Falling Into Grace Read online

  Janice opened with small talk. “Tell me your name again?”

  “Camille.”

  “That’s right. How’s it going for you?”

  “Okay, I guess.” Camille shrugged. “You?”

  Janice leaned in and whispered, “Awful. I’ve been looking for another job.”

  Another one bites the dust. If enough people left or got fired, Camille might actually be in the running to become a supervisor, then all she’d have to do is push paperwork. Still, she needed to appear sympathetic. Janice might be trying to feel Camille out so she could rat her out. “Why? I mean, the pay isn’t too bad.”

  Janice countered with a hint of sincerity, “It is if you don’t make any appointments.”

  Camille had to nod in agreement. “Have you talked to your supervisor?”

  “Patrick?”

  “Never mind.”

  Even people who didn’t work for Patrick knew he wasn’t the helpful type.

  No sense in leading Janice on. Maybe she just didn’t have what it took. She sure didn’t have Camille’s killer closing line, and Camille wasn’t about to give it up. “Good luck in finding something else.”

  Janice unfolded the foil paper covering her bologna and cheese sandwich. She took a slow, contemplative bite, then asked with a bit too much food in her mouth, “Don’t you ever want to, like, do something that really matters with your life? Something really big and great?”

  A laugh escaped Camille’s grasp. “I did do something really amazing, back in the day.”

  Janice’s eyes widened. “Really? What?”

  What could it hurt to tell Janice? “I used to sing with a girl group. We sold millions of CDs, toured the world. Limos, fancy hotels, all that.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Janice took another bite, her eyes begging for Camille to go on.

  “I mean, that was it. We did it.” Camille shrugged, balling up her candy wrapper.

  “What do you mean, that was it? What happened?”

  Sore territory. “We broke up.”

  “Why?”

  Camille pursed her lips. She’d asked herself that question countless times. Why did Sweet Treats break up? The answer depended upon which Sweet Treat responded. Since there was no one to refute Camille’s version, she replied to Janice, “Jealousy. I was the lead singer, everyone was after me. You know how that kind of thing goes.”

  “So, you all were like Destiny’s Child?”

  I had to give it to Janice. Maybe she was in this century after all. “You know your R and B groups, huh?”

  Janice smiled. “I watch a little MTV now and then.”

  “Well,” Camille continued, “we were better than Destiny’s Child. We sang better, we looked better, we had better music. The only difference between me and Beyoncé was that her dad watched out for her and made sure his daughter was always in the spotlight. If I’d had a dad like hers, I sure wouldn’t be working here right now.”

  “Wow.” Janice beamed in amazement. “You could have really been somebody.”

  Camille smacked. “Yepper.”

  “I mean, you are somebody. Everybody’s somebody in their own way. You know what I mean?” Janice tried to backtrack.

  “I know what you mean.” Camille sighed. “But you’re right. I could have been, like, a real somebody.”

  “I always wanted to be a teacher,” Janice confided.

  For the rest of the lunch break, Camille pretended to listen to Janice’s secret career aspirations that would probably never come to pass, because, according to Janice, she was too far in debt to consider paying for college. Plus there was some nonsense about a boat that she and her husband had purchased with three other couples.

  Camille nodded dutifully, asking trite questions whenever appropriate, but Janice’s problems were regular-people problems—issues Camille wouldn’t have had to deal with if Sweet Treats was still together like Destiny’s Child. Okay, maybe Destiny’s Child wasn’t really together together anymore, but at least they weren’t working alongside the general public, eating candy bars for lunch under the buzz of a bad tubular lightbulb.

  No, those girls still had a lot going for them. It wasn’t fair. Why did they get to keep making music when Sweet Treats, Brownstone, En Vogue, and SWV were out of business? Especially when Tom Joyner himself had said that Sweet Treats was the “best total package.” And he wasn’t the only one to point out Sweet Treats’s potential. So why weren’t they still on top?

  Camille stewed over these nonstop questions all afternoon in her work space. All the shoulda, woulda, couldas replayed themselves in a matrix of never-ending possibilities, none of which resulted in Camille working as a telemarketer for Aquapoint Systems.

  Bobby Junior finally busted through Camille’s flashback by calling her cell phone.

  “Hey, Daddy.”

  “Happy birthday, Camillie. This is the big one. Thirty. You grown now,” he teased.

  “Thank you. You got a present for me?”

  Of course, Camille already knew the answer before he responded. “Naw, your daddy’s got some bills to pay. I was hoping maybe you could send me some money.”

  “But it’s my birthday.” Camille laughed to mask her disappointment.

  “The way I see it, you wouldn’t have a birthday if it wasn’t for me.”

  For all his drinking, Bobby Junior was still fast with his sharp replies. “So, you gonna let your old man hold twenty dollars?”

  “I would if I could, but I can’t so I ain’t,” she threw one of Bobby Junior’s favorite excuses back at him.

  “You still driving that Lexus, right?”

  “Yeah,” Camille affirmed, wondering where her father was headed with this line of inquiry.

  “Ain’t nobody who’s driving a Lexus broke.”

  “My car is ten years old. Almost two hundred thousand miles on it,” Camille spelled it out for him.

  “All I know is, I ain’t never had leather interior in none of my cars,” her father reiterated. “You gonna help your daddy out or what?”

  “I can’t. You and I are in the same boat right now.”

  “Aw.” He tsked. “Don’t give me that. You forget you’re talking to somebody who knows the music business inside out. I know Lenny’s still got royalties coming in.” Bobby Junior never failed to reference his one musical connection—Lenny Williams—who allowed Bobby Junior to sing backup on one song. Depending on how far Bobby Junior took the story, Lenny was also a distant cousin.

  “Lenny’s still getting checks because people are still playing ‘I Love You’ and using it in new ways,” Camille reasoned. “If somebody wants to use one of our songs for a commercial or a movie, I’ll get a cut, too. But until then, I’m a regular person living from paycheck to paycheck just like you, Dad.”

  Actually, in Bobby Junior’s case, it was more like woman to woman. Since her mother died, leaving Bobby Junior a widow, he hadn’t been able to hold a relationship or a job steady. Lucky for him, there was never a shortage of foolish ladies who would take her father in, feed him, and make sure he had a decent pair of shoes in exchange for his good looks and company. The woman would usually buy him a cell phone, too, so she could keep up with him. But the relationship wouldn’t last long. Sooner or later, Bobby Junior would get busted fooling around with his next victim. Then he’d move in with her, get a new phone number. Beg Camille for money until he built up enough trust with the new beau to get the ATM code.

  “Humph,” he chided. “Well, happy birthday anyway. You talked to your brother?”

  “Nope.”

  “Don’t make no sense, brother and sister grew up in the same house with the same momma and daddy don’t even talk to each other no more.”

  “I don’t have a problem with Courtney. He has a problem with me.” Camille said the same thing every time Bobby Junior broached the subject.

  “Just don’t make no sense. Look like to me you ought to want to hold on to whatever family you got left, ’specially after what happened
with your momma. But y’all grown. I can’t make y’all play with each other.”

  “All right, well, I’ve got to get back to work.” Camille pressed the red “end call” button before her father could launch a campaign for ten dollars ... five dollars ... something he could pawn.

  She threw the phone back into her purse and put her headset back in place for the last fifty calls of the day. Glad for the sales script, Camille plodded through the afternoon with her mind only half engaged in work. The other half was in LA. London. On stage with a microphone taped to her body. Four women standing six feet behind her.

  Or should she go solo? That way she wouldn’t have to split the money. If the group’s second manager, Aaron, hadn’t convinced the record label to keep Kyra in the group despite her blatant drug problems, Camille might still have some funds left in the bank. Dividing by three instead of four makes a huge difference when millions of dollars are on the line.

  When Camille really thought about it, she could almost strangle Aaron now for saving Kyra’s butt. All Kyra ever did was moan on most of the songs anyway. Granted, it was a sexy moan—one that she’d probably practiced many a night in Aaron’s hotel room. Yeah, there was a reason he wanted to keep that butt around.

  And Kyra was ... slow. Not slow like she was born with a medical problem. Slow like she’d been smoking weed since the seventh grade. She just could not process information well, let alone read people.

  Camille paused the dialer and maximized the Facebook window on her screen. She searched for Kyra Copeland and scrolled down until she found the familiar face. Jealousy pinged through Camille’s chest as she explored Kyra’s open photo albums. She was obviously married, living in Phoenix with three boys in a two-story brick home with a pool. A pool! Dozens of mobile-uploaded pictures documented family gatherings and vacations. But that pool took the cake.

  Not to mention the fact that Kyra looked like she hadn’t gained an ounce. In fact, she looked better than back in the day. Kyra always had that handsome beauty. She was probably one of those girls who was the spitting image of her father, which, at a young age, was a huge problem, but as she grew older and filled out (and shaved the moustache), her features actually came together well. Yep, that was Kyra.

  She seemed happy. But who can really tell by Facebook? Camille checked Kyra’s info page and nearly busted out laughing. Kyra was a photographer? Seriously! Who would entrust Miss Moan-a-thon to capture precious memories on film? Camille copied and pasted Kyra’s alleged Web site address into the browser. A barrage of bridal photos and graduation shots paraded across the page. And they looked like someone who might know what they were doing staged and edited the shots.

  How could this be? Kyra Copeland is better off than me? “I don’t think so,” Camille whispered to herself as she closed the extra window on her screen. No way was she going to let Kyra, of all people, have the upper hand. Tonya, Camille could understand. Her parents had money. Even Alexis might be understandable because she went back to college and finished her degree. But not Kyra. If that man-looking Kyra was making it in this world, living in a nice house, going on cruises, Camille didn’t have an excuse.

  She slammed her headset on the desk. Took a look around her stupid, gray cubicle. Useless waste of the earth’s resources. She could still hear coworkers talking, still see through the cracks and smell when someone burned popcorn in the microwave. The only thing those partitions actually did for her was cover up tardiness.

  But what did it matter if she was late? Who cares? As long as she came in and made her ten leads for the day to keep the manager away, what time she got there should be irrelevant. This whole job was stupid anyway.

  Worse than this depressing train of thought was the fact that she actually needed this job to pay rent in an apartment she was too ashamed to have anyone visit. Maybe she shouldn’t have been ashamed of her place. I mean, at least she did have a roof over her head. Running water. Air-conditioning.

  Her mother taught her to be grateful. Yet, Camille always figured the “grateful” thing was something you did on the way up. Like, if you had nothing and then, all of a sudden, you got rich, you were supposed to thank God for taking you from bad to good. She had a hard time showing gratitude after being robbed of the queen-of-pop-sopranos crown. Well, maybe that was taking it a little too far—like the time Whitney Houston said Bobby Brown was the king of R&B when, really, he wasn’t even on the radar.

  Camille still remembered the day Sweet Treats’s last manager, Priscilla Longoria, called and gave her the news that Sweet Treats’s song had beat out Kelly Price, Dru Hill, and Toni Braxton for the number-one slot on the R&B charts. It was, to date, the best day of Camille’s life.

  If she didn’t get something going, the best part of her life would always be in the past. What better day to start than her thirtieth birthday?

  CHAPTER 3

  This was probably a bad idea. Her hands shook as she waited for Kyra to answer the phone, if this was the real Kyra Copeland. Six degrees of separation had been reduced to three, thanks to a mutual Facebook friend. The whole thing was one big quirky coincidence. A coincidence that might change her life forever.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Kyra. It’s Camille.”

  “Camille? How do we know each other?”

  “Camille Robertson?”

  “From Sweet Treats?”

  Camille tried the we-go-way-back approach. “Yeah, girl, it’s me. How you been?”

  “Fine. How’d you get my number?” Kyra’s cautionary pitch caught Camille by surprise.

  “We have a mutual friend named ...” Camille reviewed the screen. She didn’t realize she would have to reveal her source so soon. “Yolanda Wesley.”

  “Oh.” Kyra’s voice fell. “She’s one of my husband’s cousins. She’s an author, always trying to build her fan base.”

  “I ain’t mad at her,” Camille drawled.

  “Well, I certainly am. What do you need or want or whatever?” she gushed with a sigh.

  Apparently, Kyra had gained a few points in the thinking category. Camille couldn’t remember ever hearing Kyra string that many words together so fast without at least three takes in the studio. Camille would have to up her game.

  “I was just sitting here reminiscing. Thinking about what a good thing we had going in the nineties. And yesterday, I was reading something in a magazine about Xscape, and you know we were way better than them. So—”

  “Are you trying to put Sweet Treats back together again?”

  Might as well cut to the chase. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

  “Count me out.”

  Camille gasped. “Why? Kyra, you were like ... the voice of... sexiness in our group.”

  “Please. You sang so loud and took over every song in concert. The audiences thought me and Tonya and Alexis were backup when we performed.”

  “It’s not my fault that Priscilla put me front and center.”

  “No, but it is your fault we broke up.”

  Camille challenged, “How can you say that?”

  “Because you made the decision to betray your brother and Tonya.”

  “Betray is a very strong word, Kyra. Besides, Darrion was a free agent.”

  “Oh my God, you’re still in denial,” Kyra accused. “Everybody knew Tonya had a thing for Darrion. He was pretty much her man.”

  Hearing Kyra voice Darrion’s name suddenly jogged Camille’s memory. She’d almost forgotten about all those piddly details. Or maybe she’d blocked them out. Kyra hadn’t purged her files.

  “That was a long time ago, Kyra. We’ve all grown and matured. I was hoping we could get past our differences and make a run for it again,” Camille said calmly, deeply, the way she imagined Maya Angelou spoke. Who could deny a seasoned black woman’s wisdom?

  “You’re right,” Kyra agreed. “We should all be more mature now than we were then. Let the past stay there. Move on with your life, Camille. Sweet Treats is over.”


  I’m losing her! “It doesn’t have to be, Kyra. We can do it again. Look at Tony! Toni! Toné! They’re still together. I just saw them on BET the other night.”

  “I’m sure they still actually like each other because they’ve never messed one another over,” Kyra summed. “Let Sweet Treats go, Camille; the rest of us have.”

  Camille sucked in her breath. “You all keep in touch?”

  “Yes. Alexis and Tonya are still close. I talk to them from time to time. Alexis is teaching in St. Louis. Tonya’s back home in Houston, but she travels all over the country singing backup for Liza Sticcoli. We’re all happy, busy doing things we enjoy.”

  Resentment flattened the smile Camille had been holding in place to enhance her pitch. So much for closing this deal. “Okay. Don’t say I didn’t ask you, Kyra.”

  “No sleep lost here. More power to you, but don’t call me anymore.”

  Camille held on to the phone for a second, hoping Kyra would say, “Psyche!” She used to pull that lame attempt at sarcasm so often, Camille had a pink and black T-shirt made for Kyra with the word applied across the chest.

  No joke this time, though. T-Mobile brought the conversation to an official end with a soft beep in Camille’s ear. She couldn’t allow herself to process Kyra’s less than desirable response. The rejection rolled off Camille’s back like water on a duck. If there was one good thing she’d learned as a telemarketer, it was how to get over people’s negative reactions.

  On to the next one. “Hi, Alexis. It’s me. Camille. From Sweet Treats.”

  “Hey, Camille,” Alexis nearly sang. “How are you?” Alexis’s uniquely raspy speech always sounded like she needed to cough a few times. At their first rehearsal, Camille had been shocked by the strong alto hiding under the wobbly speaking voice.

  So far so good. “Great! How are you?”

  “I’m fine. So good to hear from you. What have you been up to?”

  “Girl, just working, tryin’ to make it. You?”