For the Love of Money

  First he was pumping up my head. I spoke very carefully.

  I said, “Stepping stone? Is that all you think of Conditions of Mentality? I thought it was your baby.”

  “Oh, it is, but babies grow up and then you find new hobbies.”

  “Is that right? New hobbies like what?”

  “Well, feature films, of course. Some people have it, some people don’t. And you, Tracy, I can tell, you have it.”

  There it was. Tim Waterman wanted to be my mentor in the same way that Reginald was trying, with a little bit of S-E-X on the side. I could feel the vibes from him. I already knew that Tim was a big-time flirt, and with the feature film talk, he had bigger bait, but I was smart enough to know that I was nowhere near feature film material. One damn script wasn’t worth all of the attention that I was getting. Or maybe I was underestimating myself, particularly since “The Seduction” was written while in a state of minor depression. However, writing for feature films was my goal for the near future.

  I played the starstruck role and asked, “You really think I have what it takes?”

  “Sure you do. I give you a year and a half, and you’ll have something piping hot for the studios to fight over.”

  I chuckled to myself. Tim took the terms bullshit and game to another level. I guess he really thought that I was a damn fool.

  I said, “Well, I thank you for having so much confidence in me.”

  “No, you’ve earned it. You came right on board with your ideas and made our entire staff better. Some of the writers won’t admit to it, but they know that it’s the truth, Tracy. You’re the bomb, baby!”

  Oh my God! I thought to myself. I couldn’t believe he had used the word bomb on me. I had to stop myself from laughing in his ear.

  He said, “Oh, I’m not pulling your leg here at all, even though they’re sexy.”

  When he said that, I stopped smiling. He was scaring me. I didn’t want to be in an awkward position with my boss. My job was just beginning to get interesting. I didn’t need any complications surrounding it. So I thought of making up a lie to get off of the phone and recuperate.

  I let out a fake yawn and said, “Oh my God, I need to get some rest, I’ve been up since early this morning. I’m sorry, Tim. Maybe we can finish this discussion tomorrow or something. I’m just too tired right now. I’m sorry.”

  I know it was corny as hell, but I was desperate to get the hell off of the phone.

  My boss went for the kill anyway. “Well, how about you just say that we’ll do dinner together one of these days, just to talk about where you would like to go in your career. Maybe I could point you in a few directions.”

  I got nervous and faked another yawn. “I’m just so tired, I can’t even think right now. I’m sorry.” I was hating myself for the weak bullshit, but I just didn’t want to deal with my boss’s invitations to me until I had a minute to think about it.

  He said, “Well, you get some rest, Tracy, and think it over. Lunch, dinner, breakfast, whatever. As long as I can sit down and go a few rounds with you,” he said.

  “Go a few rounds?” I questioned.

  “Oh, that’s just guy talk for the ropes. You know, boxing ropes, and the ropes of the business.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. At first, I thought he was talking about getting drunk with rounds of alcohol. “Well, we’ll see,” I told him, noncommittal. I definitely didn’t want to make any promises to him.

  “Great!” he responded as if I had promised him a date anyway.

  I hung up the phone with my boss and panicked. I felt trapped. Would he find a way to fire me if I didn’t play ball with him? I was a nervous wreck again. My mother was killing me with all of her predictions. How could I get from under her damn spell?

  “Shit! These motherfuckin’ men!” I shouted. “I didn’t come out here to sleep around. Fuck that! And fuck that job too if that’s how it’s gonna be,” I told myself. However, giving up a nice income was not going to be that easy. I was already getting used to the money. Nevertheless, I was not planning on fucking my boss to keep my job.

  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 answe
r 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.”

  She was right on point. I asked her, “Are you a poet too?” I didn’t put it past her.

  She smiled and shook her head, “No, but I know the inspiration. All artists have it. They have a way of taking regular everyday things and shedding light on them with their deep introspection.”

  I nodded, thinking, Damn! This white girl is just too cool.

  I said, “So you think that I’m an artist?”

  She grinned at me. “Of course you are. You have the words passionate artist written all over you. It’s in your veins. I know enough gifted people to be able to tell.”

  I’m sure you do, I thought to myself, referring again to her family ties. Although I didn’t want to use Susan to make my way in Hollywood, I still figured that we could kick it because we clicked. So we hung out for the rest of the night until close to three o’clock in the morning.