Look At Me Now

She is always talking about how beautiful Lilly Mae was. Lilly Mae was so beautiful she could‘ve and should‘ve been a Hollywood movie star. Lilly had so many talents it was unbelievable. She was a dancer, a singer and an actress. She was the homecoming Queen at Harver High. For being most beautiful, she won many talent shows. That’s when Mom met Dad. They were both talented. He was the class clown, comedian and was always acting the fool. All the girls loved Harold James. Tall and handsome, he could sing too!! They both won first place, the judge had a hard time deciding so they both won.

Lilly wore a short black and white polka-a dot dress, her hair long silky black and in flipped made her the most beautiful person there by far. Her background singers wore pink and white polka-dot dresses in a flare and had their hair in bobs. They sang the Aretha Franklin’s song "Respect". Harold’s group sang the "My Girl" by the Temptations. They all had black and white tuxedos on.

It was love at first sight. Lilly suspected Harold of being a playboy. Knew all the girls wanted him for his good looks. She over came her doubts, and no longer cared what anybody would say. She didn’t know what she was getting into, but-- she brought him home to grandma’s to see what they thought of him. He was her first boyfriend ever, and she felt like they were soul mates. They had the same dark shiny skin, beautiful brown eyes, hair texture and smile. They looked like they could have been brother and sister. Grandma was pleased to meet him but grandee wasn’t. Harold James and Lilly Mae Thomas became the talk of the town. They were the two black starlets. Grandma, as usual, was her own welcoming self with Harold, but grandpa couldn’t stand the sight of him. He thought he was too slick.

Grandma just told Lilly she hoped she would stay a virgin till she got married so everything would be right with God. She had gotten married at a young age because at the time it was the way to do things. All Harold ever talked about was, moving to Hollywood, becoming a star and getting rich. They made plans for when they would graduate. They had big plans. Fancy and Annie, were lily’s back up singers and her best friends. They tried to talk Lilly out of going with Harold but she wouldn’t listen.

She kept on singing, getting better at it. One day at rehearsal, singing the song "stop in the name of love" Lilly began laughing so hard and they were all puzzled. She then asked them why they couldn’t understand that what she felt for Harold was love? Fancy was the biggest advocate against her relationship with Harold. She said she wanted to save her from heartache. Lilly didn’t pay her any attention but just cautioned her to save herself the heartache. They then started talking about what to do after school and Annie said she was going to be a nurse. Fancy didn’t want to worry about it but Lilly was headed for the big lights with her baby Harold. They only had three weeks before graduation and she was so excited because very soon she would be able to start making moves on her future career. Fancy was such a flirt and it was just like her to be so non-chalant about everything, including her future. Fancy and Lilly were real close. Their mothers were just like sisters. However, they couldn’t be more different physically. Lilly was a cocoa brown shade and Fancy was a lighter shade of brown though they all had good-looking bodies. Fancy liked attention and didn’t care where she got it. She had two sisters, Diane and Rene.

Diane was married to an alcoholic husband, with two children and I couldn’t for figure out why she was still with him. She was a social worker who stayed with her abusive husband, what help was she at work? Glorie, their mother also had her problems. Rene was another issue all together. She was in-between Fancy and Diane and had dropped out of school a few months before her graduation.

Dan, their father had walked out on them, but he would come around every now and then. Glorie would let him walk in and walk out. I always asked mama why and she said it was because he was her husband and he was the head of family. Also folks were supposed to stay married to the very end so she couldn’t leave him. I thought that just didn’t make sense but who was I to question the status quo?

I loved going to church on Sundays and especially Sunday school. I was in the choir with all my girls. I was the perfect little angel liked by everyone. Fancy was the least liked. I had a friend Kitty. She was older than me and she was also in the choir. She was very pretty and independent. Being two years older than us, she was out of high school and had her own apartment and her car. She would only date older men with money and cars and that’s how she had all that money. She was dating Smithy; he was one of the few black business owners in town. He owned a barbershop. He was in love with her and wanted to marry her but she wasn’t in love with him. She wanted to be free to date anyone. She believed in God but wasn’t what you would call religious. She knew what she wanted out of life. Her father had spoiled her; he would give her anything she wanted. She had a younger brother Ryan and her mother had died in childbirth with him. He was different, a lot of fun to be with, but it seemed he was nuts.

Now to get back to my story. We had just one more talent show before school let out in the summer and I really wanted to win. I was not going to let Harold and his group win this one. We had rehearsed so much, I got home tired. As I did my stretches I thought about Harold and the fact that he didn’t know his father. He had two half-brothers, Joey who was a little on the plump side and Pete on his mother side. Perhaps, that explained why they didn’t look anything like Harold. I was lost in thought, thinking about my Harold’s smooth skin and just day dreaming about us together somewhere in Hollywood.

It was now one week before the school was out. My girls and I went to the mall to get our outfits for the talent show. We were styling with royal blue mini-dresses with halter necks, white sandals and big hoop earrings. Harold and his group came back with their black and white tuxedo suits