For the Love of Money

  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 c
huckle.

  “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?”

  “Like to where?”

  “I don’t know, Atlanta or someplace?”

  “Sometimes I do, but I like it here,” he answered. “What about you?”

  “I like it here too, but sometimes, when you stay home too long, you start to feel like you haven’t done anything.” That was all that I planned to say about my relocation.

  Mike chuckled and said, “I know the feeling, but whenever I’m away too long, I can’t wait to come back home. So I know that Philly is the only place for me until I feel differently.”

  He pulled his clothes off and finished the job with our naked bodies clashing. I cooled down and took a shower after he had left to wash the lust away. After I pulled the wet sheets from my bed, I called my girl Raheema at home in North Jersey, well after midnight. Regardless of the time, I had something to say. She was used to my late-night phone calls anyway. Sometimes I would just leave a message for her.

  She didn’t pick up when I called that night, so I left another message on her machine:

  “Well, girl, you said it when we were still living on Diamond Lane, ‘Tracy, you’re gonna be rich and famous one day, if you keep writing stuff like that.’ Remember that?

  “Well, I’m getting set to go out to Hollywood and try my luck. And my book by Omar is coming back out this year too. So it took me a little while to get back on track for this, but everything happens for a reason. So here I go. And I’ll talk to you when—”

  BLOOOP!

  The damn machine cut me off. Was that a sign that I wasn’t going to make it? I called Raheema right back and finished my message.

  “Like I was saying, I’ll talk to you when you call me. And I will make things happen when I go back out to California. You can count on it, or my name ain’t Tracy.”

  I hung up and wrote another poem, “A Mission,” before I crashed in a fresh bra and panties on clean bedsheets.

  Camara

  Kiwana named me Camara,

  one who

  teaches

  from experience.

  But when will

  I learn

  from my own

  lessons?

  When will

  you

  learn

  from yours?

  Copyright © 1992 by Tracy Ellison

  April 2000

  I went home and took a nap before leaving my parents’ house at lunchtime. I was headed for King of Prussia Mall on I-76 West. The Wendy Williams morning show was no longer on the air by then, and I felt safe enough to listen to Power 99 again. They were playing Will Smith’s classic anthem, “Summertime.” That song had to be at least eight years old, but in Philly, everybody still loved it. When that song played, I thought back to my college years. I was a lot more subdued at that time, waiting for Victor to sweep me up off my feet when he got out of jail, which never fucking happened. I was a damn fool, saving myself for nothing. So I grew sour and turned the song off, tired of the hurtful reminders of my heart wound. Who the hell needs bad memories on their mind?

  When I arrived at the mall, I had to decide where I wanted to park. King of Prussia had to be one of the largest malls in the country, and they were always adding something new to it, including parking lots. I had been going there to shop for as long as I had a license to drive, especially after discovering they had no taxation on clothing. You could just about buy an extra outfit or a pair of shoes from the savings, and I usually did. I planned to hit the mall and splurge in a big way!

  I used the restroom in Nordstrom’s and entered the second level of the mall, and a sharp-looking white man with slick dark hair in a tailored gray business suit stopped me immediately.

  “Tracy Ellison Grant.”

  He said my name as if we were old friends, but we were not. I waited for him to explain himself.

  “I have to tell ya, I just loved your performance in Led Astray,” he said excitedly.

  He didn’t appear to be the kind of man who got excited about much. He looked very poised and calculating, like a million-dollar-a-year lawyer.

  “Oh, well, thank you,” I responded.

  “And you wrote the screenplay yourself?” he asked me.

  He had even done his homework.

  “Yes, I did.”

  He shook his head, amazed by me, and didn’t know what else to say. I was used to the glazed eyes of men, going all the way back to high school. I smiled, because I knew that he would break his neck to take me out, if I went that way.

  I started to thank him again and excuse myself, but he was not ready for me to leave.

  “My name is Tom Slayer,” he said, pulling out a business card.

  I took it and looked it over. It read “Loebe, Lewis & Slayer, Attorneys at Law.”I nodded and grinned at him. I was right again: he was a big-time lawyer.

  “You don’t look old enough to be a partner. I guess you’re a real go-getter then,” I flattered him. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-eight.”

  “You’re married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Two kids?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  I nodded back to him. “Your wife couldn’t take the pressure?”

  He grinned, big and guilty.

  “You’re the writer. You tell me the story. So what are you working on next?” he asked me.

  “Shopping,” I hinted. He was holding me up, and I was not interested. He pressed his luck anyway.

  “Well, how long are you in town? Maybe we could do dinner or something. You know, I can talk about law money and you could talk about Hollywood money. I’m sure we both have plenty of stories to tell.”

  “I’m sure we do,” I told him, “but I’m just about booked up with family and friends. Outside of that, I would like some time to myself.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes the days move a little too fast,” he said. “But let’s say you, ah, hold on to my number, and who knows, maybe I could fly out to Hollywood and you show me around out there. I’m game. Maybe I could find a few stars out there to represent. I’m assuming that you have representation already.”

  He was smiling like a kid who had just caught a baseball at the Phillies game. He was really putting himself out there for me. That was the difference I had learned concerning whi
te men and black men while out in Hollywood. I hate to say it, but white men were a lot more determined. However, I couldn’t get past the history of white men and black women in America to fall for one. White men had had their way with us long enough.

  I said, “Yes, I do have a lawyer, but I’ll think about that visit,” just to get away from him.

  “Please do,” he told me.

  When I walked away, I was afraid to look back, embarrassed to catch his eyes glued on my ripe ass. I wore blue jeans that were not tight enough for extra attention, but not loose enough to hide my curves either.

  I just kept right on walking until a short, dark brown sister noticed me.

  “Tracy Ellison Grant. I heard you on Power 99 this morning.” She shook her head and said, “Girl, don’t you worry about that lesbian stuff, just keep right on making that money. I sure would.”

  I told her “Thank you,” smiled, and kept walking. I figured that I would never be able to shop in the Philadelphia area at night or on the weekend when the stores were actually crowded. I could barely walk through the mall while it was halfway empty, and King of Prussia was filled with mostly white shoppers who wouldn’t notice me. It wasn’t as if I was Julia Roberts or anything. I was just a local black girl who had made one movie.

  I noticed a few more stares as I walked, but I had to ignore them. I couldn’t react to everything, but I did feel a bit uncomfortable about it. It was my first shopping spree in the Philadelphia area since my movie was released in February. I didn’t want my hometown fans to think that I was stuck on myself. They probably loved me more than anyone. Nevertheless, shouldn’t I be allowed to shop in peace like everyone else?

  I didn’t walk into any shops until I saw the Enzo shoe store on the bottom level. Comfortable shoes were always number one in my book, no matter what I wore.

  As soon as I walked in I came face-to-face with Kiwana, my college friend from Cheyney State University during my high school years at Germantown. Kiwana had graduated from Cheyney and moved back to New York during my sophomore year at Hampton. She had been my number-one positive influence to get me back on track from my reckless flyy years. When we set eyes on each other inside of Enzo’s, we just about lost our minds!