Читать книгу Remembering Whitney: A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss and the Night the Music Died - Cissy Houston - Страница 12

Ihad finally done it—I’d left the Sweet Inspirations to spend more time with Nippy, Gary, and Michael. But now I had to figure out another way to make money. With ten years of experience doing backup, and the Sweets’ reputation as a solid opening act, I decided it was time to try for a deal as a solo artist.

This is where all that time John spent hanging out with Elvis’s people, and learning about the industry, came in handy. John was able to get in touch with Charles Koppelman, a veteran record man who was running the music division of a new label called Commonwealth United, and he pitched me as a solo artist. They signed me for a modest fifteen-thousand-dollar advance and we began recording right away—and in 1970, we released my first solo album, Presenting Cissy Houston.

With that advance we were finally able to leave the Wainwright neighborhood. John and I wasted no time finding a beautiful new home—a four-bedroom, white clapboard house at 362 Dodd Street in East Orange. The kids loved it, because not only did they have their own bedrooms for the first time ever, but the house also happened to have a big inground swimming pool in the backyard. And John installed a pool table in the finished basement, which was still big enough for me to use as a rehearsal studio. For all my worries about leaving the Sweets, things turned better than I could have hoped—this house was sensational.

I was still recording and doing session work in New York City, but because I wasn’t constantly on the road, I could finally be more involved in my children’s lives. And because we had that backyard pool, our house became a gathering place for them and their friends, so they were around a lot more than they had been at the old house.

That first summer, I think Nippy spent almost all of her time in the pool. Between that, the pool table in the basement, and John grilling burgers and hot dogs in the backyard, we always had a bunch of kids hanging around. They’d come over and eat with us and swim, and sometimes I’d find out that someone had slept in our basement without my even knowing it. Nippy, Michael, and Gary just treated everyone like family.

In fact, they were sometimes a little too friendly for my taste. They welcomed everybody, and anything they had, they’d share it with their friends. When I bought them clothes, shirts, or pants or whatever, they’d just give them to the other kids. I’d be saying, “What the hell are you doing, giving your clothes away?” But that’s just the kind of kids they were, all three of them. I think they felt a little guilty that they had so much—a nice house, a swimming pool, and anything they ever needed—so they wanted to share with kids who maybe didn’t have so much. That was a generous idea, but I had to sit them down and tell them, “Mommy works hard. I don’t mind you sharing, but let’s not get crazy about this, you know?”

Ever since she was little, Nippy’s first instinct was always generosity. I remember her watching television and seeing Michael Jackson—then in the Jackson Five—doing his thing. “Mommy,” she announced, “I’m going to marry that boy.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes,” she told me. “I’m going to marry him, and I’m going to be a star, and I’m going to buy you a house.”

“Well, thank you,” I said, smiling at my little girl with her big dreams. “Thank you, Nippy.”

I love my sons, but Nippy was the youngest, and a girl, and she was my heart. She was such a loving little girl, friendly, outgoing, and trusting from the time she was a tot.

When she was very small, I’d take her with me on errands to the bank or to the supermarket. I’d dress her up in cute little outfits and fix her hair with ribbons, and she always looked adorable. I had to keep an eye on her all the time, though, because she’d just walk right up to strangers and start talking. “Good morning,” she’d chirp, talking to complete strangers like she’d known them all her life.

“Nippy!” I’d say. “You can’t just walk up and start talking to people like that. You don’t even know them!”

And she’d say, “Oh, Mommy, it’s all right”—the words she always used when I pointed out something she didn’t want to hear.

More than once, I tried to explain why it wasn’t really all right, but she’d just look at me with those big eyes and say again, “Oh, Mommy.” That was just how she was—she thought everyone was her friend. And that’s why it ended up hurting her so bad later, when she found out that wasn’t really the case.

As sweet and innocent as little Nippy was, my oldest, Gary, was growing up fast—too fast for my liking. At around the same age as my brother William had done, he started getting in with the wrong crowd and using drugs. And since John and I had agreed that I’d be the disciplinarian in the house, I had to deal with it. I told Gary that some of the friends he was bringing around didn’t really have his best interests at heart. Of course, Gary was young and stubborn, and he didn’t want to hear it. So, we had our clashes.

I even had to put him out once. I guess at sixteen, Gary thought he was already a man, but I’d told him to be home by eleven, and when he came home one night after midnight, he found the door locked. “Just go on back to wherever you came from,” I told him through the door. “Because you are not coming in here.”

Gary left, and when he didn’t come home for a couple of days, it worried me half to death. I prayed for him, though, and when he finally came back and apologized, I just hugged him tight and tried to hold back the tears. I knew Gary thought I was tough on him, but that was how my daddy had been with us, so it was the only way I knew how to do things.