Spin it Like That (3 page)

“It's in your car,” Derrick said without looking at me.

“How do you know what I'm thinking?” I asked.

He didn't bother to respond to my question. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” I said with an attitude. He drove me crazy when he knew what I was thinking, sometimes before I even knew. I headed out to my car and searched until I spotted the business card on the floor of the passenger seat. I had given it to Derrick the night before because I was known to lose stuff.

“Should I call him?” I asked nervously when I returned to the kitchen. Derrick exhaled in disgust. “I guess that was a stupid question,” I said, picking up the cordless phone.

I chewed on a nail as I waited for someone to pick up on the other end. I was just about to hang up when I heard a bored-sounding voice say, “Thank you for calling DC Records. How may I help you?”

I took a deep breath. I had never called a record company before, so I didn't know what to expect. “Hi, my name is Jasmine Richardson. Mr. Chamberlain asked me to call him today.”

The woman on the other end brightened. “Oh, hi. I'm Jessica, DC's assistant. I've been expecting your call.”

“You have?” I asked nervously.

“Yes. Are you familiar with Teen Scene?”

“No. What's that?” I asked. Derrick looked at me, silently asking me what she had said, but I held up a finger to let him know I'd tell him in a minute.

“It's something DC decided to start a few months ago. He wants to turn a local club into a hangout for teens where they can dance and have fun in a drug-and alcohol-free environment. We're going to do a test run in Queens before we expand. The parties are going to be held every week starting in two weeks until the end of the summer.”

“Oh, that's pretty cool,” I said, wondering what this had to do with me. I looked at Derrick and shrugged before waving my hand to try and make Jessica to get to the point.

“Our DJ canceled on us last week…” At that, I sat up straight.

“Really?” I said.

“DC wants to hire you to play the parties.”

“Okay,” I quickly said.

Jessica laughed. “You don't know any of the details yet.”

“Oh.” I tried to calm down when I realized just how immature and unprofessional I sounded. I didn't want to talk myself out of a job.

“I have a contract I use,” I said, hoping this made me sound more businesslike.

“That's fine,” Jessica said. “I'll send you a copy of our contract, and you can send yours back with it. The parties will last from eight until midnight, and they'll be held at Twilight on Linden Boulevard in St. Albans.”

“That's not too far from me,” I said, recalling the club. It had been around a long time, but lately it seemed that there was always something going on there. I had heard advertisements for karaoke and comedy nights. Whenever Derrick and I drove past on weekends, there was always a huge crowd waiting to get in.

Derrick was staring at me again, and I smiled at him.

“You'll be performing Thursday and Friday nights. You'll need to be there no later than seven each evening, and you'll be paid a thousand dollars a week.”

“A thousand dollars a week?” I said slowly, and Derrick raised an eyebrow.

“Is that okay?” Jessica asked.

I sighed, pretending I had to think it over. “I guess so,” I said. I tried not to let my excitement show in my voice, although I was tapping Derrick on the arm. I had never made that much for working an event, and I couldn't believe I'd be making it every week. It looked like I wouldn't have to wait until I landed my record deal to get my leather coat. “Are we supposed to split that?” I asked in my most professional voice.

“We?” Jessica asked, sounding confused.

“Yeah, me and my brother, Derrick. We're a team,” I said.

Jessica hesitated. “DC didn't mention anything about your brother. I'll have to call him.”

I looked at Derrick, who was shaking his head. “Could you hold on for a minute?” I asked. I covered the phone with my hand, hoping Jessica wouldn't hear me. “What?”

“Take the job,” he said.

“But I can't do it without you,” I whispered.

“Jasmine, this is your dream, not mine,” he said. “Take the job.”

I didn't know what to do. I was used to Derrick being by my side when I performed. “Will you come with me?” I asked in a small voice, suddenly scared of the thought of being without him.

He nodded, and I felt a relief I couldn't describe. “Thank you,” I said. I removed my hand from the receiver. “Jessica, don't worry about calling DC. I'll do the club by myself.”

“Great,” she said, sounding relieved. “This is a really great opportunity for you. A lot of rap's pioneers got their starts at the club, and DC has asked a lot of celebrities to drop by, so you should get some really good exposure.”

I smiled as I envisioned myself hanging out with some of the people I watched in videos.

“Hello?” Jessica said.

I shook myself and refocused on the conversation. “Yes, I'm here,” I said.

“I'll messenger our in-house contract to you today,” she said. “Sign it and get it back to us as soon as you can.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I said, and hung up. I looked at Derrick, who was smiling.

“Congratulations,” he said, giving me a hug.

“Oh, man, wait until I tell Loretta and Kyle,” I said. “Daddy is gonna be excited, too.” I looked at Derrick, and his expression made me put down the phone. “What?” I asked.

Before he could respond, the back door opened, and in walked Mama.

“G
ood morning,” Mama said, sounding tired. She didn't bother to look at me as she placed a few bags of groceries on the table, and I knew she was still mad, so I jumped up to put them away. Derrick got up to help, but I waved him off.

“Hey, Mama. What are you doing home?” I asked nervously as I remembered our argument from the night before.

“I decided to take the rest of the day off. It was kind of slow at work today, so I came on home. I was feeling fine until I stopped at the grocery store. Now my head is killing me.” She rubbed her temples. “Our argument last night has my pressure up.”

I continued to put away the groceries in silence. I was trying to think of a way to talk her into letting me perform at Twilight every week, since I was supposed to be on punishment for the rest of the summer.

“Do you need me to do anything else, Mama?” I asked once I was done.

“Could you get me a glass of water and some aspirin?” she said, settling into a seat at the kitchen table.

“Okay,” I said, probably a bit too eagerly. I didn't want to give her any more reason to be angry with me.

She smiled her thanks when I came back with the aspirin. “What do you guys have planned for the day?” she asked.

Derrick and I looked at each other. “We have graduation practice later, and I need to work on my speech, but other than that, nothing. We were just going to hang around the house, maybe clean up,” I threw in.

Mama stopped massaging her temples and looked at me. “What are you up to?” she asked suspiciously.

Derrick kicked me under the table, silently urging me to go ahead and tell Mama about the job offer. I chewed my lip, trying to decide if I should say something to her or wait for Daddy to come home, since I could talk him into just about anything.

The decision was made for me when Mama suddenly grabbed her head.

“Are you okay?” Derrick asked, going to check on her.

She tried to shake her head and winced. Derrick grabbed her arm and led her to her bedroom, where we both tucked her in like she used to do us when we were little kids. After making sure the shades were drawn and that Mama was comfortable, we got ready to go to practice.

“Why didn't you tell her?” Derrick asked on the way to school.

“You know she's just gonna say no,” I said. “I'll wait until Daddy comes home. I know I can get him to say yes.”

Derrick nodded and turned on the hip-hop station. We were nodding to an old-school rap when the announcer broke in.

“We interrupt this program for a late-breaking announcement. Dexter ‘DC' Chamberlain was arrested outside his Manhattan office today in connection with the murder of West Coast gangsta rapper Malik, who was killed two years ago.”

Derrick and I looked at each other. I turned up the radio just as we pulled into the school parking lot.

“This is not the first time Chamberlain, who is the founder of DC Records, has had a brush with authorities. He has launched the careers of several well-known gangsta rappers. We will bring you more details as they become available.”

“Man, that's messed up,” Derrick said, shaking his head.

“Yeah. Do you think they're still going to go through with the parties?”

“We'll see,” Derrick said. He reached for the door handle and climbed out, but I didn't move. “It's going to be fine,” he said through the window. “Even if this doesn't work out, it's not your last chance. You can still win the record deal with Impact.”

I nodded. I was already starting to blow up, and although the gig with DC would generate more hype, I would be just fine without it. My skills spoke for themselves.

Impact Records had only been around a few years, but they had a great reputation. Kyle had told me that the guy who started it had once been DC's protégé, but he didn't like the gangsta rap and controversy that DC Records was known for, so he had started his own label. I had quite a few CDs by Impact artists, and all of them were good. Once Derrick and I won All-City, we would be a great addition to Impact's roster.

“You coming?” Derrick asked.

I got out of the car, and we headed to the auditorium, where we met Kyle, who was also graduating. Loretta was only a junior, so she was still in class, but knowing her, she would find a way to come to the auditorium to hang out with us.

“Did you hear about DC?” I asked Kyle as we waited for practice to start.

“Yeah. I'm not surprised he's been arrested. I told you he's bad news. Did you ever talk to him?”

I stood to let a few kids into our row; then I told him about the job.

He nodded. “That will be good exposure for you,” he said. “It's coming at a good time, too. Let's make up some flyers announcing that you'll be in All-City so that you have a lot of support behind you. We can pass them out at Twilight every week.”

“That's if I still have the gig,” I said.

Kyle shrugged. “If not, we'll get you another one. It's not like you're not good at what you do.”

Before I could respond, our senior class advisor, Mrs. Winston, called us to order and went through a rundown of the ceremony. I tuned her out. I couldn't understand why we needed to practice walking in and out of the auditorium. We had all done it hundreds of times. A couple of lyrics popped into my head, so I grabbed my backpack, got out the notebook I usually kept with me and jotted them down.

I was humming, and so engrossed in what I was doing that it took a few seconds for it to register that Kyle was nudging me.

“What?” I said, annoyed.

Mrs. Winston was staring at me. I stared back, not having a clue what was going on.

“Miss Richardson, would you care to join us?” she asked.

“Oh.” I jumped out of my seat and headed to the front of the auditorium. Derrick had gone up to ask her a question earlier, so he was already standing at the podium.

“I hope that's a copy of your speech,” Mrs. Winston said, pointing at my notebook. She had been bugging me about my speech for the last two weeks.

“Uh, no, it's in my other one,” I said, snapping the notebook shut in case she asked to see what I was working on.

“I want a copy of that speech when we practice on Wednesday, Miss Richardson. No excuses.”

“Okay,” I said, and turned around and rolled my eyes. I didn't see what the big deal was about writing down a speech. I had learned that I rapped best when I freestyled, and I figured the same would be true with my speech. She probably wasn't even going to read what I handed in, anyway.

I stood onstage while Derrick went over his speech; then we ran through the rest of the program, which consisted of everybody walking across the stage pretending to get their diplomas. It seemed that that piece of paper was going to remain a dream for a few kids, because several of them got pulled out of line and were told they wouldn't be graduating.

If it hadn't been so pathetic, I would have laughed. Those kids should have known by now they weren't getting their diplomas. It really made them look stupid to have even shown up for rehearsal.

School was letting out just as practice ended, and although I wanted to hang out, Derrick and I decided to head home. Just in case my deal was still in place with DC, I didn't want to give Mama any more reason to be mad at me.

We dropped Loretta off at some open call at Green Acres Mall for a modeling gig. I was so ready for her to get out of the car. She spent the entire drive critiquing models in some magazine, telling us why she should have gotten the job instead.

When we walked into the house, I grabbed the mail and flipped through it while Derrick went to check on Mama. Right after we had taken the SATs junior year, Derrick and I had started getting letters from colleges across the country. Even though we had both decided to attend Morgan State in Maryland, schools were still recruiting us, so I had gotten used to three or four letters a day arriving for me. At the bottom of the pile was a manila envelope with DC Records' return address. I tore it open, and inside was the contract Jessica had promised.

I showed it to Derrick, who had headed into the den to watch TV after popping some popcorn.

“How's Mama?” I asked.

“She was asleep, and I didn't want to wake her.”

I nodded. “I guess they still want me,” I said as he read the cover letter and then the contract.

“Maybe it came before DC was arrested,” he said, putting down the contract and flipping through the channels with one hand and wolfing down a handful of popcorn with the other.

“That's true. I hadn't thought about that. I'd better call Jessica.” I looked around for DC's card, but I couldn't remember what I had done with it.

“Check the letterhead,” Derrick said without taking his eyes off the screen.

I stuck out my tongue at him.

“I saw that,” he said, still not looking at me.

I mushed him in the head, then ran into the other room when he picked up a pillow and aimed it at me.

After locating the phone number on the letterhead, I went to my room and called. Jessica sounded even more stressed than she had the first time I'd talked to her.

“Hi, it's Jasmine Richardson,” I said.

“Hey,” Jessica said, sounding relieved. “Reporters have been ringing the phone off the hook. Hang on a second.” She clicked to the other line and came back a few seconds later. “Ugggh…they're driving me crazy,” she said. “So what's up?”

“Yeah, I heard about DC getting arrested. Is everything okay over there?” I really wanted to ask if I still had my job, but I didn't want to seem so cold and insensitive.

“Everything's fine. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time this has happened. When you're a successful black businessman, somebody is always looking for a way to bring you down. Even though DC's not here, it's still business as usual. His partner, Ron, is keeping things moving.”

“I didn't realize he had a partner,” I said.

“Hang on,” she said, clicking over again. A few seconds later she was back. “Not many people know, but you're family, so I can tell you,” she said, laughing as she continued the conversation as though we hadn't been interrupted.

“So does that mean I still have a job?”

“Of course. Unless you hear from me, DC or Ron, nothing has changed. Like I said, it's business as usual. Did you get the contract?”

“Yep. I'll get it back to you tomorrow,” I said, realizing that that meant I had to tell my parents that evening.

Jessica and I talked for a few more minutes, until she got another call she had to take; then we hung up.

Since I wanted to get on Mama's good side, I decided to go ahead and start dinner. I looked in the freezer, trying to find something I could make quick. I finally decided on some spaghetti. I put the ground beef in the microwave to defrost, then grabbed some jarred spaghetti sauce and a box of pasta and set them on the counter before I went to join Derrick in the den, where he was watching an episode of
Wild 'N Out
.

When the timer went off on the microwave, I headed back to the kitchen, and Derrick followed me.

“So is DC still in jail?” he asked as I cooked the meat.

“Yeah, but I still have my job. I told Jessica I'd send the contract back tomorrow.”

He nodded, then got up to put on the pasta.

“Can you believe we're graduating on Thursday?” I asked, sitting at the table.

“Nope,” he said. “This school year really just flew by. We'll be in college in the fall.”

“Not if we get this record deal,” I said.

When he didn't respond, I looked up to find him staring at me strangely. “What?” I said.

“We're still going to college if we get the deal,” he said firmly.

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but Daddy walked in.

“If it isn't my two favorite kids,” he said.

“Hey, Daddy.” I walked over and kissed him on the cheek.

He and Derrick nodded at each other before Daddy headed to the refrigerator, where he grabbed a beer before settling at the kitchen table.

“How was your day?” he asked.

Derrick looked at me, and I knew it was now or never. “Actually, it was really good,” I said.

Daddy patted his knee, indicating I should sit on it. I laughed and shook my head. Sometimes he still thought I was six instead of sixteen. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I do it out of habit.”

I sat down at the table next to him. “I got a job offer,” I said, really excited.

“Really? Doing what?” Daddy asked, then took a sip of his beer.

“Deejaying every week at Twilight.” Daddy frowned. “They're going to have teen nights,” I said quickly. “There won't be any drugs or alcohol.”