I could see Nicky in the wings, waiting for his cue to press play on the backing machine. But I did not feel ready to sing. The Stage Davie I had been honing all week was nowhere to be found. And I didn’t dare to open my mouth for fear that something nervous and awkward would come out.
If I were still in Glass, this would have been a good moment to shut my eyes against the rest of the world and pretend I was in a Molly Ringwald movie. But I had let her go—plus, Molly didn’t sing—unless you counted that one lip-synching scene in The Breakfast Club—which I didn’t.
Instead I closed my eyes and imagined that I, Davie Jones, was beautiful. Even more beautiful than Veronica Farrell. I said to myself, How would Beautiful Davie, the most perfect woman in the whole wide world, handle this situation?
I opened my eyes. “Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming,” I said, in my polite but country accent. “I have a few songs for you to listen to. I hope you like them.”
Then I cued Nicky.
The audience loved Stage Davie. They clapped after each song, and they gave her a standing ovation after “Fever.”
Nicky even hugged her when she ran off stage. “Good job, baby girl,” he said. “They loved that ‘Fever’ number, huh?”
Then he looked at my Afro puff and his good mood passed as quickly as it had come.
“But we still got to do something about that hair.” He got on his walkie-talkie. “Leon, send Russell backstage.”
Russell, a short, pudgy waiter with a row of hoop earrings going up the sides of each of his ears, appeared a few minutes later.
“You gay, right?” Nicky asked him.
“Yeah, why?” Russell frowned. “Wait, are you about to fire me because I’m gay, because that would just be so wrong.”
“No, fool.” Nicky got back out his clipboard. “She don’t have a car, so I need you to take her someplace to get her hair done before the show tomorrow. And after that, take her to some sort of makeup counter.”
Russell looked from me to Nicky. “I would be offended, but you do need to get your hair and makeup together, girl. You sing too fierce to be looking that tore down.”
I could see the compliment in that, so I said, “Thank you.”
“I got a cousin with a shop on Pico. I’ll pick you up at nine thirty. Then I’ll run you over to the Fashion Fair counter at the Beverly Center.”
We exchanged information, while Nicky checked us off his list.
When Russell left, Nicky took me by the arm and said, “His gay ass is the only male friend you’re allowed until you’re eighteen. No dating till you’re legal.”
I was confused. “So I can’t be friends with you?”
Nicky screwed up his face. “I’m your boss, Davie. I ain’t your friend. Remember that shit.” Then he pulled some money out of his wallet and handed it to me. “Have them give you a perm and put your hair in a bob with a straight bang. If your hair ain’t at least down to your shoulders, then tell them to put some tracks in. But don’t go crazy. I don’t want weave all down your back.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I took mental notes, figuring that the hairdresser would.
. . .
I hadn’t been in a lot of cars before I climbed into Russell’s ’87 Toyota Corolla, but I could tell from minute one that he was a bad driver.
There was a bunch of tire screeching and cusswords emitting from other cars as we drove up Crenshaw toward Pico.
Russell, however, seemed more concerned with messing around with the radio than obeying the traffic laws. He flipped through stations until he found “My Name Is Not Susan” by Whitney Houston on some smooth groove R&B station. He sang along with it for a few bars, then he cut off, glancing over at me.
“What? You ain’t going to sing? You got to sing if you driving with me.”
So I sang with him, and I hummed on the parts I didn’t know.
Russell’s voice wasn’t great and he couldn’t hit any of the big notes on the chorus. But he was dramatic, and I liked the way he threw his whole upper body into singing along, even though it caused us to swerve into other people’s lanes a few times.