Boss Lady (10 page)

I sat there and had to remember all of that with no pen. But it was going to be easy. It was a simple game plan. Still, knowing my cousin and the way the world worked, I assumed her simple plan would change twenty times before everything was all said and done.

Tracy said, “So I'll talk to you again sometime tomorrow afternoon when you get back from school, and we'll jot everything on paper then, after I've called my lawyers and let them know everything I'm planning.”

Then she walked out the door and left me dumbfounded and gleeful. I immediately jumped up and grabbed my pen and a notepad to start writing down everything I could remember. I knew one thing was for sure, I would be up all night working on ideas of my own to add to hers. And with my cousin knowing me, I could imagine that she already knew that.

T
racy told me the truth. I had been asking her for the workload, and she was finally giving it to me. But I didn't mind it at all. It was exciting. We were finally starting the Flyy Girl franchise, something my cousin should have thought of doing years ago.

“Have you received any baby-tee sample designs from Charmaine yet?” she asked me, weeks after we had revved up the process and served notice to everyone involved. I had plenty of notes and a cordless telephone on the dining room table, which served as a makeshift office while Tracy looked into renting office space in L.A. She wasn't sure if she wanted to rent a high-end office or just keep it simple, with offices in L.A., Philly, and New York. She was really thinking a mile a minute now.

Tonya, Jasmine, and Petula were all at the dining room table with me, sorting out our lists of things to do. My friends were all fully involved in the process. I had made sure of it. Besides, we were all jumping at the opportunity to be the first girls to model Flyy Girl Ltd.

Tonya answered Tracy's question before I could.

“She said she should have something to us by the end of the week.”

“And what about contacting Freedom Theater in Philly about holding our first auditions there in June?”

Jasmine spoke up on that one.

“They haven't called us back yet. I left them three messages already.”

“Did you tell them that we're paying them for it?”

Jasmine looked confused.

“Was I supposed to?”

“No, but that would have made them call you right back,” Tracy joked.

We all laughed at it.

“Money talks,” Petula added.

“How far along are you on the screenplay?” I asked my cousin. “Can we read some of it yet?”

Tracy said, “Even when I'm finished with it, I won't let you read it. I have to do at least three rewrites before I'll be satisfied. But we will have at least the first two drafts by the time we head to Philly in June. Once we finish the first couple of casting calls, I'll assess what's working and what's not, and I'll do another rewrite.”

Jasmine asked her, “Is that your normal process?”

“Well, I try to do as many rewrites that are needed to get the job done. But no process is mistake-proof,” my cousin answered. She said, “Sometimes you can even overwrite by trying to analyze too much. And for book adaptations, you're always trying to streamline material. But I won't have a problem with the screenplay for
Flyy Girl
because I know just where to start.”

“Where is that?” Tonya asked her.

Tracy smiled at her. “You'll see once the casting calls begin.”

It was late afternoon, and more of my girls were on their way over. They were all getting used to Tracy as our boss lady, so to speak. She was calling the shots, and we were all her loyal servants.

“Vanessa, I have a meeting with Susan, then I want to check out a few more office spaces, so you hold down the fort until I get back,” she told me. In the next second, she was out the door again.

“So, how does it feel?” Petula asked me as soon as my cousin had left us.

“How does what feel?”

“You know, being related to her?”

I thought about it and began to smile. I said, “It's like, you're proud on one hand, but then on the other hand, you're always thinking about how you fit in. You know?”

Jasmine shook her head and said, “Yeah, you're on some competition thing, Vanessa. Just be happy for your cousin and do what you need to do for her vision. I mean, I can be a team player. I can do that.”

“Nobody said anything about that, Jasmine,” I argued.

“Yeah, but I can hear it in you. That's what you're really saying.
‘Where am I on her level?' ” Jasmine said to me. “I guess that's just the Philadelphian in you. People from the East Coast are always like that.”

“You don't think about that?” Tonya asked her. “I know I do. It's just natural.”

“Aw, that's because you're into sports, Tonya. You don't count,” Jasmine told her.

“I'm competitive with my brothers and sisters,” Petula said. “But Tracy Ellison Grant is on a whole other level.”

“Yeah, but she has doubts and confidence lapses like the rest of us,” I told them. “It took me nearly a year of bugging her just to get her to this point.”

“That's true,” Tonya agreed.

“So what? She still has the name to do it. Everybody deserves a break every now and then,” Jasmine stated.

I wanted to get her point so we could move on. It sounded like a meaningless argument to me. We were all helping out with the process of hyping the Flyy Girl brand, film, and clothing line, regardless of how we felt individually, and that was that.

So I asked Jasmine, “What's your point? You think I ride my cousin too much? I'm just trying to get her to use what she's got to move forward, and now she's finally doing it.”

“Yeah, and you're making sure that we all know that
you
deserve the credit for it, too.”

“Well, it's her cousin,” Tonya stated. “None of us live with Tracy like Vanessa does. She has to think about it every day. She has no choice.”

“She really doesn't,” Petula agreed.

Jasmine finally gave up on her petty argument.

I said, “Well, at least I'm not just sitting here sponging off my cousin, which a lot of people in my position would do. I'm sitting here spending my extra time trying to help her.”

“We all are,” Tonya reminded me. “And none of us are getting paid for it.”

There was a minute of silence after Tonya's comment regarding money. Then Jasmine smiled.

“Yet,” she told us.

Petula grunted, “Unh hunh, we see where your mind is, Jasmine. That's a shame.”

“Naw, man, I don't even think like that, I'm just saying.”

“Oh, we'll be paid eventually, in some form or another,” I promised them. “You never know what this kind of exposure can do for your career. And we all look good in our own ways. So all we have to do is work it.”

As soon as I finished my statement, the phone rang.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Yes, this is Freedom Theater in Philadelphia calling back in reference to using the stage for a casting call for a film.”

“Yes,” I answered. “It's for the Philadelphia-based novel
Flyy Girl.”

“Oh, yes, that book is very popular with a lot of our young performers,” I was told.

“Yeah, well now we're finally writing a screenplay for it.”

“Okay, that's good. So for what days would you be needing the stage, and for how long each day?”

“Wait one second, let me gather my notes,” I told her.

*  *  *

Things were moving like lightning, they really were. We had Freedom Theater set up for our opening casting call in Philadelphia. Tracy was nearly finished with the first draft of her script. Susan was starting to get the buzz going with P.R. contacts. Yolanda Felix was locking down all the legal work. And Tracy had rented office space in Inglewood all by mid-May.

We had office space in a two-story building that was low key, but also allowed us a chance to mingle with the people in the community. We had our first samples of the colorful
FLYY GIRL
baby-tee shirts, with my cousin's logo pose from her sequel book going down the sides, and a one-liner that read Flyy Girl across the left breast. And boy did they work! We could barely walk in and out of the building without people stopping to ask us about the shirts and our matching ponytail hats. They couldn't even get them yet. They were only rough samples.

Tracy didn't even like the shirts at first. She said, “You can't even see the logo unless you're standing sideways. And then your arms are in the way.”

I kind of agreed with her on that. We needed a logo that people could see immediately. Otherwise, what was the point? But Charmaine had a different view.

She said, “I consider a flyy girl one who moves and gets things done. So I wanted to design a sample that highlighted movement. And unless you walk with your arms stuck at your sides, people will eventually see the logo. But since it's not in your face, it makes them more curious to know exactly what it is. You want to get people curious enough to ask about it, want to touch it, and see it up close, especially with a sample.

“Good design also saves you from wasting all kinds of money to market your line,” she said. “The best marketing for your new line is the human body. But if you do what everyone else does, then why should anyone buy your line over an already established one, outside of the fact that you're new? So I want to always think outside the box on how we can make a line work off the thought and creativity that went into the design itself, before we put any marketing money into it.”

Once she explained her philosophy, her ideas made all the sense in the world. Charmaine Dearborn was a very controlled woman, too. I saw immediately that there was a lot we could all learn from her. She was a full-sized, deep-brown sister who kept her temper intact and explained everything that she did with poise. So whenever anyone got too excited around her, they made themselves look irrational.

My cousin's emotion-filled energy had little or no effect on Charmaine, which made her the perfect check and balance for business. It also allowed Tracy an opportunity to relax around her, because she realized that the sister knew what she was doing. And before we all knew it, we had a box of sample shirts and hats ready for our kickoff casting call in Philadelphia in June.

W
e were two days out from our trip to Philly in June. I had been home over the Christmas break in 2002, and my mother was still peeved at me about everything that had gone on between us years ago. However, she understood that I was a college student now and was out of her house. I was doing quite well, too, so she left me alone. But now she had to deal with my two younger sisters on her own, which was a lot more hectic than when she had to deal with me, or when she still had me around the house to deal with my sisters for her. So I gave my mother and sisters a long-distance phone call from the living room sofa, just to touch base with them and to test their temperatures before I arrived back home.

I dialed the numbers to our North Philadelphia house and waited for an answer. It was after seven o'clock West Coast time, so I knew everyone would be home after ten in Philly.

“Hello,” my mother answered. It startled me. I guess I expected to hear Veronica or Tiffany answer the phone. They were both teenagers now—seventeen and fourteen.

“Hi, Mom,” I answered back. I never knew what to expect from my mother, so I waited again.

She screamed, “Vanessa! Thank God you called, girl! Now talk some sense into your sister. I caught her dating a much too older man. The boy's nearly thirty years old.”

“Twenty-seven,” I heard Veronica state in the background.

“Like I said, he's damn near
thirty,”
my mother argued. “And that's way too old for you.”

Things were changing fast. My mother never allowed me to talk back to her like that without smacking me upside the head afterward. She was slipping. Was I the cause of that, or was it only a matter of time? But my sisters were a lot more hardheaded than I ever was.

My mother wasted no time in giving Veronica the phone to talk to me. They had me on the spot. I wasn't expecting that at all.

“Hi,” my sister answered dryly.

I had been around my cousin Tracy long enough to know exactly how to handle the situation. So I used a little reverse psychology and went straight for the jugular with my sister.

I said, “I know Mom is right there breathing down your neck, so I'm gonna do everything in code language, where all you need to do is answer the questions. Okay?”

My sister grunted, “Hmmph. All right.” She had no other choice.

I asked her, “Do you like this guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Does he like you?”

“Of course.”

Veronica had much more body than I had. For guys who were into young girls with the junk in the trunk, she was a prime catch.

“Does he have other women?” I asked her.

She paused on that one.

“No.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“No, he don't have to tell me.”

“Oh, you just know that for a fact, hunh? So is he ugly?”

“Unt unh, I'on even go out like that.”

“So he looks good?”

“I
think so.”

“And no one else does?”

She paused again.

“They know what time it is.”

“And he uses protection every time?”

There was another slight delay.

“I'm saying, what are you trying to ask me?”

“I'm asking you if he uses protection.”

“No, that's not really what you wanna know. You try'na be smart, Vanessa, but I ain't no dummy.”

“Who are you talking to like that?” my mother yelled at her. “That's your older sister on the phone.”