To Selena, With Love (23 page)

“I need to get some gum,” he said.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. This still seemed strange to me. On the other hand, I was getting restless waiting for Selena.

“Selena?” I called. “I’m going with A.B. to the store. I’ll get more beer for the party while I’m at it.”

As we took off for the store, a blue truck came around the corner. It was almost dark; I watched the truck pass us, but didn’t really get a good look at it in the dusky light.

“I think that was like the truck I told you about, the one Selena and I were thinking about buying,” I said.

“Yeah? I didn’t see it. Sorry,” A.B. said.

At the store, A.B. bought his gum and I got some beer. Then we drove back to my house to pick up Selena for the party.

The blue Silverado truck was parked in our driveway. “Happy anniversary, baby!” Selena cried.

I was shocked almost speechless. I couldn’t believe that she had
gone back to the dealer, put a down payment on the truck and done all of the paperwork herself.

I laughed and hugged her. “Let’s go for a ride.”

No matter how well I thought I knew her, Selena always managed to surprise me. One day, I came home to a garage that reeked suspiciously of gasoline and some kind of small engine stink, like a lawn mower. It took me a minute to pinpoint the source: there was a go-kart in our garage.

I went into the house and called for Selena. When she didn’t answer, I tried her cell phone. “Hey, Selena, what’s this go-kart doing in our garage?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I bought a go-kart today.”

“You bought a go-kart? Just like that?” I wasn’t angry or anything. Just surprised, I told her.

“Yeah,” she said again. “I always wanted a go-kart when I was a kid. Didn’t you?”

That was one thing Selena and I definitely shared: a love of vehicles, especially the kind that could give you a thrill when you were driving them. I laughed and said, “Big toys for big people, right?”

“Right,” she said. “I’m on my way home. I’ll tell you the rest of the story when I get there.”

What had happened was this: Selena had been driving around Corpus in her car with our friend Nicolette, a singer who had been with Los Dinos for a little while. The two of them had driven past a dealer that sold ATVs, and there was a whole line of go-karts parked in the lot next to the road. Selena had pulled over and
bought one of them then and there. The dealer had delivered the go-kart to the house on the very same day.

Selena started laughing then, telling me in the kitchen how the neighborhood kids had seen her and Nicolette driving the go-kart over to the school in our neighborhood. Selena let the kids all have a turn driving it. “Nicolette, though, she was hogging that go-kart and trying to show off her driving,” Selena said. “She was driving really fast and doing doughnuts in the school yard and everything.”

She really started to crack up then, laughing so hard that tears started streaming down her face. For a minute she couldn’t even speak because she was gasping for breath.

“What?” I asked. “What happened?”

“Nicolette comes tearing right by me, takes a turn on the grass, and falls off!” she said. “She wasn’t buckled in, so her butt slid right off the seat and she went rolling over and over!”

“Is she okay?” I said, but I was laughing by now, too, picturing this.

“Sure, she’s fine, but that dummy was trying to be slick with the thing and look what happened,” Selena said, wiping her eyes.

“What about you? Did you fall off?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

Selena gave me one of those looks. “Of course I’m fine. You know me. I can drive whatever.”

It was true, too. I’d seen her do it. From motorcycles to fast cars, from go-karts to trucks, Selena loved a fast ride, the wilder the better.

On February 3, 1993, Selena y Los Dinos performed at the Memorial Coliseum in Corpus Christi. Located on the bay, the Coliseum was built in honor of World War II veterans from Corpus. This
building, which was unfortunately demolished in 2010, was an incredible place to perform mainly because of the enormous curved steel roof with its thin concrete cover—the world’s largest unsupported span when it was built.

We loved performing anywhere in Corpus, really, because we could get ready at home and didn’t have to rush, other than me trying to work around Selena in the bathroom. Tonight she was throwing a party at the house—just close friends and family—but the problem was that by now so many fans knew where we lived. They sometimes knew more about our schedule than we did.

We never had anyone act rude or offensive; at the most, fans might drive by our house with horns blaring, with one of Selena’s songs blasting from their speakers, or yelling out the window. This happened constantly after our shows in Corpus, so we kept the party a secret until after we were through playing that night.

Another secret—to me, that is—was the fact that we were planning to record the concert for the next album—the album that would eventually be titled
Selena Live!
It was probably best that I didn’t realize, since I was already feeling nervous about what kind of turnout we’d have, given that the Coliseum was the biggest performance venue in Corpus. I was also concerned about getting the sound check done and whether my gear would work. Selena y Los Dinos wasn’t a small family any longer; our productions now required a caravan of three eighteen-wheeler semitrucks carrying the band, the road crew, and our equipment. Nothing was as simple as it used to be.

When we arrived at the Coliseum, Selena and I were amazed by the number of cars in the parking lot. Over three thousand local fans had turned up for the show, but somehow the Coliseum
officials had still managed to set things up to accommodate dancing, in true Tejano fashion.

I went onstage to check things out. Selena, meanwhile, went straight to the dressing room backstage, where she sorted through her clothing and made some last-minute costume decisions.

Suddenly I heard an announcement that we should all dress in our stage gear and assemble for a photograph that would appear on the album cover—and that’s when it dawned on me that this show would be our next album. Apparently, the decision to record the show had been made a long time ago, but I had never heard.

I didn’t bother asking questions. I just made sure that Selena and I were dressed and in the right place at the right time. This was one of those situations where Abraham would pull me aside to say, “Listen, don’t let Selena be late.”

“I’ll do my best,” I told him, which was pretty much my standard response. I knew that I didn’t have any more control over Selena than he did; the difference was that this didn’t bother me.

The show went well, but afterward I started to worry because I thought I had messed up quite a few times. In my mind, I went over and over the mistakes, and decided I’d have to fix them when we went into the studio to finish mixing the album. As it turned out, there were just two chords that needed to be fixed.

Selena, though, had a great time from start to finish. The weird thing about playing in your hometown is that you always worry nobody will show up, because everyone already knows you and has heard your music over and over again. Selena was ecstatic that night about having drawn so many fans and to have had such a fantastic audience for the show. She also knew that the crowd’s energy would transform the new album.

As planned, the band came over to our house after the show. It was a terrific party. What I remember most about that evening, though, is going into the bedroom after everyone else had left. Selena had gone to bed before me; I still had to let the dogs out and lock up the house.

“Hey,” I said, surprised to see the light still on in the bedroom. “What are you doing still up?”

She smiled at me. “Just relaxing,” she said. “Reading.” She picked up the fashion magazine off her knees and showed it to me. “Great show, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said, but I wasn’t thinking about the show or the party. I was marveling at my wife.

We had played well and entertained thousands of people. Now here was Selena, sharing my bed and looking as beautiful as she always did, just relaxing and reading like any other woman. She looked so down to earth and calm. How was that possible, after the energy she had expended to perform onstage? And how had I gotten so lucky, to be able to share these miraculous moments with her?

I got into bed with Selena and we talked a little more about the show. “I didn’t even know we were going to record it,” I admitted finally.

She laughed. “I told you, dummy. So did A.B.”

“I must not have been paying attention,” I said, and it was true: most of the time, I was paying attention to Selena. She already held a place deep in my heart, and I was falling more in love with her with each day that passed.

Selena’s gradual rise to popularity became a meteor ride in 1993 after the release of
Selena Live!
, which was our fourth album for EMI Latin and featured the live recording of Selena’s concert hits as well as three new tracks: “No Debes Jugar,” “La Llamada,” and “Tú Robaste Mi Corazón.” Those three singles rapidly rose to be named among the top five hits on the U.S. Hot Latin Tracks chart, and the album itself was certified Gold on the charts.

Shortly after the Corpus concert, the fact that Selena had become a major Latin attraction was confirmed when we played at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in the Astrodome with David Lee Garza. Together, we drew nearly sixty thousand people, an audience that no Tejano act had ever managed to attract to that event before. Selena also won Female Vocalist of the Year and Female Entertainer of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards that year, as well as Album of the Year for
Entre a Mi Mundo
.

This success definitely didn’t go unnoticed by the record labels—in November, Selena y Los Dinos agreed to make an English-language record with SBK Records. One of our biggest supporters, Daniel Glass, the CEO of the EMI Records Group, compared Selena to Madonna in his interview with
Billboard
magazine, saying, “She has that same control, and I love artists that know where they want to go and how to get there. She’s definitely a pop star.”

Behind the scenes, Selena was excited about her success, but uncertain at times as well. She was loyal to her fan base and didn’t want to disappoint people by singing only in English. She intended to keep making Tejano music.

More worrisome to her was what might happen to her family and the band if she continued on this path to international stardom. One day, I boarded the bus to find Selena lying in her bunk and
looking really depressed. Nothing bad had happened, but I could tell that she was out of it, almost in a daze.

“You okay?” I rested my hand on her forehead to see if she had a fever because her usual bright gaze was dull, but her face was cool. “You don’t look right.”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said.

“Sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

I gave her a kiss and walked on by, continuing to move my guitars onto the bus and into a closet. When I’d finished, I went back to the bunks to check on her. She was still lying there in the same position.

I sat down on the floor next to her. “Selena, what’s going on? What are you thinking about?”