She finally wore me down, and I said, “If I have time, I’ll cut together something I have. But just let me do it myself. Don’t be hovering and telling me what to put in or which show or—or anything.”
The night before the concert, alone in the living room, without overthinking or really thinking at all, I came up with a tape Daddy had made at a recent gig and did a rough cut with the VCR ghetto-rigged to the camera. Daddy was still in the habit of videotaping my performances so I could review them afterward and figure out ways to improve, so this wasn’t anything particularly high-tech, but it showed what I could do. I let it roll past the intro and hit Record on the camera right before my entrance. I let it roll through some turns and then pushed Pause, then fast-forwarded and hit Record again as I was whipping out the sword. I let it roll for a bit of me doing backbends and floorwork with the sword on my head and spinning the sword off, paused it again, grabbed a piece of a drum solo at the end, and then out. All together, it was less than three minutes.
“That’s too short,” said Mama when she watched it over my shoulder.
“I don’t want him to get bored,” I said.
I took the tape out of the camera and tucked it in its cardboard sleeve with my business card and a brief note. Something like:
Hi, my name is Mayte. I saw your show a few weeks ago. I noticed you had some Middle Eastern vibe in a song you played. I wanted you to see my Belly Dancing. I hope you like it. Oh and I’m 16 years old.
The following day, as Jan and Mama and I made the two-hour drive to Mannheim, I started to have doubts about the length and quality of my demo tape, thinking maybe I should have done something new like Mama suggested, but it was too late for that now. I could only comfort myself with the certainty that there was no way on earth that Mama—no, not even Mama with her impressive Puerto Rican Mama superpowers—would actually get that tape to Prince.
We arrived early again, intending to go straight for the barricades to make sure we’d be front and center like we were in Barcelona, but we weren’t able to get in. We had to stand outside the gate for a while.
“Whoa,” said Jan. “Here comes the tour bus.”
The windows of Prince’s bus were heavily shaded, but the band bus windows were only slightly tinted. Mama saw Prince and Rosie Gaines inside, and she started to get excited. I didn’t see them, but I was happy to be there, so I smiled up at the windows and waved.
Years later, Prince told me that when he saw me standing there with Jan and Mama, he said to Rosie Gaines, “There’s my future wife.”
“Really?” I said when he told me.
“Yeah. I said, ‘There’s my future wife,’ and Rosie laughed.”
“What made you say that?” I wondered—and I still wonder.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I thought I was joking.”
He liked how the universe boomeranged that little joke back to him. Or maybe the universe smiled and nodded and let him think that it was a joke and not the memory of something about to happen.
As we stood there, one of the dancers doing his after-party girl-patrol duty recognized us from Barcelona, and before we knew what was happening, he was leading us through the gate to the open area in front of the stage. In the brief moment we were home in Wiesbaden, Jan had managed to twist her ankle, so she was on crutches, hobbling along. I walked after her, clutching my bag to my chest, feeling the sharp corners of the VHS tape box until Mama took it from me and started scoping for the opportunity to accomplish her mission.
The dancers, Tony, Damon, and Kirk—“TDK” as I would soon come to know them—were inside this huge warehouse sort of space, playing basketball with some roadies. We stood there watching, not knowing what else to do.
“Whoa,” Jan whispered in Spanish, “he’s here.”
Prince was not tall, but he was muscular, and there was an aura of vibrant energy about him. He was sure and light on his feet in a way that made him seem larger than life. I had to remind myself to take my next breath, and in that split second, Mama beelined over in that direction, brandishing my belly dancing tape.
I gripped Jan’s hand. “Oh, wow. Oh, God. What is she doing?”
Mama didn’t get within ten yards of Prince, of course. His bodyguard stopped her and said sternly, “Sorry, ma’am. You can’t be here.”
She backed off but informed the bodyguard, “You haven’t seen the last of me.”
I was mortified. Horrified. Dying a thousand deaths. Prince observed all this before he disappeared into the sound booth. I stood there feeling like the Incredible Shrinking Woman. Mama came back to where we were standing, not bothered at all by this small setback.
“Mama,” I hissed, “why did you do that? You’ll get us kicked out.”
“He needs to see you dance,” she said with great conviction. “Yo no tengo pelos en la lengua.”