I remember stage lights like stars reflected in the ocean. When you look to closely, they twinkle and distort, and then lines burst from your brain like supernovas.

Mama said, “Black girls don’t make it on the stage.” I said, Fuck it. Watch me.

I remember it being pops’ fault. He used to sing these little songs everywhere he went, whether we were on the way to church or getting ready for school. Sometimes I’d pretend I had a nightmare or something, and I’d go ask to sleep in their bed so I could hear him sing while he was washing up for work. I remember, “I got a girl in Berryville, can’t be screwed cause she’s too damn ill.” Mama yelled at him to Quit all that cursing! And pops laughed but he just kept singing. And I’d lay under the blankets and count the stains on the ceiling, mouthing: I got a girl in Berryville.

I remember mama blaming him for that flyer they gave me to take home at school, the one that said, Join your community theater! But the community was crusted with peanut butter from lunch and I’d drawn a little dog in the corner during science class.

I remember my first production, two months after I called the number on the flyer from my best friend’s kitchen. She sat on the counter and popped bubble gum when I told the man on the phone that I was ten, and I sing.

“You ain’t ever sang in front of me before,” She said, with a particularly vicious pop. I put my finger up to my mouth and told her to Hush. Rehearsal started at five. I showed up at four. All of the lead actors were in high school, and understudies joked about poisoning coffee and breaking legs. I cleaned dressing rooms and sang in the chorus. They asked if anyone knew how to tap dance. I raised my hand and all eyes passed right over the hand black as the catwalk above. I remember walking six miles for rehearsal because pops worked, and mama bitched. Mics squealed and directors yelled, and I learned that if I wanted a role, “Who knows how to tap dance?” had to be met with "I do! I can tap and sing and do flips or whatever but don’t look past this hand like a new moon in the night sky!"

I remember papa came into my room and smelled like cinnamon candy, smoothed my hair back in my sleep and shushed me when I woke. I was tired at school and tired at home, and pops started splitting his coffee with me in the morning.

I remember hitting notes higher than the clouds and doing stunts no one would request because if I wasn’t ten, twenty, thirty times better than all the pasty-faced white kids mumbling Seasons of Love at auditions, I’d never go anywhere.

I remember getting into college, with an application that said Musical Theater in my bold slanted print under major. I remember mama scratching it out. I remember pops writing it back in. I pinned the acceptance letter over my bed, and I had a job before I had an apartment because mama said, “I ain’t paying a cent for no Musical Theater.”

I remember my first instructor, a man twice my age who began class on the first day by saying, “First things first, If I could, I’d wear tap shoes everywhere.” I remember kissing the boy that sat two rows behind me at a party. I remember kissing my roommate a week later. Her name was Angela, and I realized that she’d changed majors for the same reason she’d stopped kissing me. The same reason her parents started calling again. The same reason she took all of the rainbow stickers off of her bedpost. The last time she spoke to me was the first time she’d spoke to me since then. She said, “If I could, I’d have kissed you again.”

I remember sifting through roles for auditions, crossing my eyes over Caucasian Female so many times the lights behind my eyelids became, Black girls don’t, black girls don’t. I remember scoring a role by the seat of my pants, despite the fact that all of the competition couldn’t even read music. I remember that theater that became my home away from home, with new mothers and fathers and sisters and brother, and a director who called me Songbird because my falsetto was his favorite.

I remember early mornings and late nights, countless receipts for countless cartons of orange juice because if I got sick, Black girls don’t black girls don’t. Lines got memorized late at night when my roommate was off dancing to support her brother, who called me doll face and asked me to marry him the day after Christmas. Warm-ups echoed through empty White Castle bathrooms. I crooned, “Topeka, Topeka, Topeka, bodega, bodega, bodega.” The bathroom echoed back, “Unique New York Unique New York,” We harmonized, “To sit in solemn silence!”

I remember getting cast off-Broadway, calling pops and having to leave a voicemail. I remember the one he left back, mama sneering “Off-Broadway,” Pops crying, “Off-Broadway!” I woke up at five and went to sleep at two, drank Red bull and coffee and went into the hospital twice before I realized I was killing myself. I remember the stage door with the girl half my height who thrust the playbill in my hands and said, “Give this back to me tomorrow.” I remember meeting her again, this time she brought a pen and made me sign it. I remember asking her out to coffee. I remember her saying yes. I remember asking her to marry me. I remember her saying yes. We got married in New York, a hallmark movie type wedding where pops walked me down the aisle and my fiancé cried during her vows. I remember mama’s empty seat, watching me during the ceremony and declaring halfheartedly: Reserved.

I remember our first apartment and all of the things I learned to love about her. I remember her going back to school and deciding that if her wife was going to be an actress, she was going to be a playwright. I said, “Nobody makes stories for people like us.” She ducked through the door to grab her computer. Said, “Who’s stopping me?”

I remember visiting home for the first time since I left for college, hugging pops and having to call mama downstairs. Pops picked me up and swung me around, clutching tickets to our opening show in his hand. Mama sat down and stared at the same ticket, watching the gold of admit one shimmer in the downstairs lamp. I remember, “I’m gonna be on Broadway.” I remember, “Do you expect me to be there?” I remember shaking my head, and I remember meaning it.

And damn do I remember that first show. It’s hard to forget when the program is a poster on our wall. I remember Special thanks to my beautiful wife, who made dinner when there was no time to eat. There was a note—high and clear from the orchestra below—right before I jumped out on stage and starting wailing and spinning and loving and dying. And that one note had a message. That note said, Black girls do, baby, Black girls do. I remember going home and crashing after that stage door because I wrote my name until my fingers cramped; I remember going home and crashing because we were doing it all again the next night.

And I remember being called Nominee. Wearing a dress that cost more then the rent for my apartment in college, straightening my wife’s tie after my father helped her fasten it because she vowed, “I’ll never miss an opportunity to wear cufflinks.” She kept taping her knee with our wedding ring and I held her hand while I warmed up for a speech I didn’t even know if I’d get to give. All those popped P’s and stressed T’s got absorbed by the black leather in the car and we made our driver put on a tape and sang through champagne bubbles: “I got a girl in Berryville!”

I remember going from Nominee to winner, stumbling on the stairs up to that ultimate stage and looking back at the only vacant chair in the whole house. Right between my father and my wife, where I’d sat as they called my name, where they called Best Leading Actress. There were cameras flashing and dresses sparkling and stage lights, darling, supernovas. Mics squealed and directors yelled and when my lips touched the mic mama said, “Black girls don’t make it to the stage.”

I said, “Fuck it. Watch me.”