Bliss (3 page)

“Um, Eva?” There was some satisfied laughter from the audience. “You’re going on,” Dart said, “kind of long.” Rumbling from the public address system, his tones were otherworldly. People clapped and hooted. No one could see Dart, but they knew his voice. Knew his role as Sunny’s protector. Had heard that he took no cut of Sunny’s money. People operated on the theory that Dart and Eva were still having an affair. The music industry was performance on all levels, so Eva and Dart were the show within the show.

“Oh, am I?” Eva put a hand on a hip. Shtick all the way for detonating trade magazine flashbulbs. Eva stretched her mouth, tried to show every tooth she had. It was the way to look genuinely enthusiastic. A photographer’d told Eva that long ago, and it was the kind of tip she held onto. “Well then, Dart—
honey
,” she said. “I guess you better take on over.”

He waited a beat. Then: “I thought so.”

People started to laugh more loudly—the beautiful Evil Eva had been
put in her place
. Then the lights were black. The crowd startled into sudden, short silence. The lights hadn’t gone to
complete
black all night. Eva dashed offstage. All was going to plan.

Dart’s voice boomed again from the PA. “There’s no worry about the
dark
when we’ve got our
own light
. MY SISTER …”—he started speaking more slowly, and more like a professional announcer—“the SUN … is about to … RISE!”

The lights went up. And amid the yoga clutter stood Sunny in a pale yellow georgette dress. The Empire waist hid her hips and not-quite-flat
belly. The dress was cut just off her lustrous shoulders, and beads winked from her bodice. A layered skirt split in front to display a shimmering gold sheath underneath, hem bent against the floor. Sunny wore her hair tight off her face and bursting from the back of her head in a pouf of dangling tendrils. Gone was the puffy ponytail. Gone were the faded overalls and tie-dyed tank. Eva thought for a second that people might not even know it was Sunny.

The keyboardist hit one chord and the band stood.

He hit another and they yanked off the work shirts to reveal tuxedo jackets and bow ties.

Drama!

One more chord and the band took a slow bow. They started at the same time, stopped, and came back up. In unison. The crowd, especially for an industry crowd, went wild.

Damn! We love it when things happen in unison. We love a goddamn talent show
.

The keyboardist banged another rich chord and the lights went dark again. There were gasps.

Eva smiled in the darkness, and this time it wasn’t so wide, but was far more true. Lights up again, and the stage crew ran out and removed all the yoga stuff. They placed long-stemmed white lilies in the urns. This took seven seconds. The audience was enthralled.

“All right, Sunny, you better work it out!” Someone shouted it from near the front, and claps popped off like firecrackers.

Then Dart walked onstage and slipped on his sister’s wrist a corsage of miniature lilies. Sun looked like a prom queen. Dart gave her a kiss on her cheek, and then a little bow. As he walked off, Dart handed Myra a lily from the stage. The whole plot was Eva’s idea.

Put that in your goddamn column, Myra. Headline: SUN SHINES!

The house was dark again, except for a soft spot on Sunny.

No more incense. No tired rose petals. Now what, assholes? Now what?

The band played the first bars of a classic early eighties slow jam from an R & B group honed long ago in a Memphis studio. Sunny began to sing. No microphone.

At the chorus, an older guy walked on stage to a standing ovation.

It was a brother who’d been part of the popular Memphis group. During the mid-eighties, he’d gone solo to worldwide acclaim. The guy did two concerts a year: one free outdoor show in his rural hometown, and another in Vegas, at $300 a seat.

Don’t call it a comeback
, Eva thought, in L.L. Cool J’s fadeless words.
I been here for years
.

The star and Sun picked up mikes and sang together. Sunny’s band picked up the pace and pumped up the volume. She’d pretty much recomposed the song—modified it harmonically, added bass, left out the synthesized strings and the sax bridge. The older guy raised his brows in places, startled by Sun’s stuttered phrasings in the last chorus, but by the last soaring notes, the man was smiling. His eyes wet, face shiny, and artist’s soul flattered: Sun had taken his song seriously, treated it with creativity and respect.

Eva was elated.
So much could’ve gone wrong. It’s not a new trick, taking it back to the old school, but it can still work
.

In his too-tight suit, the tenor took a bow, waved graciously, then went to a table in the front near Myra and Hakeem and Dart. By staying for the rest of the show, the singer blessed Sunny. There was stomping from the audience, and barking.

“Lilies ev-er-ee-where,” Sunny cooed. People quieted quickly, eager, after the extreme makeover, for a bit of Original Sunny, conveyor of arcane, vaguely mystical knowledge. The speech was important. Eva had written it after she and Sun came up with the lily idea together. Sunny had practiced it down to the pauses between sentences, just as they’d choreographed every inch of the performance. Eva thought the speech would ward off naysayers who’d claim Sun had sold out in a chiffon dress. Forgotten herself. It was the main trick required of successful entertainers—no matter how much money you made or how differently you felt or how differently people treated you, you could never not be the same person you were when you were searching for a deal. Even if you hated that person, she was the core of the story fans fell in love with. The rule—for purveyors of soul and realness—was to not sell out, even when everyone was buying you. “Unplanted by human hands, lilies appear on graves of people
executed for crimes they didn’t even commit. Lilies protect gardens from evil spirits. To dream of lilies in spring foretells marriage, happiness, and prosperity.” And then with a small laugh, she said, “And the Romans cured calluses with the juice from lily bulbs—so you know I like lilies!”

Eva’d nixed some of the other lily myths.
Legend tells that the lily sprang from Eve’s tears, when upon being expelled from Eden she learned she was pregnant. In China, the daylily is the emblem for motherhood
.

The folks down front were delighted.

There were shouts of “Where’s your feet, Sun?”

“You got shoes on with that dress?

“Sunny, show your toes! Even if they got corns!”

Backstage, Ron looked at Eva like he was bored. Then, with mock affection, he embraced a minor rap duo—DJ Victorious and MC Swansong—now too old to ever even go gold. They’d devolved into almost pure hangers-on, and Vic, especially, hung on to Sunny whenever she called him.

So Eva looked at Ron like he was boring. Then her attention went back to Sunny. All her new songs were covers of liquid seventies and eighties ballads, and her medley struck a chord with this group. They were pleased Sun had shown respect for what came before her. By recording songs written by artists who’d peaked back when Michael Jackson was the only black singer selling tens of millions of albums, Sunny was making old heroes some new money. Plus, the radio execs at The Lagoon would go home and program Sun’s covers because they’d want to hear the songs they’d grown up listening to.

Finally, Sunny sang her own “Imagination.” It was the first song Eva had heard Sunny sing, and her biggest hit. It was about an outsider lonely child’s journey toward her authentic self and the tainted loves she imagines she’ll have along the way. By the last verse, the lonely child loves herself and that love opens the door for a true, lasting love relationship built on respect and passion and acceptance. Sunny put the mike down and blew it out like she liked to, with no music behind her at all. Sunny sang “Imagination” because the crowd always wanted
it, and the reason people wanted it was because Sunny sang the song like it would die inside her without liberation. Heads nodded slowly. Hands rested on forgotten cocktails. Eva felt privileged to watch and hear Sunny overcome by the fact that she was a part of bringing Sunny to the world.

As she closed the last soft notes of her theme song, sweat glowed on her forehead, and Sunny lifted, like a princess about to ascend a staircase, the front hem of her dress to her knees.

On cue
.

Sunny’s feet were bare. Like always.

Where is the line? Between authenticity and act? Is this a pure moment? Or is it corrupt and fake because of the choreography, the plan?

Please, stand, people! My life will be so much easier if I’m not pregnant, and if you all just stand up
.

The crowd leaped to a standing ovation.

Eva laughed loud and big and no one could hear her over the applause and shout-outs.

“Love you, Sunny!”

“We love you!”

“Sun, rise! Sun, rise! Sun, rise!”

Sunny basked in the chant until it almost faded, then she faced her palms to the crowd. “Thank you all. A special thanks to my friend—” she held her hand out to the Memphis star, who stood and kissed it. Sun put her hand over her heart like she would die of the beauty. “I’d like to thank my brother Dart, of course, and Roadshow. I’d like to thank all of you at radio for—”

“You got it, Sunny!”

“Straight to number one!”

“We’ll be rocking you in Chi-Town, Sunny!”

“Birmingham’s been down since day one!”

Eva felt Ron in the wings beside her. She looked at him, and he gave her a clandestine thumbs-up. Eva pressed down in herself the urge to kiss his face.

“There’s another person I want to thank,” Sunny said. “You all know Eva.”

Eva’s heart beat fast. She loved money, no question. Money was important. Money was security and freedom and fun. But it was for the Showcase Savoir Faires that she worked so hard: lots of times, the planning paid off. The traveling, the cajoling, the budgeting—the work
worked
. And when it did, there was this praise. This feeling of accomplishment and appreciation. There was a thumbs-up from Ron. Eva’s pulse thumped in her throat. On a night like this, she’d do it all gladly and for free.

“Eva, come out here.”

Okay, Sun’s not one to call people onstage with her. I had to crawl over thumbtacks to get her ass to agree to the duet
.

“Go on out, Eva,” Ron said. “Sun’s in a good mood.”

Eva walked out aflutter, and Sunny hugged her tight. “Thank you,” she said, pulling back and looking Eva in her eyes. “For opening me up to new things, for caring about me and my music.”

Eva placed her palms together like she was praying, put the tips of her index fingers to her lips, and bowed her head. Tears in her eyes, there were no clouds higher that Eva could walk on. Validation surged in her calves and thighs, and it rolled her hips as she strode offstage to cheers.

“A-plus for you,” Ron said. “Gold stars.” His eyes drooped with admiration and competition and the want to have Eva under him, way off her heels, her eyes closed as usual to the depth of their rendezvous.

“Just one more thing,” Sunny said, addressing the audience again. “If I could impose on your patience.”

She’s going to sing another song? Ron’s right. Sun is in a great mood
.

“This convention is about new music?” Sunny said. “Am I right?”

“Yeah!”

“Goddamn right!”

Eva had no idea what Sunny was going to do. This wasn’t rehearsed.

“I seen you in that dress before,” Ron said in Eva’s ear. “In Miami, at the Rap Symposium. Some zero from L.A. all in your chest.”

“So,” she said with a quick, interested look away from the stage. “You were checking me.”

“Checking you right now. Got something I want to show you in my room. A video. I want your opinion.”

“You want my opinion.” Eva watched the stage. Sunny was taking accolade after accolade. They wouldn’t let her finish her speech.

“I want you in my room,” Ron said, pressing up on her. “And I want your opinion. On a few things.”

“Go on,” Eva said, shrugging him off. It seemed he was distracting her on purpose.

Ron held out a Lost City plastic key card like it was hers and he was returning it.

Eva swatted at it. “What makes you think I want to go to your room?” Eva was irritated, thinking about Ron’s Tampa MC, over at the Hurricane Club. And Sunny was trying to say her piece. “There ain’t shit for me in your room.”

“That’s not,” Ron told her, “what you said earlier.” He reached and pinched Eva’s breast hard, through the white fabric, near her right nipple. “I said I got something to show you.” He cupped his dick with his hand.

Eva could’ve bit him.
So fucking ignorant and wannabe
. But then she heard Sunny’s voice.

“You
all decide what’s hot and what’s not,” Sunny said to the finally quiet crowd. “So I’m gonna … I’ve created my own label—Sonrisa, that’s ‘smile’ in Spanish—and these guys are signed to it. We’re looking for some radio play! They’re just going to do one number, but you’re going to want them to do more.”

No
.

Imitating Eva’s introduction, Sunny said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the future of hip hop—DJ Victorious and the extremely talented MC Swansong.”

The wind knocked from her, Eva felt like she was going to pee on herself. Her breast throbbed where Ron had bruised it.

Eva turned to walk away and Ron grabbed her wrist.

She yanked it from him without looking back. Eva felt like she was going to trip, but she didn’t.

T
hat’s not what you said earlier
.

Earlier.

Before the showcase…

… On the terrace of Ron’s penthouse. Pink petals shot from bursts of greens. Two open champagne bottles sat on a glass-topped table near a carafe of clear rum. On an avocado omelet, flies rested like fat raisins. Eva identified with the insects. Accustomed to excess, they’d lost their intensity.

Ron opened his hotel room door. “I knew you’d be up here,” he said. Then, as if against his will: “Your hair looks nice.”