For the Love of Money (12 page)

By that time, I had to look away before I killed myself trying to hold it all in.

“You think about that on your way out, and I'll keep this card handy. Do you do massages?” I asked him.

“The best in Hollywood,” he bragged.

Well, what's your ass doing down here in
Baldwin
Hills instead of up in
Beverly? I wanted to say, but I kept it to myself.

“All right, well, maybe I'll give you a call then,” I said as Kendra and I walked away.

“Yeah, you do that.”

Kendra looked at me and said, “Girl, do
not
play with these guys out here. Okay? Some of these guys are stone
crazy.
I mean, they take themselves
to heart
out here.”

I was still laughing, but Kendra was not.

She said, “I'm serious, Tracy. Don't do that. This is not Philly, Virginia, or Baltimore. These guys have loose marbles out here.”

“In other words, you have a couple of horror stories to tell me about,” I assumed.

“Yeah, I do.”

Before Kendra could open her mouth to tell me about them, another brother stopped me in the mall. He looked tall enough to play basketball.

He looked me right into my face and said, “Those contact lenses look perfect on you.”

I don't know if that was supposed to be his pick-up line or what. I said, “And you know the best thing about it? I don't even have to take them out at night,” and I kept walking. I don't even think the brother got it.

Kendra shook her head. “I can see it now. You're gonna get yourself in a
bunch
of trouble out here.”

I laughed it off and told myself to cut it out. I wasn't a teenager anymore. However, all work and no play makes for a dull woman, and I was
far
from being
dull.

$   $   $

By my fourth day in California, Kendra and I had visited several of the beaches, saw a few movies, visited Griffith Park, and I even checked out
three different places to live for when I moved out there. One was a town-house complex in Baldwin Hills off of Rodeo. The other two were apartments in Inglewood, but I liked the Baldwin Hills townhouse more, which of course, cost more money to rent.

“All I have to do is put down the security deposit and the first couple of months of rent in September when it's available, and hopefully I'll be set with something in the business by the time Christmas rolls around. In the meantime, I might need you to hook me up with a teaching position,” I hinted to Kendra, “just in case I don't have what it takes to write in Hollywood.”

“A substitute position?”

We were chilling in the breeze of her backyard, as the sun went down at close to nine o'clock.

“Yeah, just keep an eye open for me and tell me if I need to send in a résumé before I get back out here in late August.”

The plan was to fly some of my things out to LA to leave at Kendra's house a week before I moved, and then figure out the most sane way to transport my car and the rest of my things, which would
not
be cheap.

Kendra bought most of
her
things out in LA, a smart idea. It was probably the smartest.

I said, “Maybe I can sell my stuff back in Philly, and then start all over again out here like you did.”

“Yeah, but I never had to sell anything. I moved out here right after finishing at Hampton. You might lose a lot of money doing that,” she said.

I didn't have any cheap, disposable furniture in Philly either. That was just my expensive luck.

“I'll just have to get what I can get for it,” I told her.

“Okay, here she comes now,” Kendra said. We were waiting to talk to her “Hollywood connection,” a sister attorney who worked for the Writers Guild of America. How did Kendra know her? The woman's sister lived right next door to her. Kendra just happened to live in the right place at the right time.

I got nervous though when the sister walked in and Kendra introduced us.

“Yolanda Felix, this is my friend from college at Hampton, Tracy Ellison.”

We shook hands. The sister was as tall as I was, and dressed in a peach business suit. She had long, dark hair and looked more Filipino than black. She had that bronzed-skin, wet-haired, island look. The suit she was wearing was my style too. It was stylish, but not too fancy.

“So you have a book out?” she asked me. She was straightforward and no small talk. That made me
more
nervous. How was she reading me?

“It's coming back out this September with a bigger publisher,” I told her.

“
Flyy Girl,
right?”

I looked at Kendra. She had hooked me up.

“Yeah, that's it.”

Yolanda smiled. “I was flyy in my day too. I'd like to read that when it comes out.”

“No problem. I'll give you a copy.”

“So you want to write screenplays?” she asked. I wondered how old she was.

She waited for me to answer.

I nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess.” I didn't sound too confident. I changed my answer and made it stronger. “Yeah, I
do
want to write screenplays.”

“Have you written one before?”

“No, but I have a master's degree in English.”

For whatever reason, the more I mentioned my master's degree in English, the less value it seemed to have. I felt like I should have kept my mouth closed.

Yolanda said, “Oh yeah? I majored in English at Howard before going to law school.”

When she said that, I thought,
Yeah! I worked
hard
for my master's degree in English!

“So we have something else in common then, besides being flyy and all,” I joked. I was all smiles, and my initial nervousness faded.

She said, “;If you want to write screenplays, you can't
guess it,
you have to
know it,
backward and forward. You have to be willing to fight for it like it's your own flesh and blood. Especially if you're a
black
writer. If these Hollywood producers and directors have problems understanding
white
writers, then you
know,
they look at
us
as if we're from Mars.”

I got nervous again. What if white people just didn't get me? How much power did black people have in Hollywood? I had no idea.

Yolanda said, “And I hope you don't think that your looks will do it all for you. I've seen plenty of pretty sisters
and
white girls get caught up in the physical game and lose. You really have to know what you're doing out here to survive. You hear me? You have to take this business
very
seriously.”

Kendra broke in for a second and asked if anyone wanted anything to drink.

“Yeah,” I told her. I guess she could see how confused and worried I looked. I knew that I was more than just a pretty face, but still. I didn't know what it took to make it in Hollywood. I was just planning to go for it and figure it all out along the way.

Yolanda asked, “So when are you planning to move, next month sometime?”

I took a sip of my juice before I answered.

“I'll be out here next month, but my townhouse won't be available until September.”

“A townhouse? So you
are
serious then.”

I nearly caved in from the pressure, but I dropped my head and took another sip of my drink to hide it. I had to convince myself that Hollywood was what I wanted. It was something that was hard and fruitful like my girl Raheema had said. So I composed myself and looked Yolanda in her eyes before I responded, “Yeah, I am serious.”

She took out a business card, flipped it over, and started writing names.

“What you need to do is call The Biz or the UCLA Extensions program and get them to send you their brochures on screenwriting and television and film courses. I would take courses at
both
places. The more contacts and references you have, the better. You call me up when you get back in town, and I'll sit down and talk to you about everything.

“We have thousands of aspiring young screenwriters out here, but we could use some that are as serious as you are about it, especially young sisters,” she told me.

I just nodded my head, still playing along with it, but when she left, I was shell-shocked.

“Well, what do you think?” Kendra asked me.

I said, “Damn! She was all business.”

“I hear they
all
are, or at least the ones who get things done, and I hear that
she
gets things done,” Kendra said.

I could imagine. If Yolanda Felix was a proper representation of Hollywood business, then I definitely had to get my act up to par and go out there like I really meant it, because she was
not
playing!

$   $   $

When I told my parents about my plans back at home that summer, my mother flipped.

“You mean to tell me that you're just gonna stop teaching altogether to go out to California and try to write movie scripts? Have you lost your damn mind?! Do you know how many people dream about doing that and never get anything done. Then they end up right back at home and starting all over again with nothing.

“Tracy, have you
thought
about this?” she asked me, still irritated, “because you're forever leaping before you look, girl. This is not teenage growing pains anymore, this is
your
real life now.”

We were all sitting at the kitchen table, me, my mother, and my father. My father didn't have much to say. He just sat there amused by it. My little brother was out running the streets somewhere, enjoying
his
teen years of the 1990s.

“Well, what do
you
have to say about this, Dave?” my mother asked my father.

First he smiled. He said, “Patti, Tracy is a grown woman, and if this is what she wants to do, you can either support it or tell her that you don't support it, and let her do what she wants to do. I don't think she's sharing this with us to gain our permission. I think she's just informing us as her parents.”

He was right, because I damn sure had made up my mind already. I wasn't even planning on arguing with my mother that night. I had other plans.

“Well, how do you
feel
about this, Dave?” my mother instigated.

I said nothing. I just waited for dad to answer. It wasn't as if it was going to change anything. I just wanted to hear what he had to say.

“Well, how many people get a chance to put a book out about themselves without being famous first? She did that. So why can't she write movies?” he asked. “I mean, she does have a master's degree in English, so put it to use. A lot of people don't even use what they went to school for. Writing and English go hand and hand, don't they? If she was going to teach middle school all of her life, she could have done that with a regular degree.”

My mother was still doubtful. She said, “Well, I hope they don't read your book and get the wrong idea about you, because I heard Hollywood is a sleazy business for a woman to be in.”

My father shook his head at my mother's lack of confidence in me, but as far as I was concerned, it was the end of the conversation. I was a grown-ass woman and I could handle myself no matter
what
arena I was in. I wasn't some confused teenager testing the rough waters again. I was a young adult making a simple career move.

I stood up to excuse myself. “Well, we'll see,” I declared to my mother. “And now that we know what I'm after, the next thing for me to do is to sell as much of my furniture as I can to get ready for the move.”

“And what about your car?” she asked me.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Looks like I'm gonna have to drive it out to California.”

My father looked at the disgust on my mother's face and broke out laughing.

I drove back to my apartment complex where I had Mike waiting outside for me in his car. I was ten minutes later than I said I would be. I approached him sitting under his map light and reading a magazine. I blew my horn as I drove by toward the parking lot.

When I met him, waiting for me at the security door, I thought about the personal trainer out in LA and began to chuckle.

“What's so funny?” Mike asked me. Mike was much taller than the guy in LA, and he worked more with athletes. Plus, I knew that he was telling me the truth.

“Nothing at all,” I told him.

“That's a lie, but I won't even get into that,” he responded.

“Good.”

We walked to the elevators. When the doors closed, Mike put his magic hands on the back of my waist and worked his way up to my shoulders and neck.

“You know just what I need tonight,” I told him, leaning my head back and enjoying it.

“Yeah, but I can't stay tonight,” he told me.

Good,
I thought. I wanted to rest in my bed and have it all to myself once he had finished with the job. So I was planning on making up a reason for him to leave anyway, but I played it off.

“You can't stay?” I asked.

“I gotta be in New York tomorrow morning. I might even have to drive up there tonight.”

“Well, don't exhaust yourself with me,” I teased him.

“Oh, I won't. I know how to conserve my energy.”

“Just don't conserve
too
much energy,” I warned him with a big smile. I didn't want a quickie. I just didn't want him to stay. I wanted my pie and peace of mind too, just like a lot of guys wanted it. Hit and split, right?

Anyway, while Mike worked his fingers into my naked body that night, all I could think about was what he would say or do once I told him that I
was relocating to California. Maybe I didn't have to tell him at all, but that seemed too cruel. I knew that he was more attached to me than he let on. I just wasn't attached to him.

I asked, “Have you ever thought about moving away from Philadelphia?”