Boss Lady (23 page)

*  *  *

Even though we had less people at the final casting audition on Thursday, it was definitely the hardest day of the week for all of us. The tension was fatal in there. Everyone wanted what they wanted, and the results left us all exhausted and still incomplete. We still had several people we all liked in several of the roles, so Tracy decided to leave it up to the next stage, which was finding out if any star attachments would pay off.

Before we were able to pack up for the day, an older black man came out of nowhere and took to the stage. He appeared drunken and homeless, while staggering and singing.

“I can see the rainbow / I can see the clouds / I can see the pot of gold / waiting for me now . . .”

Tracy looked at Robin. Robin looked at Tracy. Then Tracy looked at me.

“Who the hell is he?” my cousin asked me.

Shamor, my girls, and the rest of the camera crew all began to laugh, but no one had any idea who the man was or where he had come from. He just walked up onto the stage. So I shrugged my shoulders, and Tracy went ahead and called for security.

“I don't know who this man is, but he's not with the casting,” she told the Freedom Theater staff. So they approached the man to escort him out, and he got extra loud with them, but he didn't try to fight them or anything.

“I was told there was auditions going on in here. I only wanted to audition. I'm a star. I just need my opportunity. I just wanted to sing for y'all. And I write my own songs myself.”

He was busy talking while they led him out the door.

“I'm telling you, I'm a star. You gon' need me.”

Everyone continued to laugh at him. However, in the back room,
while we packed everything up, Robin continued to have her concerns about all of Tracy's walk-ins. She said, “That crazy man is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You are making this process a lot harder on yourself and everyone else. And you're gonna end up having chaos on the set if you don't get a firm grip on things from the beginning.”

Tracy ignored her gloom and decided to look on the bright side.

“Well, at least we sold out all of our shirts and hats. The marketing ideas will be working in our favor now.”

Robin had to admit the truth of that.

“Yeah, that was a stroke of genius. But getting this film deal with major distribution and a studio behind it, with a bunch of nobodies, is gonna be something else.”

Tracy looked at Robin and let out a deep breath.

“Okay, if you want to start sending the script around to the stars and their agents, now is the time to do it. I never said that I wouldn't contact who I need to talk to. I know how movies are made. But I also know how great ideas are ruined by a lack of execution from people who you may
think
are great, and are not.”

Robin said, “I'm only going to send it out to people I feel will fit the bill, Tracy. It's not like I'll be scavenging. Lynn Whitfield can be contacted. Meagan Good can be contacted. They were in
Eve's Bayou
together in the same roles as mother and daughter, so they already know each other. These video girls can be contacted. And young track stars are everywhere. Outside of that, we can fill in who we need, and use all of the fantastic extras from Philadelphia that you want in this film.”

It sounded good to me. In the meantime, Tracy could continue to push the new clothing line.

Tracy saw Robin's simplified point and agreed to it.

“Well, that's a wrap then. We start the next phase of the process,” she commented. “So tomorrow and Saturday, we film the locations I want to use around the city, and we all sit back and enjoy the rest of our stay in Philadelphia. I haven't even been up to my parents' house this week,” she mentioned.

I hadn't been home to North Philly to see my family, or to take my sister Veronica out to dinner. Nor had Tiffany showed up at any of the casting calls.

“You ready to go clubbing tonight, Vanessa?” Jasmine snuck by and asked me.

Tracy overheard it. She answered, “Not tonight. Vanessa and I have a few more dinners to go to. We're over here to work. So you guys can hang out with the casting crew again.”

What could I say? Tracy was the boss, and I had been the one to push her into it.

So I shrugged my shoulders and told Jasmine, “She's the boss.” But Jasmine knew that already.

Shamor and Maddy overheard the brief conversation as well. I guess that gave them more time to get together or whatever without me in their way that night. And I was perfectly fine with that.

*  *  *

Tracy wanted to meet Bruce and Kiwana at Zanzibar Blue again. It was within walking distance with great food and great ambience, she told me. So I left it alone.

But when we arrived at Zanzibar Blue for the second night in a row, Kiwana had brought her newborn baby with her. She and Bruce were there at the front entrance talking to each other with a detachable car seat in Kiwana's hands.

It was amazing to me that most of Tracy's friends still lived in Pennsylvania. Tracy said that Bruce had joined the air force and had returned home, and Kiwana commuted back and forth to New York for Broadway.

Bruce was tall, clean-shaven, with a thick mustache, and a tapered military haircut. He looked like he was still in the military. Even his dark blue suit looked spotlessly clean.

Kiwana, on the other hand, was all loose. She wore a long silk or rayon multicolored dress with an orange top and brown leather sandals. Her hair was loose and flyaway, and her face was so smooth that she looked like an all-fruit eater. Maybe I was stereotyping both of them, but that's what I thought as soon as I saw them there waiting for us.

Tracy said, “I see you two have met already. And Kiwana, you've brought another surprise for me,” she said in reference to the new child.

We both looked into the car seat to eye the gorgeous, hairless little girl Kiwana had brought with her. The baby looked right up at both of us with light-colored eyes that reminded me of Alexandria.

“Awww, look at her,” Tracy crooned. She then held out her index finger for Kiwana's daughter to hold on to.

I just stood there and smiled.

“Yeah, we've been standing here chatting. They said our table should be ready in a minute,” Kiwana told us.

I didn't even know you could bring babies to a fine restaurant like Zanzibar's, especially at night while their jazz sets were playing. But what did I know?

Bruce stepped back and looked my cousin over.

He said, “Well, don't you still look good. I'm about to turn into a teenager all over again.”

Tracy grinned and said, “Thank you. You still look handsome yourself. I wouldn't mind going back to our teen years for a minute.”

Kiwana gave them both a look and said, “Okay, let's cut it out. We get the point.”

Tracy finally got around to introducing me.

“This is my cousin and personal assistant, Vanessa.”

“Hi,” I told them both.

Bruce looked me over and said, “Good looks must run in the family.”

I smiled and said, “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it. Just don't break the hearts of the good guys like your big cousin did.”

Tracy smirked. “Here we go,” she responded to him.

“What, did I say something that wasn't right?”

“Yes, you did. But I want to leave that alone and have a good time tonight,” Tracy told him.

“Amen to that,” Kiwana agreed.

We walked on in and they showed us to our table, where I noticed that Kiwana was already looking at her watch.

She said, “I won't be able to stay too long, Tracy. Treasure's only four months old, and I'm breast-feeding her.”

Tracy said, “Treasure?”

Kiwana smiled at her daughter and said, “That's what she is.”

Then she pulled out wallet-sized family pictures of her white husband and her two mixed daughters to pass around the table. Tracy looked at the pictures and nodded.

“Beautiful,” she commented while handing them back.

She said, “So, let me get this right out in the open for the both of you. How is the married-with-kids life?”

Tracy told me that Bruce had four sons.

Kiwana answered the question first. “It's wonderful.”

Of course she would say that in front of her newborn baby.

Bruce smiled and grunted before he answered. He said, “You sound like a happy wife. ‘Wonderful,' ” he repeated to her.

“You don't agree?” Kiwana asked him.

Bruce was more thoughtful about it. He said, “It's ah . . . interesting.”

“What's so interesting about it?” Tracy asked.

He said, “Well, you're supposed to pick one person to share the rest of your life with . . . I mean, that's just heavy material right there.”

“That's why you have to pick the right person,” Kiwana told him.

Bruce looked her in the eyes and said, “And you believe that there's only one person you could have picked?”

“I didn't pick. The pieces just fell where they were supposed to,” she answered.

“The pieces just fell where they were supposed to,” Bruce repeated her again. “So, hypothetically speaking, there is no other man on God's green earth who could have been, not a perfect, because no one is perfect, but a solid mate for you?”

I must admit, I liked Bruce immediately. He had this sarcastic way of thinking and speaking that left me with a lot of intrigue. I didn't like Kiwana's “Wonderful” answer any more than he did. It sounded too simple, as if she was reading her response from a children's book. And I knew that marriage had to be a lot more complicated than that. I had been around too many grown-ups in L.A., married and unmarried, to believe in simplicity. Every situation had its strengths and struggles.

Kiwana answered, “I don't even think about other mates. I have no reason to.”

“Does your husband think about it?” he asked her.

Kiwana looked at Bruce as if she was appalled that he had even asked the question.

“No, he does not,” she told him.

Tracy had opened up a hot can of beans before we had even received our appetizers.

“Are you sure?” Bruce asked.

I had to hide my face behind my menu to stop from smiling. I could tell that Kiwana was irritated by it. But I'm sorry, I agreed with Bruce. Maybe I just hadn't been around enough happy-faced marriages to believe in what Kiwana was saying. I would rather hear the real deal and not the Hallmark card. I was still confused as to why she would bring a child to an adult meeting at night inside a jazz restaurant.

Kiwana finally told him, “Look, just because you're not happy with who you married does not mean that the roof is falling in on my house like it is on yours. Okay?”

Now she had my attention. Her spice was real, but her sugar . . . I just needed to have it with the spice to make sure that Kiwana was balanced in the world. Because every time my cousin Tracy had written or talked about her, it was as if Kiwana was a holy angel who could do no wrong, even after she decided to marry a white man. I mean, to each her own, but . . .

Anyway, Tracy finally decided to cool them off.

“You think we could have been a happy couple, Bruce?” she asked.

I was beginning to like this dinner. I was sitting right in the middle of things. I had the best seat in the house again.

Bruce answered, “Honestly, I would have to say no to that twice. No, we wouldn't have made a good couple out of high school because you were far too materialistic for me to be able to keep up with. And no again after college, because you had then grown to be too headstrong.”

“So, in other words, you like meek, do-what-I-tell-you-to-do women?” Kiwana jumped in and asked him.

He answered, “No, I actually like strong-willed women, but I also

understand that it would be a bad decision on my part to marry one, because I'm not able to transform into the docile husband I needed to be to make that union last.”

“Okay, so that means that you can't have two strong-willed people in a successful marriage? Is that what you're saying?” Kiwana questioned.

Bruce said, “Somebody has to take the lead and there can't be a lot of confusion about it.”

Tracy said, “Don't they have copilots on a plane?”

He
was
a member of the United States Air Force.

“On a
commercial
plane,” Bruce answered. “And they're not working the same equipment at the same time. But we don't have commercial marriages,” he commented. “Marriages are extremely personal.”

“So what is your beef with your marriage? You don't love your wife anymore?” Tracy asked him.

“It's not that I don't love her anymore, it's just that there are so many infinite possibilities out there.”

Kiwana began to smile as she sized him up.

“Greedy,” she told him to his face.

“Well, what if you had one pair of shoes for the rest of your life?” he asked her.

She said, “We're not talking about shoes here.” Her baby began to cry before she picked her up out of the car seat to hold in her arms.

I was openly chuckling to myself at that point. I felt the two of them together was hilarious. You had an optimistic dreamer in Kiwana and a scientific mathematician in Bruce. However, Bruce dreamed about experiencing other situations, whereas Kiwana applied the math of one to her situation.

“Are you thinking about divorcing your wife?” Tracy asked Bruce.

“I don't believe in divorce. I plan to finish what I started,” he answered.

Kiwana shook her head with disgust.

“Marriage is not another military objective to be dealt with, it's a sacred and beautiful bond that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.”

Bruce looked at her and nodded. He said, “Hundreds of thousands of years, hunh? That sounds like a mighty long time.”