Can't Stop the Shine

  “Yeah, I know, but we’re just going to have to deal with it like everybody else does. Like who do we know whose parents are together? Hardly anybody except for Dewayne, and his parents are like zombies. It doesn’t even matter.”

  “I mean, we don’t even get to see Daddy much when he’s here. Now we’re never going to see him unless we go to the Frys,” said Kalia, sighing. “I really need to go home and study for my midterms.”

  “Ooh, yeah, me, too, and I’ve got a five-page paper due in European history, but I don’t really feel like going home right now.”

  “I need to practice, but I don’t even feel like singing anymore. I really don’t want to see Daddy leave. Do you?”

  “Naw, not really,” Mari replied, “but you gotta practice, Kalia. I know Ma and Daddy are going through their thing, but you can’t just not practice. The show is in like two weeks.”

  “Maybe I won’t even be in the show,” said Kalia.

  “Oh, you’re really trippin’ now,” said Mari. “You need something to pour all of that emotion into, and I need for you to do it ’cause you gotta beat Asha. You know it’s all about me, don’t you?”

  Kalia smiled at her sister. “I’ve got an idea,” she said, starting up the car. They drove to the nearest grocery store, went inside and bought a half-pint of chocolate chip ice cream and plastic spoons. They went back to the park, sat in the swings, reminisced more about their childhood and finished the entire carton.

  Chapter

  15

  Mari was determined not to let Asha beat her in the one hundred. Even though she did pretty well in cross-country, short distances were her thing, and the one hundred was her race. She’d used all her frustration about her parents separating in a couple of extra hours of practice in the last week because she wasn’t going to have a repeat of her losing streak in cross-country meets last fall. She was certainly not going to let Asha beat her in a track meet.

  She adjusted her shorts and shook her legs out, preparing to get down in the blocks. There was something about the first meet of the spring season, she thought, looking around the stadium at the sea of faces in the stands and on the field. She loved that the temperature was always just perfect, not too hot and not too cool. Humidity and rain would kick in in April, but in March, Atlanta felt good.

  Asha was in the next lane, stretching out her long frame. Mari thought it was so strange that although they were different in size they were competitive in the same race. She decided to run her own race and forget Asha was even there. She got into the blocks, and when the starter gun went off, she flew down the track. In her mind’s eye, there was no one out there but her. When she crossed the finish line, no one had to tell her she’d won, because she knew it in her spirit.

  She slowed down, and her world slowly came back into focus. The audience was clapping as she turned around to see her opponent bent over, breathing heavily. Asha straightened up when the winner was announced and her name wasn’t called. Walking past Mari to the bench she said, “You’re lucky I’m concentrating more on the Fire contest than I am on track.”

  “Whatever, loser,” said Mari, grinning. She grabbed a towel and dabbed at her brow. “I got skills, and so does my sister.”

  “We’ll see,” Asha said, walking away.

  “We sure will,” Mari threw after her. The rest of the meet went great for her. Her four-by-four relay team won, and she came in second in the 400, but she didn’t care because Asha wasn’t in that race. After the meet, she got congratulations from Kalia, Dewayne, Colby and Sean, who offered to take her out for a celebratory dinner. She was so excited about beating Asha that she’d left her gym bag on the field. On the way back to the car to meet up with Colby and her sister, she stopped to talk to some other team members and saw Asha’s mother, Roxanne, standing with a guy on the track.

  “Hey, Mrs. Wright,” she said as they walked by.

  “Oh, hello, Mari,” said Asha’s mother. “Didn’t I tell you to call me Roxie? I’m too young to be called Mrs. anything.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Mari giggled. “I totally forgot, Mrs…. I mean Roxie.”

  “You had a great meet today, huh? Just ran on past my little Asha,” she said, winking.

  “I guess,” said Mari, embarrassment creeping into her voice.

  “Yeah, you’re real fast,” said the guy with Roxie. “You must practice a lot.”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Mari, looking at the Sean John suit he had on, thinking he was a little overdressed for a track meet.

  “I hope your sister is practicing,” said Roxie, “because you may have beat my baby out here on the track, but on a stage? Pfft, that’s another thing.”

  “With all due respect, Mrs…. Roxie, Kalia is going to win next week. Trust me.”

  “Well, like Jesse Jackson says, you keep hope alive, baby.” She laughed, grabbing her friend’s arm. “Come on, Jackson. See ya, Mari.”

  Kalia was starting to get stressed. She’d had her last rehearsal with the band the day before, and it had gone well—actually even better than well since JD showed up and they’d gotten a chance to talk, she still couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she wasn’t going to win. There were only two days left until the final show and she was a wreck, she thought, closing her economics book. Trying to study seemed to be a waste of time. She’d read half a chapter on inflation, and she didn’t even remember what it was about. Looking out her window into the backyard, she thought about Asha and wondered what she’d be singing. She looked frantically around her room for something to clean or straighten, but her room was immaculate. She was just about to get in the bed and pull the covers over her head like she did when she was a child, when Dewayne walked in.

  “How’s it going, champ?” he asked.

  “I’m going out of my mind,” Kalia whined, holding up her hands.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, sitting down at her desk. “Tell big daddy what the problem is.”

  Kalia sat on her bed with her legs crossed. “Dewayne, I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Do what?” he asked, chuckling.

  Kalia gave him the evil eye. “I’m not talking to you. You’re laughing at me.”

  “No, I’m laughing with you,” he said, leaning over and tickling her on her stomach.

  “Stop making me laugh,” Kalia protested weakly, swatting him away.

  Seeing her smile, Dewayne took pride in his abilities. “The Chosen One is victorious again. See, that’s what you needed, some good old-fashioned tickling. Now don’t you feel better?”

  “No,” she lied, smiling widely.

  “Umm, hmm. So how about you take the night off and we do something fun? You’ve got like forty-eight hours before the show starts. Kicking it for a few hours isn’t going to hurt.”

  Kalia thought about it for a split second before she grabbed her jacket and they ran out the door. The next thing she knew, she was at the gaming restaurant, Dave and Busters, where after some chicken fingers, she and Dewayne got into a to-the-death battle of who could make the most free throws. At the end of the evening Kalia redeemed her tickets for a nice-sized teddy bear. Dewayne went home with a key chain.

  The next afternoon Mari and Colby swept in to rescue her from her worries by accompanying her to the hair salon and the nail shop, then they helped her work on her performance techniques and answer crazy judge questions they threw at her. They even encouraged her to practice blowing her winner’s kiss to the audience. Thinking that would jinx her performance, Kalia refused. Mari and Colby kept Kalia so distracted she really didn’t miss her mother’s involvement in the preperformance night shenanigans until she was snug in her bed. She thought about how much of a busybody her mother had always been the night before her performances when she was younger. She could never get her to leave her alone, checking and rechecking to see if Kalia had all of her costume or makeup or whatever she needed to be the star of the show.

  One thing she didn’t need was insomnia, she thought, fluffing her pi
llows. She couldn’t help thinking about how weird it had been in their house the past couple of weeks. They’d only seen their father one time since he’d left, and that was when he called them and told them to meet him at one of the Frys for dinner one night. Their conversation had been strained, and their father was kind of sad and pitiful. He kept apologizing, which made them uncomfortable.

  Turning over, Kalia thought her mother must be pretty uncomfortable, too, because she seemed to be making a point of never being there when she or her sister were. When she was home, she was closed up in her bedroom. Earlier in the week she’d walked up to her mother’s closed door. When she got close enough, she heard her mother crying quietly and decided against knocking. As much time as she and Mari had spent together in the last week, they really hadn’t talked much about their family situation. Ignorance is bliss, Kalia thought, drifting off. Her last thoughts were of her mother and how much she wished things would go back to the way they were when she was young and she knew in her heart that her parents were in love.

  She got up the next day, refreshed and determined. She and Mari grabbed a full breakfast of grits, cheese eggs, pancakes and sausage at the Waffle House and hit the road. Most of the next day was a blur. After a dizzying schedule of running around, including going back to the hairdresser for a touch-up of her style; to the tailor for her outfit, which had to be altered; and to the drugstore for some of her favorite Maybelline mascara, she made it to the Fox theater in time to relax for a few minutes before she had to get dressed.

  Mari, Colby, Sean and Dewayne had just left the dressing room when her mother walked in. They hadn’t really had a real conversation in a week, so Kalia was uneasy, although she was happy to see her.

  “Hey, Ma,” she said, swiveling from the mirror in her chair.

  “Hi, sweetie,” said Elaine, ducking under a dress that was being handed over her head from one person to another. “It’s wild outside. There’s some type of live radio broadcast going on outside the theater with a Cool Ice or something.”

  “Oh, it must be Cool Mike. He’s been pumping the show up with JD on Hot 103.5.”

  “JD, okay, whatever you say,” she said. “You know I don’t know these hip-hop guys. You should see the theater. I don’t want to make you nervous, but it’s really packed out there. I don’t think there’s a seat available. Why didn’t you tell me this was going to be on television?”

  “Oh, so much has been going on that I totally forgot,” said Kalia. “Do you know what channel?”

  “I don’t know. I heard somebody say it was going to be filmed like a local reality show or something.”

  “Really?” said Kalia, slightly distracted. Something was on her mind, and she didn’t know what would happen if she asked her mother about it, but she did know that she wouldn’t be able to perform if she didn’t get an answer.

  “Ma, is your friend here?”

  Elaine got a quizzical look on her face.

  “Your friend from the studio. Peter?”

  Elaine’s face dropped, and Kalia was sorry she’d brought up his name.

  “No, he isn’t here,” her mother said curtly. “Why would you ask about him?”

  Kalia copped an attitude—fast. “What do you mean ‘Why would I ask about him?’ I want to know if he’s going to be out there watching, if you brought him to a family thing?”

  “No, he isn’t here, I said,” whispered Elaine, guilt softening her voice.

  Kalia kept at her mother. “Well, is Daddy here? Do you guys even speak anymore?”

  Elaine really looked hurt, and Kalia was starting to feel guilty for pushing so hard. “Yes, your father and I have talked—several times in fact. He said he was going to be here. I’m sure he’s somewhere out there.”

  “Oh,” said Kalia, deciding to lay off her mother’s personal life.

  “Look, I wanted to give you something for good luck, and this is really all I could think of,” said Elaine. “It was your great-grandmother’s.” She pulled a maroon jewelry box out of her purse and handed it to Kalia. When Kalia opened it, a diamond-and-pearl bracelet lay delicately on crushed velvet.

  “This is beautiful, Ma. Thanks,” she said, scooting out of her chair and giving her mother a hug, the first since her parents had told her they were separating. When she tried to let go, her mother held her a little longer. She felt her mother’s heart beat against her own, and the warmth of her reminded Kalia of when she was young and used to snuggle in her mother’s lap as she read her bedtime stories. She missed being close with her mother as much as Elaine missed their tight relationship.

  Her mother fastened the bracelet on her arm, wished her good luck with a kiss on the forehead and rushed out of the dressing room, which was in a frenzy. The same madness from the preliminary show in December was going on again—contestants, parents, friends and stagehands were all zipping back and forth, questioning, shouting, laughing and generally turning the dressing room into a zoo, but Kalia didn’t care. She didn’t let anyone shake her inner resolve. Sitting in her chair, she looked carefully at herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw. She was ready.

  And it was a good thing because the stagehands were rushing everybody into place for the beginning of the show. Funny that she hadn’t seen Asha all evening until right before they were about to line up, then her fiercest competition ran in at the last moment in a fire engine-red minidress with sequins and spaghetti straps. Her lips were so red, her stilettos so high and her hair so wind-blown wavy, Kalia thought she looked like a runway model.

  All of the contestants held hands and mouthed “good luck” and “break a leg” to one another as the band started the Who’s Got That Fire? theme song. Then LaToya, Fire’s hottest female singer, came out on stage, sang the lyrics to the theme song and introduced the judges. Kalia rolled her eyes as Carter got the most applause then stepped out on stage with the rest of the contestants for their opening wave. Looking at all of the outfits worn by the contestants as they paraded around the stage, Kalia was pleased with her choice. Her shimmery rhinestone butterfly blouse and fitted tuxedo pants didn’t scream look-at-me-I-really-want-to-be-a-celebrity like Asha’s, but it also didn’t fade into the background. With deep berry lipstick, strappy stilettos and a real gardenia tucked in her hair behind her ear, her ensemble had just the right amount of funk and flash, Kalia thought as she gave her last wave at the audience before stepping off the stage into the wings.

  She started to go back to the dressing room, but changed her mind when she remembered that Asha went on second. Watching the first contestant completely let his nerves get the best of him had Kalia talking to herself about remaining calm and remembering to think about her performance as one that she’d done a million times in Williams High practice rooms or at home. She knew she needed to be that comfortable if she was going to perform well. Big Spinner clowned the first contestant, Lola felt sorry for him, and Carter rated him so poorly that Kalia thought the guy would cry. He walked straight through the rest of the contestants when he came off stage and Kalia bet right out the stage door.

  If she was nervous, Asha sure didn’t look it when they called her name, Kalia thought, watching her strut onto the stage swinging her hair like Naomi Campbell. When she heard the band play the first three notes of the song Asha had picked to sing, Kalia thought she would die.

  “That’s Alicia Keys,” she said to herself. “She’s doing Alicia Keys.”

  “Umm, hmm,” said the contestant next to her as Asha launched into “Girlfriend.” “I thought you always did Alicia Keys. Why is she doing it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kalia, her voice rising in pitch. She couldn’t believe that Asha was stooping to such a level to steal her thunder.

  “Well, are you singing this one?” asked the girl.

  “No, but still,” said Kalia, crossing her arms. She watched Asha work it out. The only person she’d heard sing “Girlfriend” better was Alicia Keys herself. Holding a long, drawn-out note at the end, Asha
had the crowd on their feet, but if she wasn’t mistaken, Kalia thought she heard a few boos as well.

  “I guess we’ve got more than one person who wants to be Alicia Keys,” said Big Spinner first off. Some members of the audience snickered with him.

  Asha responded to his jibe with only a plastic smile and a nod.

  “Well, I thought her performance was magnificent,” said Lola, “and that dress is, well, what can I say, fire.” Her comments elicited a roar from the audience, to which Asha graciously waved and mouthed, “Thank you” several times over.

  When Carter opened his mouth, a hush fell over the theater. Everyone was listening. “Yes, Asha, you did a great job. Your performance was energetic and very entertaining, and of course no one can be mad at you for having the Fire spirit in that dress.” The audience hooped and hollered. “I don’t know if it’s in the best taste to take someone else’s thing,” he added. “I mean Alicia Keys? What’s up with some originality? Thank you very much, and good luck.”

  Kalia was waiting in the wings as Asha strutted off stage toward her. Thoughts of tripping or just straight out clocking Asha filled Kalia’s mind. She resisted the urge and, instead, followed her to the dressing room. As she walked in Asha was with her mother and a guy.

  “Oh, hi, Kalia. Wasn’t Asha great?” Roxie gleamed, hugging her daughter’s shoulders. The huge bouquet of red long-stemmed roses in Asha’s arms perfectly complemented her outfit.

  Kalia couldn’t bring herself to answer Roxie, so she just smiled and nodded at all three of them and walked over to her dressing table, looking around like she had forgotten something. Picking up a tube of lipstick, she prayed she’d be able to scoot back by them and get out of the dressing room without further conversation. Luck was not on her side.

  “So what did you think of my performance?” Asha called to Kalia, just as she was about to make a clean getaway.

  Kalia thought she felt beams of electricity shoot out of her eyes as she turned toward her enemy. To her dismay, Asha didn’t disintegrate, but stood smirking in her direction. “It was Alicia Keys,” was all she could manage to get out.