Not A Good Look (5 page)

“Y
ou rocked those background vocals, Sunday. If Dreya gets a record deal, she'll have you to thank,” Sam says.

He's driving me home from the studio. It would've been me and Bethany, but she got heated about me singing on the CD and her vocals not being required. She called some dude from school to come and pick her up, and left while I was still recording.

“Thanks. It blows that she's gonna get a record deal, though, while I'm still on the come-up.”

“Yeah, but who knows? Yours could be coming sooner than you think.”

“What makes you think that?” I ask.

“Got a feeling, I guess.”

I think about going home and hearing about the latest update on Carlos, and get bummed all over again. A lot of good Sam's feeling is gonna do me when it's time to pay my tuition at Spelman. The thought of community college or no college at all makes me let out a long sigh.

“What you thinkin' about?” Sam asks.

“Nothing.”

I'm not ready to have Sam all up in my business yet, no matter how cool he seems. He already knows too much, from the one time he dropped me off.

“Okay, I get it. I don't know you like that to get all up in your mix, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“So what if I say I want to get to know you better?” he asks.

“You are getting to know me better. You definitely know more about me today than you knew on the first day we met.”

Sam laughs out loud. “Do you always make guys work this hard, or are you just giving that to me?”

“My mama told me that you appreciate something more if you have to work for it.”

Sam smiles but doesn't reply. He keeps his eyes on the road as he slows on the freeway and takes my exit on I-20.

I say, “That was a good idea you had about Dreya having a stage name.”

“Yeah, her real name isn't all that memorable.”

“But no one will forget a singer named Drama,” I concur.

“And soon people will be singing her songs. Or should I say
our
songs?”

“I'd like it better if you said
our
songs.”

Sam lifts his eyebrows and smiles. “Okay, our songs then. Do you want me to walk you in?”

I peer out the window, and everything looks pretty calm at my house. No police cars or any other evidence of drama, but still I don't think it's a good idea to have Sam walk me in. There's no telling what Aunt Charlie is wearing! And, of course, whatever crazy ensemble she's sporting is gonna be on display for everyone to see, from her post on the living room couch.

“You don't have to walk me in, Sam. I'm a big girl.”

He laughs. “Still playing hard.”

“'Bye, Sam. Will you need me at the studio tomorrow?”

“No, I don't think so. The recording is complete, but I'll have to mix and master everything.”

I have no idea what mix and master means, but I suspect it's something technical that they do to make everything sound extra hot.

Sam puts his car in park, like he's in no hurry to leave, even though I've opened the door on my side. I surprise myself by wondering when I'm going to see Sam again after tonight, since I won't have to go to the studio anytime soon.

“Are you sure you don't want to kick it with me?” Sam asks.

“Kick it with you where?”

“Dinner and a movie? Bowling? Shoot, I don't know.”

“You don't know.”

Sam sighs. “I just know I wanna spend some time with you.”

“I'll think about it. Just don't lose my number.”

“All right, toughie, I won't.”

I get out of the car and start up the driveway, but not without checking over my shoulder to see if Sam is watching. He is.

As soon as I open the door to our house, I can tell that something is not right. My mother is putting on her coat, and Aunt Charlie is pacing the floor.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“It's Carlos,” my mother says. “He's disappeared from the hospital. The police want me to come down there….”

“Disappeared? I thought he was unconscious or something! How has he disappeared?” I ask.

“I don't know, and the police don't, either. His mother and sister are not talking, so I think they might know where he is or have something to do with it.”

I cover my mouth with my hand. “Do you think he's hiding out somewhere?”

“I don't know,” my mother says as tears rush down her face. “Maybe he is, or maybe those thugs from the club came to finish off the job.”

My mom rushes out the door, but Aunt Charlie keeps pacing the floor. She and Carlos weren't all that tight, so I don't understand why she's so worried.

“Aunt Charlie, Carlos is gonna be okay.”

She gives me a strange look and asks, “Sunday, where is Dreya? I been calling her cell phone and she's not picking up.”

“She didn't tell you where she was going?” I ask. “She's at the studio, I guess. She's probably staying there.”

Aunt Charlie cocks her head to one side as if she's pondering what I'm saying. “What do you mean, she's staying there? She don't think she's got to come home?”

“I don't know what she thinks,” I say with a shrug. “I just left her, and she didn't seem in a hurry.”

“Call her for me on your phone,” Aunt Charlie says.

“Unh-uh. This is between y'all. If she won't answer her phone…”

Aunt Charlie jumps up so fast, she looks like a blur. Next thing I know she's in my face, and I can literally taste the smoke she blows out of her nose. Ugh.

“I ain't playing with you, Sunday. Call your cousin.”

I roll my eyes at Aunt Charlie as I punch in Dreya's number. I hold the phone up to my face as it rings, but as soon as I get the first syllable of “hello” out of my mouth, Aunt Charlie snatches my phone.

“Dreya, where are you?” Aunt Charlie asks.

“What do you mean, you ain't coming home?” Aunt Charlie screams into my phone.

I'm gonna need a wet wipe and some hand sanitizer to get all her spit, cigarette ashes, and bacteria off my phone.

“I don't care about no record deal, and I ain't heard of nobody named Big D. I'm gonna send the police after your behind.”

I plop down in my mother's beanbag chair to wait for my phone. I knew I shouldn't have let Aunt Charlie use my phone to call Dreya. This might take all night.

“She hung up on me,” Aunt Charlie says with a look of surprise on her face.

“Can I have my phone back now?”

Aunt Charlie tosses the phone over to me. “What is she talking about—a record deal, Sunday? Is this legit? Has she signed anything yet?”

“Big D seems legit to me. Truth's record is about to come out next month.”

“This is your fault, Sunday. All that singing group mess, and now my daughter is living with some man, talking about a record deal.”

“How is it my fault? I'm not living over some dude's house. You trippin', Aunt Charlie.”

I pull myself up from the beanbag chair and stomp all the way to my bedroom. Me storming off to my room is getting to be a regular thing.

I lie across my bed and open my backpack. Dreya might've quit school for her record deal, but I've still got homework. Ugh, calculus. This is the one subject I could've bypassed because, for real, how many entertainment lawyers have to know anything about derivatives and differential equations?

When I'm about halfway through the exercises, my phone rings. I hesitate before answering because it's Romell's ringtone. I don't know if I feel like verbally sparring with him right now. And why does he even still have his own ringtone? I need to dead that, for real.

“What's up, Romell?” I ask, wanting him to get right into the conversation.

“How you been, Sunday? You haven't called or texted me in a minute.”

“We broke up, remember?”

“Yeah, I thought we were gonna get back together, though.”

Something about this conversation doesn't sound right. First of all, we have never talked about getting back together. Second, Romell is never this nice. I can't ever remember him just calling to ask how I'm doing. He does not roll like that.

“Romell, what's up? I'm doing some homework, so could you hurry up and get to the point?”

“Why you gotta be like that?”

I let out a loud sigh. “What is it, Romell?”

“I just heard your cousin singing on the Internet,” he says.

“Seriously? What's the name of the song?” I ask, hoping that it's none of my stuff that's leaked.

“She's just singing the hook. It's some new rapper dude. ‘What Ya Gonna Do,' or something like that.”

“Wow, for real? Did you like the song?”

“It was fiyah!” Romell says. “Dreya's 'bout to blow up.”

“How do you know it's her?”

“Somebody posted the link on Facebook and said it was her.”

“What Web site is it on?”

“Mediatakeout.com.”

“Thanks. Lemme call you back, okay?”

After I press End on my phone, I boot up my slow, raggedy desktop computer and hope I can get a good Internet connection. While I'm waiting for it to come on, I dial Sam's number.

“Hey, Sunday. I didn't think you'd miss me this soon.”

I crack up laughing. “Sam, you are silly. I don't miss you, boy.”

“Sure you don't. What's up?”

“This boy from school called and told me that he heard Dreya singing on the Internet.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You know and you didn't tell me? That's my work out there on the Internet being listened to for free!”

“Calm down, calm down. Big D leaked the track himself—it's cool.”

Okay, now I'm confused.

“Why would Big D leak his own track?” I ask.

“Publicity. Nobody really knew who Truth was, outside of Atlanta and a few underground circuits in New York. Now teenagers all over the country are bobbing their heads to your hook, girl. You should be happy!”

“I should be happy?”

“Yeah, toughie. Your cousin's life is about to change.”

Everybody keeps telling me about Dreya's life changing. Well, mine has been changing, too, and not all for the better. How can I get excited about kids loving the track when nobody even knows that I wrote it?

Sam asks, “You okay, Sunday? You don't sound pumped about all this.”

“I guess I'm still trying to get used to the idea of Dreya's name being up in lights.”

“I've got a feeling yours will be, too.”

“I don't even care about all that. I just want to go to college like a normal teenager.”

Sam laughs out loud. “Normal? After Drama's album comes out, our lives will never be normal again.”

D
reya decides to show up at school the day after the track leaks. Me and Bethany are standing next to my locker and watching Dreya's Academy Award–worthy performance. She's even carrying a leather backpack! I wonder what's in there, because we all know it's not books. Usually it's clothes for when she spends the night over at her boyfriend's house. But since she lives over at Big D's now, that's not necessary.

She struts up the hallway and leans against the lockers across from us as if she's waiting for the paparazzi to come and the cameras to start flashing. She's got the diva pose down pat, too. Utter hilarity. I wonder if she watched a bunch of Rihanna footage for her diva education.

My ex-boo, Romell, is the main one heading up the Dreya fan club. I kind of find that hard to believe, since he's never been checking for Dreya before, but I guess a hot track can change a lot of things. In my eyes, his Dreya-jocking takes his swagger levels into the negative numbers.

Romell and a small crowd of people surround Dreya. Of course, Bethany and I want to hear what she's gonna say, so we've got to join the crowd. I don't like feeling like one of Dreya's groupies, especially since Sam and I wrote all her songs.

“So, Dreya, you got a record deal?” Romell asks.

“My lawyers told me that I'm not allowed to talk about it,” she replies.

Bethany covers her mouth and chuckles. “What lawyers?” she whispers to me.

“Girl, I don't know.”

“And does she even have the record deal yet?”

I shrug. “Last I heard, Big D was trying to make it happen. Maybe something's changed since yesterday.”

“Do you think she's gonna tell anyone that you wrote that hook?”

Now it's my turn to laugh. “We're talking about Dreya, Bethany. You and I both know she's not giving me credit for anything.”

Why are people turned around looking at me and Bethany like we're being rude? It's not like Dreya's saying anything important. She's not a celebrity yet! And even if she does reach celeb status, it's not going to make her mindless ramblings any smarter.

Do I sound like a hater right now? Well, it's whatever. Call me a hater with a capital
H
then.

“I can't tell you about a record deal, but that single y'all heard drops the week of Thanksgiving. It's called ‘What Ya Gonna Do.' Y'all really need to cop that ringtone and MP3.”

Is this chick marketing now? Wow. I've never seen Dreya work hard doing anything; she's pretty much a bump effort kinda girl. It's even funnier because she's not going to make any money off the track, although it will definitely help her popularity if it goes to number one on the charts.

“I heard on the radio that Truth was going on a promotional tour,” Romell says. “Are you going with him?”

“You know it!” Dreya says. “We're going to ten cities, doing shows. It's gonna be fiyah, for real.”

She's going on tour now? Talk about being out of the loop. Is this what Sam was talking about when he said Dreya's life was about to change?

I'm trying not to feel jealous, but I can't help it. She's so mean and spiteful. Why should she be the one to blow up? I could sure use some record-deal money myself, 'cause Spelman ain't free.

Speaking of Spelman, I need to get myself to class, because I've got a calculus test this morning.

“I've got to go to class,” I say to Bethany. “I'll see you later.”

“Okay. You gonna be in the cafeteria at lunchtime?” she asks.

I nod. “Yeah. Holla.”

 

That test was ridiculous. I'm glad I took some time to do my homework, 'cause I wouldn't have passed it if I hadn't. But at least it's over, and the rest of my morning classes were cake.

I scan the cafeteria for Bethany, but I guess she's not here yet, because I can't find her. But guess who I do see? Ms. Dreya—oops, Drama—and her man, Truth, sitting on a table with a small crowd surrounding them. I wonder how Truth got past the security guards. He's our age, but he definitely doesn't go to school here or anywhere else.

I pretend that I don't see them, because I'm sooo not joining the groupie crowd this afternoon. The whole morning performance gave me an upset stomach.

Finally Bethany walks up, and she's practically beaming. About what I have no idea, but the girl is grinning from ear to ear.

“What are you cheesing about?” I ask.

“Jordan asked me to go to prom with him.”

“Seriously? It's only October twentieth! Prom is months away.”

“You better hurry and find a date, Sunday. After winter break, everybody good will be taken and you'll end up with somebody from the geek squad.”

“I'm not finding a date. A date better find me. I don't chase boys—you know that, Bethany.”

She narrows her eyes. “Right, you just steal them from your best friend.”

“You're back on that?”

“I never really got off of it, Sunday. Last year it was Romell, now it's Sam. But it's all good, because me and Jordan are together now.”

“Yay, you.”

“Is that Truth over there with Dreya? What's he doing here?”

“My first guess is that he's doing promo work for the single.”

“Let's go over there.”

“You can if you want, but I'm cool.”

Bethany shrugs and walks over to the crowd, confirming her groupie status. No, thank you.

Truth spots me and waves for me to come over. I hesitate, thinking about his flirting with me at the studio. I'm not trying to get all close to him, because that seems like a hot mess waiting to happen.

But because he keeps waving me over, now everyone in their groupie circle is staring at me. It looks like I don't have any choice but to go over there and hang. This is most definitely against my better judgment.

As I walk up to the table, Truth blurts, “Y'all know Sunday, right? She be dropping them hot lyrics and hooks. She wrote the hook for ‘What Ya Gonna Do.'”

Dreya looks hotter than buffalo wings with fire sauce. I'm confused and totally shocked that Truth gave me credit like he did, especially since my name probably won't show up anywhere on the track listing.

I give the new Dreya fan club a tiny nod and escape to the lunch line. Yeah, I know I completely spazzed, but Truth didn't leave me much choice. What was I supposed to do? Slide on the table next to Truth and make him a Tolliver sandwich?

Nah, that would not have gone down without foolishness popping off. Most likely, Dreya would've been the cause of it.

Bethany catches up with me in the lunch line. “What was up with the Truth shout-out?”

“I have no idea.”

“Umph, umph, umph,” Bethany says, sounding like my grandmother when she's heard some gossip about one of her church friends.

“What?”

“I think you're trying to scoop somebody else's man,” Bethany says.

“Skip to the next track, Bethany. This song is played out.”

“Look at you, using musical metaphors and stuff. Okay, just don't say I didn't tell you.”

I roll my eyes. “I won't, Bethany.”

“And don't think I'm gonna jump in if you and Dreya get to buggin', 'cause I don't get in family fights.”

“Are you done?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.

 

U miss me?

 

I laugh out loud. Sam is a trip.

“Who is that?” Bethany asks.

“You don't wanna know,” I reply.

I send a response to the text.

 

Hahahaha. Y? u miss me?

 

“It must be Sam, then, if you won't tell me,” Bethany fusses. “But I just told you I don't care about him. He's ugly anyway. Looks like a camel or something with that big old nose.”

I roll my eyes in Bethany's direction. “I thought you said you were done.”

My phone buzzes again.

 

I do, but Big D misses u more. Meeting tonight. I'll scoop u from school. What time u get out?

 

3:15. C u then, I respond.

 

A meeting? I wonder why Big D is involving me in a meeting. Does that mean I'm on the team? And if so, does that mean team Drama? Ew. I don't know if I want to be on that team.

It also didn't get past me that Sam said he misses me. Awwww. I might have to upgrade him to boyfriend status.

“Here come Truth and Dreya,” Bethany whispers.

“Act like you don't see them,” I whisper back.

“Too late.”

Dreya says, “Sunday, you're riding with us to the studio after school, so be outside right at the end of last period.”

She sounds irritated that I'm supposed to be riding with them, but Truth beams a gigantic smile in my direction. Dreya can't see him cheesing because he's standing behind her, with his hands around her waist and looking over her shoulder. His locs are hanging free, with a few stray curls teasing his hairline.

“Um, that's okay,” I reply. “Sam is coming to pick me up.”

“Well, that doesn't make any sense, when I'm right here. Text him and tell him you'll ride with me,” Truth says.

“He wants to pick me up.”

“Text him,” Truth insists.

“Baby, if she wants to ride with him, that's cool,” Dreya says. Even though she's trying to be sweet by saying
baby.
I can hear the irritation in her tone.

“Sam your boyfriend now?” Truth asks.

Dreya snatches herself out of his arms and asks, “Why do you care?”

“I don't,” he chuckles. “I'm just being nosy. Guys gossip, too, you know.”

“That's real thuggish of you,” Bethany comments.

Dreya steps to Bethany and gets so close to her face that Bethany can probably smell what she ate for lunch. “What you tryin' to say, Bethany?”

“Nada,” Bethany says quickly.

She's such a punk. There's no way Dreya would step to me like that out in public without me bringing it.

“You got one more time to say something about
my man,
” Dreya says. “You gon' mess around and get hurt.”

“You're tripping,” Bethany says as she grabs her tray and walks away, leaving me standing in line.

“You betta get your girl,” Dreya says to me.

“Last time I checked, she was your girl, too,” I reply. “Don't start acting new, Dreya.”

“My girls don't push up on my boyfriend,” Dreya replies.

“I didn't see her pushing up on Truth,” I say.

I stop short of saying that Truth offered to fix Bethany's plate that day, and that he openly flirts with me. But Dreya's not in a place where she would even believe me if I did tell her.

Not surprisingly, Truth looks like he's enjoying this little beef. Dudes like him always start stuff between girls and never take the blame. Dreya will be somewhere mad at her friend from way back and grinning up in his face.

“I'm riding with Sam,” I say, following Bethany to the table. “See y'all at the studio.”