#3 Turn Up for Real

by Stephanie Perry Moore

  “But Mom—Dad running for mayor—his daughter winner of Miss Teen Charlotte; what a story that was supposed to be. I let him down. I let him down,” I repeated, upset.

  My mom stroked my cheek and said, “Slade, are you serious, sweetheart? We’re proud of you that you got up there. Don’t put more on yourself than what needs to be there.”

  Pulling away from her touch, I huffed, “You don’t understand. You’ve always got everything you’ve tried for.”

  “Sweetheart, what are you talking about?” she uttered with compassion.

  “When we were at Grandma’s house this summer, she showed us the pictures. You were Miss Duke University, and then you went on to be Miss North Carolina in the Miss America pageant.”

  Placing her arm around me, she would not quit trying to encourage me. “Yes, but I didn’t win Miss America. You’re not even out of high school. You want to go to college and get in another pageant? That’s fine, and it’s absolutely nothing wrong with coming in first runner-up.”

  “I’m not going back out there, Mom.”

  Then the pagent director started yelling. “Where’s the first runner-up? I’ve never had that happen. Every girl knows there’s a possibility that she won’t win. She doesn’t win, and she runs off my stage.”

  “Here she is, Ms. Easley, ready to go back out there,” my mom said as she spun me around, pulled my gown so that it was perfect again, quickly wiped my face, and hugged me tight. He whispered, “Get your tail out there.”

  Reluctantly I walked back on stage. Though the pageant was over, all the girls were surrounding Charlotte. I hadn’t given her a hug. I hadn’t congratulated her, and I never thought I had a bad attitude. I wasn’t a good sport, but I guess until you don’t get something that you really want, you’ll never know how you’ll act. I wasn’t the only one pouting. Girls couldn’t even tell me congratulations for being first runner-up. I could hear them saying, “It should’ve been me as first runner-up. She only got that far because of her father,” but I wanted to go all of the way. Now, I had to smile at the queen coming up to me.

  “You helped me, and now I’ve got the crown,” Charlotte hugged me and said. “I’m sure it’s bittersweet. So thank you.”

  “Congratulations.” I yanked the word out of my mouth. I said all the right things to Charlotte, but then I dashed to the corner off stage under some stairs and just balled my eyes out. I tried to keep my emotions in check, but my dream wasn’t going to be realized, and that hurt—like I’d been stabbed over and over and over again. It just felt like I was losing blood and didn’t know how to save myself. And then, I heard this husky, male, tenor voice singing the old tune “You Are So Beautiful” to me.

  I wiped my tears and looked up. The gorgeous voice equally matched the handsome face with milky way chocolate skin and curly hair.

  “Don’t worry that you didn’t win. You’re still beautiful to me.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Just this guy who’s watched a lot of the practices and seen that you’re breathtaking.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said as I started wiping my face and my chest started rising. His every word made me feel good again. “You’re just saying that to take pity on me.”

  “You got a little nervous in the last question. Who would have expected them to ask you the same thing? You heard what she said, and she nailed it, so that would’ve made anyone nervous. What could you have said differently to make you stand out? But you’re a great singer. Who wants to sing Broadway style? You’ve got soul. You should do something with that. You got on that stage and nailed it. You got everyone on their feet. You’re a star.”

  “And what would you like to be? My agent?”

  He leaned down with his lips no more than three inches away from mine and said, “I might want to be more than that.”

  I felt extremely uncomfortable, so I stood and didn’t even realize that my breasts were practically hanging out of the dress. I was giving him all kinds of free views, and I wasn’t even trying to do that. When he coughed and motioned for me to look down, I pulled up the dress, but when I looked down at his pants, I could tell there was a connection.

  “Thanks for cheering me up,” I said. “I did do the best I could.”

  “And you’ve got lots of good stuff in you, so shake this off. It’s only the beginning. Can I get your number?” he asked.

  Before I could say yes or no, we heard this loud bang and then another clang followed by a boom. He dashed away, and I followed him. I came to a halt when he entered a door. In the office of the theater was an older lady being forced into a chair by two big, black guys who looked like they were bodybuilders or bar bouncers or something, and another tough guy was standing in front of her. I was careful not to let them see me, but I could not bring myself to walk away.

  “I want my money. Payday is today. Where is my money?” the leader raged.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” the lady uttered.

  Then the leader guy slapped her.

  “Boots, get your hands off my mom!” the stranger who was just comforting me yelled out. “My boy K.J. told me you’d be flexible.”

  The Boots dude looked him up and down. “Yeah, flexible on which limb to break if I ain’t got my loot. And K.J. trying to make me a record. He crazy anyway. You came to me ’cause you know I’m the only one around here who can give you dough quick. You know what I do if I don’t get it.”

  When I saw how serious this all was, I didn’t go in the office, but I didn’t want to move away because I didn’t want them to hear me. Boots came over and punched him in the gut. The stranger keeled over.

  Boots leaned down to him and said, “Today’s payday, A.V.”

  Was A.V. his name? I wondered what it stood for. Then I shook my head, realizing I needed to not care what it stood for. A.V. seemed to be in a mess.

  “What are they talking about, son? Payday for what? You told me you got the money from your dad,” A.V.’s mom said.

  A.V. huffed, “When has he ever given me a thing? I just said that so you wouldn’t worry.” A.V. turned to Boots. “Y’all didn’t have to come up here and demand it. I just need more time.”

  Boots told him, “Please. I’m not granting it. Just as quick as I gave you the money to keep this theater open, y’all better pay me. And don’t say you ain’t got it. Y’all on the news with the teen pageants, plays, and concerts going on … one event here after the other. Well, I want my money now, because it’s due.”

  “You’ll get your money. Just let go of my son,” A.V.’s mom begged.

  “You won’t have a son if I don’t get my three Gs.” Boots punched A.V. again.

  I wanted to help, but at the same time, I didn’t need to get involved. Minutes earlier I didn’t even know this guy, but now I was sucked into his world, his drama, his pain, and I couldn’t pull myself away. I only wished he’d left me on the stairs, bawlin’ my eyes out alone and secluded.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SCREAM

  One hard punch after another struck the stranger who’d serenaded me. It was tough to watch him get beat up so hard. I was so shocked that I didn’t even realize I screamed.

  “Who was that?” Boots angrily belted out.

  “Don’t hit him anymore!” I yelled, now understanding that I could not back away.

  “Run!” A.V. shouted out to me.

  I didn’t move. “You can’t hurt him anymore.”

  “Get her!” Boots yelled out to his two thug partners.

  “No, no, no, don’t hurt her. I’ll talk to her. I’ll keep her quiet,” A.V. shouted before the thugs got to me.

  He struggled to come to the door because he was beaten up. The other guys were looming, waiting on the stranger to let me go so that they could get me in check. Their glares made me uneasy, but I kept my cool.

  “The police are on the way in,” I lied out of instinct to try to scare them off.

  I must have displayed a great po
ker face, because they believed me. Boots snapped and eyed A.V., giving the sign that this wasn’t over. Then the three of them rushed past me.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” A.V. said to me as I exhaled.

  “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” I said, ignoring his concern about me. I was ten times more worried about him.

  “Fine,” he huffed with a bit of an attitude.

  Blood was gushing from his mouth, and he was holding his ribs like something was broken. Concerned, I voiced, “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

  “No, no really … you’ve got to go.”

  “I’m going to go tell my dad. He knows important people in the city. It’s going to be fine. He’ll get the police to catch these guys. They can’t just come in here and beat people up like this, ransacking your mother’s office. This is horrible,” I said.

  “No, you’ve got to stay out of it.”

  “You don’t understand. This just happened to my house not too long ago. People just think because they’re big and tough or going through stuff that they can make other peoples’ lives miserable. My father won’t stand for this.”

  I was serious too. My sisters didn’t like folks knowing our dad was powerful, but I had no problem letting the world know. My dad had us helping him get elected. He was happy to show the city he had a nice family. Now it was my time to get him to help.

  “Look, you don’t understand,” he said more forcefully.

  His mother sashayed her way over to the door, hand on hip, eyes bloodshot red. I stuck out my hand to introduce myself, believing that she couldn’t be angry with me. After all, I was trying to help.

  His mother started yelling. “How dare you come in here and stick your nose all in where it doesn’t belong. Isn’t the pageant over? What are you doing way back here anyway? This part is off limits. We don’t want the police involved.”

  “But they were beating up your son,” I said to her as if she hadn’t just been in the same room as me.

  The way she was positioned in the room, she was behind her boy. She saw him getting punched, but she couldn’t see the damage. He wasn’t trying to show her, either.

  She screamed, “Listen girl, it’s none of your business.”

  “Mom, you don’t have to be so rough,” A.V. said to his mom, finally looking her way.

  “Well, who is this girl? And what have you gotten yourself into with these guys?” She turned him around and saw up close he was really banged up. “Oh my gosh, son. I don’t know this chick, but she’s right … you need to get to a hospital.”

  “It’s fine, Mom,” he said as he keeled over in pain.

  She lifted up his shirt, and his fine caramel brown skin had a dark red and blue mark on his left ribs. I squinted, seeing the wound. When his mom touched him, she assessed it wasn’t broken, just deeply bruised.

  “Sit down, son. I’m gonna get an ice pack out of my freezer to put it on you,” she said. “I need to hurry up so I can get out there and meet the lady over the pageant to get the rest of her payment.”

  “So you guys are just going to do nothing?” I said to him, when his mom was farther away. “What if those guys come back?”

  In frustration, he said, “They’re coming back. But you need to get out of here. You don’t need to say nothing.”

  “Hello? Hello?” I heard Ms. Easley call out from down the hall. “I’m looking for one of our contestants. I’ve got parents trying to find their daughter. Slade Sharp, are you back here?”

  “Sharp?” his mother asked as she threw her son the blue ready-made ice pack and came charging at me. “You one of those mayoral candidate’s daughters? Shoot, this is not what we need. You little privileged, stuck up wench. Don’t you speak a word of what you’ve seen here tonight. I’m going to go divert her, have her look for you someplace else, and you get on out there where you should be with your parents. I don’t need no trouble for my theater. Am I making myself clear?”

  All I could do was nod my head as she headed into the hallway. She was treating me like I was the enemy, like I beat up her son and squeezed her throat. I was trying to get them help. All the name calling wasn’t necessary.

  “Ouch,” A.V. said when he put ice on his wound.

  I was supposed to be leaving. Instead, I went over to him.

  “I was just trying to help. Like now, you’re struggling. Let me help,” I uttered, still feeling a connection.

  “You’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know how much you saw, but those guys are nobody to play with. I made some bad decisions trying to help my mom out, but we don’t want your family involved.”

  “I just think it wasn’t right, and I plan to help, okay?” I said as I lifted my hands up in the air and turned to walk away toward the door. He grabbed my arm and clutched it real tight, almost hurting me. “Let me go!”

  “I can’t have you getting …”

  Suddenly, I heard my father’s voice at the door say, “Hey you, you need to let my daughter’s arm go! Slade, what’s going on here? Your mother and I have been looking for you everywhere.”

  A.V. released my arm, and I said, “Nothing’s going on, Daddy.”

  My father sighed, “You standing here talking to some guy who’s bruised up, and he’s grabbing on you all crazy … go on out there to your mom.”

  “Dad…”

  My dad walked in and got closer to the stranger. “What’s your name, young man?”

  “I don’t have to tell you nothing, sir.”

  “Oh, that’s how you gonna play this?” My dad pulled out his phone. “You don’t have to tell me your name, but you can tell the police … assaulting my daughter.”

  “Dad! Please!” I shouted out.

  “And you thought he was going to help me?” A.V. barked my way.

  My father took a few steps back. “Help you? You’re assaulting my child, and you think I’m going to help you?”

  “Daddy, he didn’t assault me. He just wants me to stay out of his business.”

  “Well that sounds like something he said that I can agree on. Let’s go,” my father told me. When we got to the door to exit the office, he turned back around. “And you, young man, stay away from my baby. You think you have problems now, but you ain’t seen problems.”

  “Dad!” I uttered, shocked.

  The guy just shook his head. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tend to him. I wanted to tell my dad what I had really witnessed so he could direct his anger in the right place. But it had been a crazy night. Now, not only had I lost the pageant that I cared a lot about, walking out of the theater, I realized that I lost a friend that I never had. Something in his eyes—the sadness there when I was leaving—I couldn’t shake. But I was going to have to forget him because he wanted nothing to do with me. And my father wanted me to have nothing to do with him.

  Most would think my life wasn’t bad … sitting in a limousine, riding along with my privileged family. However, it felt like I was in a big coffin, not some plush, luxurious car. I felt smothered. My parents’ eyes were staring down at me. My sisters were looking at me all cross-eyed and crazy. If their looks could kill, I’d be dead.

  Frustrated, I just yelled, “Say whatever you have to say already! I’m sick of being scrutinized by y’all. Nobody in this car is perfect!”

  “None of y’all want to tell her? I’ll tell her. Sharp girls have standards, Slade. You lost the pageant. You dashed off the stage. You’re supposed to lose with dignity and grace. Yeah you came back on, but Mom had to go get you,” my younger sister Sloan stated.

  “Oh, so I just embarrassed everybody. Is that it?” I asked, half caring.

  “She’s not trying to hurt your feelings, but …” Yuri added, before she stopped.

  I said, “But what, Yuri? Spit it out.”

  “She doesn’t need to spit it out,” Shelby said as she hunched her shoulder like she was sick of me. “Everything isn’t going to always go your way, Slade, but you know you can’t pout about it … and you sort o
f did, sis. Love you to pieces, but you sort of did.”

  Ansli was sitting near me, and she slid a little closer in and put her arm around me. “I know how it feels to have the world you envision in your mind fall apart. And if you thought you were going to win and didn’t, it’s got to be hard, but you did really good. We all were just a little shocked when you acted the way you did.”

  “She needs to get over it. She went MIA for a long time,” Sloan uttered. “Selfish butt.”

  “Screw you, Sloan,” I let slip from my mouth.

  “Alright girls that’s quite enough,” my mom said with a stern voice, clearly disappointed in us both.

  “No, no, that’s not enough, Sherri,” my dad said. “We need to talk to you young ladies about these boys.”

  My eyes bucked wide. Only my father knew about the stranger. He said that I could never see him again, so he didn’t need to bring it up.

  “I can’t say for sure that I’m going to win anything because these polls tell you one thing, but the election results may turn out to be another. But if this election goes the way it’s predicted, you all are going to have to be smart. There’re going to be all kinds of young men trying to get with you girls. You can’t just fall for some cute guy with muscles, follow him anywhere, and end up getting killed. I raised all five of you to be independent, to have your own dreams and your own goals, not to be around here excited about chasing boys.”

  “Dad, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not into the boys. I’m focused on trying to be summa cum laude of my graduating class in two and a half years,” Sloan said, as if he was offending her.

  Knowing this was all directed at me, I huffed, “Well, Dad, you misjudged Shelby’s boyfriend, thinking he was a thug because he was fighting at the political debate. Turns out he was only defending his mom against an abusive stepfather. And then there’s Ansli’s boyfriend, and for some reason you’re really cool with him. You don’t even judge him for being homeless.”