Falling Into Grace

by Michelle Stimpson

  “I’m good. Wow! I haven’t heard from you in ages. Wait ’til I tell Tonya I talked to you!”

  Camille ventured, “How is Tonya?”

  “She’s great,” Alexis caroled. “She just bought a house in Cedar Hill out by some kind of lake.”

  “Tonya lives near Dallas?”

  “Yeah,” Alexis crooned. “I thought you knew.”

  “It’s a small world.”

  “So, what’s up?” Alexis asked. “How’s your dad?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Your brother?”

  “He’s fine, too,” Camille guessed.

  Then she took a deep breath, her pulse racing. “Okay. Brace yourself. I was thinking—”

  “Wait a second,” Alexis interrupted. “Ooh, that’s Kyra on the other line. Lord, I wonder if lightning is about to strike. Hold on just—”

  “No, Alexis let me explain—”

  “Just let me tell her that I’ll call her back.”

  Alexis forced Camille to hold, and the longer Alexis stayed on the other line, the more anxious Camille became. This new, improved Kyra was also quick on the draw.

  Finally, Alexis returned. “So, you want to get Sweet Treats back together?”

  Darn that Kyra. “Yes.”

  “No can do, my sister.”

  “Come on, Alexis. Don’t let Kyra make this decision for you. Give me one good reason why you can’t do this with me.”

  Alexis replied, “I can give you three. First of all, I’m a teacher. I work at least sixty hours a week as it stands.”

  “If we get back with the right producers, you won’t have to teach anymore,” Camille countered. “Plus, I know teachers don’t make any money. You’re probably just as broke as me, and I don’t even have a college degree.”

  “I don’t know about the money part, but you’re missing my point. I love teaching, and I’m dedicated to my students. I don’t want to change my career, thank you very much.”

  “Must be nice to actually like what you do,” Camille pouted. “But, hey, I know you’ve got the summers off, Alexis.”

  “Summers off? Please. School gets out the first week of June, I have staff development for, like, three weeks, and then we’re back in mid-August. I’m lucky to have July off, which is not nearly enough time to pull a band together and pop up in the studio. Do you know how much we’d have to practice to pull this together? I’m nowhere near you and Tonya.”

  Camille interjected, “Ever heard of Southwest Airlines?”

  “And the last thing is, my parents aren’t in the best of health. I can’t go anywhere until they get stable or whatever ... well, you know,” her voice tapered.

  “I’m sorry, Alexis. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have bothered your parents for your number if I’d known.”

  “It’s okay. They can talk. They’re just getting older. We have to watch Daddy’s diabetes,” she explained. “My mom used to keep an eye on him, but now she’s got her own blood-pressure issues, too. I swear, their bathroom is a pharmacy.”

  Camille empathized all too well with Alexis’s concerns. “I hope you’re able to help them get things under control.”

  Alexis sighed. “Girl, me and God and maybe a personal plea from Barack Obama, ’cause that’s what it’s going to take to get them to listen. They are so hardheaded sometimes. They question everything the doctors tell them.”

  Camille remembered how many promises Priscilla had to make before Alexis’s parents agreed to let their only daughter tour all over the world. The Nevilses were old-school parents who’d been pleasantly surprised with a bouncing baby girl in their late thirties. Even though Alexis had been, legally speaking, old enough to make the decision about touring with Sweet Treats, she wouldn’t step on the bus without her parents’ blessing.

  Alexis’s life, good and bad, clearly wasn’t conducive to singing again.

  And then there were two. “Do you think Tonya would consider reuniting with me?”

  “I’m gonna say, um, H-E double hockey sticks no.”

  Camille laughed. “Why don’t you go ahead and say the word?”

  “You know I don’t cuss. Never did.”

  “Anyway. Is Tonya still mad about Darrion?”

  “Girl, naw,” Alexis squawked. “She knows he was just a dog sniffing out the first one he could find to give it up.”

  That would be me. “Alrighty, then. So why do you think she won’t do it?”

  “’Cause she’s already got a good thing going with Liza Sticcoli.”

  Camille pointed out, “Can’t be that good. I listen to music all the time and I’ve never heard of any Liza other than Liza Minnelli.”

  “Liza Sticcoli is a Christian artist,” Alexis stated.

  “Oh.” The realization hit Camille and she mused, “Christian?”

  “Yep.”

  No recourse for that one. “Well, if she’s only singing Christian backup, I’m sure she could use more money.”

  “Probably so. But trust me on this one, Camille, she’s not going to sing with you. You burned a lot of bridges when you left the group, you know?”

  “Fine. I’ll just have to do it solo,” Camille snapped.

  “I’m not trying to be funny, but you should have marketed yourself as a solo artist in the first place,” Alexis concurred. “That’s what you really wanted to be anyway. And, for what it’s worth, I think you could have been good.”

  “Thanks, Alexis. Hey”—Camille fumbled for the words—“do you think, maybe, we could keep in touch? I know this will sound crazy, but I don’t really socialize with too many females, you know? Too many divas.”

  Alexis laughed. “You know you’re the queen diva, right?”

  Camille had to agree. “I’m just sayin’, it’s nice to talk to someone who’s not into the jealousy thing.”

  “I don’t think I follow you. I mean, what are they jealous of?”

  Camille huffed. “Don’t you watch those real housewives shows?”

  “Nuh-uh. I mean, every once in a while I might see an episode, but I have better things to do with my time than sit up and watch grown women argue,” Alexis said. “Work, Momma, and Daddy keep me all tied up. But I’ve got your number now and you’ve got mine. No excuses.”

  “While you’re recording information, write down today’s date. It’s my birthday,” Camille sassed.

  “Aaah! That’s right! March twentieth!” Alexis added a quick rendition of the happy birthday song.

  Camille listened in wonder of Alexis’s low melody. Simply beautiful. What a shame they couldn’t blend vocals again.

  “Thanks, girl. I haven’t had anyone sing that song to me in a while.”

  “Well, text me your address so I can send you a present.”

  “Awww, you don’t have to do that,” Camille purred.

  “I know, but I’m thinking if you haven’t had a birthday song in a while, you sure haven’t received a gift in a while, either.”

  She didn’t know the half of it. After her mother’s death, Camille’s family seemed to have disintegrated. Jerdine Robertson had been the Robertsons’ glue. Without her, no one knew how to hold the family together. So when Camille hit it big with all that fame and money, things naturally got worse. Money only magnifies relationship problems.

  “I gotta go, Camille. Text me your address. And call me when you get the package.”

  Strike two and three at the same time. If she couldn’t talk Alexis, who was by far the most forgiving of the Sweet Treats, into rekindling the fire, she sure wasn’t going to be able to get through to Tonya, even though she lived less than twenty miles away and was in the best position to meet.

  Camille set her phone on the coffee table and focused on the nightly news. A reporter blared the misfortune of an old man who’d lost his lottery jackpot to a store clerk who stole and cashed his winning ticket. Camille had seen his story on television before, but now, after talking to Kyra, she could feel his pain. Her own future had been stolen by ... w
ell, according to Kyra and Alexis, by Camille herself.

  In their version of the split, Camille was to blame. Could she help it if the fans wanted her upstage? And how could Darrion have been Tonya’s man if he didn’t agree?

  “I’m not going out like that.” Camille closed her eyes, leaned over, and laid her head on the couch’s pleather armrest. She pulled her feet under her behind and grabbed the remote control. She flipped to her favorite cable channels, courtesy of someone in the building’s box-rigging skills.

  Where would she be without all the hookups available in the hood? Humph. Probably someplace better, in a position to afford the authentic versions of all the free, reduced, and slightly inferior products she haggled for just outside the iron-barred beauty-supply house.

  Enough, enough, enough.

  Camille jumped off the couch and fixed herself a bowl of cereal so she could think. Plan A, the reunion scheme, hadn’t worked. She needed another idea. Well, actually, Alexis had already given it to her. A solo career. Yes, she was dirt old as far as the industry went, but every once in a while, a miracle happened for an older singer. It happened for that British woman, Susan Boyle.

  Somebody had to break the age ceiling in American music. Might as well be Camille.

  Cap’n Crunch hit the spot, and the recreation center’s WiFi would soon light the way toward an agent. Camille grabbed her no-questions-asked laptop she’d traded for three autographed CDs and a hundred dollars cash at the barber shop. The serial number had been completely scratched off, and she could sign on to her laptop only as a guest. Truth be told, she didn’t tap into too many systems because she wondered if, someday, the computer might get traced through an Internet connection and she’d have to surrender it to authorities for prosecution purposes.

  The Medgar Evers center, however, was probably a safe place for tapping in. Dallas police officers had far better things to do than chase down hot laptops. She hoped.

  Camille claimed an empty table near an outlet and logged on. She googled B-list artists’ names along with the word “agent.” She guessed most industry professionals who were already working with famous clients didn’t need her. They weren’t desperate for real talent. They’d already discovered their cash cows. The B-listers, however, were still hungry. They were wheelin’ and dealin’, hustlin’ to be noticed, bringing fresh artists to producers and label executives. These people were probably ripe for the picking.

  Next, she googled the agents’ names and started a list of phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and physical addresses for possible leads. She managed to collect fifteen names of potential agents before the most rude bunch of teenagers ever, two boys and two barely dressed girls, plopped themselves down at the next table and started rapping, complete with table drums and a low whine from one of the girls.

  “I know you think you got swag, you think you got game, but I just rolled through your hood, nobody know your name. They said who that is? He live on our street? He must be a hermit ’cause he and I never meet.”

  Camille gave them a bit of leeway for at least knowing the meaning of the term “hermit.” But when the next boy spouted off his vulgar lyrics, Camille had to speak up. They owed her a little respect, seeing as she was thirty and all. “Excuse me, could you all hold it down just a little bit? I’m having a hard time concentrating.”

  “Aw, miss,” one of the girls pleaded, “they already made us move from over there by the computers. Seems like people don’t want us anywhere. We just singing.” Her innocent appeal was echoed by the group.

  Camille smiled. “Sweetheart, what’s your name?”

  “Diamond.”

  “Diamond, I can assure you that what you all were singing was not music.”

  “Oh, snap,” one of boys said while clapping his hands. “Old-school went off on you.”

  Before anyone could get seriously offended, Camille continued, “This stuff you call music today is nothing compared to what music used to be. I know. I used to sing with a group called Sweet Treats.”

  “Sweet Treats? What was that—a group of suckers?” the other girl asked. She was the smaller of the two but obviously had the bigger attitude and much bigger braids swooping across her forehead.

  Undaunted, the diva raised an eyebrow. “Come here. I’ll show you exactly what Sweet Treats was all about.”

  The teens gathered over Camille’s shoulder as she googled images of her former fame. She clicked to maximize the picture of Sweet Treats sitting next to Destiny’s Child at the American Music Awards. “See, right there. That’s me.”

  “Ooh! You was sitting right next to Beyoncé!” Diamond yelled in utter amazement.

  “Correction. Beyoncé was sitting right next to me,” Camille bragged.

  “Okay, sing something,” a boy challenged.

  Instantly, Camille sang her favorite line from the ballad Teddy Riley wrote specifically for their group. “If I leave tonight, you don’t have to change the locks on the door. You won’t see me anymore.”

  All doubts about Camille’s authority as a singer disappeared as three out of four gave her props. “Dang! You can sang!”

  “Can you do it again so I can put it on my cell phone?”

  “I want to take a picture with you.”

  The last, of course, accosted Camille with another stinging question. “Okay, so if you was all sitting next to Destiny’s Child and Mariah Carey, how come you ain’t in Hollywood or somewhere right now with the rest of the rich people?”

  Camille had to submit. “You know what? I’ve been asking myself that same question. That’s why I’m here tonight. Tryin’ to get back in the game.”

  “Well, you can sing,” the girl finally admitted, “but don’t be actin’ like you better than everybody else. That’s all I’m sayin’.

  “Come on, y’all, let’s go.”

  Diamond grabbed her purse. “Good luck, miss.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Alexis dropped the phone into her backpack and breathed a heavy sigh. “Thank You, Lord.” Hearing from Camille after all these years brought both relief and a burden. Not like she didn’t have enough stones around her neck already, but—like her parents—Alexis bore them with thanks. This was her season’s assignment, and she would gladly endure.

  “Who were you singing to, baby?” Momma asked from the couch.

  Daddy, who had reclined dangerously beyond the chair’s intended range, answered for his daughter. “Ain’t none of your business, now, Mattie. ’Lexis got a life of her own.”

  Momma piped up, “I can ask my daughter whatsoever question I want to ask her!”

  “I was talking to Camille, from our old singing group,” Alexis ended the argument.

  “Oh, yeah,” Daddy recalled, “Camille called here earlier today looking for you. I gave her the number to your car phone.”

  “Car phone,” Momma mumbled. “Cell phone is what they callin’ it now. And mighty fine of you to tell her now. Maybe she didn’t want Camille to have her number, you ever thought about that? Act like you the telephone operator or something.”

  Time for another intervention. “It’s okay, Momma. I don’t mind Camille having my number.”

  “See there?” from Daddy.

  “What else can she say, Willie? Damage already done now.”

  Though Momma was never one to let anyone else get the last word in, she wasn’t usually so vicious. Alexis hoped that her mother’s doctor would soon be able to determine the optimal dosage of blood-pressure medicine, because if not, her parents would have to move to separate corners of the house.

  “I never did like that Camille girl,” Momma continued with her tirade. “She always tried to steal the show from the rest of the group.”

  This, of course, was the latest of Mattie’s pharmaceutically induced confessions. Not that she was wrong, just that she usually had enough wisdom to keep her mouth shut and pray about such negative observations unless sharing them was absolutely necessary. Rather than listen to her mother rattle
off everything she disliked about Camille and the next five people who might come to mind, Alexis stood from the kitchen stool and grabbed her keys from the counter. “I’m out. See you two tomorrow.”

  She crossed the living room threshold and kissed both parents on their cheeks. The house hadn’t changed much in her lifetime except for this converted garage where her parents spent sixteen hours a day eating, watching television, and debating politics. Two lounge chairs, a forty-inch screen, a lamp for each one, and a nightstand between the recliners.

  Dutifully, Alexis closed the blinds so that, once the sun sank, passersby wouldn’t have a view into the house. She’d asked her older brother to buy solar screens for their parents, but he didn’t have the money. Sometimes, Alexis had to remind herself that Thomas was fifty-one, statistically approaching the last quarter of his life with little in retirement, thanks to a failing economy and a son whose drug addiction ate up any and all liquid assets. If Thomas Junior (T. J.) wasn’t robbing his parents, Thomas Senior and his wife were still spending funds on lawyers, rehabilitation clinics, T. J.’s restitution, and finally helping raise T. J.’s plenteous offspring.

  Alexis had tried to tell Thomas to let T. J. go down his own road—wherever that might lead. But Thomas’s heart was too big. She laid off, knowing that if it had been her own child, she probably wouldn’t have done anything different. Though her parents fussed and fought more often than not, they were fiercely loyal to family and friends.

  As she let herself out the front door, Alexis could hear her parents arguing about which one of them had driven her to leave. All she could do was shake her head. Momma and Daddy were made for each other, really.

  Once in her car, Alexis waited for the Bluetooth signal to appear on her dashboard, then she commanded the system. “Call Tonya.”

  Three rings later, her best friend answered. “Hey.”

  “You’ll never guess who I just talked to,” Alexis gushed.

  “No time for guessing, girl. Who?”

  Alexis announced, “Camille Elizabeth Robertson,” in graduation-commencement style.

  “Serious?” Tonya quipped.

  “Yep.”