“I’m so sorry about what happened to you, Eve. That was trifling and I let Jackson know about it.”
Vanessa gave her a crooked smile. “Thank you, Nikki.”
“Are you coming back to work?”
Vanessa shook her head. “No. I just came to get my things and to pick up my final check.”
Nikki sighed in disappointment. “I understand. I don’t know if I could ever trust Kiki again either,” she whispered in a conspiratory manner. “A lot of people are pissed with her. They held a meeting about it and several performers wanted to know if Kiki had the power to steal their performances.”
Vanessa tried not to be interested but she couldn’t help herself. “And what did Kiki and Jackson have to say?”
“Well they wouldn’t promise that it wouldn’t happen again and tried to talk all around the issue. Finally Kiki just flat out said that it was her club, her show and the only reason any of them was around was to support her.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Looks like I made the right decision-”
“Well wait, listen to this. Dino threatened to quit. He even walked out and Kiki knows that Dino is the only reason she looks so good. So she promised that she wouldn’t take anyone’s performance without negotiating with them the rights to use it.”
Vanessa’s stomach turned at the mention of Dino. She looked away. “Well, I don’t think I care anymore. I’m out of here. Bye Nikki.” She headed for the back stage where the dressing rooms were located.
Nikki called after her. “Well come to the office when you get done and I’ll cut you your final check.”
Vanessa waved her hand in acknowledgement.
The dressing room was a mess as usual, with costumes folded over chairs and make-up strewn around. Vanessa always kept her things in her pouch and for the most part it was easy for people to keep their belongings straight.
She found a shopping bag and loaded her things into it. The costumes would stay behind—and she was suddenly happy that she was the slimmest woman on the show. No one else would ever be able to fit into them.
Vanessa didn’t linger. She didn’t want to run into any of the girls and also wanted to avoid getting into a Kiki and Jackson bashing match. She just wanted to get her stuff and leave. It wasn’t as if she’d had plans of staying forever, but leaving was harder than she had thought it would be. This had been her first job and although she had dressed in skimpy costumes with too much makeup, she had been allowed to sing for a living and that had been good.
With a sigh Vanessa headed to Jackson’s office only to see that the big boss was sitting at his desk waiting for her.
Vanessa kept her face carefully neutral. “I came to get my check, Jackson.”
“Yeah. Nikki told me.” He sighed. “Look Vanessa, I’ll admit that this situation was handled wrong-“
“You don’t say …”
Jackson met her eyes and then lowered them with a nod. “A year ago you came to work for me. I heard your voice and I knew you’d make the club a lot of money.”
Vanessa wanted to roll her eyes but didn’t. She was an adult and nothing these people did would make her lower herself. She was too good for that and obviously too good for any of them.
“You’re the best singer here.” Jackson admitted.
She resisted showing her confusion. He had not said the best other than Kiki—he had said the best. He spread his hands out on his desk as if to show that he was laying his cards out on the table.
“Look, I love Kiki. I’d marry her if she didn’t think it would affect her career. But I’m also a businessman. Vanessa you have an amazing draw. I allowed Kiki’s jealousy to influence how much exposure I gave you.”
Vanessa stared at him in dawning realization. Kiki was threatened by her. Vanessa had thought she was getting what the others got—but obviously Jackson felt that she should have been getting more.
Vanessa never knew that Kiki had held her back from becoming the star of the show …
“Look, I’m willing to offer you a raise and a more prominent position in the production. Kiki won’t touch your show or any others that you create. I promise.”
Visions of her name in lights on the billboard filled her head. She could be discovered and get signed to a singing contract. The money would be amazing. Vanessa nearly said yes. After all, money talked and bullshit walked.
But then she saw beyond Jackson’s immediate desires. He would just be pitting her and Kiki against each other. It wouldn’t be his intentions but that would be the reality. And in addition to that, she would have to work closely with Dino. It would make his life miserable—but it would do the same to her. And although money talked and bullshit walked, she refused to be surrounded by the animosity that his racism created or the jealousy that was evident in Kiki’s actions.
If Jackson could recognize her talent than someone else would also and maybe that person wouldn’t expect her to prance around half-dressed.
“No.”
He looked at her in surprise. “How many twenty year olds make seventy thousand a year?”
Vanessa shrugged. “You can’t be the only person who thinks my talents are worth that much. I’m sorry Jackson, but as long as Kiki’s here I’m not interested.”
“Vanessa …” he sighed. “I can’t get rid of my girlfriend …”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. Now may I have my check?”
“You aren’t going over to Butch’s club are you?”
Butch actually did run a strip club. He made as much, if not more money than Jackson’s club and he didn’t have singers, just performers who put on striptease shows. However, if he did have singers he would definitely give Jackson a run for his money.
She blinked innocently at him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I do intend to make sure I weigh all of my options.”
Jackson blew out a long breath and then he grabbed his checkbook and wrote her out a quick check.
“This is more. I want you to remember all that I’ve tried to do for you …”
Vanessa accepted the check and her brow rose at the three zeroes that followed the first two digits.
She folded the check and placed it into her purse. “Thank you. I do appreciate all you’ve done for me.” She turned and walked out of Jackson’s office—to his surprise.
When she was nearly out of the club she saw Dino from the corner of her eye. He was on stage and stopped to watch her leave. Neither spoke. There was nothing left to say.
Chapter Six
December 1984
“Come on Vanessa. Mama Rose would love to see Crash again. She thinks he’s her grandbaby.” Charisma was going through her closet for things to pack. Charisma’s mother and father were frequent visitors. They loved New York, Crash, their daughter and Vanessa—all in that order.
Vanessa was watching the way Crash was walking from one piece of furniture to the next. He’d finally figured out how to walk even with the bar between his feet. He simply swiveled from one foot to the other. It was cute and she couldn’t deny that Charisma’s mother; Mama Rose would love it.
Vanessa sighed and shook her head for the tenth time that week. She had no desire to return to Cincinnati—at least not until she made it big. Even thinking about it caused her anxiety level to rise. New York was a safe haven, even if she was still unemployed. Cincinnati reminded her of all of her failures and losses. She didn’t want to go back to that world.
Charisma sat on the bed next to her and Crash wobbled over to be picked up. Of course Charisma did. She gave him a smooch and continued talking.
“Truth of the matter is that I don’t think I can be away from this little boy for an entire week.” Charisma covered his cheeks with kisses. “Maybe you should let me take him with me.”
“Oh, you must be crazy!” Vanessa grabbed for her son playfully.
“You love that boy so much.” Charisma relinquished her hold on him and he crawled over to his mother willingly. “But there are some people i
n Cincinnati who would love him, too.”
This time Vanessa knew that she wasn’t talking about Mama Rose.
“You have never called your Grandmother-“ Charisma continued.
“I sent her a birthday card and told her that I was living in New York and doing well-“
“But you didn’t give her a return address or a phone number!”
Vanessa put her son back on the floor to continue his toddling. “Because I don’t forgive her. And I don’t think I can hold my tongue if I see her.”
“If you continue to punish your grandmother than one day you’re going to look back with regret on all the time you lost with her. She and Crash are the only blood family you have left, Van.”
Vanessa lowered her eyes accepting the truth of those words.
“It’s time to let her back into your life.”
Vanessa looked at her best friend, mulling over her words. She had never thought of it in those terms but now she realized that the reason she had never contacted any of them was to punish Scotty and her grandmother.
Charisma was right. She did need to mend some fences with the people she had just walked away from. There was no reason that she should have ever punished Phonso and Miss Gloria and the others just because Scotty had rejected her. And as for her grandmother, she loved her.
“I miss my grandmother,” she finally spoke. “Yeah. Maybe it is time."
Charisma grinned and hugged her. “Awesome. I’ll call the airline to reserve another plane ticket. Mama Rose already said she’d pay for it if you came!”
Charisma jumped off the bed with a squeal and ran to the telephone.
“Crash,” Vanessa whispered. He looked at her while rolling his toy car across the bed. “It’s time for us to go home.”
Vanessa’s stomach was twisted in knots when the plane landed at the Greater Cincinnati Airport. She had only been gone for a year and a half, and yet it felt twice that. In that time she had matured and could no longer recognize the young girl who had slunk out of Cincinnati with her tail between her legs.
Vanessa closed her eyes and recanted all of the lessons that she had learned since her childhood. She had become a mother and an independent woman. She had made a living from her own talents and she had formed a great friendship with Charisma. She had made decisions about the health and well-being of another living human and at the age of twenty she knew that she had what it took to face anything that life threw at her.
The little girl who had stood on the edge of the blacktop of Garden Hilltop, looking down the hill to the projects below, could not have known that she was born with the courage to face so much adversity. Back then she had stared down into the projects and wished to be like those that looked up the hill where she lived and wished to be her.
She remembered one time when she was riding in her mother’s Cadillac and singing old songs with her. Mama had popped a Donny Hathaway song into the eight-track and when it ended her mother had just nodded her head in a knowing way and said softly, ‘everything is everything’.
She had asked her mother what it meant. And then Vanessa was reliving that moment when she had been twelve years old and she had a mother who was still living and who loved her more than anything in the world.
“What does that mean?” Vanessa had asked.
“Everything is everything? It means that it is what it is.”
Vanessa giggled. “And what does that mean?”
Her mother smiled. “It means that what you see is what you get.”
Vanessa’s grin grew bigger. “But what does it mean?”
Her mother thought for a while. “Everything is everything means that there is nothing more than what is right before you. No tricks, no secrets; its all laid out.”
But Vanessa had learned another meaning of everything is everything. And she wanted to tell her mama that she understood and that she was so sorry. Life was a big cosmic circle in which history repeated itself. Her mother had left home in order to live her life and to raise her child. Her mother had taken a chance at love with a man that had crime in his heart and her mother had given life to someone so important that it trumped everything. And now Vanessa had done the same thing.
When she returned to New York she would work for Butch because even though it meant stripping, it also meant a grand a week. And with that money she could get a home for her and Crash, and make sure there was always enough money for his treatments.
Everything is everything.
Mama Rose swept Crash up and refused to be parted from him—at least until the smell from his diaper indicated that he was in need of a changing. Vanessa was fine with her spoiling him. She was tired and right after dinner she fell asleep in one of the twin beds in Charisma’s old bedroom and didn’t open her eyes again until the crack of dawn.
Feeling bad for ditching her son, she crept into Charisma’s mom and Dad’s room where she found Crash sprawled out in the middle of the bed between them. He had taken up so much of the room that the two adults were practically hanging off the edge.
Her poor son was marked for life. Because of the bar that he had to wear even while sleeping, he had no choice but to sleep with his legs splayed out and of course he naturally did the same with his arms until he lay with his limbs pointing to each corner of a bed. Poor Mr. And Mrs. Johnson.
Charisma’s Dad looked at Vanessa and said ‘Thank you,’ when she lifted her sleeping child into her arms. And then he rolled over and went back to sleep.
As she carried her son out of the room, Crash whined in his sleep and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles as if he was about to let out a wail, but she tucked him into the bed that she had just vacated and he immediately quieted down. The trip from New York had tired him out as well.
Guilt flooded her as she gazed down at him. She had denied Crash from knowing his own family. He knew Mama Rose better than he knew his own great grandmother. Well she was willing to take the blame for her part in it but in truth she probably would not have reacted any differently—other than leaving town without a word.
She placed a kiss on his forehead and then went to the kitchen to start coffee brewing.
First on the agenda was to visit grandma and hope that time had healed the old wounds. Second was to locate Phonso, although that was something that she was looking forward to—it was a totally different story when it came to Bertha Mae, though. Vanessa sipped her coffee and contemplated how she would approach her grandmother.
‘Hi grandma. Merry Christmas. How have you been? Me? Oh, I have a baby …’
Vanessa’s stomach began to twist and turn again. What was the matter with her? She didn’t need her grandmother’s approval!
She hopped up and got showered and then dressed in a wool skirt and a cashmere sweater. For months she had been plastering on theatrical makeup nearly on a daily basis and it felt good to be dressed sophisticated with a clean face.
She pulled her long hair up into a top-tail and then looked at her watch and waited until eight o’clock. No one should call someone before that time. And if everything went okay after they spoke on the telephone, she would hop in a cab to her grandmother’s house.
After taking another deep, cleansing breath Vanessa picked up the telephone and dialed the familiar telephone number.
Bertha Mae answered the telephone expecting to speak to another tele-marketer that wanted her to change her long distance supplier. She had no reason to change it because she never made or accepted long distance calls.
“Hello?” She said tersely.
Vanessa hesitated. “Grandma? Hi. It’s V-“
“Vanessa?”
To Vanessa, her grandmother sounded as if she was speaking to a ghost. Her voice had grown soft with disbelief.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh my Lord, child. I’m so—I didn’t know … if I’d ever hear from you again.”
Vanessa’s throat felt tight. “I’m sorry it took me so long to call you.”
“Where are you baby?
Are you alright?”
Vanessa cleared her throat and knew that she was going to cry. Her grandmother sounded so terribly sad.
“I’m here in Cincinnati and … I was hoping to be able to come visit you.”
“Of course baby. I can make us a nice meal …”
Vanessa smiled past her tears. It was just like in the old days when grandma always had to mark an important occasion with a big meal.
“Okay,” Vanessa said with a broad smile on her face. “But … is it okay if I come now?”
Her grandmother chuckled. “I’m not doing anything but warding off these tele-marketing calls. Come on over, sweetie. How long are you going to be in town?” Grandma asked hopefully.
“Just a few days.”
Vanessa heard her grandmother hesitate. “Okay,” she finally said.
Vanessa opened her mouth to mention that she had a child. But the words wouldn’t come. “I’ll be there shortly,” she stated simply.
After feeding him his breakfast, Vanessa bundled up Crash and then took a cab to her grandmother’s house. Vanessa missed that there were always back-to-back taxicabs in New York, waiting for someone to wave them down. Vanessa wondered why it was different in the mid-west.
It had taken her nearly two years and now she was anxious? She chuckled to herself and the cabdriver looked at her suspiciously from the rear view mirror.
“Do you know where we’re going?” She asked Crash who watched the world as it travelled rapidly past the window. Vanessa turned Crash around to face her.
“We’re going to see my grandmama. Can you say grandmama?”
“My mama.” Crash said.
Vanessa laughed. “Am I your mama?”
“My mama,” he said seriously, evidently not understanding what she thought was so funny. She hugged him and he allowed it for a moment before squirming down from her lap to kneel by the window.
“I know grandma’s going to love you,” she whispered while stroking his hair.
Chapter Seven