“To say you wanna be in the industry, it always baffles me how little you know about trending artists or even events,” she teases. “Do you even remember her name?”
“Uh,” I furrowed my eyebrows, hoping to pull a bit of recognition from what she’d told me before, but it was no use. I sighed, shaking my head. “No, I don’t remember. I know it starts with a D, right? Is it like Daijah or something?” She shook her head. “No?”
“No! Oh my god, you’re hopeless,” she sighs in mock exasperation. “Her name is Dawn. Dawn Anderson.”
“Dawn Anderson,” I nodded, letting the syllables settle on my tongue.
I thought about how nice it sounded as I repeated it over and over in my head. It had a nice flow. A nice structure. It made me curious about her middle name. Did it fit just as nicely in the sequence of names? Did it have a good syllable combination? If I had to guess, it was probably two syllables. The One-Two-Three syllable combination seemed the most plausible.
“Raine, please stop dissecting the woman’s name,” Ginger laughed, breaking my chain of thought. “You and your obsession with name combinations always amuse me.”
“Sorry. Sorry,” I chuckled. “I can’t help it. She has a good name!”
“Well, hopefully now you actually remember it. Especially because she’s literally the hottest artist out right now,” she adds. I nod, still not fully invested in learning about some singer I wasn’t even really a fan of. “She won album of the year two years in a row and will probably win it again this year, too.”
She pulls out her phone and taps away at it. A few seconds later, she turns it so that I can see her screen. I lean forward and take in the gorgeous woman staring back at me. I felt this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, almost like I knew her or something, but that didn’t make sense. I’d never forget that face.
Before I can stop myself, I’m taking Ginger’s phone and scrolling through the pictures on this Dawn chick’s page. Most of them were from tour stops, award shows, or parties, but I found myself intrigued by her selfies.
Dawn was tall, thick, and attractive. Her style was like mine, though, which was a good mix of feminine, masculine, and gender-neutral styles. I couldn’t take my eyes off the one picture of her posed against the back of a couch, a nonchalant expression on her face as she scrolled through her phone with her jacket slung over her right shoulder.
Damn, she’s fine!
I swiped to the next picture, which was another selfie where she was smirking, her deep, dark brown eyes peering at me over a pair of shades. They felt almost hypnotic, and I had to shake my head to snap out of whatever trance they tried to pull me into. I sighed, finally handing Ginger back her phone.
“You done drooling?” She smirks, and I playfully roll my eyes.
“I wasn’t drooling,” I defended. “Just…observing.”
“Mmhm, and I invented the sun,” she replies, sarcastically. “It’s okay to admit that you have a crush. Not everyone is like Tre-”
She caught herself and apologized, and I winced at the mention of the woman who stole my heart, then stomped on it in more ways than one. I’d never known heartbreak until I went through what I went through with her. Before her, I was naive enough to think that the world and the people in it couldn’t be as bad as my sister was at times, but she proved me wrong. Sowrong that I still had trouble breathing when I thought about her.
But I didn’t want to make Ginger worry, so I did what I always did. I played it off even though it was eating me up inside.
“It’s cool. I’m fine,” I reply, wanting so bad to change the subject. She nods understandingly. “Anyway, back to this Dawn woman, I have no idea why you’re getting so worked up. All I did was dance to one of her songs.”
“And it got you hundreds of thousands of views,” she points out. “That didn’t make you even a little bit curious about her?”
“Why should it?” I chuckled, trying to play off the fact that Iwascurious. I wanted to know everything about her, but I didn’t say that out loud. “She and I are never going to cross paths. We don’t know each other. I wouldn’t even classify myself as one of her fans.”
“Yet.”
“Whatever. That fact won’t change anything.”
“Okay, but just think about how amazing it would be if she saw your video and wanted you to be a background dancer on her next tour or at one of those big award shows! Wouldn’t that be so fuckin’ amazing?”
I wanted to argue with her that that was far-fetched, but something inside of me said that I shouldn’t keep selling myself short. I knew that I was a talented dancer, and I would love nothing more than to dance professionally. Maybe I should do some more research on Dawn Anderson, just in case.
“I can see those wheels in your head spinning,” Ginger giggled, and I glanced back over at her. “You know I’m right, huh? Never say never because you never know.”
“Wise words from my favorite optimist.”
She nodded, no doubt feeling accomplished, especially after I told her that I would spend some time catching up on all the pop culture things that have been happening lately. She squealedand agreed to help me, as long as we started with Dawn’s music first.
Tonight was going to be a long night...
August 9th, 2025
