and light boards. The show onstage was every bit as electrifying as it had been in Barcelona, but this time I saw it from the inside out. I heard the TD (the tech director) calling every cue on his headset and watched with geeky fascination as the backstage crew wrangled the boards, light banks, scaffolding—all the inner workings of a rock concert. My entire paradigm had shifted by the end of the show; I never lost my appreciation for what a crew does to make the show appear perfect to an audience. Meanwhile, my own brain was buzzing with anxiety over the details of how this was all going to work out. I’d tucked my business card in the tape box, but what if it fell out? What if they lost it? How would he get my phone number? What if he called before I got home? Daddy was there. He’d answer and go full Rockefeller. I perched on the edge of my chair, wanting to scream for seven different reasons.

  As we were leaving, the bodyguard came over and asked for my number. I wrote it down very clearly on a large piece of paper and handed it to him. As the bodyguard walked away, I saw Prince run over, grab the paper, and hop into a waiting limo.

  I seized Jan’s arm. “We’ve got to go. Now.”

  This was before the days of cell phones and voice mail. If he rang and we weren’t home, we would miss the call. And we were not about to miss that call. Mama drove like a madwoman all the way home. When we burst in the door, Daddy was asleep on the couch.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “You don’t even know—” I started, and then we were all talking at once.

  The phone rang, and we all turned to look at it like we were in a movie. It was like, camera zooms in on ringing phone.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “It’s him.”

  Then we all dove forward to answer it.

  I was all, “It’s for me! You know it’s for me!”

  “I should answer it,” said Mama.

  “Oh my God,” said Jan. “Somebody answer it!”

  Daddy stepped in and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  It was the bodyguard. “Hi, can I talk to, um… Maaaa…”

  “Mayte. Her name is Mayte.” Daddy handed me the phone.

  “Hi,” I peeped.

  “Hi. He would like to talk to you.” The bodyguard didn’t have to say his name. I was put on hold. I was dying. My family was dying. Moments ticked by.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi…” I couldn’t say “Prince”; I was afraid that if “Prince” came out of my mouth, I would immediately start screaming and running in circles. “Hi.”

  “I watched your video again on the way home, and I really liked it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can you come over?”

  “Come over?” That wasn’t the question I was expecting. I stopped breathing for a moment and said, “What do you mean?”

  “We didn’t get to talk much. Come over and hang out. We can talk more.”

  I wasn’t drawing any conclusions, but I wanted to make sure there was no room for doubt. “My mom and I could come over. And my sister.”

  “Cool. Where are you?”

  “Wiesbaden.”

  “Ah. I’m in Frankfurt. Do you want me to send a car for you?”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said. Because I knew Frankfurt was at least thirty minutes away for any respectable limo driver. In this situation, I could count on Mama to drive it in twenty minutes flat.

  “Bring more tapes,” he said before we hung up.

  On the way to Frankfurt, Mama drove with a controlled urgency while Jan and I took turns hyperventilating and freaking out when we thought she had missed the exit.

  Jan was in worrywart mode. “How is this going to work? We can’t just walk in and say we’re here to see Prince. I mean, what if they won’t—”

  “Everyone just stay calm,” I said, even though I was still screaming inside.

  Something I was about to learn about Prince: He would never allow anyone to be left hanging. If he invited someone to visit, he went to great lengths to see that they were comfortable and well cared for. When we arrived at the hotel, we saw a large black man standing out front, and because you don’t see a lot of black men in Frankfurt, we immediately knew that he was waiting to meet us. We were escorted down a sky-high hallway, with windows looking out over the city lights, to the presidential suite.

  From the moment the bodyguard opened the door, I felt like I was floating somewhere between the Grand Bazaar and Madame Abla’s salon. The air was heavy with candles, flowers, and perfume. Plush rugs covered the standard hotel carpeting. Veils covered the doorways and were draped over lamps and light fixtures, creating a softly diffused glow.

  This is called “foo foo,” I learned later, and Prince had a staff member dedicated to it. Wherever Prince went, it was the foo foo master’s job to go ahead of him and make sure the hotel suite would be a place where he could feel at home, recover from the dehydrating hard labor of a performance, and use what little downtime he had to rest, relax, and work on whatever he was working on next. The foo foo master would reconfigure the furniture and make sure the floor was layered in fluffy area rugs—purple or whatever color he was currently into. They used scrim and linen to swath anything that looked ordinary or sad and covered the windows with aluminum foil so it would be dark enough to sleep in the room during the day.

  One all-important task of the foo foo master was to make sure that there was a grand piano in the room, which was sometimes a challenge. I remember hearing about a hotel in London where the management, given the choi
ce of figuring it out or letting Prince stay elsewhere, had the piano hoisted up to the presidential suite with a giant crane. It was a pretty major hassle, but when Prince walked into the hotel room, he immediately sat down and played for two hours. When Robbie, the foo foo master at the time, told me about this, he was glowing. These people took a lot of pride in caring for Prince. He was conscious of the many people whose living depended on his stamina, and they understood the grueling physical and emotional demands he put on himself while he was touring. The foo foo was not about a pampered star’s outlandish demands; it was about this hydraulic engine being well maintained, fed, and rested enough to pull an entire train.

  To have that sense of comfort in unknown lands—this was a perk I dearly appreciated during the years when we were a couple. I looked forward to walking into a dressing room that had been preset with all the big and small things that made me feel cared for. It was lovely to check into a hotel and feel like we were coming home to our own life, at least, even if we were far from our own home in Minnesota. After our marriage ended, it took me years to get used to checking into a nondescript, neutral-toned hotel room.

  That first night in Frankfurt, Mama and Jan and I stood in the center of the room, trying to take it all in. Prince came out to greet us.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  In Germany, Jan and I were both of legal drinking age, but we were incapable of processing the question. Mama said she would like some water. We sat and made small talk for about twenty minutes. He was respectful of Mama and seemed eager to let her know that nothing inappropriate was going to happen.

  “I’m a night owl,” he said to me. “I hope your mom understands.”

  “Oh, she does,” I assured him. “Dancers are used to the night shift.”

  He asked Mama, “Would it be okay if we hang out for a while? I’ll send her home in a car later.”

  Mama was still scoping out the situation. “You’ll make sure she gets home in one piece,” she said pointedly.

  “Oh, absolutely.”