Any Way the Wind Blows (11 page)

“No, it’s not,” I said firmly.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Dove’s singing over me, and she’s fucking everything up,” I said.

“You think so?”

“Can’t you hear her? She’s singing stuff that’s not even in my songs. I’ve asked her once to sing it the way I told her, but when we sing I can hear her trying to out sing me,” I said as I folded my arms to let Michel know that I wasn’t happy.

“But Dove is one of the top backup singers in the business. I think she’s pretty close to getting her own deal,” Michel said.

“Then let her sing that loud and that off-key with her own act. She’s not messing up mine.”

“Yancey, the Roxy performance is one week off. I don’t know if we can get another singer at this late date.”

“Then we’ll have to make do with Guy and Terri. Fire that bitch right now,” I demanded.

“Yancey, are you sure?”

“Fire her now!” I said as I stormed off the stage. When I got close to my dressing room, I heard the chatter of my assistant, Amy, who was already making a habit of being late. Sometimes it was ten minutes, and a couple of times it was two hours. She always had her cell phone attached to her ear, talking to either a girlfriend or her boyfriend, Jermaine.

“She’s back. I got to go, Jermaine,” I heard Amy whisper. As I walked in, I rolled my eyes to let her know I was not pleased.

“Hey, Yancey B. How’s the rehearsal going?” Amy asked.

“Fine. Did you get the items I asked you to pick up?” I asked as I sat in front of the mirror.

“I got everything but the cold cream. I forgot what kind you wanted,” Amy said.

“Noxzema! Why didn’t you write it down like I told you?” I screamed.

“I forgot,” Amy said. I looked through the bag of toiletries and didn’t see the vitamins I’d asked Amy to purchase. “Where are my vitamins?”

Amy placed her hand to her mouth and giggled nervously. “I guess I forgot them too.” Now I was steaming. I wasn’t going to pay my hard-earned money to someone who couldn’t follow simple instructions and operated on C.P. (colored people’s) time. Amy needed to join Dove on the unemployment line.

“Do you know what you want for lunch?” Amy asked.

“No,” I said, trying to figure out how to let Amy go.

“How about some shrimp fried rice?”

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

I pulled a twenty-dollar bill from my purse and handed it to Amy. “Take this and go have yourself a nice long lunch. I don’t want anything right now.”

“Oh, that’s so nice of you. I might go to Ollie’s Noodle Shop. You sure you don’t want anything?”

“Yes, I want something,” I said coldly.

“What?”

“When you finish your lunch, don’t come back. I don’t want to see your face again.”

“What cha mean? You firing me?”

“You got that right. And you don’t even have to write that down,” I said as I headed for the shower.

I
was kinda depressed because I hadn’t heard from Basil since I invited him to
The Lion King
. When I called his office, he was always on the other line. When I called his house, the answering machine picked up. He was a little upset the first time I called him there and wanted to know how I had gotten his number. For some reason, I told him the truth. Well, my version of the truth. I told him his number showed up on my caller I.D. when I checked my messages the morning after we met. What I didn’t tell him was that I’d checked my messages on purpose from his house to ensure that I’d have his digits.

Wylie noticed my love jones when I took him to
The Lion King
after Basil declined. A couple days later, Wylie invited me to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Maroon over on West Sixteenth Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. We enjoyed spicy jerked chicken wings and stuffed pork chops and ended the meal with delicious red velvet cake.

After dinner we walked a few blocks over to Nineteenth
to G, a quiet bar where you could go to meet and greet or just share conversation with a good friend. Wylie ordered an apple martini for himself, and I got a lite beer.

“So are you falling in love with this stray?” Wylie asked after a few sips of his drink.

“Yep, I’m afraid so,” I said.

“Why?” he asked. For a few moments I couldn’t answer him. I’d spent the last three days wondering why I was even considering jumping off the cliff called love. I knew I could end up hitting rocks that would leave deep wounds. I already had enough scars from previous love affairs and my childhood. But what if Basil was the jackpot? Falling in love with him could be as soft as falling onto one million down pillows, providing perfect comfort.

The way I saw it, Basil was a triple-threat man. There was the power of his sex, and how I felt like he was branding me when we made love. His face, both handsome and beautiful, had a toughness and yet a feminine quality that was rare in masculine men. If his office and home were indications of his wealth, I was pretty sure he was financially stable. But I knew if I was honest with myself, I might be falling in love with him, because in him I saw all the things I’ve dreamed of for my own life. All the missing things. I couldn’t share all this with Wylie without the risk of a lecture on the difference between love and lust.

“Bart, did you hear me?” Wylie asked. I found myself gazing into my beer and then looking around the circular wood bar at all the lonely faces.

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking,” I said.

“Why do you think you love this Basil guy?” Wylie asked.

“Let’s just say that since I met Basil the beat of my heart has increased, and it’s made me believe that love can be found in New York City,” I said.

Wylie looked at me and smiled sweetly and then motioned toward the bartender. After he ordered another round of drinks, he looked at me and said, “When you think of Basil, if your heart feels bigger, it could be love. If something else gets bigger … well, I don’t have to tell you what that is. You’ve been to the rodeo before.”

“Yeah, but this time I’m going to make sure the horse doesn’t kick me off,” I said.

I
had just gotten home from hanging out at the Sportsline Gentleman’s Club (a strip joint that Nico and I frequent). Nico was celebrating signing a new client, and I went to have a few drinks with him.

After a couple of private lap dances I felt like I needed a shower, so I came home and washed and scrubbed myself like I had spent the evening in a sewage tank. Either I was getting too old for this shit or I had too much on my mind. Maybe in the past I’d enjoyed strippers because they didn’t require an emotional attachment.

When I got out of the shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist and rubbed some lotion on my chest. I pulled a beer out of the fridge and went into my study to check my e-mail. Another message from SWALZ:
Hey Sexyman, So you’re going to ignore me? That’s okay. Just wanted to give you a look at your profile on
brothersontheDL.com
. I think I hit it right on the head (pun intended): John Basil Henderson—Look for this heartbreaker anywhere around the country, but most likely in New York, Chicago, Miami and Atlanta. Tall (around 6′2″) and still in
the prime shape he was in while playing professional football. He’s in his mid-thirties, though he could still pass for twenty-nine. Basil has mesmerizing cat-gray eyes, golden honey-brown skin. He is a card-carrying member of the PBP (pretty-boy pack), so his buddies, although hopelessly hetero, will be good-looking as well. Mr. Henderson is a great dresser, and a “baller” from the letter B. Likes women of all colors, though he tends to date the model-actress-airhead type. You won’t catch him looking at men in public, because he’s much too smart for that. Don’t look for him in gay bars, parks or bathhouses, either. Basil has such a chameleon-like quality that he doesn’t slip with hints of being a switch hitter. His oral skills are said to be among the best, but don’t be fooled. You don’t know where that tongue has been. If anyone has additional information, contact us on the DL
.

This shit was getting serious. Who was harassing me? I immediately typed in “
brothersontheDL.com
” and was deeply relieved to see “Site Not Found” flash across my screen.

I
was at the Scissors New York Salon and hating the fact that I didn’t make enough money to have a hairdresser come to my home. Scissors was so popular for Broadway people and the like that it was always difficult to get an appointment, and sometimes the process of beautifying moved at a snail’s pace. But it was well worth the wait once I got out of the chair and my mane would once again bounce and behave like the white girls’ on TV.

I hated being under the dryer, because it prevented me from being in full eavesdrop mode. I loved hearing people talk about the business: What was happening behind the scenes. What shows were opening and closing. Who had a record deal or a workshop, who was doing who, and who was headed back home in defeat.

Since I knew I’d be tied up in the shop for a while, I brought along a book everyone was talking about,
The B.A.P. Handbook
. I was having a good old time reading about how we Black American Princesses should be treated until I came across the list of famous B.A.P.’s and didn’t see
my name. Who did these ladies think they were, not including a legitimate Broadway star? And now I’m a recording star! I was inclined to take this book back to Barnes & Noble and get my money back. So I put the book aside and pulled out a copy of the newspaper and began to flip the pages until I came across “Lines from LaVonya.” I wondered whose life she was ruining today, when what did I see on the first line:
What up-and-coming R & B diva has a child about the same age she is claiming to be?

Suddenly my face felt warm, and I rolled the paper up quickly and tossed it into the wastebasket. Who was LaVonya talking about? I was the only up-and-moving-very-fast diva. Could she know about Madison?

I decided I couldn’t worry about LaVonya and her lack of journalism skills, so I pulled out a
People
magazine and made a mental note to get Motown to get me into this magazine, or at the very least
In Style
. I read a few of the album and movie reviews and continued to thumb through the magazine. Just as I was getting ready to put
People
back in my bag, I came across the headline “Diva with Diapers.”

There was a large picture of a pretty black woman and a handsome man. He was holding two children who appeared to be the same age, and the woman was holding a newborn. The woman looked familiar, and when I pulled the magazine closer to my eyes I realized I did know her. It was Nicole Springer.

There was Nicole, smiling like she was on the top of the world and standing in front of an elegant two-story colonial home. The article said that Nicole and her husband, Jared, had had a difficult time conceiving a child and shortly after
they adopted twins, Nicole got pregnant. And despite a difficult pregnancy, she had recently delivered a healthy baby boy. But that was not all. According to the article, Nicole was getting ready to return to Broadway in the lead role of the hit revival
Kiss Me Kate
, becoming the first African-American actress to play the female lead.

The article quoted Nicole as saying how happy she was about the miracle of birth and the miracle of faith. Well, I couldn’t take any more of her happiness, so I closed the magazine. I wondered if she had been bedridden like Windsor. Had Nicole ever figured out that I was the cause of her sudden illness in Grand Rapids, Michigan, some years before? But most of all I wondered what it felt like to have the same man love you for so many years.

I actually felt a twinge of guilt over some of the things I had done to Nicole when I was her understudy in
Dream-girls
, but it was very short-lived. Clearly, nothing I’d done had prevented her from fulfilling her life’s dreams.

• • •

I
had just gotten home from a strenuous day of rehearsals and meetings. I was getting ready to check on Windsor, when I heard several voices coming from her bedroom. I peeked in and saw Windsor and four other ladies. Two were sitting on her bed, one was sitting in a chair and a rather tall, pretty girl was standing up at the end of the bed. As I glanced at her, she looked at me like we knew each other.

“Yancey, come on in,” Windsor said.

“How you doing?” I asked as I went over to her bed and gave Windsor a kiss on the cheek.

“Aw, I’m having a good day. My sorors stopped by for a visit, and we’ve been having a good old time catching up. As you all know, this is my famous roommate, Yancey B!” Windsor said as she motioned her hand gracefully in my direction.

“Hello, everyone,” I said. Sometimes I felt competitive when I was surrounded by women. Not so with this crowd. Except for the tall girl, none of these ladies could ever be in the same limo with me.

“I’m Dionne.”

“My name is Tara. I knew you at Howard,” the one sitting on the bed said as she smiled.

“Lisa.”

“And I’m Marlana,” the tall one said with a deep, theatrical voice. “I also knew you at Howard, but you were a couple of classes in front of me.” Marlana had long dark auburn hair, and she looked like she was on her way to a nightclub, since she was wearing a very expensive-looking leather blouse and matching pants.

“Oh. Well, nice meeting and seeing you ladies. I’m going to take a bath.”

“Yancey, don’t you remember me telling you about Marlana? She’s a singer-dancer. Remember? I sent you her demo tape when you were out in Los Angeles.”

“I don’t think so. Are you working on something?” I asked Marlana as I turned toward her. I studied her face, and it was clear to me that she needed full makeup on a daily basis to achieve her look. Marlana was attractive, but she couldn’t touch me.

“I just left the national tour of
Smokey Joe’s Café
. I actually
auditioned for
Chicago
when you were doing it on Broadway, but I didn’t get the part. You know Broadway can’t stand more than one or two black divas at a time.”