It was official. I was dead and my dreams of being a star had been buried along with me. But just when I thought all hope was lost, the crowd suddenly lost control and started edging me on. All I could hear was: “Sing! Get it, girl. You workin’ it!”
I continued to sing and Haneef kept staring at me. It felt sort of strange because something in his eyes said his stare meant more than just tryin’ to please a fan.
Haneef had gotten at least three cues that I had been onstage too long, but he ignored them. By the time we were done, everyone was on their feet giving us a standing ovation, and Naja was on the sidelines shouting, “That’s my girl!”
I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. For once, my life was perfect.
“Make sure you come see me backstage.” Haneef kissed me on the forehead as security escorted me back to my seat.
For the next hour and a half the concert remained off da hook, and all I could do was bask in the kiss that Haneef placed on my forehead. I didn’t know about Naja, but I was thinking they might have to physically remove me from that place, because the way I felt, I might never leave.
Immediately after the concert ended, everyone who had backstage passes lined up. Naja and I rushed over. I was on cloud nine and Naja was bragging about how well she and I sang. I looked at her. “Last I checked, I was the one singing.”
“Oh, you ain’t hear me?” she asked surprised. “Listen, I was singing like this, ‘Ahhhhhhhhhh…’”
Oh, God, her voice was cracking. “It’s cool, yeah, I heard you.”
“No, seriously,” she insisted. “I’ve gotten better.”
“Uhmm hmmm, I know,” I said as I felt my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. “Dang, who is this?”
As I pulled out my phone, security started rushing us to the front. I saw Haneef talking to a fan and taking pictures. I was so amped, I forgot the phone was ringing. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was someone calling me from home. Oh heck, no. I wanted to say voicemail.
We slowly moved closer to Haneef and dang, this phone was vibrating again. I pulled it out and flipped it open.
“Elite!” Sydney screamed. “Everybody in here is dead!”
“What?!” My heart jumped in my chest.
“Er’body. Aniyah, Mica, and me. Can’t you hear it in my voice? Don’t I sound dead?”
“You’re not dead!”
“We are dead. We haven’t eaten all day since the bologna they served us at school and it’s going on midnight.”
I looked at security and they told me to put away the phone. “Where is Ny’eem?” I asked.
“Ny’eem hasn’t been here at all and we’re starving. Here, listen to Mica.”
I heard Mica in the background moaning, “I’m dead. Somebody help me. I’m dead.”
“Please, Elite,” she begged softly. “Mommy and Gary are here held up in the bathroom, and Mommy just sold the last carton of eggs we had to the girl down the hall. So we need you. You know Mommy and Gary listen to you, and I gotta go to the bathroom.”
I couldn’t believe this. I was this close to meeting Haneef and had to turn around. I swallowed. “Alright, I’m on my way.”
I looked at Naja. “Girl, you go on, but I need to go and get with my sisters and brothers.”
“Oh, okay, do you.” She waved and didn’t even look my way. I held my head down and walked out of the arena.
A few seconds later I heard, “Elite! Elite!” I turned around and it was Naja.
“I was just playing, girl. You know I’m not gon’ do you like that.”
And as we waited for the bus, we carried on about how much fun we’d just had.
I spent my last five dollars on buying a box of chicken from Crown Royal on Elizabeth Avenue and then split it with the twins and Mica. Ny’eem still hadn’t come home and honestly, I didn’t even care. I mean, I cared, but I was tired of caring and him taking advantage of it.
After feeding Mica and the twins, I made them go to bed and attempted to stay up and wait for Ny’eem. Of course it was to no avail, because the next thing I heard was my mother’s voice, seducing me out of my sleep.
“Elite. Elite, wake up.” I opened one eye and looked at the clock: two a.m. “Wake up.” My mother was now shaking my thigh.
“I don’t have two dollars.” I closed my eyes and threw my legs over the side of the sofa. I felt like I’d just slammed my ankles into a brick wall, but when I looked to see, it was a sleeping Ny’eem. I’d hit him on the shoulder, but he didn’t wake up, and all he did was stir. I swear I felt like kicking him.
“I don’t want two dollars,” my mother snapped. “I wanna know how the concert was.”
I turned back to face her. “How’d you know about the concert?”
“Ny’eem told me. Right before I chased his ass off the corner. He said you sang onstage. Said that some of his friends was there and that you ripped it!”
“Ma!” I said, recapturing the excitement. “I was in heaven. And I was singing so tough that it silenced the crowd.”
“What?!” she jumped up. “Get the hell outta here!”
“Yeah, and I think Haneef couldn’t even believe it.”
“Haneef?” she sat back down on the floor. “Is that—”
“Ma, he not some street hustler. He’s a pop star.”
“Okay, ’cause you know I don’t want no nonsense.”
For a moment I stared at her and wondered what it would be like to have her like this all the time, and not have to share her with the crack pipe, Gary, or the streets. I knew she loved me and that she cared, but something inside her stopped her from caring enough to be sober. And it was only in these few stolen moments that I even remembered she had real motherly instinct. “I know you don’t want any nonsense, Ma.”
“I hope you do, because you’re special, Elite. That’s why I named you Elite. Because you’re the best, and I don’t want nobody messing up your future. I don’t want none of y’all to be like me.”
After an awkward moment of silence and me thinking of how I had very little memories of my mother being sober, she cleared her throat and said, “So tell me what happened, from beginning to end.” She was sounding more like a seventeen-year-old friend than my mother.
I lay back with my head on the armrest, stared at the ceiling, and recapped for her the magical night that I’d had.
Afterwards we laughed, joked, and even sang. She had the prettiest voice I’d ever heard. On a good day, she would have put Whitney Houston to sleep.
I hadn’t had a night like this in a long time. It almost made not being able to meet Haneef backstage and Aniyah calling me up to announce that everybody in the house was dead worth it.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, all I knew was that when I opened my eyes, the sun was shining into the living room and the spot where my mother was sitting was empty. For a moment I wondered if the conversation we’d had the night before was even real.
SPIN IT…
Track 6
It was official: I was the bomb and er’body in Arts High was checkin’ for me, especially