May 2000

“We’ve been sitting out here for, like, an hour, and they just keep coming!” Juliet shouted, flicking her cigarette butt into the street where it was immediately smashed under the tire of a snarling, slow-moving Harley-Davidson. And then another. And then another.

“I know. It’s crazy!” I yelled back, watching the never-ending parade of black leather and shiny chrome roll down Ocean Boulevard.

“You know what’s even crazier?” she asked, looking at me. “They’re all white. All of ’em. I haven’t seen a black person since we left Atlanta.”

“Oh my God.” My hand flew to my mouth as I scanned our surroundings. Mentally retracing our steps all the way from Atlanta to Myrtle Beach, I was horrified to realize that she was right. “How is that even possible? Black people ride motorcycles too! Remember when we used to go to the track with Harley? None of those moto guys were white. What the fuck? It’s Bike Week, not White Week!”

I was pissed. Pissed but most of all ashamed. How had I brought Juliet here and not even realized how uncomfortable she must have been? Or even what it was?

I hopped down off the cement block that supported the sign for our one-star motel and approached a man walking by who looked like a biker version of Santa Claus.

“Excuse me? Sir? Can you tell me where all the, um…people of color are?”

Santa gave Juliet a quick glance and seemed to catch my drift. “Oh, y’all are lookin’ for Black Bike Week. That ain’t till Memorial Day.”

“Excuse me?” Juliet snapped, standing up to join me.

Santa held up his hands. “Sorry, miss. Didn’t mean no disrespect. That’s just what they call it. This here is the Harley-Davidson Bike Week. Then, next week, the, uh…minorities do their Bike Week up on the north side of the strip. They ride them fancy crotch rockets and such. Lotta young folks, like yourself. It gets real wild though. Not laid-back like this. Coupla folks got shot last year, so y’all be real careful if you go.”

“Uh…we will. Thanks.”

Santa gave us a friendly smile and went along his merry way while Juliet and I stood there, like we’d just been sucker-punched in the guts.

“Oh my fucking God,” I said, blinking at my best friend. The girl I would move heaven and hell for. The girl who’d been there for me through every breakup, every trauma. The girl whose baby I’d helped deliver and name.

She was acting angry, but I knew what she was feeling went much deeper than that.

Juliet pursed her lips and raised one of her expertly drawn-on eyebrows. “Did we fucking travel back in time? I’m gonna ask the next person we see what fucking year it is. This is bullshit.”

“I’m so sorry I brought you here, Jules.”

“Sorry? Why are you sorry? All Hans said was that we were going to Bike Week. Well, here we are.” Juliet spun around in a full circle with her arms out.

I grabbed my purse off the cement block and tossed it over my shoulder. “I’m gonna make it right, boo. C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” Juliet huffed.

“North. We’re goin’ fucking north.”

Juliet and I turned our backs on the Happy Holiday Motel, tossed our empty Jack and Coke bottles in a nearby trash can, and headed north along Ocean Boulevard.

We walked about a mile, which felt more like three with all the bobbing and weaving we had to do around the Harleys and choppers parked along the sidewalk. The sun was beginning to set before we finally heard it—deep, thumping bass.

We had struck hip-hop.

Juliet and I looked at each other at the same time and grinned.

We followed the sound to an unassuming building on the beach side of the street. The sign out front said, Dougan’s Bar and Grill, and underneath it, written in black letters on the marquee, were two words that delighted me like no others.

Karaoke Night.

I squealed and sprinted arm in arm with Juliet across the street. Inside the place was dark, dingy, wood-paneled, and packed full of people.

People who did not look like me for a change.

The main open area of the restaurant was filled with round high-top tables, all facing a decent-sized stage, and each one had about two people too many shoved around it on narrow barstools.

By some miracle, Juliet and I scored a table in the back corner. Just as the hostess walked away, an announcer called out a name over the loudspeakers. Juliet and I watched as a heavyset man in a three-piece suit walked up to the mic. Poor guy was already sweating profusely and looked like he might throw up.

When the music came on it sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until he opened his mouth and sang the words, “If I,” in a soft, high-pitched voice that I realized what the fuck was about to go down.

“Oh shit!” I slammed my hand on the table and stared at Juliet with eyes like saucers. “No! No fucking way!”

Juliet’s mouth fell open as she stared at the stage.

Fishing my phone out of my purse, I dialed Hans’s number prepared to leave him a voicemail. I knew he was at some radio interview and probably wouldn’t answer, but I had to share this shit with somebody.

“Hey, baby!” He picked up on the second ring.

“Hans! Oh my God, I didn’t think you’d answer. Can you hear me?”

“Barely. What’s up? You guys having fun?”

“Yes! Dude, we’re at this place on the strip called Dougan’s and it’s karaoke night and—oh shit, he’s about to sing the chorus. Listen!” I held the phone up just before my new hero hit the highest high note in “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston.

The crowd lost their damn minds—jumping up and down, throwing their hands in the air, screaming and whistling. The energy was glorious. I got high just being near it.

“Did you hear that?” I screamed.

“Yeah, that was amazing. Did you say that was a guy?”

The crowd was still deafening, so I ran outside to finish my conversation.

“Yes! And he looks like Cedric the Entertainer!” I cackled. “You guys have to come here when you’re done! We have a table in the back.”

“Okay. We’ve been done for, like, half an hour, but Trip won’t stop flirting with the DJ. He thinks he can sweet-talk her into giving us air time, but he’s probably just gonna get us banned.”

I laughed. “Good luck with that.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? I miss you. I’m glad you have somebody to hang out with this time though.”

“Yeah, me too.” I smiled into the phone. “Oh shit! I hear Tupac. Gotta go! Love you. Bye!”

Hans chuckled. “Love you too, baby. Bye.”

As I walked back into the restaurant, I patted myself on the back for my maturity. Look at me. Came to an out-of-town show and didn’t even get jealous or pouty or wasted or lost or anything. I’m basically a full-grown, mature adult at this point. Somebody, get me a drink and a mortgage and register my ass to vote. I have arrived.

When I got back to my seat, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the drink part of my adult wish list had already been fulfilled. A tall glass filled with smoky-gray liquid sat untouched in front of me on the table. Juliet was sipping on an identical one across from me.

“Who are these from?” I asked, eyeing the murky beverage suspiciously.

“Those guys.” Juliet cast her eyes sideways to a high-top about ten feet away with a group of six dudes sitting at it.

Two of them were watching us.

“Ah, man. Great. Now they’re gonna expect us to suck their dicks.”

“Pssh. Whatever. I got us free drinks, didn’t I?” Juliet rolled her eyes and took another long pull from her big, haunted-looking drink.

“What the hell is this?” I stirred the gray matter with my straw, praying I wasn’t going to find a finger or a toe floating in it.

“It’s called Fuck Me in the Graveyard.”

“How romantic.” I took a sip and was pleasantly surprised. It was strong as hell but had a fruity aftertaste. Like maybe pineapple? Or grapefruit? Or cranberry? Or all of the above? Whatever it was, it hit my empty stomach and bounced right back up into my brain, telling me things like, You should get up there and sing. No, you’re a terrible singer. You should get up there and rap.

“I think I’m gonna go put my name in,” I slurred ten minutes later over my almost-empty drink.

“What? Here? What are you gonna sing?”

I shook my head. “Not sing. Rap.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. What are you gonna rap?” Juliet started laughing before she even got the word rap all the way out.

“The ‘Thong Song,’ of course. I know all the words. Craig and I have a whole choreographed dance to it.” I gasped. “Oh no, Craig’s not here. Do you know how to twerk?”

Juliet snorted so hard, Fuck Me in the Graveyard came out of her nose. “I am a mother. I do not twerk.”

“Okay, bitch. Have it your way. More glory for me.”

I got up and stumbled over to the DJ booth where there was a huge binder filled with songs. After mustering all the concentration left in my inebriated frontal lobes, I found the “Thong Song” and scrawled the number next to it down on a tiny piece of paper, using one of the equally tiny golf pencils provided.

As I walked behind the table of guys who’d paid for the drink that got me drunk enough to consider doing karaoke, one of them turned in his barstool and clotheslined me with a thick arm around my waist. He was a skinny white dude with a shaved head, who was wearing a wifebeater and about three gold chains. When he smiled, he had a gold tooth to match.

“Where you goin’ so fast, Smalls?”

“Uh, I’m just goin’ to sit with my friend.”

“Y’all like them drinks?” His lips were thin, and they disappeared when he smiled.

“Yeah. Thanks. That was, uh, really nice.” I stuck my thumbnail between my teeth, absentmindedly adopting Hans’s nervous habit, and looked over at Juliet with pleading eyes.

“Is that a weddin’ ring?” Slim Shady asked.

I looked at the black diamonds circling my ring finger and beamed in relief. “Yep!” I chirped. Donning a thicker version of my subtle Southern accent, I added, “My boyfriend done knocked me up, so my daddy said we had to git married, ‘for I started showin’. Just did it at the courthouse last week.”

That did the trick. Slim’s face fell, as did his arm from around my waist. “Uh, congratulations?”

“Thanks!” I grinned, turning to scamper off.

I’d only gotten about three feet away before Slim called after me, “Hey, if you’re pregnant, how come you’re drinkin’?”

Shit. Uh…

I spun around, fake smile back in place, and swatted at him playfully. “Oh hush, you. It was only one! My mama said she drank while she was pregnant with me, and I turned out just fine!”

When I turned around and headed back toward our table, I let my mask slide off, revealing the death stare Juliet deserved.

“Well, he seemed friendly,” she said, biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

“I hate you.”

“You didn’t hate that free drink.”

“I hate that I smell like Michael Jordan cologne now.”

“Brooke Bradley to the stage. Brooke Bradley to the stage.”

“Fuck, that was fast!” I downed the rest of my drink and the rest of Juliet’s too, shook out my arms, and said, “Wish me luck!”

I bounced up to the stage on my toes like a boxer who’d just been called into the ring, already feeling that last injection of alcohol. Luckily, I was born with about eighty-seven percent fewer inhibitions than most humans, but the science beaker of alcohols I’d just poured into my body got me all the way to one hundred.

The folks in the crowd were clearly confused about what a ninety-five-pound white girl with a punk haircut wearing a David Bowie tank top was doing on their stage, but I didn’t worry about them. As soon as that cheesy violin intro started, they all disappeared. I was operating on blissful, beautiful muscle memory as I stepped to the right on the first line, slid to the left on the second line, turned around and shook my ass—the only place that jiggled on my whole body—on the third line, and looked over my shoulder to rap the fourth line with a wink.

The crowd died laughing, and the girls stood up and shook their asses with me during the chorus. I pointed at a few pro twerkers in the audience and motioned for them to come up onstage. By the second chorus, I had a whole army of booty-shaking fly girls behind me, and by the third chorus, I managed to get the big guy who’d sung the Whitney Houston song onstage. His face turned bright red as we freak-danced all over him. One girl even took his suit jacket off and threw it out into the crowd.

My heart was racing and I was panting and laughing and forgetting the lyrics by the last verse, but nobody cared. It was the most fun I’d ever had in my life.

As I climbed back off the stage, my knees shaky from the adrenaline and my mouth numb from all the smiling and rapping, I looked to our table, ready to make an Oh my God! face at Juliet, but she wasn’t even watching me. She had her back to the stage and was yelling at two of the guys from the douche-bag table who must have come over to hit on her again while I was gone.

I was about halfway to the table when I saw Juliet shove one of them in the chest.

Oh fuck.

I broke into a sprint and was almost to the table when Prince Charming picked up a very full, very gray drink off the table—I assume a gift for Juliet—and dumped the entire thing over her head.

What happened next is still a blur. All I know is that I heard two hits—and felt one.

When I came to, I was outside Dougan’s, sitting on the sidewalk with my back against the brick building. I had a splitting fucking headache, and all I wanted to do was slump over on the concrete and go back to sleep.

“BB! Wake up! Wake up, damn it! We gotta go!”

I opened my heavy lids just enough to make out Juliet’s blurry face. Something wet was dripping on my hands. I opened my eyes a little more and saw that it was liquid falling from the ends of Juliet’s braids. She was drenched.

“Get up, damn it. The manager probably called the cops, and we’re underage. Get up!”

“What happened? Where’d those assholes go?”

“I’ll tell you on the way back to the hotel. C’mon.”

Juliet grabbed me by my forearms and hoisted my bony ass off the ground. It felt like somebody was squeezing my skull with both hands, and their thumbs were right between my eyes. When I touched the spot, it exploded in pain.

“Fuck!”

Juliet swatted my hand away as she dragged me down the sidewalk. “Don’t touch it. We’ll get you some ice at the motel.”

“What the fuck happened?”

“Those guys showed up with another round of drinks, but I was trying to watch you rap, so I asked them to move. The one with the Wayans brothers high-top fade called me a bitch, so I turned around and told him to fuck off, and then that piece of shit poured a drink on my head!” Juliet’s grip on my arm tightened, but I could feel her hand shaking still. “So I punched him right in the fucking face! Who does that? Who fucking pours a drink on a girl just because she’s not interested?” Her voice faltered like she was on the verge of tears, but I knew she’d suck that shit up. Juliet never cried.

“His buddy grabbed him to pull him away, but then the two of them started scrapping, and his buddy’s elbow flew back and caught you right between the eyes.”

I went to touch the tender spot, but Juliet swatted my hand down again.

“Knocked your little ass out cold. And that asshole manager—”

Honk! Honnnnnnk! A car horn blared behind us.

“What’s up, ladies? Y’all wanna party?”

We turned around and glared at Trip, who was hanging out the passenger window of Baker’s van. As soon as Trip and Baker saw our seriously pissed-off, wet, swollen faces, their smiles disappeared.

“Damn. What happened to y’all? Wet T-shirt contest gone bad?”

“Fuck you, Trip,” Juliet spat. Grabbing my arm, she spun us back around and kept marching toward the motel.

Motorcycle engines revved and cars honked as they swerved to go around Baker’s van, which was crawling down Ocean Boulevard next to us.

I heard the side door of the van slide open and knew that Hans must be hopping out. As much as I wanted to turn and run into his arms, Juliet’s anger was contagious. I wanted someone to yell at too, someone to blame, and who better than the man who never seemed to be there when I needed him?

“Baby, are you okay? What happened?”

I huffed and ignored him.

He’s gonna grab my arm in three, two—

Hans’s long, rough fingertips hooked around my tiny bicep, but he didn’t grab. He didn’t pull. His touch was so gentle, it hurt me to shrug it off.

But I did it anyway.

“Hey…talk to me.” Hans jogged ahead of us and turned around, blocking our path. When his eyes landed on mine, he looked as if he were the one who’d been elbowed in the face. “Oh my God! Is that a black eye?”

Is it?

I turned and searched Juliet’s face for confirmation. She just kind of shrugged and nodded.

Awesome. I have a black eye.

Hans rushed to me and took my face in his hands. He placed three gentle kisses just above my left eyebrow, causing tears to blur my vision even worse than the alcohol and swelling already had.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

“What the fuck is going on? Why won’t you talk to me?”

Juliet grunted and dropped my arm, stomping off without us.

“We’ll meet you back at the hotel, okay?” Hans called to the guys in the van.

They pulled ahead but continued to crawl along the sidewalk next to Juliet who was power-walking with her arms folded across her chest. Trip was hanging out the passenger window, talking to her. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I knew he was probably trying to make her laugh.

Good luck with that.

“Come here,” Hans said, taking my hand. At the next gap in traffic, he led me across the street and through a parking lot on the other side.

“What are you doing?”

“What I should have done the second we got here. I’m taking you to the beach.”

The parking lot had a trail through the sand dunes that led out to the water. Juliet and I had played in the ocean a little bit that morning, but it was completely different at night. The ocean breeze chilled my damp skin instead of heating it. The roar of the waves seemed louder, drowning out the sound of the motorcycles cruising up and down Ocean Boulevard. The sunbathers had been replaced by drunks passed out in the sand. And the clouds had been dressed in their finest evening wear—midnight-blue velvet with sparkling white diamonds.

My combat boots sank deep into the powdery sand with every step as Hans led me toward a lifeguard stand. Without even looking to see if anyone was watching, Hans climbed to the top of the wooden structure and held out his hand to help me up. I climbed up behind him.

But I didn’t take his hand.

I wasn’t a child.

Okay, legally, I was still a child, but fuck him. I could climb a goddamn lifeguard stand. Black eye or no black eye.

There was only one seat at the top, so Hans claimed it and pulled me into his lap, my back to his front.

Between Hans’s rhythmic heartbeat against my back, his scruffy jaw against my shoulder, his warm arms around my waist, and the steady ebb and flow of the sea spread out before me, my body gave up the fight and allowed itself to be soothed.

“I don’t know what happened, and you don’t have to tell me, but I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop it.”

That sweet, simple sentence took away any hope I’d had of an argument. I’d wanted to shout those words at him.

You weren’t there! I’d have yelled, making myself feel better by making him feel like shit.

But he’d taken the words right out of my mouth and handed them to me on a silver platter.

“Me too,” I sighed.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. “Juliet got into a fight with some guys while I was onstage at that karaoke bar.”

“You were onstage? Like, doing karaoke onstage?”

And just like that, my anger roared back to life with a vengeance.

“Uh, yeah. I fucking love karaoke.”

“Sorry. I just didn’t know you could sing.”

Ooh, you think you’re so goddamn special just because you have a talent. Like you’re the only asshole who knows how to work a stage. I have talents too, motherfucker. I have talents you don’t even know about. Like twerking. And making an ass out of myself. People love that shit.

“I can’t sing,” I snapped. “That’s why I rap. Anyway”—I let out an exasperated huff—“I ran over to break up the fight and got elbowed in the fucking face.” I winced just thinking about it.

Hans took my chin in his hand and turned my face toward his. His eyes were hard instead of soft. His jaw clenched and unclenched. Then he kissed me right between the eyes. Right on the place where it hurt the most.

Hans didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He was trying to appear concerned, but the anger radiating off of him and the disappointment in his eyes said it all.

I’d fucked up again.

He’d probably had fun that day while I wasn’t around. He might have even achieved his dream of being on the radio, for all I knew.

But I wasn’t there for the good parts.

I was only there to bring him down.

I opened my mouth to ask about his day when Hans pulled a Hans and changed the subject completely.

“Did you know that the stars are so far away that it takes years for their light to reach Earth?” he asked in a serious tone, gazing past me at the sky. “I think the closest star is four light-years away.” Hans’s eyes seemed to cloud over as if he were lost in thought, his mouth set in a straight line. “All of those stars could be burned out right now, and we’d never know. We’d just go about our lives, looking at the ghosts of dead stars every night, never knowing that we were already in the dark.”

A lump formed in my throat. “That was…beautiful.” I tried to swallow the uncomfortable bulge, but it didn’t budge. “You should write that down, baby. Here…”

As I dug in my purse for a pen, grateful for an excuse to hide my emotional face, I hoped and prayed that Hans hadn’t been talking about us. Lately, it felt like his light was always too far away, took too long to reach me. And now that it had arrived, I was beginning to wonder how long it would take for me to realize if it ever burned away for good.