For the Love of Money (36 page)

Soon after hanging up with Tim, I got another call from Richard Mack. He was inviting me out to a party in Venice that Saturday. I must have been
as popular as a beauty queen all of a sudden. I couldn't keep playing the scary role though. I would just have to face the Hollywood music and be strong about it. Just because I went out with a man didn't mean that he would get an automatic key to my panties. I was overreacting, so I planned to loosen up and keep my head.

“Okay,” I told Rich. I couldn't keep turning
every
offer down. Rich was cool anyway, and I
needed
to unwind.

$   $   $

I found my courage and went ahead to meet my boss for brunch at a nice beachside restaurant in Santa Monica that Saturday afternoon. However, I had a surprise for his ass. I showed up on time and wearing a gray business suit to send him a clear message: I was there strictly for business.

Tim looked at me and asked, “Tracy, can I ask you a question? Who wears business suits on Saturday? Christ, man, loosen up over here! This is California!”

I just smiled at it and kept my cool. Tim was dressed in dark slacks and a long-sleeved, yellow cotton shirt with a wide collar. His top buttons were open so his flawless neck could breathe.

“Where are you from again?” he asked, half smiling himself.

“Philadelphia.”

He nodded and said, “Philly, Will Smith's hometown. Is everyone so up-tight over there? Will Smith seems like a great guy.”

“I'm not Will Smith,” I told him, “but if I ever get as big as
he
is, then maybe I
will
loosen up.”

“So, how long have you known Yolanda?” he asked me.

“Since I moved out here last September. I guess I first met her last July.”

He nodded again and took a sip of his drink in a tall glass with a small blue umbrella.

“She's good company,” he said with a grin.

I didn't want to touch that. That was
their
business. I moved on.

“So, is
Conditions of Mentality
a stepping stone for
you
? How many people over there know that you're looking into feature films?” I asked him.

“Everybody looks for feature films during the summertime. It's our hiatus out here. It beats jerking off the whole summer,” he said with another sip of his drink and a grin.

I asked the waiter for a glass of water and a house salad to start off. I was afraid to even drink any alcohol.

“So, you're not leaving the show then?”

He shook his head and frowned at me. “No, of course not. It's a good gig, and it's paying my phone bills.”

Just as he said that, his cellular phone went off. He had it attached to his belt.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I'm on a lunch date. How about”—he looked at me and then to his watch, a gold Rolex—“five o'clock sometime?” It was nearly twenty after one. “Okay,” he said, “I'll see you then,” and hung up.

“These damn things are a pain in the ass sometimes,” he told me, referring to his cellular phone. “But like they say with men, ‘You can't live
with
them' . . . and blah, blah, blah.”

I planned to get back down to business. I didn't even own a cellular phone yet.

I asked, “So, what's the percentage of women writers who get feature film deals?”

Tim looked at me and grimaced. I guess he wasn't there to talk business like I was. He said, “You have to be as tough as nails with your script, and I'm sure that you can do it, because you're showing me your shark's skin right now. Jesus!”

I smiled. “Well, you said you wanted to go a few
rounds
and talk about the ropes of the business with me.”

“Yeah, and you're out here kicking my ass in the first round,” he whined. “At least give the people their money's worth and get your KO in the ninth. Don't be such a
Mike Tyson
over here.”

Our conversation kept being interrupted by Tim's phone calls, but he continued to answer them. I wondered what he would have done about that phone had I been more open to his advances, because the calls didn't sound that important. They sounded more personal than business related. Maybe he had them all set up to make me believe that he was a busy man with so many connections that they were bothersome, but I still hadn't fallen for it.

Before we separated, with not much progress made (or at least the kind of progress that
he
wanted because
I
had learned a lot), Tim leveled with me and said, “Tracy, you're not going to get as far as you would like in this business unless you loosen up a bit. All right? Even your homeboy Will Smith had to play a gay role to get into the feature film world. You just remember that.”

In my opinion, it was low for Tim to even bring that up, but that was a shot-down man for you, black
or
white, they could
all
act like
assholes
when they wanted to.

I did take Tim's advice to loosen up, I just wasn't planning on loosening up with him. So I drove back home and picked out something more revealing for Rich's party in Venice that night.

I had been to quite a few California parties by then, but most of the time I showed my face and left early. They were not my kind of parties. No one even
danced
half of the time; there was just a bunch of bullshit talk about upcoming projects and Hollywood deals. However, for Rich's party that Saturday night, I planned to stay until the cows came home just to see what the difference would be.

I walked into this huge, glass beach house, wearing a light blue summer dress, cut high above the knees and held up by spaghetti straps, and I was impressed! This place was nice and roomy, and it had a full balcony where you could look down on the crowd. I had no idea that Rich was handling things that well. I planned to give him a big hug and tell him how impressed I was. The place was jam-packed, too, with a young and hip mixed crowd of MTV types. It was right up my alley. People were even dancing. I spotted Juanita from New York on the balcony, and it soured my mood for a second. I figured that maybe Reginald would be there too, and I didn't particularly care for either one of them.

Juanita spotted me and began to speak to a couple of girlfriends who she was with.

I shook my head and moved through the crowd in search of Rich. Maybe I
wouldn't
be staying long if I had any drama to dodge.

I found Rich and he immediately gave me love.

“Tracy Ellison! You didn't tell me you had a
book
out!” he said, loud enough for plenty of people to hear him. It wasn't as if I had spent much time promoting the fact; I was too busy working out the events of my
present
life.

I said, “How did you find out?”

“Somebody read it and told somebody, and then the word just got out. You know how Hollywood is,” he answered.

“Is this your place?” I asked, changing the subject.

“I wish! I'm renting it out for the night, and the owner is selling the alcohol to make up the difference. I told him, ‘Fine, all I want to do is have a big bad party here. But if anyone dies in a drunken car crash afterward, then that's on
you.
'

“Most of these people here are friends that
he
knows,” he said, “but they'll be
my
friends after tonight. So have a ball!”

You know how it is when you're the host of a big party, you can't really talk too long to one person, so Rich introduced me to a couple of people
and worked his way through the crowd. I didn't mind. The place was lively, and I planned to find my own fun.

This muscular chocolate brother asked me to dance, and I nodded and started grooving to an Ice Cube and Mack 10 song.

“What's your name?” he asked me.

“Tracy.”

I smiled, reminiscing on old-school house parties back home in Philly, with the cuties inside of the stuffy basements asking you for your name and your phone number.

“Where are you from? Everybody's from somewhere in here. This reminds me of Florida during spring break,” he told me. He sounded suburban and young. Maybe he had just come out of college, or didn't finish.

“Philly,” I answered him.

“Oh, Will Smith's town.”

I shook my head. Will Smith had really blown up out there because of the
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
television show and his blockbuster movie,
Independence Day.
He also had another science fiction movie coming out that summer,
Men in Black.
Boy was Yolanda right about blacks in science fiction. Will seemed
perfect
for that part.

I said, “He's not the only person from Philly, you know.”

“Yeah, Kurupt's from Philly too.”

This guy was definitely young. His points of reference were all in hiphop. I bet he didn't even think about Bill Cosby, Sherman Hemsley, or Patti LaBelle. They were all pretty big in their
own
right, and so was Boyz II Men. Yet, all of a sudden, Philly had become “Will Smith's Town.”

The next thing I knew, one of Juanita's girlfriends was dancing right beside us with no partner. She looked over at me and asked, “Are you Tracy Ellison, from
Flyy Girl
?”

I said, “Yeah,” expecting some drama, and playing it down.

My chocolate friend looked puzzled. “You were in a movie already?” he asked me.

I shook my head.

“
Flyy Girl
is a book,” the sister filled in, overhearing him. “I'll have to pick that up and see what it's like,” she said to me.

“You wrote a book?” my partner asked. He looked stunned, all wide-eyed and shit.

I said, “I gave my life story to a writer, and
he
wrote it.”

“Oh.”

“I heard it's some wild shit in that book too,” the sister commented with
a grin. I immediately thought about Juanita and wondered what she had said about me. With
Flyy Girl
and my nasty screenplay of
Crenshaw,
where the female lead screws both brothers, I felt that maybe Juanita had told her girls that I was a freak body.

I felt like fighting for my honor.

I turned to the sister and asked, “Juanita told you she read it?”

She looked shocked. I guess she didn't figure I would take the direct approach.

“Yeah, she read it.”

What else could she say? She couldn't lie about it, she had already put her foot in her mouth.

I asked, “Where is Juanita now?” I was ready to handle my business just like old times, and by myself too!

“She's, ah, somewhere around here.”

“Excuse me,” I said to my dance partner. I went to look for Sister New York, because I had a bone to pick with her. Juanita wasn't far from the dance floor either. She was standing alone and searching the crowd, probably looking for Reginald. It was perfect.

I said, “Hey, Juanita, Reginald told me you had gone back to New York. Did you get back in town recently?”

She looked at me and said, “I never left town,” with attitude.

“That's what I figured,” I told her. “It didn't make any sense to me. I didn't think that you would give up so easily and leave town. You seem as determined as I am to make it out here.”

She didn't have anything to say, so I kept going with my setup.

“So, I guess that you and Reginald aren't talking anymore then,” I baited her.

She went for it just like a fool.

“Why,
you
want him? You can
have
him.”

“Too skinny,” I said, shaking my head. “I like athletic guys myself. Reginald seems like he trips and falls over his own feet a lot. Don't you think?”

She just looked at me, still trying to figure out my angle.

“But I guess he was okay for you,” I added to the pot.

Juanita looked at me and finally asked, “What are you trying to say?”

I let her ass have it. “I'm saying that you don't represent New York
or
black intelligence too well, sister, if you're gonna come out here and act petty over some damn guy who's only out to get his
thing
wet. I could see his behind
ten
blocks away! And I'm a grown fuckin' woman now, so I
dare
you to raise your voice or your hands at me with some dumb shit, because that's exactly how you're acting. Dumb!

“Now if you have some issues you want to settle with me, instead of talking foul shit behind my back, you say it to my face, so we can squash that shit right here, right now, or however you want to do it!”

I had Victor on my mind, and pure violence in heart. I hadn't had a good fight in
years,
and I was still hurt from that crazy night in the hotel room, so I was just about ready to open up a can of whup-ass on anybody who wanted some just to make me feel better.

As it turned out, Juanita didn't want a damn thing, nor did her girlfriends. They looked at me as if I was a crazy woman and backed off. I guess they thought that I was a pure ghetto sister, but I was just under a bad moon and they came up against my full howl. Nevertheless, the drama was ready to ruin my night. I didn't feel so friendly anymore, and if I didn't feel friendly there was no sense in staying there.

To top things off, I bumped into Susan Raskin again.

She said, “Tracy, I thought that was you. Is everything all right?”

She looked timid. I guess she saw me in action and was afraid of me. That was all that I needed, my new white friend thinking that I was straight black and ghetto.

I sighed and said, “It's been a long day, Susan. What can I tell you?”

“I guess that this is a poetry moment,” she responded with a smile.

I looked at her and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes you just sit down and write a poem when you can't do anything else to change things.”