“Si, si si! Yes, yes, yes!” Qesa sang into the over-sized microphone, the big, padded earphones blocking out any sound except the music and her own voice. Rafael smiled and nodded along, motioning for her to continue, to keep rolling. His “okay” sign made her smile, because she knew she was pitch-perfect, always had been. Her ear for music was simply a gift.
And this was her song. She’d written it, words and music, for the man sitting across from her. It pleased her that he liked it—even if he didn’t know it had been written with him in mind. Rafael Cruze was her stepfather, as well as her manager and producer. He was the man who had taken control of their lives, her career, and kept pushing her toward newer, bigger heights.
Not that she’d gotten that far, really. She was hoping this song finally might make her Internet famous. Lots of artists had been discovered that way, after all. Why not her? Rafael said the bilingual message was smart—it doubled her audience. The song was catchy, toe-tapping, with a universal message of love. How could she go wrong?
Qesa opened her eyes, startled to see her mother standing at the door. It threw her and Qesa stopped singing, seeing her mother’s mouth just a grim line, arms crossed over her considerable chest, clad in scrubs. She was clearly on her way to work—Mariana Cruze was a janitor at a local hospital—and not too happy to see her husband and daughter together in their makeshift recording studio.
“Qesa! You have school!” her mother announced, like this was news. She put her hands over her ears, shaking her head. “Too loud! Too loud! The neighbors are going to call the cops again, you keep up with all this noise!”
“We’re recording.” Rafael scowled, waving his wife away. “Go to work.”
“I go to work while you two play.” Mariana snorted, shaking her dark head. Her thick, black hair was pulled back into a braid that extended halfway down her back. “Why did I come to this country again?”
“Ahhhh now, mi vida, mi tesoro,” Rafael crooned, pasting a smile back on his face as he called his wife my life, my treasure , in Spanish. Qesa rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. “Our princesita here is going to make us all rich!”
“She does sing like a bird.” Mariana gave her daughter a wistful smile.
Qesa saw the lines etched on her mother’s face, a result of the misery of her life, the drudgery of her job. She knew Mariana missed their home in Venezuela, and all their family who still resided there. It had been Rafael’s dream to come to the States, and while it had rescued them from horrible urban poverty, he still had to work nights as a DJ to keep their heads above water. The costs of living in New York were enormous. So Mariana worked as a janitor, and Qesa did her best to seek the fame and fortune her stepfather wanted so much.
Rafael had used every extra cent they had to invest in Qesa’s career. She knew her mother didn’t like that. But Qesa was grateful that someone believed in her. When she sang, Rafael looked at her as if he could eat her up, and she liked that. She liked it a lot.
“How can you spend so much time in here?” Mariana wrinkled her nose, glancing around at the cramped space. They’d utilized every inch of room to record music and shoot videos for the Internet. “It stinks. Open a window or something.”
“Can’t open a window, Mama, the noise would interfere with recording.” Qesa shook her head at her mother’s lack of understanding of the process. To Qesa, it smelled like hard work and desperation. The latter was a great motivator, the former the only way to reach any modicum of success.
“Well, I’m going to work.” Mariana looked at her watch, sighing. “Don’t forget school! Rafael, you take her, don’t forget!”
“I won’t forget.” Rafael nodded, compliant. “Do you want to hear the new song she wrote before you go?”
“I don’t have time.” Mariana shook her
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