by Danyel Smith
Sunshine, blue skies, please go away.
“Sun,” Eva says sharply, “don’t play that.”
But Sun waves her off. Then Sunny starts singing her part, and her brother’s parts. Rays of light come from her mouth. D’Artagnan can sing—his voice is undeniably lovely. But his sister got to the table first. Sunny Addison’s voice is otherworldly Strong. Full. Beyond beautiful. She has almost too much inside her. Her voice is trembly when it gets big, barely able to contain the searing love and searing pain of a sun’s heart. That’s what listening to Sunny is like—you’re watching her, hoping she’s going to keep it together, knowing, hoping she’ll hit those notes, match the sweetness of the last time you heard her, touch your every sadness and happiness like she always does. Sunny makes you worry, though, because she has that little tremble in her voice—but then she hits it. Not the high note, though she hits that, too—but the emotional note, the love note the hate note the true note. And you can’t take it. You have to listen and cry or laugh or dance or do whatever it is you’re moved to do.
Listen, I gotta cry, ‘cause crying thins the pain.
And then, right there in front of a reporter from Groove, Eva Glenn—power woman, executive supreme—starts weeping. Not just a tear or two, but sobs. Sunny keeps right on singing. And Glenn doesn’t excuse herself, or care even that I’m there. She flips off her pumps, places her bare feet on the hot ground. With her legs uncrossed I can see a horrible, V-shaped scar on her calf. Under the V are four blue, round dots. They look like the kind of tattoo girls get in juvenile hall. Addison sings more loudly, a strong angel swaying before her own cherry-orange sunset.
Raindrops will hide my teardrops, and no one will ever know.
Eva Glenn has to have heard the song hundreds, maybe thousands of times—either the Temptations’ version, or Sunny and D’Artgnan’s version, or the many other adaptations out there—but when Sunny Addison sings for you like maybe she used to when she brought down the sky for quarters in parks in the flatlands of San Diego, you have to cry.
Because everything seems possible.
Maybe someone can understand me. I understand her.
That’s what you think.
For a few moments, there was no industry churning behind our Sun. There were no deals.
It didn’t last, though. The song ended. Sun dashed off, said she had to call her brother. Eva’s cell chirped out a kicky ring tone. She told me I could go in a snappish way that meant I should have been gone. She ran her hand over her tattoos, slipped back into her pumps.
But for a few verses, it was bliss. Everything came together. Nothing hurt.
It’s music. Thank God for it. We all cried.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Janelle and Reginald Jones.
Thanks also to Raquel, Parker, Hunter, and Marco Williams.
Thanks to Lottie Fields, Victoria Jones, and Brandon Wells Jones.
Thanks to Robert and Cherrie Carter.
Thanks to Nicole Jones. Thanks to Khalief, David, Maiya, and Zoe. Thanks to Amorette Brooms.
Thanks to Gail Clifton, to Robert Stoller, to Mary Fletcher and her family, and to Romaine Clifton.
Thanks to April Jones, Candi Castleberry-Singleton, and Karen Lewis Farrelly
Thanks to Karen Renée Good for her listening ear and constant friendship. Thanks to Tamara Warren.
Thanks to Dayna Clark for her sisterhood, friendship, and for all the homemade CDs.
I would also like to thank the Millay Colony for the Arts, and the New School Writing Program, as well as agents Paula Balzer and Sarah Lazin.
Thanks to the Wilsons—Berta, Elliott Sr., Steven, and Kenny.
Thanks to my own Wilson—Elliott Jr.—for the love, and for pushing me out of my holding pattern.
Thanks again to Chris Jackson for his encouragement, expertise, and guidance.
Thanks, too, to everyone who’s ever written or performed a song.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANYEL SMITH is one of the best-loved music writers of her generation. A former editor at large for Time Inc. and editor in chief of Vibe, she also wrote the introduction to the New York Times bestseller Tupac Shakur. Born and raised in California, she now lives in New York City. Visit Danyel at nakedcartwheels.blogspot.com.
Also by Danyel Smith
A lyrical coming-of-age story of two sisters raising themselves in beautiful, drug-ravaged Oakland, California.
“Lyrical and original … Smith has created vivid characters, a palpable sense of place, and a wholly absorbing story.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Danyel Smith fuses a wildly intelligent coming-of-age story with a morally complex take on the devastating costs of poverty and racism—a tale that deals in hard truths and, ultimately, forgiveness.”
—Elle
“Smith’s light, sinewy prose sings with precision.”
—Washington Post Book World
“At once a deeply felt coming-of-age novel and a love letter to her native Oakland, More Like Wrestling navigates that mapless, limnal space between childhood and adulthood.”
—Vibe
“An impressive, impressionistic tale … ultimately beautiful, and in its way, miraculous.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
MORE LIKE WRESTLING/0609-80993-8/$12.95 paper (Canada: $19.95)
Available from Three Rivers Press wherever books are sold www.CrownPublishing.com
Copyright © 2005 by Danyel Smith
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2005.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Danyel.
Bliss: a novel/Danyel Smith.-1st ed.
1. Americans-Bahamas-Fiction. 2. Sound recordng industry-Fiction.
3. Pregnant women-Fiction. 4. Single women-Fiction. 5. Music trade-
Fiction. 6. Abortion-Fiction. 7. Bahamas-Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.M575B58 2005
813′.6-dc22
2004029302
eISBN: 978-0-307-51460-8
v3.0