Can't Stop the Shine

  “Me, too. Where were you when you heard? Let me tell you where I was,” bubbled Mari. “No, this is your moment. You tell me. Where were you? Where are you now?”

  “I’m still in the car. That’s where I heard it. Me and Dewayne,” said Kalia, looking at Dewayne, who was doing a celebratory dance next to her.

  “Dewayne is there? Hit that fool in the head for me. Anyway, I’m so excited for you. This is so tight. So, what’s next? What do we do now?”

  “Well, right now I’ve got to go to class.”

  “What? You’re going to class? You need to be celebrating.”

  “One of the requirements for participating in the contest is to maintain a B average, so that’s why I’m going to class.”

  “Don’t worry, Mari,” yelled Dewayne. “I’ll make sure she does some kind of celebrating.”

  Kalia looked at Dewayne quizzically.

  “Look, Kalia, I gotta jet,” said Mari. “I really do have to go to class. I took a bathroom break from chemistry class and ran to the computer room to hear it on the Internet, so I really gotta get back. I’ll catch up with you at home. Lata.”

  Mari walked into the house one evening after a late cross-country practice and found Kalia slumped over on the piano. She just stared at her sister for a while in total admiration. For the last few weeks, Kalia had been in near hibernation, practicing so diligently for the upcoming Fire competition in December that she disappeared off the scene. Mari could hardly catch her between school and vocal practice—she was hemmed up in both. She walked over and looked a little closer at Kalia. She saw that her sister was tired. She looked exhausted. There were bags under her eyes and her trademark flip had flopped.

  Mari couldn’t believe it. Had she not witnessed Kalia furiously burning the candle at both ends, she would have taken the opportunity to wake her sister and clown her mercilessly about her appearance. Instead she gently woke Kalia who seemed too drugged with sleepiness to even care who Mari was. After helping her up to bed, Mari sat in a chair in Kalia’s room and watched her sleep for a bit, then all of the sudden, she got it. Kalia needed a break. Yeah, she needed sleep first, but after that, she needed to kick it.

  The timing was perfect, too, Mari thought as she hopped in the shower. It was homecoming. Kalia had never really been into sports, so all of the hoopla surrounding the event usually didn’t affect her, but this year, Mari knew she could get her sister hype about the festivities because Fire Records was producing a big halftime show during Clark Atlanta University’s game. Plus, the fact that Williams’s homecoming was the same weekend as Clark Atlanta’s should intensify her interest in all things homecoming related.

  Mari couldn’t wait to put her plan into action. She barely got her clothes on before she was on the phone with Dewayne, plotting to get her sister to not only the game, but the parties, too.

  “It’ll be cool,” said Mari. “We’ll just tell her that we heard through the grapevine that the other Fire contestants were going to be hanging out at the games this weekend, and she’ll definitely want to go.”

  “That’s the only way you’re going to get her to go,” agreed Dewayne. “I can barely get her to call me back or speak to me in school, she’s so busy. You know she gave up one of the leads in chorale because of Fire?”

  “Yeah, she told me,” said Mari. “She also said that she’s thinking about not trying out for the spring musical this year either because auditions are in the fall. Kalia has been in her school’s musical since ninth grade. She’s all about Fire.”

  “I know what you mean. She’s always running from class to the practice studios, sipping on hot water with lemon and honey. She’s so theatrical.”

  “What she is is serious,” said Mari. “I came home tonight to find her asleep at the piano. Head down and everything.”

  “For real? Yeah, I guess it’s time to take some action.”

  “She’s not going to listen to me either. She thinks all I wanna do is party anyway.”

  “Well that’s true, ain’t it?”

  “Shut up.”

  “You must not want me to help you talking to me like that,” Dewayne threatened.

  Silence.

  “All right, all right,” Mari said. “Look, I just need some backup, okay?”

  “I got you, hot lips.”

  “Don’t push it.”

  Mari didn’t need much help at all. As soon as Kalia found out about Fire’s involvement in Clark Atlanta’s homecoming, she was primed and ready. She even decided she’d go to Williams High’s homecoming to get herself prepared for Clark Atlanta’s. Mari was so amped that her sister was finally showing an interest in Williams High activities besides school and vocal practice that she stayed up under Kalia. They spent the week before the homecomings combing the malls looking for something to wear to both games and Williams’s party.

  On homecoming Friday, Kalia, Mari, Shauntae and Colby all piled into the Camry and headed to the Williams game. When they arrived, Kalia met up with Dewayne, and they split off from Mari and her crew. The plan was to meet up later at the homecoming party in the gym.

  It was an unusually warm early November in Atlanta, nearly eighty degrees, so Kalia was right on time in her cut-up Billie Holiday T-shirt (sliced by Mari), low-rider stretch bronze jeans and chocolate-brown stacked boots. After Mari teased up her normally conservative flip, threw some bronze sparkle on her face and shoulders and slid bronze gloss across her lips, Kalia’s transition was complete. She was a little nervous about her new look until she got out of the car at the stadium and was treated like a hottie by several of her male classmates.

  “Dang, girl,” said Dewayne. “You’ve got these dogs around here dragging their tongues on the ground. What’s up with the getup?”

  “Just trying a little something new,” she said, fluffing her hair. “Whadya think?”

  “Well, it’s sure a different you,” said Dewayne, looking her up and down. “I’ve never seen you in anything tight before. I didn’t even know you had all that.”

  “All what?”

  “All that back there.”

  “You keep your eyes away from my back there,” said Kalia, putting her hands on her behind.

  “Girl, you can’t wear second-skin glowing pants and think that a man ain’t gonna look,” said Dewayne, looking around at the men ogling his friend. “I’m gonna have to be your bodyguard tonight.”

  “Come on, fool. Let’s go.”

  The next day for the Clark Atlanta game, Kalia had on another funky outfit. This time Mari had her in some psychedelic low-waisted jeans and a fuchsia baby T that read Play in metallic silver on the front and At Your Own Risk on the back. The boots were black and stacked. The makeup was shimmering and sexy.

  “I guess the Chosen One is gonna have to escort you again tonight,” said Dewayne when Kalia answered the door, looking like she’d stepped off the cover of Vibe magazine.

  “You dig?” she asked, spinning around.

  “I do,” he said with a wink and a smile.

  “All right, so let’s be out,” she said, bopping down the front steps and throwing over her shoulder, “Ladies, the car’s leaving in thirty seconds with or without y’all in it.”

  Everybody was squeezed in the car, and they were just about to back out of the driveway when Elaine came running out the front door, yelling for them to wait.

  “Damn. We almost got away clean,” said Shauntae.

  Kalia tried to avert her shimmering face as her mother closed in on the car.

  “Ladies, ladies, ladies—and gentleman,” she said, peering into the car, “where are we off to today? I thought homecoming was last night.”

  “It was, Ma,” said Kalia, “but Clark Atlanta’s is today.”

  “Ooh…so you guys are going to a college game? And that’s it, right? No college parties for anybody because none of you are in college.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said everyone in the car.

  “Oh, Ma, there’s another like post
-homecoming party that this guy from Williams High is having tonight. Can we go to that?” asked Kalia.

  “Whose party is it?” said Elaine, looking closely at Kalia, who was fumbling in her purse for anything that would keep her from looking directly at her mother. “And where is it?”

  “It’s just this guy’s party we heard about, but I can call you later and tell you where it is,” said Mari.

  “Do that,” advised Elaine. “Kalia, what is that on you face? And what have you done to your hair?”

  “I’m just trying out some new styles for the Fire contest,” said Kalia, fingering her spiral-curled style.

  “Okay, young lady. Just remember that. You’re a young lady, not a grown woman.”

  “Oh my God.” Shauntae moaned.

  “Did you say something, Miss Washington?” asked Elaine, staring into the back of the car.

  “No, ma’am,” eked out Shauntae. “I just had something caught in my throat.”

  “Umm, hmm,” said Elaine, moving away from the car and walking toward the house. “You kids have a good time. Be safe.”

  Backing out of the driveway, Kalia was too excited. She’d had to beat the guys off her at the Williams party, and now she was going to try her new look out on some college men. Much to everybody’s surprise, she cranked up the crunk on Hot 103.5 and rolled out.

  Mari, Shauntae and Colby were nowhere to be found.

  “I don’t know where they are, but I know they better show up soon,” said Kalia. “We told them we’d meet them at Applebee’s. That’s where they said they were walking to.”

  “I told you we should have stayed with them,” said Dewayne.

  “Your self-righteousness is not doing me any good right now.”

  “Touchy-touchy. Look, let’s just find them, okay?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do, Dewayne,” said Kalia, slamming her hand against the car door.

  Neither said anything for a few minutes.

  “Okay, let’s think about it,” said Kalia. “Where could they be? It’s almost nine o’clock.”

  “Maybe they went somewhere with those dudes they were talking to.”

  “They better not have. They don’t know those guys.”

  “Well, they did seem to be trying to get all of the information about that party they were talking about.”

  “What party?” said Kalia, looking intently at Dewayne.

  “Oh, that’s right, Miss Hottie, you wouldn’t know. You were so caught up in that Phat Farm dude.”

  “Okay, he was fine, so what? You jealous?”

  “Naw, that’s not it,” said Dewayne, looking out the passenger window to hide his hurt. “I’m just saying, he was like a junior in college, probably twenty-one, right?”

  “I don’t know, I guess. Look, what are you getting at, Dewayne? What does this have to do with finding Mari?”

  “Nothing. Maybe they went to that party. They sure weren’t going to a Williams’s party tonight. They had that look in their eyes.”

  “Well, where is this party? Did you hear where it was?”

  “Somewhere near the campus. I heard one of those dudes say it was off MLK. Some place called Atlanta Live or something like that. It can’t be too far from the stadium ’cause I heard Shauntae tell Mari that she’d been before and that they could walk right over there.”

  “Okay, well let’s find it.”

  An hour later after asking a bunch of college students about the club and standing in line for another half an hour, Dewayne and Kalia walked into Atlanta Live, which was literally underground. They paid ten dollars apiece and had blue bands affixed to their wrists, proving they were underage.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to find them in here,” said Kalia, looking back over her shoulder at Dewayne, who was squeezing between two beefy guys with huge beers in their hands.

  “What?” said Dewayne, surveying the crowd of scantily clad women and hip-hop dressed guys. He was having a hard time hearing Kalia over the thumping baseline of T.I.’s latest hit.

  Kalia stopped to wait for Dewayne, but the crowd kept pushing her and she found herself in the middle of the dance floor, which she noticed was bare concrete. She looked desperately for Dewayne, and everyone around was throwing their hands up to the beat. Suddenly she thought she saw the back of Colby’s head. Making her way through the crowd toward the deejay booth in the front, she realized it was Colby. She’d almost made it to her when the deejay went old-school and so did the crowd.

  Swept back to the dance floor by people wopping to Slick Rick’s “Bedtime Story,” Kalia craned her neck to see if she saw Mari in Colby’s direction, but it was no use. When a guy with the smoothest skin she’d ever seen grabbed her hand and started dancing with her, Kalia gave in. The party was winning. She just had to go with it. Soon enough she had her hands around his neck, and he had his on her waist. They were dipping to the left and the right, she was sweating, he was sweating and neither cared. The deejay took them away in a mix of old-school hip-hop hits hot enough to make a tribute show for BET.

  Twelve songs later, Kalia was still dancing with a dude whose name she didn’t even know. The music was way too loud to even exchange “What’s up?” She’d totally forgotten about her sister until she heard Mari’s voice on the mic.

  “I’d like to give a shout-out to my sister, Kalia. She’s out there dancing with that fine-ass man. Kalia, you’ve got that fire, girl! Get it, girl.”

  “Hey, that’s my sister,” Kalia said to the guy with whom she was dancing.

  He just nodded and kept dancing. She knew he didn’t hear her. She looked hard at the deejay booth, trying to see Mari, but the nearly nonexistent lighting only allowed her to see a few feet in front of her. Deciding she needed to find her sister, she pointed toward the deejay booth and danced that way, pulling her cutie with her. By the time she got near enough to the booth to see inside, Mari was gone, but the music was pumping. She threw her hands up in the air, knowing the deejay was going to wear her out. He went from old-school to a reggae set and started blending dirty south booty shake. When he segued into some new Fire Records’ crunk mixes thrown over a classic Biggie beat, Kalia went wild. She closed her eyes and didn’t even see when her fine partner danced away.

  She felt a set of strong hands grasp hers in the air. They moved together. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at a picture of Che Guevara against a barrel chest. The strong hands brought hers down to her hips and both sets rested there as she looked up into the face of her captor. Piercing brown eyes with the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen held her gaze.

  She felt his well-lined beard graze her cheek as he bent down toward her ear.

  “What’s your name, queen?”

  Every inch of her skin tingled at the sound of his baritone. She thought she said her name, but apparently he didn’t hear it. Leading her off the dance floor, through the deejay booth and out the other side to a back room, he helped her sit in a chair near a desk.

  “Whew,” she said, pulling her hands through her sweated-out hair. Kalia didn’t even realize how whipped she was until she was sitting. “I must look a mess.”

  “Not to me,” said the guy. “You look happy, like you just had the best time of your life.”

  “What are you talking about? Wait. Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “I’m Malcolm, Miss Lady. What’s yours?” he asked, stepping closer to her.

  Looking at his short curly dreadlocks, gleaming white teeth and rippling arm muscles, Kalia felt a little warm, and it wasn’t because she’d just finished dancing like she’d never hear music again. This brother was fine.

  “Uh, I’m Kalia.”

  “Do you go to Clark?’

  Kalia wished so much she could say yes.

  “No. I, um, well, I’m still in high school.”

  “No kidding?” said Malcolm, moving back a few paces. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Oh, that’s cool then
. I’m twenty, so that’s only a couple of years. Are you thirsty? Want something to drink?”

  Kalia was just watching his beautiful lips move, not really hearing what he was saying. All of her answers were a beat behind, and his last question didn’t even register.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Malcolm disappeared back through the deejay booth, which was being manned by a female deejay. Kalia had never seen a woman deejay before. She hadn’t even considered that a woman could be one. Kalia looked around the small room she was in, noticing all the party flyers on the walls, many of them touting DJ Malcolm Lee. She was just putting it together when he walked in with two bottles of water.

  “You’re DJ Malcolm Lee?” she asked, taking a sip.

  “The one and only.” He bowed.

  “So this is your party?”

  “Well I’m one of the deejays for this homecoming gig. DJ Fly Girl is out there ripping it now. She’s got some serious skills.”

  “I’ve never seen a woman deejay before. That’s kinda cool.”

  “She’s one of the best in Atlanta. People don’t even know yet,” said Malcolm. “So how do you feel? You looked like you were going to pass out there for a minute.”

  “Is that why you kidnapped me back here?”

  “Well, I did want to get you alone,” he said, stroking his chin, which barely hid his kilowatt smile. Kalia noticed an ankh ring on his ring finger.

  “That’s a nice ring,” she said, purposely changing the subject. “That’s an ankh right? Egyptian?”

  “Smart girl, I see.”

  “Woman,” Kalia corrected.

  “Oh yes, woman,” he said, hoisting himself on the desk next to her. She could smell the musky essential oil on his skin.

  She looked up past his well-defined jawline into those lashed eyes again and quickly averted her face away from his intense gaze, hoping to avoid him seeing her blush. Her eyes landed on his watch, which, to her alarm, read 12:45.

  “Oh my God.” She jumped up, knocking over ledgers and papers on the desk. “Is it really almost one o’clock?”