Can't Stop the Shine

  “You’re the big sister. You’re supposed to set an example for Mari.” Kalia could smell the tea on her mother’s breath. “Who’s idea was this anyway?” asked Elaine, shifting her attention to Mari.

  “I…well…see…It was my suggestion…but,” said Mari, her eyes growing big as her father stood and moved closer to her.

  “You girls aren’t old enough to drink—that’s it,” said Ronald, staring down at Mari. “I don’t care whose idea it was. If I catch either of you ever drinking again—ever—you will be grounded until I die.”

  “You aren’t to leave this house for anything but school for two weeks,” said Elaine, “and don’t think you’re going to be getting on the phone and chatting your friends up. There’s no phone, no television, no anything that has to be plugged in—that includes the Internet, unless it’s homework related. And believe me, I’m gonna be on you.”

  Kalia thought about practicing for the Fire final. “But, Ma, what about the Fire contest? We might have practice or meetings or something.”

  Her father turned to her. “Well, I guess you should have thought about that before you turned into Boozing Betty.”

  Mari had been stewing in her seat. She thought about the Christmas parties she’d surely miss and blew up. “Daddy, you come home every day and have three beers before you even take your coat off. How are a couple going to hurt us one time?” Mari stood.

  Ronald froze for a second and started toward his younger daughter. Elaine blocked his charge. Thank God, Mari thought.

  “Girl, don’t you ever question me in my house again,” said Ronald over Elaine’s head. “When you start paying the bills here, then you can have some say. I don’t know who you think you are.”

  Ronald walked out of the kitchen. Elaine looked after him.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t let him knock you into next week,” she said to Mari. “You know what? I want this house to be as clean as the day we moved in.”

  Kalia and Mari stood still.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Elaine shouted. “You’re not going to just sit in your room and read and do homework. These two weeks are going to be productive. You’re cleaning this house from top to bottom. Get to it.”

  Shaking her head and throwing them both an exasperated look, she walked up the back stairs.

  “You and your bright ideas,” said Kalia, turning to her sister.

  “I didn’t have to twist your arm.”

  “Well, now we can’t do anything.”

  “You don’t do anything, anyway,” said Mari, pushing the chairs underneath the kitchen table.

  “Shut up.”

  “You shut up.”

  “Both of you shut up,” said Elaine from upstairs. “And get to cleaning. Don’t make me have to come back down there.”

  Kalia and Mari looked at each other and began two weeks of the most intense cleaning they’d ever done.

  About a week later, Kalia had three finals in one day, including one where she had to play a piece by Mozart, and the chorale had a Christmas performance at the end of the week. She was stressed and really needed to relax. Luckily her parents had let up enough to allow her to practice for at least an hour after school. She was on her way to a practice room when she spotted a familiar-looking guy in the hallway. As she approached him, it became clear that it was Malcolm. She stopped for a second, trying to decide what to do. They hadn’t spoken or seen each other since the night of the Fire preliminary show.

  Malcolm started walking toward her. She just stood in the middle of the hallway, watching his features get clearer the closer he came. She loved his confident, laid-back stride. By the time he was close enough for her to see the words on his T-shirt, If It Ain’t Real, It Ain’t Right, she’d sworn to herself five times that she wasn’t going to let him apologize his way back into her good graces—and she certainly wasn’t going to hug him, even though he looked good enough to eat.

  To her surprise, Malcolm didn’t say anything. He walked straight up to her, grabbed her by the waist, pulled her to him and hugged her so tightly, she thought she was going to faint, then he took her hand and escorted her to her favorite practice room. He led her to the piano, sat her down and walked over to the corner, sitting down in a chair. Kalia didn’t really know what to do. She put her hands on the keys, but nothing happened.

  Malcolm got up and kissed her once, very softly on the lips. He walked back over and sat down in the corner. Kalia started slowly playing a tune she’d never played before—something she hadn’t heard before. New lyrics of love, patience, forgiveness and understanding spilled out of her mouth. Malcolm came over to the piano, whipped out a notebook and started writing down the lyrics.

  “You’ve got something here, baby,” he said. “That’s real emotion there. Go with it.” Kalia looked up at Malcolm and felt a surge of creativity. They spent nearly an hour writing what ended up being, “Just Us.” She’d never really written a song before. She’d flirted with lyrics and had ideas about songs, but she’d never put them down on paper.

  When they were done, Malcolm told her he’d hold on to the song and maybe one day she could record it for her debut album. Kalia almost jumped his bones. Just like that, he was forgiven and they were back together. They never spoke of the night he left her performance and ran off to meet with his record company connection.

  Kalia drove home in a daze, only to find Mari meeting her at the door. “Dewayne has stopped by here like three times looking for you,” she said. “Are you not dealing with him anymore or something? If so, I wish you’d tell him. He’s driving me crazy.”

  “Have you forgotten that we’re on punishment?” asked Kalia. “That means no company.”

  “Now you know Ronald and Elaine don’t care about Dewayne. He ain’t nobody anyway,” said Mari, following Kalia into her room. “And what are you all smiley about?”

  “Nunyah.”

  “What?”

  “Nunyah bizness.” Kalia smirked, kicking her shoes into her closet.

  “Ha ha. Very funny. Is that the type of thing you learn from a college man?”

  “Umm, umm,” said Kalia dreamily. “He’s got more important lessons to teach.”

  “So you saw him, huh?”

  “What?” said Kalia, snapping back into reality. “What are you talking about?”

  “Kalia, I know you,” said Mari, sitting in her sister’s computer chair. “So y’all back together. Well, that’s good ’cause I’m trying to meet some of his friends.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Kalia. “Your little drinking idea already got me grounded for at least another week. If the parents found out I introduced you to some college guys, I’d be in prison until I went to college.”

  “Well, how about a brother? Does he have a younger brother?”

  “No, and even if he did I wouldn’t subject him to your craziness,” said Kalia, changing into a pair of shorts.

  “What are you talking about? I’m just as sane as everyone else in this house,” said Mari, swinging her legs back and forth under the chair. “So does he have any sisters?”

  “What, are you a lesbian now?”

  “No, silly. You just really haven’t told me anything about him, and I can tell you really like him. Give me the lowdown on Mr. Malcolm. I don’t even know his last name.”

  Being that she really wasn’t the girlfriend type and talking to Dewayne about Malcolm seemed a bit weird, Kalia hadn’t really talked to anybody about her new love, so she sat down on her bed and told her sister about her boyfriend. She recounted the time she and Malcolm had gone to his father’s house, which was right down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, not too far from the Atlanta University Center. Ten years ago, when he’d relocated himself and his only child from Oakland, California, to Atlanta after the sudden death of his wife, Tyrone Lee let his activist orientation lead him to living in the heart of a community that could certainly use his conscientious initiatives.

  “That’s his daddy? Tyrone ‘Get
It On’ Lee? The one who was down there protesting the close of the first Paschals? Remember Daddy was all up in that drama because it was about a black-owned restaurant?” asked Mari.

  “Yep, that’s him,” said Kalia, “and actually he’s real cool. We had dinner over there a couple of times. His house has all this African art and more books about black people and African people and just people of color all over the world. He’s really intelligent.”

  “Every time you see him on TV, he’s got on those African shirts. What do you call them?”

  “Dashikis. He’s got a kazillion of them, too.”

  “So is Malcolm all black power and everything?”

  “Well, he knows a lot about black people, but he’s really more into music. You should see how many albums he has. It’s like thousands.”

  “For real? Dang,” said Mari. “Well, how old is he? What year is he at Morris Brown?”

  “He’s twenty and technically a sophomore, but he’s not in school right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, you remember all that stuff on the news when Morris Brown lost their accreditation? He decided not to register for classes. He was thinking about trying to transfer to Clark Atlanta or Georgia State, but he owes some money to Morris Brown and well, there’s just some drama going on with his college stuff.”

  “Sooooo what? Is he just deejaying?”

  “Yep. He’s deejaying all over the place. He’s playing somewhere like every night, and he’s actually trying to get a deal. You know how deejays get record deals for their mixed CDs?”

  “Ooh yeah, like um, DJ Kid Capri. That means he might be meeting all those stars like Snoop, Nelly and Ludacris.”

  “I guess,” said Kalia, getting up and straightening up her dresser.

  “Well, if he doesn’t have a brother and you won’t let him hook me up with some of his college boys, the least I can get is an introduction to T.I. or Young Jeezy or somebody.”

  “Uh, no,” said Kalia.

  “Aw come on. I can’t even meet the Nite Bandit? He’s just got a radio show.”

  “Okay, I’ve had enough of you. Get out,” said Kalia.

  “But…”

  Kalia pointed to the door. Mari stuck out her tongue at her sister as she skipped out. She was on her way to her room when she spotted Dewayne through her parents’ window coming up the driveway. She knew Kalia was going to give him the brush-off, and for some reason she didn’t want Dewayne to get his feelings hurt, so she bounded down the stairs and opened the door before he could even make it to the front steps.

  “So how many times are you going to come over here today?” she said, leaning against the door.

  Dewayne stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. “I just wanted to talk to her about something. I know she’s home, so just tell her I’m here, okay?”

  “Man, she just got here, and she’s getting ready to do some homework and stuff. I’ll just tell her to call you.”

  “Mari, what’s up? Don’t make me have to come up in there.”

  “All right,” said Mari, turning around. “Come on in.”

  Dewayne followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table. She walked slowly up the stairs and dipped her head into Kalia’s doorway.

  “K, Dewayne is downstairs.”

  “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know. That’s your friend,” said Mari, walking to her room. She heard Kalia saying, “I really don’t feel like dealing with him right now,” then she heard her sister walking downstairs. Mari had barely gotten started studying for her psychology final when she heard the front door close and Kalia walk back into her room. She went to her parents’ room and looked out the window to see Dewayne standing in their front yard, looking at the house across the street, she guessed. She grabbed her jacket, rushed downstairs, threw open the front door and ran down the front steps. She slowed her pace, approaching him.

  “So what’s going on? What’s your deal?” she asked him, checking to see if there was mail in the mailbox as an excuse to be outside.

  “Huh?”

  “What was all the rush-rush to see Kalia?”

  “Oh, it was nothing.”

  “Nothing didn’t bring you over here four times in two hours. You could have at least called a couple of those times,” she said, sifting through the mail.

  Dewayne ignored her, sitting down on the front steps. Mari stood in front of him.

  “Hey,” she said, “I’ve got this idea that I need you to help me with.”

  Dewayne said nothing. He just stared out toward the street.

  “I think that Kalia’s major competition in the Fire contest is going to be this girl who goes to my school—Asha Wright. We’ve got to do something about her.”

  “Do something? Like what?” Dewayne asked, looking at the ground and zipping up his jacket against the early December chill.

  “You know, find some way to get to her. Maybe find out what song she’s singing and tell Kalia, or I don’t know, find some way to freak her out right before she goes on. Shake her up or something before the show. She’s just too…too sumthin’…like arrogant. She really gets on my nerves.”

  “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”

  “You don’t have to get smart about it,” said Mari, rolling her eyes. “I thought you’d want to help me help Kalia, seeing as that’s your friend and all.”

  “Is she? Is she really my friend?” asked Dewayne.

  The angst in his voice really caught Mari off guard.

  “What—what are you talking about?”

  Dewayne shook his head. “I don’t know.” He turned to Mari. “So is it really serious between her and this guy?”

  Mari didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t want Dewayne to be hurt any further. He already looked like someone had stepped on his heart.

  “I guess. I don’t know,” she lied. “I mean you know we’ve been on lockdown. Neither one of us is getting out much, so she can’t be really seeing him too tough.”

  “But you know, we haven’t really kicked it in a while, and she’s always telling me she’s got something to do, and she never calls me back.”

  “Dewayne, I thought you and K were, you know, just friends?”

  “I guess we are. I guess that’s all we are,” he said, getting up. He started to cross their driveway.

  “Don’t be a stranger, man,” Mari called out after him.

  Not even turning around, Dewayne walked into his house, leaving Mari sitting on her front porch feeling sorry for him.

  When Mari woke up on Christmas morning, she wasn’t even excited. For one thing, she’d hated the third page, below-the-fold placement that her story about a visiting African professor had gotten in the East Moreland Review. She was also still slightly annoyed that, although she’d finished her first semester of tenth grade with four As, she had gotten one B in, of all things, Early World Literature. She’d studied especially hard for that final, and when her grades came in the mail a few days ago, she literally had to sit down when she saw her B.

  She rolled over, really not wanting to go over to Auntie Cheryl’s. Sleeping late and getting her Christmas money a few hours later would have been just fine with her. That was all her parents had given them for the last two Christmases anyway, so the thrill was gone. Her father didn’t even put up the fake Christmas tree that year. Taking a quick shower, she remembered the big deal her parents, especially her mother, used to make about Christmas, even after the big dinner had moved over to Auntie Cheryl’s. The preparations began early—really early. Although they didn’t go to church all year round, her mother would start getting the guilts right after Halloween, so by the time Christmas came, the whole family would have made it to at least five or six Sunday services so that they could celebrate the birth of Jesus in good conscience.

  A few weeks before Christmas, her daddy would string a million lights around the house and surprise them with a live tree one night. That evening was almost b
etter than Christmas Day because her mother would cook a big meal, after which they’d put up a ton of other decorations—wreaths, angels, poinsettias, candles and anything else of which they could think—until they’d almost fall asleep hanging all of the ornaments, garlands and their favorite, the silvery icicles, on the tree. Right before the girls went to bed, their father would affix a lighted star on top of the tree and make a big production of plugging the whole thing in.

  Drying off, Mari could almost taste the gingerbread men and milk on which she and Kalia would snack while dreamily watching the lights on the tree flash off and on. She missed waking up Christmas morning smelling her mother’s famous pecan pancakes and sausage. She missed them all sitting around the tree, opening gifts before they went to Auntie Cheryl’s. Putting on a pullover and some stretch jeans, she padded down to the kitchen to find her mother mixing something in a bowl.

  “Merry Christmas, darling,” said Elaine, turning around to greet her daughter.

  “Ma, what are you doing?” asked Mari, surveying the ingredients of what looked like Christmas breakfast of yesteryear on the counter. “I know those aren’t pecans.”

  “Surprise,” said Elaine, grinning. “Wanna help?”

  “Woo-hoo,” sang Mari, grabbing an apron from a drawer. “What’s got into you? You haven’t made this breakfast in years.”

  “I don’t know. Things have been kind of strange around here, so I thought a good Christmas breakfast could get us started off right today.”

  “I am so not mad at that,” said Kalia, coming into the kitchen. “I’ll make the sausage.”

  Mari went into the family room and turned the stereo on to Hot 103.5, just in time to hear Kalia’s favorite Christmas song, James Brown’s “Santa Goes Straight to the Ghetto.” They were deep into cooking and dancing around the kitchen when Ronald appeared, fully dressed.

  “Wow,” he said. “What’s going on in here? Something smells good.”

  “We thought we’d have a real Christmas breakfast this morning,” said Elaine. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No…uhh…no thanks,” he said, grabbing his keys off the rack. “Elaine, can I talk to you for a minute?”