Text copyright © 2014 by Stephanie Perry Moore
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moore, Stephanie Perry.
Turn up for real / by Stephanie Perry Moore.
pages cm — (The Sharp sisters)
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Slade dreams of being a singing sensation but as the middle daughter of a mayoral candidate and a habitual loner she faces many challenges as she learns just how difficult surviving as an artist can be.
ISBN 978–1–4677–3726–5 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–1–4677–4659–5 (eBook)
[1. Singing—Fiction. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction. 3. Sisters—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. African Americans—Fiction. 6. Christian life—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M788125Tur 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2013044040
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 – SB – 7/15/14
eISBN: 978-1-46774-659-5 (pdf)
eISBN: 978-1-46777-440-6 (ePub)
eISBN: 978-1-46777-441-3 (mobi)
In Memory of
Whitney Houston
You songbird, you… your lovely voice
blessed me.
Thank you for living a life with passion,
purpose, and soul.
I love how you pursued your dream at
a young age and
turnt up for real with your first hit,
“Saving All My Love For You.”
May all who read this series be as
relentless as you were.
You left a legacy of inspiration in
your music. Now heaven is richer …
miss you!
CHAPTER ONE
SECLUDED
My hips were swaying from the left to the right, poppin’ to the beat. My breasts perked up as the spotlight shined down on me. I started making love to the audience as I sang my first few notes. The crowd went wild. I was on stage. I was in my element. My dance moves were on point, and my melody was stellar.
“Slade! Slade! Slade! Slade! Slade!” I was hype until my eldest sister, Shelby, punched me, waking me from my dream.
“Slade, what’s wrong with you? We’re about to sing happy birthday to Ansli, and you’re in your room dreaming again? Come on, girl! It’s not always just about you,” Shelby shouted.
It was never about me in the Sharp household. Yes, I had my own room and my own space, but I had to share a bathroom with my two sisters who were a grade younger than me. I was salty because my two sisters who were only a grade older than me shared a bathroom between their rooms, and it was much larger than the one the other three of us had to share.
“You didn’t have to punch me,” I said to her.
Giving me a huff, she said, “Well, we’ve been calling you forever.”
“Forever? Really, Shelby?” I said, frustrated with my big sis.
Shelby loved to exaggerate. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy that my family was finally gelling again. Over the last month, our world was turned upside down when Ansli found out that her father shot her mother and then took his own life. She originally thought her biological parents were killed in a car crash. There are five sisters. Three of us were biologically connected—me; Shelby, my older sister; and Sloan, my younger sister. Ansli, who was the same age as Shelby, and Yuri, who was the same age as Sloan, were biological sisters that my parents adopted.
For years our parents didn’t tell Ansli and Yuri that crucial fact. When Ansli found out, she was livid. I think she now understood that Mom and Dad were doing the best they could. They were already young parents with three children, and then they had five. Ansli thought she wanted to live with her maternal grandparents who lived England, which is a place she’d never been to. But once they finally came to visit—and who knows how much those tickets cost—she now knew this was home. I could have told her that. I could have saved them all that money, and they could’ve helped me cut a demo for my record, so excuse me if I wasn’t all excited with the family bonding.
“There you are,” my mom said as soon as I came into the family room.
It wasn’t like I was missed. Everybody in the house was paired up with someone. Shelby and Ansli were best friends. Sloan and Yuri were too, and then that left me. My mom and dad had each other, and Ansli and Yuri’s grand–parents had each other. My older sisters’ boyfriends were at the house earlier, but they were both gone now.
I didn’t understand why they always wanted me to be a part of the family. I always felt left out. Nobody could get that. However, when it was time for entertainment, they called on good ole’ Slade.
“Lead us off in happy birthday!” Sloan demanded, bossing me around like she was older than me. But because I loved to sing anywhere, any place, any time, I began, and everyone joined in.
“You sing so beautifully,” Ansli and Yuri’s grandmother came up to me and said after we finished.
“Thank you. It’s the only thing in this world that I want to do.”
“But she needs to get a real dream,” my mom piped in.
“Well, I sang in the opera,” their grandmother, Mrs. Sanford, stated proudly.
I guess that shocked my mom. She stopped ragging on me then. Ansli’s grandmother basically was saying, “Go for yours, young lady,” and that’s exactly what I intended to do.
My parents were attorneys—smart people with a very lucrative bodily injury practice. “If you get in an accident, insurance companies want to cut your money? Call on Sharp and Sharp, and make sure you’re not cut out of a thing” was their commercial. I could hear it playing over and over again in my mind. I so wanted to sing a jingle for them, but they weren’t hearing it. I knew I would have to create something, play it for them, and then they might let me perform it. However, I didn’t have the personal funds to do that. Every dime I got came from my parents.
We lived in a gorgeous, three-story, brick house. With seven thousand square feet we had plenty of space. The five bedrooms that we girls slept in were upstairs. My parents had their master bedroom on the main floor with a guest bedroom across the hall and off the kitchen. The guest bedroom was where Ansli and Yuri’s grandparents were staying. Knowing that all the activity was upstairs, I went down to the basement.
I couldn’t hang out with my sisters. Shelby and Ansli were all excited to talk about their boyfriends. Who knew what Sloan and Yuri were talking about, and I didn’t really care. I just needed to chill. When I went downstairs to turn on BET, MTV, or VH1, I wanted to be inspired. The TV was on a premium movie channel, and my eyes locked in on a naked guy and girl doing some things that I had never seen before in a bed. I couldn’t seem to change the channel. I was appalled, but intrigued. Something inside of me that had never been stirred before got all wet and gooey. The lady was on top, then on the bottom. What was going on
with me? I’d never been interested in this kind of stuff before, but I was frozen in front of the TV.
“Oh my gosh! Slade, what are you watching?” Yuri yelled out.
I turned, and my eyes widened at the sight of my two younger siblings. I felt dirty.
“You’re a nasty heifer,” my sister Sloan called out.
“It was on here. It’s not like I turned it to this,” I tried explaining.
“But it’s not like you turned it off either,” Sloan quickly challenged. “You need to get somewhere and pray.”
Quickly, I got up and turned off the TV. I tried to go upstairs, but Sloan blocked my view. Yuri touched my shoulder. They were ticking me off.
Yuri said, “Are you going through some sort of crisis? Ansli just went through one. Maybe you need to talk to Mom.”
Huffing, I grunted, “I don’t need to talk to anybody, and you don’t need to say anything either, okay? Is life ending? Am I going to hell?”
“Maybe!” Sloan yelled out.
“Ughh! You first, chick,” I retorted.
I was so frustrated at them, at myself, and, if I was being honest, at the fact that I didn’t get to see the end. What was going on with Slade Sharp? Usually I could tell anyone anything about me, but at that moment, I was far from having it all together. My world was not crystal clear. I wanted to be a singer, but it didn’t seem like that would ever happen. Also, I wanted to feel good, and I had no idea where that came from. So many crazy emotions. I just ran all the way upstairs to the bathroom and took a hot shower. It probably needed to be cold, but whatever.
“So you guys going to my pageant or what?” I said the next morning to all of my sisters, who were sprawled out in the basement living area like they had a party and didn’t invite me.
Granted, the pageant wasn’t supposed to start for another four hours, but I had to be there early. Usually when someone in our family had something big going on all of us got excited, all of us supported, and all of us made a big deal out of it. This wasn’t just some random talent show I was entering. This was the big Miss Teen Charlotte Pageant.
“What time does the thing start?” Sloan said in a voice that was hardly interested in going.
I answered, “One.”
Sloan vented, “Well, it’s morning. Bye!”
All of them were growling like they were bears ready to hibernate for the winter, so I just said forget it and went upstairs to pack up to leave. I had a sour face, but as soon as I opened the door to my bedroom, there was my mom holding up a garment bag.
“My baby girl’s gonna be so cute today! I had to get you this number.” She unzipped the garment bag, and the sparkly, strapless, silver gown was stunning.
“I didn’t think you were going to get me a new one,” I said as my eyes teared up. “I honestly didn’t think anyone cared.”
“I know we’ve got a lot going on around here. I know we’ve had one crazy thing after another, particularly with this election, but Slade, I hear you. You told me a few weeks ago that you needed a new evening gown, and you didn’t want to recycle what your sister wore to the prom last year. Let’s be clear, though. You’re a junior. You’re wearing this new number to the prom this year.”
“Okay, Mom! No problem!” I said in a truly happy tone.
“I’ll be ready to take you in about fifteen minutes. When it’s over, you can ride home with us. Knowing your dad, there’s probably going to be some event that we’re going to have to attend. I can’t believe we’re a month away from the election!”
“He’s going to win, Mom,” I said, reassuring her.
She wrapped an arm around me and squeezed as if I was cold. “I’ve got a feeling he’s going to win too. And Slade, if you think we’re under the microscope now, well it’s going to be magnified if he is mayor. Until he actually wins, I’m just taking it day by day. With elections, things get nasty, and who knows what somebody will do to derail his bid.”
“Yeah, but who’s going to win if he doesn’t? Mr. Brown, the Republican? Everyone’s talking about how he’s a womanizer and doesn’t have a chance.”
My mom looked at me like I shouldn’t say such things, but it was the truth. My birthday was at the end of the month on Halloween, and I’d be seventeen years old. She needed to stop trying to shield me from stuff.
“And then the other guy who’s the independent, does he even have a following?” I asked, showing my mom I wasn’t just a cute face.
“He’s gaining momentum. A lot of the Republicans are putting their support behind him, but don’t worry about any of this political stuff. You just get pretty, princess. You’re going to win tonight!”
I loved how she supported me. She made me feel like I could do anything. She was always pumping me up—well, except she didn’t think singing was a real dream.
Thirty minutes later, my confidence waned. When I arrived at the historic Renaissance Theater, there were twenty-three other girls competing for the crown already there. Twenty-four of us total—the largest number of contestants that this pageant has had in a while. We’d been practicing over the past few months, but this was the big day. I kept to myself. That was just my M.O. With everything going on in my family, I felt more comfortable making sure that people liked me for me and not for whose daughter I was.
It wasn’t just a pageant. We’d actually been going through different classes to refine us. We had a modeling workshop, an etiquette session, a public speaking workshop, and a fashion do’s and don’ts time. In addition, we’d been doing public service projects. We spent time at the old folk’s home and with little kids at nursery schools.
I thought I had the pageant on lock. The problem was that we weren’t able to see each other’s talent, but when we were at the old folk’s home last week, another contestant, Miss-Prim-and-Prissy Charlotte Ray, struck a chord. I was blown away when I heard her sing so great for them and had been trying ever since to step up my game. Now that it was the day of the show, it was time to compete, to show what I was made of, and to be ready to give it my all, but my vocal cords were acting up.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t compete,” I said, pacing back and forth.
I didn’t even realize Charlotte was listening. “I got a tea bag, and in this lunch pail is an emergency kit,” she said. “Honey, a dab of apple cider vinegar, and some cinnamon. Go put all of this in some hot water, and you’ll be fine. If that doesn’t work, we can always pray.”
“You’d pray for me?” I asked her, feeling bad that I’d been so jealous of her.
“Yeah. You’re the stiffest competition in this thing. If you don’t compete, I won’t get any props if I win. And if I don’t win, I’d certainly want the winner to be you. I’ve heard you sing. You’re phenomenal.”
“I’m phenomenal?” I said to her, still in dis-belief. “You’re amazing.”
“Yeah, but I can’t answer the questions like you can. It’s like I know what I want to say. My dad’s been interviewing me around the house, I should be good at it by now. He’s the superintendent of the schools, for goodness sake, and that’s all he’s been doing is grilling me, but I still can’t seem to nail the questions. I think that’s going to get me today.”
“Your dad’s the superintendent of schools for Charlotte city schools?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know because I was in private school, but now I’m at Marks.”
“That’s where I go. Everybody who is anybody is a Maverick,” Charlotte said.
“I haven’t seen you around,” I said.
“We’ve only been at school for two months. I think I’ve seen you or a girl who looks like you. I don’t know.”
“That was probably one of my sisters.”
“Oh, I wish I had sisters. I have two brothers. One older and one younger. Having sisters would be heaven.”
“Stick with the brothers. A ton of sisters is drama.”
“You’re funny,” she said to me. “Isn’t it crazy? We’ve been in the same place fo
r some months now, and we’ve never talked. Most of the girls here paired up. I’ve seen you alone sometimes, and I wanted to come over and say something to you, but I know how pageants and stuff can be, so I tried once and you looked away. I guess I just felt like you didn’t want to be bothered, but is it bad that I’m glad your throat was trippin’?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes. That’s the opposite of you saying you wish I was okay. That’s what you said a few minutes ago, but I didn’t think it was real because this is a competition,” I said, truly skeptical and needing her to explain.
“No, I meant that, but I’m saying if your throat wasn’t hurting, then we never would’ve got a chance to talk. I think you’re cool, and hopefully you think I’m cool. We go to the same school, so who knows? Maybe this could be the start of a friendship.”
Then Ms. Easley, the pageant director, came in.
“Girls, we don’t have time for chitter-chatter. You all need to get dressed in opening outfits. We’re going to do a run-through.”
This was the first time that I got to see Charlotte do her thing on the stage. That girl was posing really cute on the runway. I started out cheering for her until she started her talent. When she sung, she had choreography, and it was like a Broadway stage play. It wasn’t some hip-hop number like mine. Hers was more meaningful. I just knew I was going to lose.
Three hours later the two of us were standing backstage, getting ready to go out as the two finalists of Miss Teen Charlotte. It was coming down to the questions, and Charlotte was so nervous that she was shaking, and her face was turning pale. The competitor in me vanished. I grabbed her and made her cold body warm as I rubbed her bare shoulders.
“You can do this,” I shared. “Whatever they ask you, take in the question. Think of why you want this so bad and nail it.”
We were both standing on stage. She did nail the question, and after hearing her answer the question really well, when I was asked the same one, I stuttered. She was crowned Miss Teen Charlotte, and I rushed off stage, feeling like I’d just been played.
“Slade! You can’t run off the stage, sweetie. You’ve got to go congratulate the other girls,” my mother said, finding me backstage and telling me what I needed to hear, but not what I wanted her to say.
#3 Turn Up for Real Page 1