ST. PETERSBURG - Brighter lips. The photographer said Michelle needed brighter lips.
"Don't you have anything stronger?" she asked, turning to Michelle's mom.
On the last Friday in May, Michelle Dowdy and her mom were at a photography studio, getting Michelle's head shots made. The pictures had to be printed and mailed to New York by 4 p.m. to make the deadline for the playbill.
Then Michelle had to buy new dance shoes and a suitcase, pack, get her hair cut, visit her friends and, oh yeah, find somewhere to live in New York - where, magically, at 18, she had landed a role in the Broadway musical Hairspray.
Before she could go be a star, though, she would also have to figure out how to wash clothes and make grilled cheese and do all the other things her mom had always done for her.
She'd have to hurry. At first, Michelle was told she had a month to get to New York. Then the stage manager called and said the lead actress was having vocal problems. They needed Michelle in three days. As the understudy, she would rehearse for six weeks and make her Broadway debut as early as July.
Michelle's mom, Karla Harris, pulled a tube of lipstick from her purse. "Clinique, gingerbread," she told the photographer, thrusting it toward Michelle.
As Michelle took the lipstick, her blue eyes widened in alarm. "Mom!" she asked. "You okay?"
Karla's face was flushed and puffy, her black eyeliner smeared. She dropped her head, shook it yes, then no. "It's just, I've been crying all day today," Karla said. "I can't help it."
Michelle slid her arm around her shoulder and squeezed. "I wrote my bio for the playbill this morning," she said. "You're in it."
* * *
Michelle and her mom lived in a 500-square-foot apartment overlooking a parking lot in Treasure Island. Michelle slept in a single bed in the only bedroom, where posters from school plays papered the walls. Her mom slept on a couch in the living room with framed photos of her only child smiling down on her.
Michelle's parents divorced when she was 2 and it had been her and her mom ever since. Karla runs the before-school and after-school programs at Gulf Beaches Elementary. She always wanted a job where she could bring her daughter to work with her.
When Michelle was 7, Karla started driving her to dance lessons, gymnastics and acting camps. Later, Karla chauffeured her to high school play rehearsals, often waiting past midnight to drive her home.
They always said they were like sisters, but it was more complicated than that. Michelle was everything to Karla: her daughter, her buddy, her reason to get up in the morning and to come home at night. And even as a teenager, Michelle liked having her mom around. She hung out with Karla at cast parties as if she were just another one of the kids.
They even look alike. Michelle has always been heavy, like her mom. But Karla never plagued her with diet pills or shipped her to fat camps, as her own mother did. She taught Michelle to accept herself.
At 5 feet 2 and 172 pounds, Michelle seems comfortable in her body - something few teenage girls can say. She wears tight jeans or long, gauzy skirts with low-cut blouses and doesn't try to hide her curves. She jokes about herself so others don't have to: "Fat girl's gotta eat!" she'll say, chomping into an inch-thick cheeseburger.
The only thing that ever bugged her about being big was that she seldom got to play the lead.
* * *
At the portrait studio, Michelle wore black boots, jeans and a clingy black blouse. The V-neck was lined with thick rows of silver sparkles. Karla had on her signature flip-flops, shorts and oversize T-shirt.
The photographer had Michelle sit on a stool, stand in front of a screen, prop her foot on a fake rock. "Give me a natural smile. Cut those eyes at me," she ordered. "Now how about a naughty smile . . ."
Karla frowned. Michelle was much too young to show the world her naughty smile.
After the shoot, they looked at the pictures on the photographer's computer. Everyone liked the one where Michelle sat with her hair draped across her right shoulder.
As they raced to the post office, Karla asked Michelle about her travel plans. Where would she stay? Who would look after her? She desperately wanted to go to New York with Michelle, but couldn't afford it.
"It's crazy," Michelle told her mom. "They're putting me up at this swanky hotel and sending a car and driver to pick me up."
Karla smiled. She kept forgetting: Her little girl had hit the big time.
* * *
The next two days were filled with packing and saying goodbye. Michelle was going to miss all the graduation parties. And she had to leave her boyfriend.
R.J. Hunt, a 10th-grader and a theater rat like Michelle, told her he was worried that she'd find somebody else. "But I told him, "Hey, I'm just the fat girl,"' Michelle said to her mom.
The night before Michelle left, she and her mom couldn't sleep. Well after midnight, they cuddled on the couch, watching videos of Michelle's school plays. Michelle kept laughing. Her mom kept choking back sobs.
For 18 years, Karla had tucked Michelle into bed every night. Tomorrow, there wouldn't be anyone for her to tell, "Sweet dreams."
* * *
Karla didn't even bother putting on her trademark black eyeliner in the morning. She knew she'd only cry it off.
"I called the cell-phone people, and you can keep your number so we don't have to go on roaming to talk," she said on the drive to the airport. "I told the operator all about you and Broadway."
Michelle grabbed her mom's hand. "I'll call you every night."
Inside the terminal, Karla didn't want to let go. She stood there hugging Michelle, wetting her hair with tears. Finally, Michelle pulled away and walked toward security.
Then she turned, raised her fingers to her lips and blew her mom a kiss.
* * *
Michelle slept all the way to New York. She arrived at baggage claim to find a man in a suit and tie holding a sign with black letters.
"MICHELLE DOWDY," the sign read. She had never seen her name so big.
"That's me," she told the man. He lowered the sign. "Wait, wait!" she said. "I have to get a picture of that to show my mom."
ABOUT THE SERIES
It is based on six months of reporting. St. Petersburg Times staff writer Lane DeGregory and photographer Cherie Diez met Michelle Dowdy and Karla Harris in May. They interviewed Michelle and her mom, as well as Michelle's teachers, friends and relatives in Florida. They also made three trips to New York City, where they interviewed the producer, stage manager and musical director of Hairspray and watched Michelle at work on Broadway. Most of the scenes in the story were witnessed by the reporters. Others are based on people's recollections.
