Just Like Heaven (17 page)

Standing beside Nina in a darkened room
while
facing a white screen,
Mei Lee
clapp
ed her hand
s and
s
aid, “Let the show begin.”

The screen flickered to life. Five girls about
eight years old wearing pajamas and standing in a horizontal line holding hair bru
shes below their mouths as if
they were microphones came into focus.
Nina, in
pigtails and without socks, stood at the end of the row,
holding her brush with both hands,
smiling. Her four friends
all turned their heads to her as one,
revealing
uplifting grins.

Staring at herself
almost
twenty years in the past, Nina felt a smile
emerge
. She and her friends gathered every weekend at a different friend’s home and impersonated their favorite singers: Madonna, Gloria Estefan, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Nina’s favorite, Whitney Houston. They set up two boom boxes: one that would play their preferred songs and another boom box, set closer to the “Galaxy Girls” as they dubbed themselves during these
performances, which
would record their production. This night, the girls had gathered at Nina’s house.

“Come on, Nina,” said one of her friends. “You’re on your home turf. Belt it out.”

A drum beat followed by keyboards from Whitney Houston’s song, “How Will I Know”
st
arted on the stereo. And just before
Whitney started singing
, Nina stepped forward, leaving her friends behind, who clapped their hands to the beat and danced in place as backup sin
gers. She
unleashed a powerful
melodic voice that left Whitney in the background.
Nina wailed into her hairbrush
while
dancing in front of both open windows from her second story bedroom that let in a pleasant breeze.

On the darkened street below, a Pontiac Grand Prix raced down the road, and an elderly lady stood on the sidewalk, waiting
as
her poodle relieve
d
herself. H
earing Nina’s voice, she lifted her head to the window. She couldn’t see the child through the window
, and
even though her dog
had finished and
attempted to
walk back
home, the elderly lady
remained in place and closed her eyes, a beaming smile on her face as she listened to the voice bursting from the second story window.

The screen froze on the woman’s grin.

“You never saw that, did you?”
Mei Lee
asked.

Nina
shook her head. “It was too dark. I saw her down there, but I didn’t see her face. I didn’t see her smile. It would have helped me face…what happened next.”

The screen returned to life as the camera centered on Nina as she hit the last note.

“—stop that racket,” her father’s voice boomed from down the hall as the music faded.

The four girls, squirming as they exchanged disappointed glances with one another, didn’t dare look at Nina, who was red-faced with embarrassment.

Th
e door burst open. W
ith a conservative haircut and a vibrant sweater that would have made even Cliff Huxtable from the
Cosby Show
shudder in revul
sion,
her father
appeared in the
threshold with a stern expression, his dark eyes blazing with anger.
“
Your mother and I have been shouting at you for over twenty minutes.
”

Nina ran over to the stereo, kn
elt down, and stopped the tape, while a friend turned off the other boom box.

Her father
, who had founded a PTA program for her middle school while his wife took part in their daughter’s school bake sales,
glared at her friends. “I want you all to go home and think about that filthy music you’ve been playing up here: talk of ‘Nasty’ boys and being ‘Like a Virgin.’ You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Such dirty, filt
hy talk has no place in this hous
e.
The Lord doesn’t condone
such behavior. And
neither do I. My wife has called each of your parents to
come pick you up. And
you can be assured that I’m going to explain how you’re putting on too much make-up and strutting around like little sluts.”

As h
er friends gather
ed their pillows and knapsacks
and other belongings, one of Nina’s
friends said, “Papa Don’t Preach” before exiting the room with the others.

Humiliated
by her father’s disruption, Nina expected to start crying. Instead, she
dealt with the tension by breaking into a fit of laughter.

“
Oh, this is funny
? You’re grounded. For ignoring us, for shaming our Lord, and for that little act of rebellion.”

“What?” Nina asked.
Moisture built
in her eyes. “I laughed. That’s all. I—”

“Two months.”

“But I—”

“Now it’s three. You want to go for four? Open your mouth again. Go
ahead.
Make it four.
”

Tears spilled down Nina’s cheek
s as she shook her head at her father.

“All summer long, you’ll be in this house. No television. No filthy music. If you want entertainment, you can read. We have plenty of books downstairs.” He stood there, waiting for Nina to
object.

But she stood there, in the center of her room, her head lowered. A tear dropped onto her left foot.

“G
ood
night.” He swung the door shut.

The image on the screen paused on Nina as she hung her head low.

And even now,
almost
twenty years removed from the incident that played out before her, Nina imitated her younger self
:
she stared down at her feet. From the corner of her eye, she saw
Mei Lee
watching her, but she remained silent.
A new image appeared on the screen, drawing Nina’s attention. 

A
big-boned
redhead
wearing
a drab brown dress stood on a
stage. Ceiling lights shi
ned down on her, and she
look
ed
out at t
he few hundreds guests sitting o
n the gymnasium floor spread out before her. She spoke into a microphone: “And for our final performance tonight, we have Nina Gilford. She will be performing her favorite Whitney Houston song. Let’s please give her a warm welcome.” She clapped a hand against her wrist.

Grandparents, parents,
teenagers,
and children followed suit.

Behind a giant red
curtain, a
fifteen-
year old Nina step
ped
onto the stage. She flinched from the blinding lights as she ap
proached her music teacher.
Nina reached out for the microphone
with quivering fingers.

H
er teacher handed it to her, and crouched to speak into her ear: “Let them hear that beautiful voice, Nina…
Let it
free.
Let them
feel
it.
”

She
nodded. The microphone
slipped from her sweaty hands.
It slammed against the ground, and the clatter persuaded many in the audience put their hands over their ears.

A few kids in the crowd chuckled at her.

After retrieving it,
Nina
held
a trembling hand above her eyes to look for her parents. A few seconds passed. Then a few more. Not seeing them in attendance, she let out a deep sigh.

The audience waited.

Nina raised the microphone to her mouth, her head down. “If I,” she said, whispering into the microphone, “should...”

“Hear you,” said Ryan Hartley, the most popular guy in her class
,
and the only boy she’d ever
had a crush on
until this point in her life
. Laughing, he
gave his buddy a high-five.

Behind hi
m, a number of parents shush
ed
the
interruption
.

Bu
t thinking that they were booing
her inability to start off the song smoothly,
Nina’s face scrunch
ed tight and a light squeal exited her mouth. She looked out at the crowd from left to right.
Every muscle in her body locked up. Rather than clutching the microphone tight, it
once more
sl
ipped from her
slick
grasp
.
It crashed to the ground, and the clatter sent an echo
through the auditorium.

Nina put a hand to her mouth, turned, and ran toward the curtain until she burst through it.

The picture on the screen stopped on the image of the microphone lying on the stage.

Nina shouldn’t have felt sorry for her
younger
self. Upon entering this room, visitors viewed events from the life they just exited from a distant perspective – one with objectivity. Some of the feelings they experienced during any given situation would certainly return, but
with nowhere near
the emotional intensity they felt during that moment in time.

A rush of anxiety now descended upon her,
bordering on the same ferocity that
swamped her
while standing on that stage over ten years ago.

Mei Lee
stepped close and wrapped an arm around Nina’s shoulder
, pulling her close until Nina’s head rested
on her shoulder. “We should continue this later. When everything’s not so fresh.”

“No,” Nina
said, finding the fighting spirit that always came to her a bit too late and a little less robust th
an she would have preferred. She
raised her head. “I need to see this.”

Mei Lee
looked down at her and nodded. She
turned to the screen and
clapped her hand
s.

“Do you hav
e to do that?” Nina asked. “Clap
your
hand
s?”

“No. It sounds dramatic and makes me feel powerful. Which makes it more fun.
”

That comment lifted Nina’s mood. But seeing the picture on the screen trampled what she’d hoped would be a breath of vitality.

Her father, decked out in a dark suit, and her mother, a woman with a severe expression and wearing a striking red dress that displayed a svelte figure,
stood before Nina who
was attired in
a black cap and gown
on the day she graduated from college
.
As proud parents hugged or shook hands with their children, Nina’s parents stared at her with stern expressions. Her father said, “What do you mean, you don’t want to go to law school? That has been our plan for over ten years. You’ve always said you wanted to follow in our footsteps.”

Nina couldn’t
look them in the
eyes. “I do want to follow in your footsteps. I want to do something I love.”

Her mother
placed a hand on her hip, heaved a sigh, and lifted her other arm in disgust as though banishing Nina. “Back
to that singing hoopla again
?
Holding a microphone and
begging
people to pay to hear your voice? Let me tell you something,
sweet
child
of
mine
; it doesn’t take talent to become a famous singer.”

Nina lifted her head and me
t their gazes. “I don’t need
to become famous. I just
want to
write songs and sing. I want to do what I love.”

Her mother shrugged. “It’s useless. I don’t even know why I try.” She turned to her husband. “Tal
k some sense into her. After all I’ve sacrificed for her,
do you still wonder why I
tend to
drink too
m
uch?”

Nina watched her mother walk away; it was just one of a thousand times she had
turned her back on
her only child.
Nina looked up at her father. “Your turn. Go ahead: tell me how much of a failure I am.”

“True,” he said.

“Tell me that I’
m not the daughter you wanted
.”