1 Night Stand--Chapter 1 Harmony

Chapter 1

Harmony

            I was never one to dream.  As a kid, I would wake up each morning trying desperately to remember my dreams but I never could.  This morning was different. I  jolted awake, my mind flooded with images and scenes so clear it was like a movie playing in my head.  The ringing.  The loud ringing was what  jarred me awake.  I was running fast from something.  So fast I could feel the wind whipping over my face.  I was running for my life.  My chest heaved up and down.  And then an obstacle blocked my path.  A large, tarnished brass bell prevented me from running any further.  The footsteps behind me progressed from rapid taps to gallops.  It was hot on my heels and closing in. Whipping my body around frantically, I saw a shadow of a figure. I had no choice. I forged ahead towards the bell. It was my last resort and only possible hiding place.  I ran under it and stood perfectly still.  The strong smell of old metal and mildew settled in my nostrils.  Chills covered my body but I wouldn’t be deterred.  Inside the brass, the whirring sound of the tarnished gong came alive.  It began to rock slowly at first, creaking like it needed a good oiling. The half-hour ringing mark was upon me.  Desperate to escape, I dodged to my left as I seemed to be the gong’s intended target.  The pain in the center of my ear radiated through my skull.  Instinctively, I lifted my hands to cover my ears.  It hit again and I fell into a black abyss. 

             Squinting my eyes, I reached over and grabbed for the ringing nuisance on my nightstand.    

“Hello,” my gruff, sleep-filled voice droned into the receiver.  I could hear a male voice, but with my mind still fuzzy with sleep, I could not register the speaker’s identity. The fact that a male was even calling my house was strange in itself.  My husband’s few male friends almost never called our house.

            I sat up straight and opened my eyes wide when I was able to identify the caller.  It was Murray Fleischer, a long time associate of Ava Love, my mother.  I hadn’t spoken to Ava in three long years.  Why would he be calling me? 

Murray cleared his raspy throat and inquired in his nasally, New Jersey-Jew accent, “Is this still Harmony Love’s residence?”  A flash of panic overcame me.  Inadvertently, my eyes darted over to the cable box; it was 4:20 in the morning.  The pre-dawn light from the window cast an eerie glow over my small bedroom. 

            “Yes, this is she,” I answered. Listening to Murray’s labored breathing, I pictured his beady eyes, wrinkled Olive colored skin, dead-rat looking toupee, and Ichabod Crane nose.  I couldn’t help the feeling of resentment that sprang up inside of me.  Murray had been a part of our life when everything had gone awry.  I often blamed Murray for the events that transpired, but he certainly wasn’t the only culprit.

“Oh Harm…I’m so glad to know this is still your number.  I really thought I was going to have a hard time finding you.  Ava Love really had high hopes for you.  She really loved you.  As her eldest, she always bragged about you.  You know despite everything, I always knew you were the smartest one…”

Murray’s rambling, fake-ass small talk had always irritated me. Along with the fact that he was a snake in the grass who helped Ava rob my sisters and I blind. 

“Cut the shit, Murray. What do you want? Is Ava okay?” We didn’t need to exchange pleasantries and he didn’t need to go on and on about how much my mother cared about me.  We both knew he was full of shit.

Murray was silent for what seemed liked an eternity. He let out a long sigh and a short snort.  Is he crying? My fingertips grew cold as I gripped the phone. My stomach quivered in anticipation of the bad news that would surely follow. After all, Murray wouldn’t be calling me otherwise. 

“Murray?  Out with it!”

“Well, Harmony, you were the first person I called,” he blew out another windstorm.  I could hear him choking on his words.  “I really didn’t know who else to call.  You know your sisters are both…” Murray nervously tiptoed around the subject. 

Did he realize it was four o’clock in the morning?  “Please Murray, just tell me what’s going on,” I interrupted, wishing he would put us both out of our misery. 

            Finally, Murray mustered up the courage and got straight to the point.

“When?” I asked in an almost inaudible tone, the words caught in my throat like fish in a net.  I swallowed hard.  My heart pounded through my silk nightgown.  I was on my feet and pacing the floor.  The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped drastically.  My bottom lip trembled and I had to fight to keep my teeth from chattering.

With a flash of clarity, it occurred to me that Ava didn’t have my new contact information. How had Murray gotten my number?  I shook my head and quickly rid the suspicious thoughts from my mind.  Paranoia and suspicion were my natural defense mechanisms, but this was not the time or place for them to take root.

             Murray provided me with all the details, none of which I cared to know. I felt like I was slipping off the slope of a tall mountain.  I looked down at my husband who slept soundly. His chest rose and fell, peacefully oblivious to the chaos of my thoughts and emotions; I envied him greatly. 

            “Murray,” I said unsteadily. “Thank you for calling me. I know things weren’t…I know Ava and me had…I appreciate you not letting me find out from the television or media.  I will be there as soon as I can,” I promised.  My brain wasn’t connecting with my tongue as usual. I tried my best to keep it together, but my voice cracked on the last sentence.  Crying over Ava was not something I thought I’d ever do, but the tears still came fast and hot down my cheeks.  She was, after all, my mother. 

            I placed the phone back into the cradle with shaky hands.  My body flopped down on the side of the bed like a sack of bricks; the strength seemed to have left my legs entirely.  My abrupt motion caused Ron to stir.  I quickly turned my body away, giving him my back.  I didn’t want him to see me cry.  I don’t know why I was hiding from my husband, who was also my best friend.  Ron had never been anything but supportive of me since we met three years earlier.  If it hadn’t been for our relationship, neither of us would have survived the crises we experienced when we first met. 

“Harm?  What you doin’ up?” Ron asked groggily. He reached out to embrace me from behind and I cringed.  Giving and receiving affection was still something I struggled with.  I suppose a childhood of no love and affection will do that to a person. 

            “W’sup Harm?” Ron asked again, touching my back gently.  My shoulders quaked slightly and I hid my face with my hands.  I didn’t have to see Ron’s face to know that he was alarmed.  The bed depressed as he propped himself up on his elbow, gazing at my curved back.   

            “Harmony…what is it?  Is the baby okay?” Ron asked, slightly alarmed.  I opened my wet eyes and stared at the floor.  My conscience was riddled with guilt.  If only I had seen her one last time and told her how I felt.  If only she had been a normal mother.  I should have been a better daughter.  The sobs escaped my lips freely.  I couldn’t help it.  Within seconds, Ron was in front of me on his knees.  He continued to ask me what was wrong as he tugged my hands from my face.  I wanted him to hold me.  I moved my hands and looked at his beautiful, cinnamon face.  Concern filled his beautiful brown eyes.  I opened my mouth but the words seemed to stick like hard marbles in the back of my throat.  Ron shook my shoulders slightly, encouraging me to open up to him. 

            “C’mon Harm, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me w’sup,” he urged.  The heat from his arms soothed me, but it still wasn’t enough to warm my chilled body.

Exhaling a shaky breath, I began.  “My mother…um…Ava…” Just saying the word mother burned on my tongue. 

I felt Ron’s muscular body tense at the mention of Ava.  He was one of the very few people, aside from my sisters, who knew the truth about Ava.  “What the hell she do now?” Ron asked, interrupting me.  His voice took on a dark tone.  He knew all about my relationship with Ava, none of it good.  I shook my head from left to right. 

“No.  Nothing.  It’s…she…Ava…she…I mean…she’s…dead,” I managed to croak out, my bottom lip trembling.  I never expected to have such a visceral reaction to her death. I must have wished her dead a thousand times while she lived. 

            “Oh shit!” Ron gasped. At a loss for words, he simply hugged me.  I leaned into his body, so close I could feel his chest hairs pricking me.  It felt so good to have someone like Ron by my side.  I melted into my husband’s tight embrace and neither of us said a word.  I closed my eyes and let Ava’s image come into focus in my mind—her butterscotch skin, long, silky black hair, and her eyes—those famous, deep-set, glaring, chestnut brown eyes.  There was so much to think about, so many emotions to sort through.  As hard as I tried to put my past to rest, Ava’s death seemed to reawaken memories and emotions that I believed long dead.                                                           

**************

It was the summer of 1998 in Brooklyn, New York, and I was thirteen years old. My sisters, Melody and Lyric, were twelve and nine respectively.  Our musically inspired names were indicative of the fact that our mother, the great Ava Love,  related everything in her life to music, even her children.  It was a blazing hot summer day and we had been outside in our backyard from five o’clock in the morning. The sun burned brightly at this early hour and we knew it would be one of those unmercifully hot summer days.

After fifteen minutes outside, I was already sweating. Without a doubt, this would spell disaster for my thick, kinky hair.  My hair was already folding in on itself to form what Ava referred to as “nigger naps.” I knew my mother would have something degrading to say about my hair not being soft and silky like hers, about how she can’t figure out why I have such nappy-ass hair like a runaway slave.  Ava thought these harsh criticisms made her sassy and sophisticated. I always believed it made her appear crude and racist. I guess it was the time and place she’d grown up in that made her so disdainful of her own people.  Ava had left South Carolina for New York when she was twelve and had never looked back.

Generally, the darker your skin was, the worse Ava felt about you.  Unfortunately, my skin was as dark as coffee beans. Under the summer sun, I would become at least three shades darker.  I never had a chance to consider my black beautiful, not with Ava as a mother.  “Harmony…child you look like a underground railroad escapee.  Stay your ass out of the sun before we have to use your teeth to find you in the dark,” she’d say cruelly. It was just one of the reasons I dreaded the summertime when most kids looked forward to it. 

Just the day before our forced rehearsal, the news had announced a heat wave sweeping through New York City.  “Well if the heat wave starts at nine in the morning, y’all asses will be out there from five,” Ava had announced. Sure enough, she kicked us out of our beds at five o’clock sharp the next morning. 

My mother, who made us call her by her first name instead of “mom” or “mommy,” was a royal bitch and sorry excuse for a mother. I hated the sight of her every single day.

            “Start over!” Ava screamed like a banshee, her fair skin turning bright pink.  She folded her arms across her chest and glared at my sisters and me.  We all stopped mid-motion and turned towards her.  We had been practicing for four hours, with no breakfast or lunch in our stomachs.  Lyric whimpered, her feet struggling to stay in the over sized stilettos.  Even Lyric, my baby sister was only nine years old, Ava made us all practice in five-inch heels. 

            “You bitches wanna be stars or you wanna be in the same position next year?!  Practice makes perfect.  Y’all think any great girl groups got to the top of the charts laying around and not practicing hours and hours?  Hell no!  It don’t work like that! These record labels ain’t gonna even sneeze at ya’ll asses if y’all don’t step the fuck up and get it right! Now start over!” Ava barked, pacing like a prison warden in front of us, her heels clicking on the backyard pavers.  I squinted my eyes into dashes. I couldn’t believe this monster had given birth to me.  The only thing that ever made me proud to say she was my mother was the admiration I got from other kids in our neighborhood for being Ava’s daughter.  Everyone thought Ava was a beautiful star of a mother. 

            Ava was stunningly gorgeous in a regal Lena Horne mixed with Dianne Carol sort of way.  She had a blemish free complexion and butterscotch colored skin.  Her eyes were striking, both slanted and deep set.  She had perfect heart-shaped lips and even after three kids, her body was still a shapely hourglass, boasting a flat stomach and cellulite-free legs.  Ava never left the house without a full face of flawlessly applied makeup.  Her hair was naturally long and most of the time she wore it in a regal chignon, only letting it hang when she went on a date.  Ava preached that real women always wore heels and makeup.  Ava never wore flats or sneakers; instead, she donned the most fabulous stilettos and pumps.  Her shoe collection could give Emelda Marcos a challenge. 

In the late 70’s early 80’s, she had been the great Ava Love, a chart topping disco diva.  Ava graced every major stage in every major city in the United States, but she never got any further than an opening act for disco queen Donna Summer.  Getting knocked up with me had dashed her dreams and changed her life for the worse.  And she never failed to remind me of the burden of my existence.

            “Get back into position right now or we’ll be out here until the sun cooks ya’ll asses dead!  Lord knows if Harmony bakes anymore we won’t be able to see her ass at night!” Ava growled.  I hung my head. Those words hurt like a hard slap in the face.  I rolled my eyes and bit into the side of my cheek as I reached down and rubbed the calf muscle on my left leg.  I could literally feel my muscle bunch into a ball, an advanced warning of the Charlie horse that would surely follow.  I punched at my muscle, praying the knot would dissolve. 

“You better get up,” my little sister Lyric whispered, her eyes as big as dinner plates. She knew what Ava’s wrath was like—the black and blue on her left cheek constant proof.

We had all given up our childhoods to become “the greatest girl singing group since the Supremes.”  Ava didn’t allow us to go swimming because it would ruin our chest muscles and voice boxes. She didn’t allow us to eat candy because a rough piece might pierce our throat muscles or ruin our pristine smiles.  We ate only salads and very lean meat because we all needed to be perfectly proportioned. Fat girls, after all, would never make it in the music industry.  We never went to the movies or amusement parks—these were a waste of our time and a strain on our voices.  Forget the zoo, class trips, and eventually school. We were all home schooled by a lady Ava hired while she was on the road trying to breathe life back into her own fading career.  I was thirteen and had only attended public school for three years before my mother pulled me out. Melody and Lyric never had a chance to attend school and meet other kids their age.  We had no friends, but we did have each other and our music.

            On cue, I slid my foot back into the stilettos and gritted my teeth against the pain.  For what seemed like the thousandth time that morning, Ava looked at us evilly and ordered, “From the top! Five, six, seven, eight…” Like show dogs, we responded instinctively to the commands.  We moved rhythmically, swaying our hips seductively in unison.  I was painfully aware of strained muscles in my legs and was careful to not twist my ankle.

We harmonized the interlude three times before Melody came blazing through the middle, one leg forcefully jutted in front of the other in her model-on-the-cat-walk-style. Her stilettos rang like gunshots on the backyard pavers.  Melody was younger than me but much thinner and taller. I suppose she took after her father. My sister was beautiful and talented and of the three sisters, she resembled Ava the most.  It was both a blessing and a curse. 

Melody had very slanted eyes, coupled with honey-colored, radiantly clear skin.  Her body was slim but curvaceous.  Even after horrendous practices, when Melody’s oval face gleamed with fine beads of sweat, she still looked beautiful.  Her long, sandy hair, wiped around as she sang and she could move her body like a grown woman.  She strutted in those stilettos like she had been born in them.  I envied her greatly for her effortless beauty and grace but I also loved her dearly since she’d been my only friend since her birth. With each practice, however, the strain on our relationship was almost more difficult to bear than that on our muscles.

            Melody’s red painted lips were pursed into a seductive kissing position and she licked them and opened them wide.  I could see her in the large mirror Ava kept in front of us so we could see how we looked.  I rolled my eyes again.  At that moment, I couldn’t love my sister if I tried. Lately, she was acting more like Ava than herself. I moved my body harder, trying to imitate her moves. The heat of envy rose onto my face like a red mask setting my cheeks on fire.  I wanted to impress our mother too.  But Ava’s eyes remained steadfastly focused on her favorite.

            “I don’t love you no more!  Boy you played me for the last time!” Melody belted out in a range that could hold court with any superstar.  “I…I…I don’t love you no more!  Nooo!  You played me for the last time!” Melody crooned, the microphone gripped tightly in her hand as she whipped her hair and body like a diva.  She bent forward and sang her next note like her life depended on it.  With the next bar of the instrumental music, she fell back into step with me and Lyric.  We all stepped sideways in unison, our hips moving together like soldiers in formation.  Ava smiled, pride in her eyes.  I rolled my eyes and bit my bottom lip against the pain—both in my leg and in my heart. 

            “For the last time!” Lyric and I harmonized, stepping back into our rightful places behind our newly dubbed superstar sister.  Sweat dripped down my back, the sun was beating down even more fiercely now.  I lifted my arms up and then out and my muscles burned.  I looked over at Lyric.  She was also wincing from the pain.  Still, we picked up our cue and harmonized yet another note, swayed our bodies in opposite directions and fell into step with Melody who was out in front of us again reveling in the spotlight. 

            “Harmony!  You missed that entire step!” Ava chastised loudly over the music.  I kept on going.  I jerked my back and sashayed as hard as I could.  Lyric and I crossed each other and did our rehearsed parts.  I never let Ava’s voice ruffle me.  I knew Ava’s dirty tactics by now.  I also knew I hadn’t missed any steps; this was just several of her “tests” to make sure we were able to handle any distractions from the audience. If I paused in response to Ava’s distraction, she surely would’ve gone off the deep end and made us start from the beginning. 

            Lyric was panting like she only had one lung and I felt so sorry for her.  I could tell that her mouth was cotton ball dry because mine felt the same.  Finally, Melody held her last high note, slung her head back and lifted her arms Dream Girls style.  Ava clapped and smiled with pride. 

            “Bravo, Melody!  This apple didn’t fall far from my tree for sure,” Ava complimented.  “Those other two…we gotta work on them,” she snickered as Melody basked in her praise.  I could feel my insides on fire.  Ava never gave Lyric and me compliments. 

“Good enough for today.  Everybody go inside and get some tea and honey right away.  Rest those voices, especially you little diva,” Ava called out, patting Melody on her shoulder.  I let out an exasperated sigh, kicked off my shoes, and limped over to an old, rickety patio chair in our small backyard.  All of the patio furniture had been purposely crowded to one side to make space for our “stage.”  As hot as it was, I was in no rush to go into the house and listen to Ava critique my appearance or performance.

            Lyric took a chair next to me as we watched Ava and Melody disappear into the house, laughing like two school friends.  I often wondered if Lyric was too young to understand what was really going on, but sometimes she seemed quite intuitive. I’d hoped to spare her feelings in regards to my mother and Melody, but sometimes the bias was too obvious to dispute.

            “I can’t stand her,” Lyric pouted.  I raised my eyebrow at her.  “Mothers are not supposed to favor one kid over the other one, but Ava sure doesn’t hide it.  Melody this…Melody that.  Why don’t she just make her a solo singer then.  I hate singing and I hate her too,” Lyric complained, folding her arms across her chest.

             Lyric caught on quickly.  I couldn’t agree with Lyric more, yet I didn’t voice my opinion about it.  Why rub salt into an already opened wound?

            “She just wants us to be great.  One day all of these practices will pay off when we all make it to the big stage,” I said, smiling as I leaned back and looked up at the sky dreamily.  Lyric wasn’t buying it.  She sucked her teeth and blew out her breath.  I knew she was probably thinking I sounded like a sell out. 

“Look, you’re too young to understand her right now, but she loves you Lyric,” I tried to assure with a phony smile plastered to my face.  Lyric looked over at me out of the corner of her eye and I could see the doubt in her eyes.  I felt the same level of doubt in my heart but I reached out and hugged my baby sister anyway.  Even if our mother didn’t love us the way she would, at least we had each other.

                                                                        *****************

It seemed like Ron had been holding me in his arms for an eternity.  Finally, I pulled away.  My tears had dried into two ashy lines on my face.  Ron smiled and used his thumb to wipe away the tear marks.  “I love you, Harmony, this is going to be alright,” he comforted.  I smiled back.  “I know.  I just …I just have to be prepared to see my sisters again after everything that’s happened,” I said sadly.  Ava’s death wasn’t going to be the hard part. Facing Melody and Lyric after three long years of having no communication was going to be the challenge.  If I could purchase a mental suit of armor, I would. Considering my last encounter with my sisters, I would need that and more.