<blockquote>The first time they actually met, Dazzle had a backstage pass and Prisma was busy putting all of her energy into projecting the Prisma Experience, because you couldn't just turn off being the frontwoman for Prisma and the Dream Girls, not when tickets easily went for several hundred dollars a pop and especially not when you were as black and as fabulous as she was. There were other people with passes, too, mostly excited girls of various ages under twenty, but none of them were dressed like Dazzle was. Why would they be? Prisma's act was a family-friendly gig, not quite Disney-Channel sanitized but not the sort of thing most parents would worry if their kids liked, whereas Dazzle was the lead—"Ringmaster," said their liner notes—of the one and only Freakshow, which meant her preferred look involved stomping around in black leather and wearing face makeup that looked like a kabuki explosion. The other attendees gave her a wide berth.</blockquote>
