Boss Lady (42 page)

I said, “Okay, I understand. I understand everything. But you still
have to talk to Jason about this. And after that, everything may change if he doesn't feel the same way.”

I was just explaining the reality of life to her. Other people had to agree to dance with you.

Alexandria was eager to say, “I know. I'll talk to him about it.”

Then I thought about what Jason told me concerning her being bossy, and I decided to warn her.

I said, “But Alexandria, you can't push him into this. Because if you do, and you get away with it for now, we're all going to regret it later.”

She said, “I know. It has to be his decision.”

But for some reason, I didn't trust Alexandria to keep it his decision. I knew how she was, so I would need to talk to both of them separately to get the balanced story.

*  *  *

When I hung up the phone with Alexandria, I was thrown totally off track from what I was doing. I couldn't concentrate on my work anymore.

On cue, Tracy popped her head into the room. She was eating a bowl of microwave popcorn.

She asked me, “How long are you planning on being up in here?”

I looked up at her and said, “Why, you need to use the computer?”

“In a minute, yeah. Susan and I are setting up a meeting to include you in on for Tuesday afternoon.”

Tuesday afternoon,
I thought to myself. That was really soon. That left me with only a day to prepare.

I said, “I thought it would be next week or something.” I didn't say it in alarm, I just said it casually. I didn't want Tracy to think I was nervous about it, but I was. I didn't want everything to go down the drain because I didn't know how to act in a meeting. But from what they had all been telling me, one meeting wouldn't determine much of anything anyway.

Tracy said, “Well, they had some time this week over at Wide Vision Films to go over our updates on
Flyy Girl,
and to read over my script. But I don't expect them to tell us anything that we don't already
know. The only difference is that you'll get a chance to be there and see how the process works.”

I nodded to her. There was nothing left that I could do but get myself prepared for the meeting. But since it would only be a test run for me, maybe I didn't need to sweat the preparation so much.

I said, “Okay. I'll be off in a minute.”

As soon as Tracy left the room, my mind was locked again. It was like I was mentally constipated with too many things going on. So I finished sending out the rest of the emails and I decided to shut down and let Tracy get on the computer to do what she needed to do with it.

Tracy walked into the room as soon as I stood up to leave.

“She's all yours,” I told her.

“Thank you.”

Then the office phone rang. I looked down and saw Jason's Philadelphia cell number on the Caller-ID screen. I immediately thought about his response to Alexandria's pregnancy, and I snatched up the phone before Tracy could.

“Hey, Jason,” I answered. “I figured you would be calling me,” I told him as I walked out of the office with the cordless phone in hand. I wanted to get that conversation away from Tracy with haste.

She said, “Bring that phone back in here when you're finished, Vanessa.”

“I know,” I told her. “What did you fix to eat?” I asked her as I walked away. I wanted everything to appear perfectly normal. I was hungry by then anyway.

“There's some Caesar salad with grilled chicken in the fridge,” Tracy yelled after me.

“Okay,” I hollered back as I approached the stairs.

As soon as I was safely away from Tracy, Jason asked me over the line, “So I guess you know the news already.”

I played the innocent. “What news?”

“You know what I'm talking about. Alexandria told me that she talked to you about it already.”

I was busted. I said, “Okay, and what do you think about it?”

I reached the kitchen to put together my chow.

Jason said, “Man, I'm just now ready to get out of school. And this girl is expensive. She always has to have shit.”

I said, “But she uses her own money.” I had been around Alexandria, so I knew. She was quick to hook us up if we needed it, too.

Jason said, “Yeah, but those habits are gonna extend to me. Then she's gonna want all kinds of fancy shit for the baby. I can see it now.”

Jason was on his cell phone in his Ford Explorer. I could hear the traffic noise in the background.

I smiled at his response. He was thinking about the small stuff, or I guess it could be big stuff for a man who would have to find a much better job soon.

I said, “But how do you feel about it, Jason?”

I continued to steer clear from using that word
pregnancy.

Jason said, “We talked about it, man. And my mom already likes her. My dad said she's a neck-breaker. And Tracy . . . she just gotta get over it. I don't know why she don't like Alexandria anyway. They already look related. And Tracy didn't even think about casting her for the movie.”

“Well, that's because Alexandria can't act. She doesn't express enough emotions,” I told him.

He said, “She does around me.”

“So, it sounds like you're accepting it,” I commented. I didn't want to assume things, but that's how it sounded. If Jason had been dead set against having a baby with Alexandria, he would have come right out and said so, but he didn't.

He said, “Well, it wasn't expected, but it would be worse if it was with some girl I didn't like. But I mean, I know what I got with Alexandria. She bad. People be tripping over their feet trying to look at her. I just gotta do what I gotta do now.”

I laughed out loud. That boy was crazy. But I was proud to hear Jason speak of his responsibility. Maybe he was growing up.

I said, “Okay, what if she wasn't so attractive?”

“Well then, we wouldn't even be having this conversation,” he joked. Or maybe he wasn't joking.

I grinned and said, “You are a mess, you know that, right? You better hope and pray that Alexandria doesn't blow up and turn into a nightmare on you.”

He said, “Naw, never that. I saw pictures of her whole family. They keep it tight over there.”

“So, you don't have a problem with marrying her?”

I felt so relieved about the whole situation to hear that Jason was okay with things.

He said, “Well, that's what's next, right? I gotta put my seal on her and make her an Ellison.”

He kept me laughing, but I needed to get serious about it, too.

I said, “Okay, all jokes aside. Do you really think you're ready for this? I mean, your mom and dad went through their own struggles because they got married so young. And I know they're back together now, but it was a long, trying separation, too.”

“Yeah, but you gon' have to do it sooner or later, Vanessa,” he argued. “I mean, I'm not planning on being out there as long as Tracy. And I kind of feel like she's blocking me because she's uncomfortable with hooking up like that herself, but I'm not.”

He said, “And like I told Alexandria, it's all about us having fun with each other. She likes me for that. I mean, I look good and lay a mean pipe, too, but she really likes how I make her feel when we're just hanging out and talking trash. So I told her, as long as she don't stop liking that, and she keep looking good like she do, we gon' be aw'ight. It's all good money.”

I just shook my head with a sustained grin. Jason was making things sound seriously simple, but I liked the simple more than the complicated from him. I knew Jason enough to know that he likes having fun, and if he had to explain too much about his relationship with Alexandria, then it would seem forced and I would be skeptical. But to hear him tell it as all fun and games, I really liked their chances together.

“Well, we may as well start looking at those baby-shower presents for my girl then,” I joked to him. “And wedding presents, too.”

I stuffed my mouth with my Caesar salad and grilled chicken, and Tracy strolled right into the kitchen on me. I was so excited that Jason was taking things in good spirits that I was no longer whispering, and there was no doubt in my mind that Tracy had heard me.

I nearly choked on my food being busted like that. She really
shocked me. My eyes got big, and I almost dropped the phone and everything.

Jason said something, but I wasn't even listening to him anymore. I was eye to eye with his big sister.

She looked me dead in the face and asked me, “A baby shower and wedding presents for who?”

She had her full attention on me. There was no blowing it off or lying about it. But what the hell, it was what it was. So I went ahead and told her.

“For Alexandria.”

Tracy continued to stare at me.

“She's pregnant?”

“Yup.”

Tracy nodded. She said, “I knew it.”

I asked her, “You knew it?”

I had to ignore Jason on the phone to get things straight with Tracy in the kitchen.

“I knew this was gonna happen,” she said. “And now they're talking about getting married, hunh? And only known each other for two months.”

Tracy sounded more like a mother to me every day. And she was right, but it didn't matter.

I shrugged my shoulders and repeated the mantra to her, “It is what it is.”

“And that's what it's gonna be,” she added. She walked over to the refrigerator, took out a canned Pepsi, grabbed some snacks from out of the pantry closet, and walked back out of the kitchen without another word.

Jason said, “That was Tracy?” I guess he had caught on to it. “What she say?”

I told him, “Nothing, yet. But the night's not over. So I'll tell you about it tomorrow, if she doesn't call you back first.”

He chuckled and repeated me, “Yeah, if she doesn't call me back first.”

“So, what's Alexandria doing?” I asked him. “I thought she would have called me back by now.”

He said, “She's telling her parents about it. And then I'ma talk to mine. It ain't like they can stop us, but at the same time, they could help us out. So we gotta go ahead and be frank with them.”

I thought about it and said, “Yeah.” Both of them were college students who could use the help on the income until they could establish themselves in their careers. That was just one of the many complications of getting married and having kids early instead of late. But like Jason said, no matter when you would decide to do it, adjustments would always need to be made.

*  *  *

I was in my room reading a new sex novel from the author Zane. Now I understood what all the fuss with sex was about. In the meantime, I was waiting on two things to happen that night: a talk with Tracy about Alexandria and Jason, and a call from Alexandria about what her parents had to say regarding her pregnancy.

Tracy's talk came first. She knocked on my door after she had finished in the computer room for the night.

“Come in,” I told her.

She walked in and was noticeably exhausted. She didn't have bags under her eyes or appear to be falling down or anything, but her energy level and spirit were practically hanging on by a string that night.

She said, “All I want to say about this is that I hope they're not looking for a savior when they get into trouble, because I am not the bail-out woman. They got themselves into this, and they'll be the ones who'll have to figure out where they're trying to go with it, and how they get there, on their own. And that's not to say that I won't lend a hand or a dollar when needed, but I'm going to make it perfectly clear that this is not my situation, it's theirs.”

I just let my cousin talk without interrupting her. I understood her. She had worked extremely hard to get where she was, and was a success, which had become a blessing and a curse for her. On the one end, she could live well, travel abroad, and really enjoy the spoils of her life. But on the other end, her success made people push her to do more than she believed she could do, or felt like doing. Tracy had

become a target for people to attach themselves to, including me. Her success was also my target. And she was understandably tired of being hit by other people's dreams.

So when I thought again about my promise to my mother and sisters through my own aspirations of success back home in Philadelphia, I understood that I had made myself a target. And as my cousin Tracy had become exhausted with all of the attachments draining her of her everyday energy, I realized that I would have that same problem if and when I ever became the powerful woman I desired to be.

W
hen my girl Alexandria broke down her situation to her family, the first thing her parents and sister did was call my cousin Tracy for an explanation. So Tracy dealt with the Greene family civilly, and explained to them that Jason and Alexandria had started a courtship that she had no control over, and that they all would be much better off helping the young couple rather than ostracizing them and harming them. They went back and forth over the phone about it for a good hour, with Alexandria's family threatening to keep her under wraps and some more craziness, before my girl threatened to move to Philadelphia with Jason and disown her family.

On the other side of the country in Philadelphia, Tracy's family was ready to accept Alexandria with open arms. They understood that Jason and Alexandria were both adults. They were young, but still adults.

Tracy hung up the phone with Alexandria's family and was pissed all over again.

She looked at me and said, “You see what the hell I'm talking about, Vanessa. I knew this shit was gonna happen when they first started sneaking around and seeing each other at the hotel. And them people are acting like something is wrong with my damn family, like they're all fuckin' perfect. And I met her sister, too, as fake as she wants to be.”