Just Like Heaven (29 page)

Between a break in her lyrics, Whitney approached the edge of the stage and knelt down to them. “Will you two please quiet down? I’m having a difficult time enough as it is. I’d rather not
have to sing over two people having an argument.” Then she smiled to show that she held no animosity t
owards them. “Thank you.” S
he continued her next line with perfection.

“Unbelievable,” Nina said. “Whitney finally talked to me, and what does she say?
Shut your trap.
Well, no problem here.”
She shielded her face with her hand and shook her head
again
. “I can’t believe this.”

“It’s only as bad as you make it,”
Mei Lee
said.

“Yeah, I get it: I’m pathetic because I’m afraid…Hello! Got that memo fifteen years ago.”

“Only you can change it.”

“Are you blind…or deaf? You saw me make mistake after mistake on stage. I’ve tried changing it. Nothing worked. I’m just not cut out for this.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“How many ways on how many different days do you need proof?”

“Okay,
that’s it
,
” said Whitney,
during another lyrical break. She walked
over to them, somewhat annoyed. “
You,” she said, pointing at Nina. “The most important part of my performance is coming up, and I’m not going to let you screw it up.
”
Although her words seemed harsh, she spoke with the respectful tone.”
I heard you saying you couldn’t sing on stage. Well, that’s good.
Because
I want you to get up here beside me, so you won’t utter a
nother
word while I hit my high notes.”

Nina looked at her, horrified. How could she have offended her favorite singer? She stared at her, unable to budge.
“I’m sorry. I—”

“
We’re past the sorry stage.
Stop looking at me and get up here or I’m going to drag you up here myself.”

Mei Lee
pushed Nina, breaking her paralytic state.

Flung forward, Nina corrected her balance
and glanced back at her friend with a look of indignation
.
Spinning around again, w
ithout even thinking about it
,
perhaps due to the unexpected provocation
, she placed both hands against the stage, threw her right leg onto the platform and lifted herself
up
. Within moments, she stood beside her idol, who smiled,
relieved now that an obstacle
to her performance would no
longer interrupt her.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Nina, or as
many of us know her:
Roxy.”
Whitney glanced at
Mei Lee
and smiled, indicating that an unknown friendship (to Nina, at least) existed between them.

Nina’s touchiness diminished as she met
Mei Lee
’s eyes, and a feeling of warmth settled over her. Her best friend had purposely upset
her
to
slingshot
her past
self-
doubt and a
pprehension – and
she succeeded
.

But now that Nina
turned her gaze from
Mei Lee
to the audience, she
became petrified of the concertgoers
– even though Whitney just wanted her to stand there. Nonetheless, she froze as she took in the hundreds of thousands of spectators.
She looked over at her idol.

Whitney gave her a smile then walked over to her, placing the microphone behind her back. “You didn’t think
Mei Lee
and I persuaded you to get up here to stand still, did you?”

Oh, dear God, no!

Nina lost her breath. F
eeling that she would begin hyperventilating at any moment,
despite the fact that she didn’t need air to breathe,
she turned
her
back
to
the
audience
to prevent the crowd from seeing her freeze up.
And that’s when a pleasant awareness unlike any other during a public meltdown settled her into a period of rational thinking.

The physical aberrations of failure would not manifest into her appearance. Her face wouldn’t turn scarlet. Her breath wouldn’t hitch in her throat. Every muscle in her body wouldn’t
feel like spaghetti. No one would know that she felt more vulnerable on stage than at any other place in her life.

Whitney put a hand on Nina’s shoulder. “
Mei Lee
has told me so many times that you’re the best singer she’s ever heard.”

“Better than you?” Nina asked, wondering if it was even possible to lie in heaven.
“She’s just being kind.”

Whitney gave Nina a gentle shake. “She said that I am a close second.” She grinned. “I can live with that.”

Nina couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it.
She lowered her head.

Whitney turned her around to face the audience and held out an arm
, gesturing toward them. “If you have a gift, you owe it to yourself to share it with others. It would be a selfish to keep it all to yourself.”

Nina hadn’t thought of it that way. She always thoug
ht she had a strong
voice (no matter how much
Mei Lee
stretched the truth on that subject), but she
never looked at her talent as something that she kept private. It made her view singing from a different perspective. In the past, she regarded singing in public as an almost
Herculean task
. But now that Whitney suggested that she approach this obstacle from a different point of view, Nina wondered
how it would feel to
share
her
gift
with
the crowd
, rather than allow their vast numbers to intimidate her into silence.

She had to view this as an opportun
ity to introduce the crowd to a
pe
rson who overcame her fears, a
person who
disregarded
he
r uncertainty
. And for the first time, she looked at this moment as a chance to let
others grasp her essence.
It brought to mind Nick’s comment in the diner:
you shine so brightly
. And now, more than at any other time in her life, she needed to believe in that statement. She needed to let her soul…shine.

That gave her
enough
confidence to
lift
her head
and
look at
Mei Lee
, who raise
d both balled-up hands
to the smil
e on her lips. And Nina felt her friend’s
love and stre
ngth
filling he
r. Then Roland appeared beside Mei Lee
. He took her hand in his own a
nd pressed his lips against her
palm. He
whisper
ed
the words,
“
I’m sorry.
You were right
,
a
ll along
.”

Beside Roland, Nick
materialized
with a younger version of himself, along with a man and woman who shared many of Nick’s physical traits.

Nick met her gaze. “Is thi
s a bad time to
introduce
you
to
the
family?”

Nina laughed. And that’s when Whitney hande
d her the microphone. Dread swamp
ed her spirit for a moment, but she refused to look away from Nick. Just as with
Mei Lee
, she could feel the warmth an
d support and faith in Nick’s soul
–
sensations that
, until now,
he wouldn’t let anyone experience due to the darkness that had once lurked there. But now that he’d reconnected with his family, he’d allowed himself to once more feel love and trust. And as he broke into a wide grin, she felt the j
oy
inside him
, which brought
her momentary
confus
ion considering that they had barely
held hands
and only briefly
embraced.

That’s when the term
soul mates
entered her mind. It explained why she felt such inexplicable chemistry with him in the diner when they first met.
His unspoken morale boost
convinced her to
look into the crowd.

Unlike the past, where she always spotted doubtful stares
and
disinterest, Nina
felt
such
an outpouring
of affection
that
it overrul
ed every trace of
uncertainty inside her,
replacing that negativity with kindness and understanding and love.

And
even though Beethoven had done a tremendous job filling the moments since Whitney had sang her last words with a slow but dramatic buildup to the song, Nina felt that she now needed to resume the song at the part where she couldn’t falter, because doing so would destroy
the entire song. But this time, she wouldn’t let that happen. She would sing what she felt in her soul.

Holding Nick’s gaze, and sending out all of the
love that she felt
to every single person in attendance, Nina opened her
mouth to sing:

”And I………….”

S
he held the note much longer than Whitney did in her original recordi
ng, but her voice felt so powerful
that she
needed
to return all of the love that every single person in this stadium had
filled her with…

“
W
ill always love you.”

In that moment, for the first time ever, Nina felt the
strength
of her voice, the magn
itude of which shook
very core. It proved that she had every reason to believe in her talent, that she hadn’t made a mistake in
trying to break into the music industry.
  

“I………....”

She saw the look of pure admiration in Nick’s gaze and saw something miraculous: tears shimmered in his eyes. Which didn’t make sense because he was here in spirit only.

“
W
ill always love you.”

So how could Nick spark tears if he wasn’t bound by the limits of the human form?

“I………….I………….”

And if he had somehow regained physical form, what did that mean for Nick’s time in heaven?

“
W
ill always love………….Y
ou
………….I………….Will always love……….You……...
”

She continued on, only now daring to allow her gaze to travel through the crowd, all of
whom stood wide-eyed with exhilaration
. As far as she could see, concertgoers held hands while
so many others embraced each other tightly. Nina didn’t let the
sentiment get the best of her, this time singing to every person in this theater in gratitude for giving her the strength to overcome something she hadn’t been able to accomplish in twenty years on
e
arth
.

When she finished the song, she heard an eruption of applause
.
But through it all, Nina realized that without their love and support, she never would have finally heard wha
t she always suspected
had
been
inside her.

Whitney unleashed a vibrant smile and enveloped her in a warm hug.

Nina, unprepared for such a momentous occasion, could only wrap her arms around her.
She looked at Nick, prepared
to ge
sture toward Whitney with an expression
of:
Can you believe this? I’m hugging
Whitney Houston
.

That’s when she felt her soul separating from this moment, removing her from Whitney’s embrace.
Instead of meeting Nick’s gaze,
s
he caught sight of
Mei Lee
, whose smile reflected tremendous pride. But as
she felt her spirit
disappearing from the stage,
Nina
didn’t fear wherever
she might be headed
. For the first time in her life,
she felt at peace with her soul
and everyone around her.