Screaming Divas (13 page)

Cassie studied the lyrics for a moment, twining a lock of hair in her finger as she read. She bit her lip.

“What?” Ugh. Trudy was sure she didn't like the song. She was probably trying to think of a nice way to say that it was crap.

“‘Jailbait?'” Cassie asked, finally looking up.

“Yeah,” Trudy confirmed. “That's the title.”

“
Barbie in a cage / girl up on the stage.
This is about you and Adam, right?”

Trudy shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

Cassie lowered the paper, careful to avoid the cake crumbs and condensation puddles. She reached for Trudy's hand. “Do you still have feelings for him? Tell me the truth.”

Well, she would always feel
something.
After all, he was the first. Her first lover, her first love, her first major heartbreak. How could she not feel anything? But she didn't want the Divas to think that she was a sap.

“Of course not,” she said, steeling her spine. “But it's material, right? Got to find inspiration somewhere.”

Cassie nodded slowly. “I like these lyrics. I think it could be a good song. Maybe Harumi would have ideas about the melody.”

Trudy already had a track running in her head. She started humming, tapping out the beat on her knee. “The chorus, I was thinking, would be chanted. And y'all would yell out the ‘jailbait' part.”

Cassie stared at her for a moment. Then she said, “If you're really over Adam, then would you mind if I got with him?”

The song in her head went silent. Cassie and Adam? She'd seen them talking together at the gallery. At the time, she hadn't thought much of it. They seemed totally wrong for each other. But by the guilty look on her face, Trudy could tell that something had already happened between them. Well, she had Noel now. Or she would soon. Why not let Cassie and Adam be together?

“It's a free country,” Trudy said finally. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Cassie leaned back in the booth.

Trudy took a deep breath. She forced a smile, but it felt as if a boulder had suddenly landed in her stomach. She would never be completely over Adam. And she would never be over Noel.

Adam lived in a house in the Olympia section of Columbia, down by the prison, just this side of the fairgrounds. The houses in that area were falling apart and low rent, mostly inhabited by welfare recipients and college students. Nobody seemed to mow their lawn down there. It was Weed City. Cassie had heard rumors of drug deals and shootings. Her father had warned her not to venture beyond Blossom Street at night.

“A pretty girl like you,” he said. “You never know what might happen.”

People thought that good looks were dangerous. She remembered spying on her aunts one Christmas. The kids, Cassie included, were supposed to be playing Monopoly or pushing brand-new Tonka trucks through the shag carpeting. The men—the uncles and Cassie's father—were sprawled over the sofa, napping in front of college football on TV. The aunts, of course, were in the kitchen picking at cold turkey and homemade fudge, diets all gone to hell. They were caught up in their gossip and Cassie was sitting in the hallway, listening. Nobody knew she was there.

“She always envied that little girl.” That was her daddy's oldest sister, Clara. The one with the big, ugly mole on her upper lip.

The other aunts, Belle and Dolores, clucked in agreement.

“Y'know, I'll bet she was trying to kill them both.” It was still Clara talking. Clara always talked the most and had the most outrageous opinions.

“Aw, Clare. You don't think she meant to crash that car?”

Cassie could picture Aunt Clara's sloped shoulders rising and falling, her eyebrows arching. “You tell me. She was crazy jealous of her little beauty queen. There's no telling what was going on in her head.”

At the time, Cassie had been too young to understand what the aunts were talking about. They might have been discussing some drugstore paperback. They never said her name, or her mother's, but the conversation had burrowed into her memory like chiggers into bare feet. It resurfaced in dreams, and sometimes when she was awake, like now, as she was driving to Adam.

Don't think about it, she told herself. Think about the future.

In less than a year, she'd be off to college and things would be great. She wouldn't have to listen to Johnette whining to her daddy about the gas man staring at her tits when he came to check the meter, or wheedling for money to buy a chunk of gaudy jewelry. She wouldn't have to listen to Jane Fonda panting on exercise videos. She'd be living in a dorm, going home only when she felt like it. Her life would be full of poetry and art and music. She'd have a passionate affair.

She found Adam's house without any trouble—one story, yellow paint, a hundred yards from the railroad tracks. (How did he get any sleep?) The front lawn was an expanse of dried, brown grass. Cassie parked her Bug on the edge of it, and hopped out of the car.

She could see herself reflected in the rolled-up window—sunlight bouncing off her golden hair, bare shoulders glistening with sweat, sunglasses giving her a Jackie O mystique.

A door opened and Adam stepped onto his cinderblock porch. He looked sickly pale in the afternoon sun. The long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans didn't help.

“You made it,” he said, his voice slow and heavy.

She wondered if he'd just woken up. He'd never told her how he earned a living. There was no way he made enough money from his art to pay rent and buy groceries.

The grass crunched beneath her feet. She followed him into the house and jumped when a ball of fur shot past.

“That's Mimi,” he said. “One of my cats.”

The carpet was matted with cat hair. This place rivaled Trudy's in filth. Cassie wrinkled her nose, but Adam didn't seem to notice.

“Welcome to my studio,” he said, ushering her into a room at the back of the house. The hardwood floor was covered with paint-splattered newspapers. Some finished canvases were framed and stacked in a corner, facing the wall. A velveteen-upholstered chair stood at the center of the room.

“Sit there,” Adam said. Then, remembering his manners, “Please.”

Until this moment, Cassie had pictured a sleek studio with white walls—something out of a movie. She'd imagined a long divan, upon which she would recline, watching Adam's eyes become inflamed with lust. The easel would topple and he'd ravish her. Ha ha.

In the harsh light of day, she felt no attraction whatsoever. And she wouldn't want to roll around on all those newspapers anyway. For a moment, she considered changing her mind about sitting for Adam and walking out the door. But then he offered her a joint to help her relax and she thought, why not?

From her corner of the stage at The Cave, Harumi could see the undulation of bodies. She could pick out the ones who moved to her rhythm. These people weren't like the drunken teenagers of the keg parties on Lake Murray. They didn't show up just for the beer; they wanted to be moved by the music.

Here, the crowd was fevered, in tune with every note she played. They weren't the type to fake their enthusiasm. If they didn't like a band, they'd retreat to the Pink Room or move on to the next club. For the first time in over a year, Harumi felt that old joy. She arched and twisted in response to her own playing. She smiled as Trudy stalked across the floor, hair falling into her face, mic dragging after her.

Trudy was doing the Diana Ross shtick, screaming out the words to Alan's frenzied back beat. Harumi didn't understand Trudy's fascination with the Motown sound. All they sang about back then was getting boyfriends, and Trudy seemed to want the whole world. But she decided to sing these songs, and it was her band, so they played along.

Anyone who listened and watched would know that Trudy was in control. The stage was her little kingdom, and the crowd, throwing their bodies around in the mosh pit below, was in her thrall.

Cassie strummed on the other side of the stage. Harumi could hear the mistakes she made, but no one else seemed to notice. Her fingers were flying over the strings, and Harumi could picture the teeth biting into her lower lip, the crease between her eyebrows that she always had when she was in deep concentration.

At the end of the song Trudy was tossing her hair like an angry horse and flinging her arms all over the place.

“Okay. I'm going to be nice now,” Trudy shouted, her voice ragged from use. “I'm going to let Cassie sing because, damn, I'm tired.”

Harumi waited while Cassie handed over the guitar. She looked out into the club, smiled at all the sweaty, crazy people. Then, there in the back, she thought she saw someone familiar. It was just a momentary flash of recognition, almost subconscious. She didn't have time to analyze it because Trudy was ready to go on.

It didn't matter if Cassie had psyched herself up yet for the moment or not. This was Trudy's show and they all knew that. As soon as Trudy's hand hit the strings, they were off into “Crashbaby.”

Harumi kept her eyes on Cassie. They'd played this song over and over in Trudy's living room. Among themselves, Cassie danced like a barefoot princess on hot coals, but out here, she seemed shy, stage struck. Her voice squeaked a little and the vibe from the audience was uneasy.

“Let it out, girl,” Harumi called from her corner, surprising even herself.

And then Cassie closed her eyes and began stomping her combat boots. “
Do you think I'm pretty? Do you wish that you were me?
” She was awesome, naked in her pain.

Harumi was watching Cassie. She didn't see her father until he was up on the stage. She sensed the crowd's attention shifting, and then she looked away from Cassie and saw him, too.

His suit was rumpled from the heat and his hair, usually so carefully pomaded, was roughed up. On his face was an expression Harumi had never seen before—a mix of shame, bitterness, sorrow, and anger. He looked deranged. Harumi wondered if he was drunk.

She kept playing, not knowing what else to do, even after the others stopped. Then his hand was squeezing her arm, tight enough to bruise, and he was pulling her, saying, “Come on. You're coming with me.”

Harumi tried to hold her ground, but rage had made him strong. She was no match for his force.

“Hey, old man,” a skinhead up front, a huge guy with tattooed biceps and a nose ring, was springing onto the stage. “Get your hands off her!”

Harumi saw the guy's hand clamp over her father's shoulder and she knew what would happen. Her father would be punched and battered and tossed out into the street. People would spit on him and hurl racial slurs.

“It's okay,” Harumi said quietly. The thought of a riot made her feel sick to her stomach. “He's my dad.”

She unslung her bass and laid it on the stage. Trudy and the others would take care of it later. For now, she would leave with her father. She had never been so humiliated in her life.

“Sorry about this,” she said to her friends.

“Are you going to be okay?” Trudy asked in a low voice.

“Yeah.” She nodded quickly to Cassie. “I'll call you both tomorrow.”

The club was silent, everyone engaged in this unexpected drama. As Harumi and her father stepped down, the onlookers parted, and the two of them walked out together. When they reached the stairwell, a buzz of conversation started up. Harumi could hear Trudy saying, “Hey, sorry about that. Does anyone here know how to play the bass?”

On the way home, Harumi's father didn't speak. Harumi was glad. She needed some time to organize her thoughts and prepare her defense. A part of her wanted to jump out of the car at the red light, run away, and never come back. She didn't think she would ever be able to explain to her parents what the band meant to her. The way it made her feel. She could hardly explain it to herself. All she knew was that she was finally in the world, released from that hothouse existence that had been her childhood, and she wanted to stay where she was.

Her mother was sitting on the sofa when they walked in the door. She held herself erect. Her face was blank. Koji was there, too. He looked up when Harumi entered the room. He, of all people, knew what she was in for.

“Sit down,” her father said.

Harumi sat on a footstool with her back straight. She wanted to fall into the chintz-covered chair and kick off her shoes, but she knew that her comfort would irritate them more.

“
Watashi wa totemo hazukashii
,” her mother said.

Here we go.
Harumi sighed.
The shame, the humiliation, the loss of face.
What did they expect of her anyhow? Did they want her to study tea ceremony and flower arrangement?

“We have been patient,” her mother went on. “We listened to that doctor and we waited for you to get better. But you have turned into the worst kind of daughter.” Her voice broke, and she brought a hand to her mouth.

“You are going to college and study music,” her father said. “We learned that you haven't applied to the universities as we hoped, so you may have to start one semester late. In the meantime, I will give you a job in my company. You will do typing and such for the other architects.”

“Do you have my husband picked out for me, too?” Harumi couldn't help herself. She prepared herself for a slap across the face.

But her father didn't seem to have any energy left for violence. “Your insolence is intolerable,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I don't know what you're thinking,” Harumi said. “I'm eighteen. An adult. I can do whatever I want.”

“No, you can't. You are still our daughter. You will always be our daughter and everything you do reflects upon this family.”

Harumi had heard stories of old Japan. Stories about wayward girls who had wrecked their families' fortunes. Or the one about the beautiful leper girl who was banished to an island far away because her sickness would taint the whole family. Her siblings weren't able to marry. No one would shop at her father's store. Harumi thought her parents were living out some kind of samurai story, clinging to modes of behavior that had probably become obsolete in the land of their birth.