Free Unbreak My Heart: A Memoir by Toni Braxton Page B

could do far worse than Trevor. One pretty decent guy—and for me, one giant step toward womanhood.
    I ALWAYS KNEW I’d go to college—my father is a graduate of Bowie State, and my parents both value education. But what I didn’t expect was to see Mommy sitting right there in the classroom with me. That’s right: My mother went to college the same year I did—during my first two semesters, she signed up for classes so that she could work toward her undergraduate degree.
    I took a full course load, and Mommy was in three of my courses: “Intro to Psychology,” “Intro to Sociology,” and aerobics. I’m like, “Are you kidding me—my mother is taking gym class with me, too?” On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—the days when our shared courses were scheduled—occasionally, I even had to let her ride to school with me. “There’s no use in spending extra gas money,” she said. I’d sometimes sit on the other side of the classroom because I felt uncomfortable having my mother so close. Then again, my whole childhood was the perfect training for how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. “I understand you’re embarrassed to be seen with your mom,” my father scolded me one day. From then on, I always sat in the desk right next to Mom’s.
    When I wasn’t either studying or dodging my parents, I was rehearsing. My sisters and I were trying to get a gospel album deal, so my parents had us auditioning all over the place. I wasn’t the lead singer—Trina was. The tone of her voice was beautiful. We performed everywhere, including at the Kentucky Fried Chicken Gospel Music Competition. We entered the contest four years in a row, and during the final year, we wore matching purple and green neon outfits. Though I wasn’t the lead singer (we each had at least one solo), I did lead two songs—“God Is” and “I Know It Was the Blood.” Trina sang “Uncloudy Day” by Myrna Summers (and by the way, Trina actually did a duet of that song with Myrna years later). Tamar’s solo was “One Day at a Time,” the Kris Kristofferson country song that we changed into a gospel style. Because that song contained the lyrics “I’m just a woman,” Mommy made Tamar change it to “I’m just a child.” “There are no darn women over here!” Mommy told us. We never won the competition—but in our last year, we did make it as far as the semifinals.
    Around Maryland, I also sang on my own. I entered a local competition for a chance to perform at the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night in Harlem. I learned a big lesson that night: You’ve got to know your audience. In the finals, I sang “At This Moment.” I’d fallen in love with the song (by Billy Vera and the Beaters) when it was played during a love scene with Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan on Family Ties . The song might’ve sounded like a hit on a sitcom episode, but it flopped with a crowd of black folks! I should’ve chosen an R&B number. The second lesson I learned was this one: Winning is sometimes less about being talented and more about bringing along enough people who can cheer loudly when your name is called. You guessed it—I lost.
    I grabbed every opportunity that I could to sing. Between classes, I earned extra money by performing at nightclubs, at fashion shows, at weddings, in competitions. The back of my Honda looked like a suitcase: I packed it with all kinds of dresses and heels, so I could quickly change into the right outfit if somebody called me for a gig at the last minute. In the backseat, I had my Anita Baker outfit (a black dress that I paired with a gold chain and a big belt) and my Spanx-tight “Do Me, Baby” booty dress (the eighties version of an Hervé Léger knockoff, which I wore with stilettos to make me look tall—hey, you’ve gotta dress for your audience). On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, I did gigs on my own. Every Sunday, I sang with my sisters or played piano for the church choir—yep, I did that,