Scandalous Heroes Box Set (63 page)

She had no friends at her bus stop but once she got on the rowdy bus her best friend Charisma had saved her a seat. Charisma wasn’t her real name. She had created it as her stage name and since it sounded better than Sheryl everyone indulged her.

Charisma plucked at Vanessa’s hoodie and shook her head. “Girl, what are you wearing?” Charisma was always in make-up and her clothes were always perfect. She told Vanessa that she would never bee seen in public looking less than perfect and she generally achieved it. Charisma was light skinned and she wore micro braids that extended her hair until it flowed over her shoulders. She was petite and pretty and she knew how to act, sing and dance. The two girls had a dream of going to New York and sharing the rent on a small apartment while they made it big.

Grandma thought she was going to college but Vanessa decided that there was nothing else school could teach her about the way she intended to live her life. She was going to be a singer, she was going to cut a record and she was going to be a star just like Sparkle.

Grandma would say, “Your mother left you a great deal of money for college and if you think you’re going to blow that money on foolishness then you got another thing coming. But Vanessa didn’t argue, it was pointless. She remembered the truth, though. Her Mama had saved that money so that they could live their dreams—and going to college wasn’t necessarily her dream.

Vanessa knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would become a professional singer. There was nothing that she loved more than singing. And with the formal training she received at her school, she could already out sing some of the popular artists that she heard on the radio—and that was not just her own opinion.

Vanessa no longer lacked friends. And although some thought that she had an above average beauty, She didn’t have a boyfriend. As a matter of fact, she shied away from guys. SCPA had no shortage of beautiful, talented people so when she explained to a certain boy that she wasn’t interested in them they didn’t sweat her, they just moved on to the next beauty. Despite her earlier years, Vanessa had grown into a popular and well-adjusted young woman.

After lunch were rehearsals. Everyone always complained that it was unfair to rehearse after lunch because everybody was bloated, or tired or had to go to the bathroom. But Vanessa knew that they would have complained no matter when rehearsals were scheduled. Too early and they were sleepy. Before lunch and they would be too hungry. Late in the day and they were too tired. She was just anxious to get started.

It was Vanessa’s idea that they start with some of the singing scenes in order to warm up to the story and break the ice. The music director agreed and focused on Jamaica who had landed the role of Effie.

“Well let’s do the song that everyone wants to hear. That’s probably the one that we’re going to work on the hardest.” Miss Glenn stated. Miss Glenn spent a great deal of time telling Jamaica that she sang it very well but everyone always made the same mistakes and blah blah blah…

If the role of Effie had gone to anyone other than Jamaica Sinclair then perhaps Vanessa would not have instituted her plan. But since the much thicker girl was the one and only person to ever make fun of her while at SCPA she hoped like hell her plan would work. Jamaica had liked making fun of her skinniness and had tried to give her the nickname of Olive Oyl. The only thing is that no one but Jamaica would ever use the name so she eventually dropped it. Vanessa saw the jealousy in the action and the two had been enemies every since.

As the music for And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going began to play everyone paused to listen. It was the showstopper song and no matter how perfect the role was played, if the actress couldn’t hit the notes they couldn’t keep the role. Vanessa had sang the hell out of it but she still hadn’t gotten the part. She had heard Jamaica’s rendition and had rolled her eyes because she had just tried to mimic Jennifer Holiday and it was Vanessa’s opinion that you never mimicked anyone—you out did them! That was the point; you strived to sound better than your favorite singer!

Vanessa sang the song better and now she meant to show that she could play the part better.

Jamaica stood center stage and began singing the song as if she was on stage at the Tony Awards instead of rehearsing on a theatrical stage. Vanessa cringed each time Jamaica unsuccessfully tried to hit Jennifer Holiday’s notes and saw Miss Glenn doing the same.

Vanessa’s voice suddenly belted out over Jamaica’s. The thicker girl glared at her and continued singing but soon Vanessa’s voice overpowered her as she expertly hit the notes that Jamaica couldn’t.

“Vanessa!” Miss Glenn yelled and turned off the music. It didn’t matter. Vanessa didn’t stop. She moved onto the stage and wailed out the lyrics of a song that meant more to her than just about the loss of a man, but the loss of everything that she had ever loved and had ever desired.

When she cried out that she was not going even after Miss Glenn repeatedly told her to stop someone stomped their feet and clapped their hands. But Vanessa wasn’t acting. Her cries of ‘I ain’t going!’ were in direct response to Miss Glenn’s demands.

Vanessa threw up her fists into the air and slammed them down against her thighs when she screamed you’re going to love me. Effie’s pain and loss radiated from Vanessa as she screamed out and landed every emotional high note while picturing her Mama’s beautiful face, Jalissa’s dimples and Scotty’s cornflower eyes. Tears slid down her face as she begged them to stay with her and emotion was in her voice as she made fists and hugged herself and screamed that she was not going anywhere. The other actors wailed in delight at her raw emotion and Miss Glenn was clapping her hands and stomping her feet right along with the rest of them. Everyone in the auditorium was on their feet whistling, clapping and stomping; adults as well as instructors.

When she finished she stood there panting emotionally. Miss Glenn shouted, “Wardrobe! Make her a fat suit!”

1982’s SCPA’s rendition of Dream Girls had a completely mixed cast with big girl Jamaica Sinclair starring as Deena Jones and Vanessa White—who was not required to wear a fat suit—starring as Effie White. The show was a hit and reviews were even written in the local paper. Everyone said that their version of Dream Girls was the best ever done at the performing arts school to date.

~***~

“Please Grandma!”

“Vanessa, what you’re asking me goes against everything that I believe is right. Those people are wicked and I don’t care what anybody says—and now that girl is pregnant!”

This time Vanessa wasn’t going to back down. She had missed holidays and birthdays with Jalissa. She hadn’t been there for Jalissa’s first kiss—for her first anything and she was firm in her stance that nothing was going to cause her to miss spending her last summer as a youth with her cousin!

Over the years their conversations had been sporadic, generally under her grand mother’s watchful eyes. But it still surprised her when she had learned that Jalissa had gotten pregnant at the age of sixteen. Suddenly the loss of everything that she had once held dear was overwhelming. She asked her grandmother if she could take some money out of her trust in order to buy Jalissa’s baby some things that she knew they would need--and all hell had broken loose.

Grandma had put her foot down, adamant that she wouldn’t let loose one red cent to go to ‘that woman’, although Jalissa wasn’t quite a woman...And then her grand mother told her that as her guardian, she held the control of the trust and she wasn’t going to let any of those heathens to get their hands on it.

It had angered her so badly that she had informed her grandmother that she would like to spend the summer with her aunt and cousin. She still had no positive feelings for her aunt but mentioning her would point out to her grandmother that she still had other family out there in the world. The money was no big deal. She would be eighteen in four months and even though, her grandmother was the trustee and had control over it, every bit of it would come to her on her eighteenth birthday. She could bide her time until then.

But denying her the summer with Jalissa was something that she would not accept. “Grandma I’m nearly eighteen years old!”

“Nearly means nothing-“

“I never ask for anything grandma. I just want one summer-“

“Vanessa baby, you should not trust those people! Look, baby girl, I have raised one daughter and I know what it is to be a young girl right there on the edge of womanhood. That cousin of yours got pregnant because her mother is a no good heathen, and the apple don’t fall far from the tree!“

Vanessa shook her head at her grandmother’s crazy words. “That doesn’t mean that I’m going to get pregnant! Grandma I’ve never even done anything like that-“

“It’s no wonder that she’s going to be a mother while she’s still a child! She’s a product of that woman that tried to steal your grandfather from me! It’s why the both of them turned out the way they did!” Grandma had no reason to question how Aunt Callista or Jalissa had turned out. She knew nothing about them! And why should they be blamed just because her own husband had cheated on her?! Vanessa wasn’t used to taking up for aunt Callista but she was sick and tired of her grandmother talking bad about them as if they weren’t a part of her family.

“Stop talking about my family like that!” Vanessa yelled, causing the older woman to stare in shock.

“Here’s the truth; I’m not going to college! When I turn eighteen I’m taking that money and I’m going to New York to become famous. When I’m eighteen I can do what I want and you won’t have a thing to say about it!”

Bertha Mae White recovered her shock very quickly at her grand child’s words. She narrowed dark eyes at her and Vanessa suddenly saw her mother standing before her; a fierce woman that had protected and shielded her—even from her very own fierceness.

“Over my dead body,” she said coolly. “My baby didn’t sacrifice her life just so that you could run around the country being foolish. What? You think I didn’t know how she came about that money? It came from a lot of wrongdoing—I don’t want to know the details, but I’ll be damned if my baby’s dreams won’t be fulfilled in one way or another!”

Her grandmother had pulled the ace out of her pocket; she had played the guilt card. Vanessa said no more. She just turned and went to her room where she threw herself on her bed and cried. She owed her mother a part of her life and to pay that debt she would need to go to college to study something that didn’t interest her. She owed her grandmother her goodness because she had raised a daughter that had done everything that she wanted to keep Vanessa from doing.

Vanessa wanted to run back into the living room. She wanted to shout, “It wasn’t me that was the whore who ended up getting herself raped in murdered in a fucking park! I have better sense than that! So don’t blame me for how
your
kid turned out! I’m not her! I’m not my mother!

The shame of those thoughts caused her to cry even harder and she silently begged her mother for her forgiveness. When there was a light touch on the back of her head she started but grandma sat on the side of the bed and stroked her hair.

“Vanessa, hush now. Don’t cry baby. I know that I’m wrong to make you pay for the anger that’s in my heart. But I don’t trust that woman, her mother or her daughter. I would rather you not have anything to do with them…but in the end that is not my decision to make. ” Vanessa listened quietly, not understanding why her grandmother had to be so crazy about the subject.

The older woman sighed and then continued. “But I can see that it’s not the fault of the children what the adults did. You shouldn’t have to pay for what happened to your mother or to me, and neither should that little girl. If you want to spend the summer with your kin then I’ll allow it.”

Vanessa sat up quickly and tightly hugged her grandma. “Thank you grandma!” She wiped the tears from her eyes as her grandmother held her in her arms. “I’m sorry grand ma.”

“Me too, baby.”

She would be eighteen in four months but right then Vanessa knew no greater joy than being rocked in her grandmother’s arms.

A while later Vanessa got up to call her cousin and Bertha Mae sat there on the edge of her granddaughter’s bed listening to her excited voice. She felt a sense of sadness and loss as she remembered her own little girl sounding the same way when she was that age and talking to that Callista girl that she considered to be her sister. She thought sadly about betrayal and loss and hoped that her grandbaby would never have to know the depths of that kind of pain.

Chapter 20

Vanessa watched the cabdriver drag her large tote bag from the trunk of the cab. He lingered there on the sidewalk as if Vanessa was going to give him a tip. She was seventeen and didn’t have a job. The only tip she could give him was to not take the long route to Winton Terrace when the passenger knew exactly how to get there. She had told him to take King’s Run Drive and he said that it would be backed up. She had given him a piercing stare and told him to indulge her. He grumbled but did and they shaved a good five minutes off the trip.

Jalissa wobbled down the walkway wearing a gigantic smile on her face. Vanessa’s eyes grew wide in surprise and the cab driver who had determined that he was now dismissed, grumbled and got back into his vehicle and sped away. The cousins hugged and Jalissa’s big belly poking her was strange. Vanessa placed loving hands on her cousin’s belly over which a t-shirt was pulled tightly leaving the bottom portion exposed.

“Oh my God I can’t believe you’re really pregnant.”

Jalissa shook her head and rested her folded arms across the top of the protrusion. At six months pregnant, she had picked up more weight but it accentuated instead of detracted, from her prettiness.

“Oh Vanessa, it’s the worst! You gotta pee all the time and sometimes it feels like you’re smothering when you lie down!”

Vanessa looked at her in awe as she continued to touch her belly. Jalissa pulled her into another hug.

“I missed you cuz.” She twirled a strand of Vanessa’s hair. “You look exactly the same, only you’re different.” Jalissa blushed and her eyes seemed to glisten. “Don’t pay attention to me. These baby hormones make me crazy sometimes.”