Authors: Deborah Gregory
Dorinda brightens. “Awright! Where we gonna sing?”
“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out,” I say. “We were thinkin’ of singin’ at the Kats and Kittys Halloween Bash. My mom’s already makin’ us Halloween costumes, anyway. I bet I can get her to make one for you, too.”
“What does
your
mother do?” Chuchie asks Dorinda on the nosy tip.
“Nothing,” she answers nervously. “She stays at home.”
“How many brothers and sisters you have?” Chanel asks, fluttering her eyelashes. Nosy posy just won’t quit.
“Ten,” Dorinda says.
“That’s a lot of kids!”
“I know. But they aren’t really
her kids
. I mean, she’s a foster mother—and she’s our mother, just not our
real
mother.”
For once, Chanel stopped batting her eyelashes.
“Really? Are they your ‘real’ sisters and brothers?”
“No, but she’s nice, my foster mom. She lets me do what I want, as long as I help her and stuff.”
“You gonna come with us Friday, right?” Chanel says, not waiting for an answer. “We’re on the party committee and we get to help plan all of the events.”
I can tell she really likes Do’ Re Mi. She is acting like a big sister. Just the way she acts with Pucci, her little brother. I wonder where Do’ Re Mi’s real mother is.
“You know we’re the Kats, not the Kittys, right?” I say to amuse Do’ Re Mi, then do the handshake wiggle with Chanel.
“I heard that. What’s that you two are doing?” she asks, extending her hand, too.
“Do it like this,” Chanel says, showing her. The three of us wiggle our fingertips together. “All right! We got growl power, yo!”
I can see it coming. Now that we’ve found Dorinda, all our dreams are gonna come true. All we need now is another backup singer or two, and we’ll be ready to pounce.
With seven dollars in my cheetah wallet until Monday, there is only one filling solution before the Kats and Kittys Klub meeting: the Pizza Pit on Eighty-fourth and Columbus. When we step to the cash register to pay, much to our dee-light, Do’ Re Mi makes a donation into the collection plate. “I got it,” she says, giving the clerk $7.85 for our pizza slices and Cokes. “You’re definitely crew now,” Chanel says, giggling to the ka-ching of the cash register. One thing about Dorinda: She is generous with her money, even though she’s got to work for it herself. I’ve never known anybody like that before.
We walk to the back of the Pizza Pit so we can sit away from all the mothers with road-runner kids. The last time we sat up front, one of them threw a Dino-saurus Whacky Baby right into Chanel’s large cup of Coke and knocked it over.
Chanel is sitting facing the entrance. “Look who just walked in,” she says, talking through her straw, then quickly adds, “Don’t turn around yet!”
It’s too late. I already have—just in time to catch the grand entrance of those fabulous Walker twins from Houston. They are about the same height and size, but one of the twins is a chocolate shade lighter than the other. You can tell they’re not from New York. The lighter-skinned of the two has on a hot pink turtleneck with a navy blue skirt. The other one has on an orange coatdress with ivory on the side. They look sorta church-y—at Eastertime.
“Heh, y’all. How y’all doin’?” one of them says. The twins are kinda friendly in a goofy sort of way, and their Southern accents just sorta shout at ya, “Y’ALL, we in the house!”
“Wuzup? You two coming to the Kats meeting?” I ask them, knowing full well they ain’t here for a lobster cookout.
“Yeah, we’re going over there. What we talking about tonight?”
“It’s time for general elections. And we have to begin planning our next event. Me and Chanel are on the party committee. What committee are you on?”
“Volunteer services. We wanna plan something for a Christmas drive at a church or a women’s shelter.”
“We’re planning to throw a dope Halloween bash,” I counter. “Y’all missed our Christmas party.” All of “a sudden, I notice that I am trying to talk like them.
“Is that right?” one of the twins asks with a smile. She has nice lips—what we call juicy lips. Her eyes are big, too, like Popeye’s.
“What’s your name?” Dorinda asks her.
“Y’all, forgive me. I’m Aquanette,” exclaims the twin with the pink acrylic nail tips. Okay, pink acrylics tips means Aquanette, I tell myself so I don’t forget who’s who. I wonder if Aquanette puts the rhinestones on her Pee Wee Press-On Nails by herself.
“You belong to Kats, too?”
“No. I’m just visiting. I’m Dorinda. Dorinda Rogers.”
“They got good slices?” Aquanette asks Dorinda. She can’t help but notice how quickly Dorinda is eating her food.
“Don’t ask me if they’re good. I’m just hungry,” Dorinda says, smiling at her. Dorinda is s-o-o nice to everybody.
“We’d better order. We’ll be right back,” Aquanette says.
Anginette, it turns out, is the more vocal one in the ordering department. “Can we get a slice with anchovies, extra pepperoni, mushrooms, and sausage?” she asks the counter guy.
Chanel giggles at me, looking down at her pizza and kicking my Gucci loafers under the table.
“Watch the Gucci, Chuchie! It’s leather, not pleather—like yours!”
Recovering from her laugh attack, Dorinda politely says to Anginette, who has returned with two slices and a Coca Cola, “I hear you two can sing.”
“Yes, ma’am. You, too?”
“Well, sorta. I haven’t been in any talent shows or anything, like Galleria and Chanel, but they’re gonna take me to Drink some Conservatory with them for vocal classes.”
“You mean Drinka Champagne’s,” Chanel says, cutting in. “It’s the bomb for vocal and dance classes.”
“Dag on, they got everything in this town,” Anginette says with a tinge of know-it-allness in her voice. “That’s why we came up here to go to LaGuardia, ’cause they have the best vocal department in the country.”
My first thought is, okay, was that supposed to be a one-up, two-down? My second thought is, she’d better not come for me or I’ll read her like the Bible.
“We wanna be backup singers in a group,” Aqua explains earnestly, slurping up the cheese from her slice.
“Forgive my sister. She hasn’t eaten in five years,” giggles her unidentical half. “Actually, we came up here because there ain’t enough room in Houston for Karma’s Children
and
us!”
Aqua is definitely the funny one. Karma’s Children still live in Houston even though they’re now famous.
“How old is Backstabba now?” Aquanette asks Chanel.
“They try to say she’s eighteen, but I heard she’s just sixteen. They still have a tutor who travels with them on the road, so it must be true, ’cause she ain’t finished high school.”
“I like Jiggie Jim,” Angie says. “That falsetto voice, all that screeching—’Aaaaah got to know where you stand, gi-r-r-l,” she sings, then gasps, “it just gives me goose bumps!”
Hmm. Angie is quite theatrical once she gets her pepperoni quota. She sure isn’t biting off her twin sister’s flavor.
“Jiggie’s groove is cool, even though his voice is a little too high for me, if you know what I’m saying,” I counter, smirking, “and I personally am not into guys who wear black sunglasses—at night, thank you.”
“I heard there’s something wrong with his eyes,” Chanel offers, trying not to smirk. “His left eye doesn’t talk to his right one.”
We all howl. Chuchie
loves
to invent fib-eronis.
“Are you Spanish?” Anginette asks Chanel, whom she obviously finds amusing.
“Dominican,
mamacita
, and proud of it,” Chanel says.
“You can call her Miss Cuchifrita,” I offer bitingly. “She’s going to give out
piñatas
around midnight.”
“One week of Spanish and you ready to do show-and-tell,” gasps Chanel, batting her lashes at me. “You know what a
piñata
is?” she asks the twins.
“Nope,” say Anginette and Aquanette like a chorus.
“They’re animals made out of papier-mâché and glue, then stuffed inside with candy,” Chuchie explains. “When you hit the
piñata
, all the candy falls out!”
“Oh! I know what they are,” Angie says. “They have them in the Santa Maria Parade in Houston.”
“Are you Spanish, too?” Aquanette asks Dorinda.
“Nope, I don’t think so.”
“Is that right? You are so pretty. Ain’t she cute, Angie?”
“Thank you,” Dorinda says matter-of-factly. “Actually, I don’t know my family. I live in a foster home.”
Oopsy doopsy. That should keep our Southern Princess of Extra Pepperoni chomping quietly for at least a few minutes.
“We came up here to live with our father,” Anginette says, trying to rescue her sister from putting another “
piñata
” in her mouth. “Our mother is a district manager for Avon, so she travels all the time. Our father felt we weren’t being properly supervised since they got deevorced.”
Their mother is an Avon lady. No wonder they’re so nice. I am not gonna tell them that I only like S.N.A.P.S. Cosmetics. They’ve probably never heard of it.
“What does your dad do?” Do’ Re Mi asks them.
“He’s the senior vice president of marketing at Avon. He was my mom’s boss. That’s why he moved up here. They got any hot sauce here?” Aquanette asks, turning to her sister.
“Nope,” Anginette answers.
“Well, then, gimme yours,” Aqua says.
Out of Anginette’s purse comes a bottle of hot stuff. We all burst out laughing.
“So it’s like that?”
“Y’all laugh, that’s okay. If our mother saw us, she would start some drama,” Aqua says, pouring the Hot Texie Mama sauce on her slice.
Okay, this is hee-larious.
“They don’t have this in New York, girls, so you have to bear with us. We is homesick!”
“Our mom won’t let us use hot sauce because it’s not good for our vocal chords. Our father don’t say nothing, though,” Anginette says, waiting for the bottle to come back her way.
“I didn’t know that. See, Bubbles, you eat all that hot stuff. I’m glad I don’t,” Chanel says, acting all mighty.
“We’re not supposed to drink soda, either, but I love it,” Aquanette adds, slurping her Coke.
“Chanel drinks enough soda to do Coke commercials,” I counter. These girls don’t even drink Diet Coke. “Is it bad for your voice, too?”
“Yup. Y’all sing in a choir?”
“No, but we go to Drinka Champagne’s Conservatory on Saturdays, religiously. We take voice, dance, and theater.”
“Y’all should come up to Hallelujah Tabernacle on One Hundred Thirty-fifth and Lenox. We sing in the junior choir on Sundays.”
“Well, I’m usually getting my pedicure at that time,” I say, giggling. Aquanette has on too much white lipstick. Against her brown skin, it looks like a neon sign, I think, as both Chanel
and
Do’ Re Mi kick me under the table from opposite sides. I am gonna make both of them polish my Gucci loafers, I swear.
“What’s y’all’s range?” I ask, imitating that cute Southern drawl. Okay, so I am jealous. They sing in a choir, which means they can raise the roof off Jack in the Box.
“Mezzo, mostly,” offers Anginette.
“Mezzo, too,” adds Aquanette. “The gospel stuff is cool, but we want to sing pop, R and B-style music.”
“So do we,” Chanel says, nodding her head.
“Well, let’s sing together sometime. Y’all can come over to our house!” Aquanette screams. “What y’all doing tomorrow night?”
“Well, we sure aren’t going to the movies, because the duckets have run out,” I say with a sigh.
“Nah, y’all can’t be as broke as us. We are more broke than a bad joke! We need to make some money, doing
something
.”
Now she is speaking my language. “Last summer, me and Chanel sold lemonade right on Second Avenue and Ninety-sixth Street near the big Duckets ‘R’ Us Bank, and we made some serious bank. How much did we make last summer, Chanel?”
“Lemme see. About four hundred dollars. We may have to dust off my Mom’s Tiffany pitchers and set up shop again, I swear,” she says, giggling.
All of a sudden, I get a brainstorm. “Hey, y’all—we should perform at the Kats and Kittys Halloween Bash. You know, like charge admission. There’s five of us—shoot. We could put on a show, we’d be, like, The Black Spice Rack Girls! And wear costumes with, like, spice leaves hanging off or something. I’d pay five dollars to see that!”
“Five dollars? How ’bout twenty-five dollars?” says Do’ Re Mi, egging us on.
“Oh, my G-O-D, girl, that’s a good idea!” yells Aquanette.
“My mom can
make
our costumes,” I offer, bragging about my designing mom once again. She is gonna kill me. No, she’ll probably charge me. But I’ll worry about that later. “Last year, over one thousand Kats and Kittys came to our Christmas party. And they came from all over the country.”
Okay, so I am exaggerating. But they did come from New Jersey, Philadelphia, Connecticut, Westchester, and even D.C., aka Chocolate City. There are over a hundred Kats and Kittys chapters across the country, but New York is the dopest one, and we throw the “dopiest dope” parties. Everybody comes to jam with us.
I’m not sure yet if I like these girls, but I know a ka-ching when I see one. Me, Chanel, and Do’ Re Mi have got the flavor, but these two have the voices, and together we can at least put on one show. But first, I know we better get a few things straight before we go blabbing before the committee.
All serious, I say to the twins, “We’re gonna go in there and ask the board members to let us do this. How come the two of you don’t want to sing by yourselves? What do you need us for?”
“Me and Angie aren’t about drawing attention to ourselves. That’s not how we were raised,” Aqua says, moving her acrylic tips to her chest, then turning to look at her sister. It’s crystal clear which of these two operates this choo-choo train.
“We sing in the church—that’s one thing—but we’re about being humble,” Angie says, looking at me earnestly.
Then, like she’s on the
True Confessions
talk show, Angie says, “I honestly don’t think we are flashy enough to be in a group by ourselves.”
I have to give it to them: There is more to these fabulous Walker twins than hot sauce, tips, and chedda waves. They seem serious. “So you think that the five of us together could do some serious damage?” I ask, smiling at Chanel and Do’ Re Mi.