“Let me check your hair one more time and then I’ll leave you alone.” Takira comes over and adjusts a few hairpins. “Your scalp looked good, by the way.”
That does get my attention. I turn to search her face. My hair has been . . . an issue. After showing up for a few gigs and finding no one on set who knew what to do with Black hair, I started making sure I was prepared to do it myself. I found Takira, who has taken care of it recently and helped keep it healthy. I could have handled it tonight, but having her meant one less thing to worry about.
And Takira’s my girl. With so much distance between my family and me—not just the miles separating North Carolina from New York, but the chasm yawning between our hearts—I’ve collected a few good friends through the years. I’ve needed them.
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine a night like this without Mama and Terry, and now it’s hard to see them in any part of my life. Hard for me to imagine fitting into theirs. Especially Terry’s. I have a niece, Quianna, I barely know and can hardly bring myself to look at because each time I do, I see them.
“Stop it,” I tell the girl in the mirror with the heavy stage makeup and the silky wig spilling down her back. “The past is shit. The future is uncertain. All you have is now.”
“That’s what you always say,” Takira laughs, her wide white smile contrasting with her flawless brown skin.
“I literally forgot you were there.” I chuckle, allowing amusement to pierce my nervousness for at least one moment.
“Well I’m getting out of your hair, so to speak.” She picks up her bag, stuffed with supplies, from the floor and pats her cap of natural curls. “I’ll be watching from the balcony.”
“You’re coming to dinner after, right? I think some of us are heading to Glass House Tavern.”
“Sounds good. I’ll meet you back here.” She grins. “I want to see you signing all the autographs at the stage door.”
“Pffft.” I swallow the anxiety inching up my throat. “I doubt it.”
“This role has never been played by a Black woman.” Takira’s smile fades and her look grows more intent. “Understudy or not, tonight’s a big deal, not just for you, but for the little girls out there who need to see us onstage. Tonight’s not just your night. It’s all of ours.”
I huff out a laugh and rub the back of my neck. “No pressure, huh?”
“Girl, you were born for pressure.” She leans in to lay a kiss on my cheek.
I catch and hold her hand, hold her stare. “Thanks, T, for everything.”
“You know I got you.”
“Fifteen minutes,” comes over the intercom.
Sweat sprouts around my hairline and my breath stutters.
“Bye,” Takira says, and slips from the dressing room.
And then it’s just me, sitting with a cup of tea, room temperature water, and all the possible ways I could screw this up. The faint buzz of preparation beyond my door sifts into the silence. The bees working in the hive backstage while the patrons wait, bellies full from a pre-show dinner, or relaxed after a drink or two. I watch theater on an empty stomach and completely sober. I don’t want a thing dulling my senses or making me slow. There could be something I miss. I consume a show like a starved animal, like a tremoring addict chasing a high. Hard to believe I thought I wanted a different life when now this, performing, is everything to me.
Since graduating from Rutgers, I’ve done regional tours, some commercials, done swing for a couple of smaller shows, but this is my first time stepping onto a Broadway stage. In the years since that awful day with Terry and Brandon, I’ve learned a lot about myself. My view of the world, of what was possible, was so limited then. It’s like I was looking at life with one eye open. I might have stayed in my small town, done community theater, married Brandon and been content with two or three kids. Maybe taught drama at our local high school. That is a path my life could have taken and I might have been fine.
They ran me from that life, though, Terry and Brandon. They kicked me out of the nest and sent me soaring. On some level I’m grateful things happened the way they did, but most times when I think of them, it’s hard to find goodwill, and as much as I hate to admit it, grace has been scarce. A wound left untended festers, and that’s what’s happened with my family.
“Five minutes,” the stage manager intones over the intercom.
I close my eyes, blocking out old hurts and moldy memories. Even cutting off the roads my mind would take to the future and what doing well tonight, this week while Elise is on vacation, could mean for my career. I whittle my thoughts down to one thing.
Splendor.
This play. This character. This performance. This moment.
I’ve been in the wings, backstage every night for months. Always prepared, but never put on. Every line and lyric lives in my pores now, runs through my veins. I want to give myself to that stage tonight. I want to pour out every emotion this story demands.
Theater has the power to transform, to transport. For every person waiting for curtains to rise, this story is the vehicle to escape the mundane, the grind, the pressures life imposes on us. I know because I feel those same pressures. I feel the weight of life and I want to be lifted as badly as they do. For someone tonight, I’m the getaway.
And just like that, my perspective shifts and it’s not about the tightness in my chest or the shortness of breath or the sweat running down my back. It’s not about my fear of what could go wrong for me. It’s about what I can do for them. What we can create together tonight.
I stare at the same girl in the mirror, but now in her eyes, there’s a mingling of peace and fire.
“Places, everyone!” the stage manager urges. “Places!”