A Song

In Old Joe Music's world, Song Ya unquestionably belonged to Old Joe. It wasn't that he depended on him for work; South Side's slums followed the "code of the streets," a kind of gangland ethic. To put it plainly, he was "under Old Joe's protection."

After chatting with Tony and the others for a while, he went to greet Eric and the rest. "Old Joe wants to see you." Eric ushered him and Hayden into Old Joe's dressing room.

"Hey! APLUS!"

When Old Joe saw Song Ya, he pointed at a square cardboard sleeve on the vanity. "Look, this is the single cover those SBK people came up with. What do you think? Give me your opinion."

"It's too late to change it, isn't it?"

Song Ya picked up the twelve-inch cardboard sleeve. It was packed with the sort of goods commonly found in a thrift shop. The photographer had cleverly blurred everything, concealing all brand and product details and leaving only a rich array of tiny blocks of color. The store's name at the top had been replaced by the song title, "Thrift Shop." On a white discount sign, SALE had been replaced with "Lowry and Joe." Both were set in a plump, slightly playful font that suited the song's comedic tone. Seeing how polished it was, Song Ya knew SBK had never intended to ask Old Joe for his opinion. But Daniel had kept his promise: Old Joe and Little Lowry stood as equals on the single.

"Yeah, I need to have a serious talk with Daniel. The people at SBK need to show us more respect." Old Joe complained, but that was all it was. His grin stretched from ear to ear; he was thrilled.

"Don't move!" the black makeup artist barked.

Old Joe obediently shut his mouth.

After a brief silence, Song Ya and Hayden exchanged glances. They both realized they had nothing to do. "Well, I..." Hayden pointed toward the door. "Call me if you need anything."

After Hayden left, Song Ya wandered around the set, giving his pager number to the people he knew. Then he carried a folding chair to a spot behind the director's monitor where he wouldn't get in the way and sat down, ready to watch the music video shoot. But filming hadn't started yet, so he took out paper and pen and began drafting his essay on the assigned topic, "To Mandela."

At dawn, the crew officially began shooting. All the lights were off. A simple speaker played "Thrift Shop," while Old Joe and Little Lowry performed to the music under the faint light of the rising sun, following the director's instructions.

With the lights off, there was no way to write, so Song Ya put away his paper and pen. Allie, now in makeup, quietly came over.

"Mm." Song Ya furrowed his brow. It was hard enough for poor kids to find somewhere to stay. He was cautious by nature, and Al had nowhere else to go. He couldn't think of a good solution.

It's just a matter of money. We've got money now, he thought.

Once the sky was bright, Allie took out a compact mirror, touched up her lipstick, and joined the shoot. But this time, she and Connie, Emily, and the other girls could only serve as background extras. It was a big production, after all—though "big" was relative. Song Ya quietly compared it to the original video. The original had a speedboat scene, which was obviously out of the question this time. And it was nothing like the wildly expensive videos made by superstars of the era, such as Michael Jackson. Still, the budget was far higher than that of Little Lowry's previous debut video.

The director was a middle-aged white man with exacting standards. He kept the whole crew running around, and no one had the time to chat with a mere bystander. By nearly noon, Song Ya was bored out of his mind. During a break in filming, he was chatting with Old Joe when he suddenly heard Tony and the others whistling and hollering.

Song Ya looked over. A bus had stopped nearby, and a dozen or so white girls climbed out one after another. Blonde, brunette, redheaded—they were all tall and beautiful.

"They're models SBK hired," Old Joe said, putting two fingers in his mouth and letting out a loud whistle.

The white girls headed for the makeup trailers, led by their agent. Tony's ex-girlfriend wasn't there; maybe he'd dumped her. He led the way, bringing his single friends over to flirt, one after another.

Allie, Connie, Emily, and the other black girls rolled their eyes.

Black men had a mix of insecurity and fascination when it came to light-skinned girls. Their approach was simple: play the numbers game. They went up to one girl after another, moving on to the next if they got rejected. The method was so frivolous it should never have worked, but women were emotional creatures. With a big enough sample size, someone was bound to take the bait.

Even Little Lowry, who was usually cocky as hell, was taken with them this time. He brought his wingman, AK, straight over to a white girl who had just stepped out of a car behind the bus, only to have her give him the finger and reject him on the spot. The crew burst into laughter.

"Bitch." Little Lowry had lost face. He went back to the dressing room, sullen.

"She looks kind of familiar." Song Ya kept looking at the beautiful girl, who was around five foot seven, with gemlike green eyes and a hint of grit in her features. The spark Allie had stirred in him earlier suddenly flared up again.

"Of course. Milla Jovovich. She used to be really famous." A nearby SBK staffer chimed in. "You've definitely seen her GG."

"Used to?" Song Ya thought. How old is she now?

"She was around eleven or twelve when she did a lot of GG, and she was even named the world's most unforgettable woman. Now that she's grown up, she's kind of flopped. She signed with our company two years ago, and her album still isn't anywhere close to coming out. Looks like a money-losing venture. She'd be better off posing as a pretty face and doing print GG." The staffer curled his lip, clearly disliking the girl. "She's spoiled, and going through her rebellious phase. She's a real handful."

Sure enough, a little while later, the girl's shrieks came from the makeup trailer. "I want a VIP makeup room! I'm not getting made up with them!"

The middle-aged white woman beside the girl came over to the director, looking troubled. From her appearance, she was probably the girl's mother.

The director scratched his head and went over to Old Joe. "Joe, what do you think..."

Old Joe was in a good mood now. "APLUS, take them over."

"Okay, come with me."

Song Ya led the mother and daughter toward Old Joe's dressing room. They spoke to each other in a foreign language the whole way. It sounded like Russian.

"Were you speaking Russian just now?" Once the girl was seated at the vanity, he stood outside the door and asked her mother.

"More or less." She clearly didn't want to talk to Song Ya and gave him a curt answer, preparing to close the dressing-room door.

Song Ya noticed the cassette of Little Lowry's album in her hand. "Let me introduce myself. I wrote the lyrics and music for this song. I'm APLUS." He pointed to the cassette.

"Oh?" The woman's eyes lit up, and her attitude changed at once. "Wow, I didn't expect you to be so young. How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Exactly the same age as my Mira..." The girl's mother hesitated, but she couldn't resist asking him to write a song. "Do you have anything suitable for a girl Mira's age to sing? Um... she loves singing, and I can only help her pursue her dream. To do that, we've passed up a lot of opportunities in GG and film... We've been with SBK for almost two years, but..."

"Why are you telling an outsider all this?"

The girl lost her temper again. She tossed her long hair, chased off the makeup artist, and strode over to the door on her long legs. "FXXXYOU!" She pinched her voice and yelled at Song Ya, who hadn't done anything to provoke her, then slammed the door in his face.

"FXXXYOU... FXXXYOU..." Song Ya stood rooted to the spot, as if struck by lightning. The girl's words kept echoing in his mind—not because her attitude had hurt his feelings, but because...