The Accidental Diva

by Tia Williams

  * * *

  • • •

  And that was Yellow.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Same old thing. He needed cash so I hit him off.”

  “But you just got him a job!”

  “But he needs it now.”

  “For what?”

  “To get high.”

  “Why’d you give him money to get high?” Billie was outraged. “He’s supposed to be getting back on the right path and everything. ‘Weedhead’ practically equals shiftless! Hello? Haven’t you seen Friday?”

  “It ain’t for weed…and stop talking so loud.”

  Billie stopped walking. “You didn’t give him money to buy for real drugs.”

  Jay looked as if he were about to explain Reaganomics to a small child.

  “If I didn’t give it to him, he would do very bad things to get it.”

  “Jay…”

  “Listen, baby, he’s a junkie. Ain’t nobody gonna stop that man from being a junkie. What I can do is make sure he don’t hurt nobody else in the process.”

  “But…but…you of all people know what, like, serious drugs can do to you. He’s gonna end up killing himself, slowly. I don’t understand how you can knowingly contribute to—”

  “Billie.” Jay cut her off in a way that made it clear the conversation was sort of over. “No, you don’t understand. You couldn’t. What, you think he don’t know how he’s gonna end up if he don’t stop? There’s a place you get where you don’t give a fuck. He’s there. What, I’m gonna cry and scream like a bitch? He’s a grown-ass man. It don’t work. Trust me. You don’t know nothing about this. I lived this shit, you didn’t.”

  Billie was taken aback. “Well, you don’t have to talk to me like that.”

  “I’m sorry.” He was. “I mean, I know where you’re coming from. It’s…it’s frustrating.”

  Billie was totally aghast. She didn’t understand this way of thinking at all. In a thousand years she would never understand what had just happened. How could he contribute to Andre’s drug problem? And Jay looked so certain, so sure of what he’d just done. For the first time, she fully grasped how fundamentally different their experiences were. What else would they differ on? What if they got married and had kids? She could see it now: her fourteen-year-old son, coming home with his pregnant girlfriend. “But, Mommy, Daddy said I could fuck DeeDee without a condom because I’m a grown-ass man!”

  “Stop lookin’ so traumatized,” Jay said, tipping up her chin. “I’m sorry.”

  “We’re from totally different planets.”

  “True.”

  “There are things we’ll never understand about each other.”

  “True. We just gotta accept them.” Jay put on a roughneck expression. “The streets made me, ma. Either you with it or you not.”

  Billie grinned. “I don’t think I have a choice.” She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. She was over it.

  He took her hand and walked with her. The sun was going down.

  “Yellow seemed sweet,” Billie managed with difficulty.

  Jay chuckled.

  “You know, you’re like the godfather over there. You take care of everybody.”

  “You can’t choose your family,” he said, shrugging.

  Billie was amazed at his nonchalance. And then it became all about her: What did she ever do for anybody? Whose mentor was she? Who did she ever bail out? Once, her sophomore year, she was a character witness on a case involving Vida and $200 worth of shoplifted babydoll dresses from Contempo Casuals. But she’d never done anything really, really significant. Jay was like a mini-messiah.

  She stopped him in his tracks and kissed him. Then she burrowed into his arms and stayed there awhile, rocking back and forth.

  * * *

  • • •

  Later that evening, they stopped by Brooklyn Moon Café to catch the weekly poetry reading. Ordinarily, this was something Billie would never attend. It wasn’t the café—she loved their fried chicken—it was the whole poetry scene. When they first moved to New York, Vida had gone through a brief but prolific poet-dating phase. Most of them were con artists who talked an awful lot without saying much, like cowrie shell–accessorized used-car salesmen. And they had clearly thought Billie and Co. were slinky, mistrustful sellouts, which enraged her.

  Tonight, though, Jay wanted her to meet LaLa, the girl who organized the Saturday night slams and had set him up with his first gig.

  When they entered the café, the reading hadn’t started yet. There were about fifty people crammed in the tiny café, crushed onto overstuffed velvet love seats and wrought-iron barstools. Most of them were standing. The walls were painted a fiery maroon and decorated with antique-gold-framed paintings by a local West Indian-American artist. Somehow, a DJ had managed to squeeze himself, his turntable, and his records in the back of the room, by the kitchen door. He was spinning the greatest hits of the neo-soul movement. D’Angelo’s “Brown Sugar” was fading out, giving way to Maxwell’s way out there “Submerge: Till We Become the Sun.” Erykah Badu’s “Appletree” soon followed. Everyone was bobbing their collective heads to the beats.

  The guys were very Salvation Army meets Bob Marley, all done up in camouflage cargo pants, Jesus sandals, and Rasta caps. The girls were a boho blur of Afro-puffs, dreadlocks (in every incarnation—miles-long, short, twisted, hennaed), and head wraps. The scent of Egyptian Musk was overwhelming. Not for the first time that day, Billie stood out like an overly fashion-conscious sore thumb, while Jay was greeted like Norm on Cheers.

  Just then, a tall, sylphlike woman with a dreadlock ponytail on top of her head caught Billie’s eye. She was wearing a carrot-orange dashiki minidress and brandishing a burning stick of incense. She was insanely ravishing, and headed straight for Jay.

  “Love, love, love,” she moaned, engulfing him in an airtight embrace, breasts-first. “What’s happening, black man?”

  “I’m chilling. Just stopping by to see what y’all conscious motherfuckers are talking about tonight.” He grinned playfully, his eyes twinkling.

  The woman burst out laughing and hit him on the arm.

  “And I wanted to introduce you to my girl, Billie,” he said. “She’s heard all about you. Billie, this is LaLa.”

  Billie and LaLa smiled at each other, and polite kisses were exchanged.

  “Peace and blessings, sister.”

  “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

  LaLa’s gaze fixed on Billie, with her trendy, off-the-shoulder T-shirt and straight hair. She was clearly not impressed. Neither was Billie. She’d had to deal her whole life with earthy types like LaLa thinking she was less “down” because of what she looked or dressed like. She’d gotten over that whole Whitley Gilbert association a long time ago—and besides, what was so wrong with Whitley? The interesting thing, though, was that Jay was all hip-hop slouchy and the furthest thing from neo-soul style, but he was accepted anywhere.

  If LaLa touched him again, there would be a problem.

  “My brother, are you going to bless us with a reading today?”

  “Naw, yo, I just came to watch.”

  “You can’t do that to your people! Sister,” she said, turning to Billie, “I don’t know if you know, but this man is a phenomenon. The way he embodies the soul of his characters, it’s like, it’s like…he’s conjuring up the wisdom of the ancestors. Heralding the most ancient oral traditions, transcending the present…” LaLa clutched her chest with one hand and Jay’s bicep with the other. She was rapturous.

  “Girl, go ’head,” he said. “It ain’t about all that…”

  “Sister, have you experienced his performance?”

  “Yes, he’s amazing. I could never get up there and do what he does.” Just then, Jay was swept up into a
conversation with a short balding gentleman who looked like a young George Jefferson. He excused himself and shot Billie a “hang in there” look. Billie’s heart began to pound. She felt as miscast in this crowd as Diana Ross in The Wiz.

  She and LaLa were left facing each other.

  “So, what do you do, sister?”

  “I’m an editor at Du Jour. A beauty editor.”

  “A beauty editor? Whose beauty are you editing?”

  “No, I write about trends in makeup, hair, that sort of thing. Do you read Du Jour?”

  “No, there’s nothing in there for me. How could I support the continuing massacre of black self-esteem by funding a magazine that only speaks to a white standard of beauty?” She waved her incense stick pointedly, ashes sifting down onto Billie’s boots. “My soul couldn’t rest at night.”

  “Have you ever read it?”

  “Like I said, I make it a point not to.”

  “Oh. Because if you read it, you’d know that our beauty section is incredibly diverse. That’s what I’m there for; it’s my responsibility.” Billie was outraged but graceful. “And hopefully, since Du Jour is the world’s leading fashion magazine, others will follow suit and things will eventually change.”

  “I don’t need to see my face on the pages of Du Jour to feel beautiful, sister. And neither should you.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Sisters are beautiful, period. The sooner we learn to accept our wide noses, our nappy hair, our big behinds, the better we’ll all be. We need to love ourselves, not hate.”

  “It’s interesting that you say that, because I’m a sister and you’re hating on me.”

  LaLa flinched and raised her eyebrows. In a split second she recovered, smiling condescendingly. “Be easy, love. I’m just taking a walk with you.”

  “Mmm-hm.” Billie wondered how LaLa would look choking on that incense stick. She looked around for Jay. Luckily, the DJ got on the mike and announced that the reading was starting.

  “Emcee time.” LaLa winked at the DJ and faced Billie. “We’re all in the struggle together, sister. Go in peace. Oh, and take care with that man. He’s a sacred, sacred spirit.” With a flip of her buoyant ponytail, she edged her way to the DJ table.

  Billie stormed up to Jay and dragged him away from George Jefferson. “How could you leave me with that ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing’ monster?”

  “Oh, she ain’t all that bad.” He nodded back at somebody across the room.

  “Not that bad? Not that bad?”

  “You can’t take her seriously. Besides, you can take care of yourself.” Jay put his hands on his hips and delivered a pitch-perfect Billie imitation. “‘I’m a sister and you’re hating on me.’”

  “You heard that?” She laughed and hid her face in her hands.

  “Guess what?” whispered Jay, as LaLa took the mike. She asked her brothers and sisters to give love to Jay Lane, a griot in the true African tradition.

  “What?” asked Billie. The crowd did as it was told, giving props where it was due. Jay grinned and nodded at the crowd. Billie marveled at how comfortable he was with being adored, just like her mother.

  LaLa introduced the first poet, someone called Profundity.

  “That little guy I was talking to over there…”

  “George Jefferson?”

  “Yeah. He works for Cinemax and shit. They’re starting a weekly variety-type show starring spoken-word artists. It’s called Wordstock.”

  “Ha!”

  “I know, right? And he wants me to headline the first show. He’s here scouting out new talent. He was gonna call me on Monday.”

  Billie grabbed him and squeezed him tight.

  “I feel like everything’s happening for me at once,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m trippin’…I can’t believe it.”

  “You deserve it, you really do.”

  “I’m a lucky motherfucker.” He looked down at her. “And guess what else?”

  “What?”

  “I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

  7.

  come to jesus

  And just like that, Billie was gone. She would later characterize this chapter of her life with a quote from her favorite diva, Elizabeth Taylor, upon falling in love with Richard Burton: “I love not being Elizabeth Taylor, but being Richard’s wife. I would be quite content to be his shadow and live through him.”

  Every ounce of her neurotic, workaholic personality was absorbed into her relationship, which left her job for dead. This was not a good thing.

  Billie just couldn’t get it up for Du Jour. She came in late, left early, and she began blowing off important after-work events, asking Sandy to fill in for her, which irritated certain big-name beauty companies. Sending an editor farther down on the masthead was considered insulting—better to just skip it altogether.

  Worst of all, she thought less and less about the London thing, and kept putting off her hard-won “Culture Club” article. Her deadline was two weeks away, and Billie usually liked to spend a good six weeks writing and researching her bigger articles. She knew the piece would help Fannie, her editor in chief, seal the decision on sending Billie to London, and that was the trouble.

  Love, and all the yummy side dishes that accompanied it, had eluded Billie her entire life. She’d sat through dozens of Vida’s affairs, coached Renee through her trials with Moses, and grew up in a house that was steeped in love and passion. Yet she’d never had it, herself. Now that she did, she felt that she had lost time to make up for. She’d never allowed herself to float away on anything—she was always focused on getting the best grades, being a perfect student, climbing to the top of her career. Billie was tired of being Miss Responsible. For once, she just wanted to feel weightless and frivolous and lovable, dammit. Hadn’t she earned it?

  Hell yeah, she thought to herself, rolling over and snuggling up to Jay’s strong, sculpted chest. It was the Monday morning after their amazing weekend spent roaming around Fort Greene. Billie didn’t remember ever feeling this sparkly, this satisfied, this…content. Lazily, she opened one eye to check the time, but not really caring. It was 10:15. What?! With a yelp, she bounded out of bed, her hair defying gravity.

  “What? What happened?” Jay was torn out of his usual restless, semiconscious slumber.

  “Shit, shit, shit. I’m so late. Why didn’t I set the alarm?” Billie raced into the bathroom, brushed her teeth in two seconds, and ran back out. She rummaged through her closet, throwing clothes on the floor, freaking out. “I totally forgot about a breakfast event I have to go to. It’s so, so important, Jay, oh my God.”

  “What’s the event?”

  “It’s Clairene, you know, Clairene…Glow! Gleam! Hair like a dream?” Billie sang the commercial and wiggled into a pair of black leather Joseph pants at the same time. “They’re launching something, I forget, and they have some new celebrity spokesperson that’s gonna be there and fuck, if Paige finds out I’m so dead.”

  “What time it started?”

  “Nine-thirty!” Billie grabbed a random top from a drawer, threw on some Jimmy Choos, blew Jay a kiss, and sprinted out the door.

  Jay was saying, “You forgot to do your hair,” but the door had already slammed behind her.

  * * *

  • • •

  The breakfast was held at Norma’s in the famously snooty Parker Meridien on Fifty-seventh Street, a beauty industry favorite. (The restaurant was known for its insanely rich, gourmet breakfast dishes, like almond-stuffed brioche French toast dipped in chocolate. Clearly no one came within a foot of these confections, but, my, they were pretty!) Billie arrived at exactly eleven. She guiltily accepted her name tag from a junior PR girl and flew up the glittery staircase to the restaurant.

  Billie’s
jaw hit the floor. The space, usually decorated in pristine, ladies-who-lunch elegance, had been transformed into what looked like a set from Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Graffiti-splattered canvas screens clung to the walls, shouting out “Rock the house with Clairene’s new Street Style Gel-Wax!” and “Funk it up with Clairene’s new Street Style Gel-Wax!” Scary-thin models were stationed in various tough-girl poses around the room, each with a different “street-inspired” hairstyle: crimped, spiky, teased out to there. Billie felt like she was walking through Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield” video. Accompanying each model was a certified Clairene National Hairstylist, available to explain how to achieve the look with the new Street Style Gel-Wax. In groups of three and four, the beauty editors roamed from station to station, chatting with the National Hairstylists and fingering the models’ stiff hair with unbridled fascination.

  And, dear God, someone had hired break-dancers to perform in the center of the room. On flattened cardboard boxes. Billie’s heart went out to these poor guys hopping about in velour tracksuits and shelltop Adidas. What if their fellow b-boys knew they were performing for a bunch of fancy fashionistas who probably thought Afrika Bambaataa was an ethnic accessories boutique in Brooklyn?

  She’d taken about two steps into the room when she was intercepted by Annabel Brixton, Clairene’s gushing VP of marketing. Heavy of hip and wide of mouth, she was one of those pushy Southern women who repeated your name a lot as if to force intimacy. She relied heavily on scarves, brooches, and heavy clip-on earrings to look pulled-together.

  “Billie precious!” Annabel bleated, kissing her on both cheeks.

  “Annabel! How are you? You look divine, as usual,” Billie lied, turning on her full-wattage grin and Big Important Event personality.

  “Oh no, you!”

  “Annabel, I am so, so, so sorry for being late. It’s so tacky and not my style, you know that.”

  “Oh, Billie, I know!”