Robin said, “Tracy, you have theee coming-of-age book. No other book comes close to it.”
“Sister Souljah’s,” Maddy commented.
Robin said, “Yeah, but everybody’s daddy is not a drug dealer. I’m sorry, but I did not relate to that one.”
“A lot of people do though,” Maddy argued.
“Generation gap,” Robin commented. “Flyy Girl has less of a generation gap, and I believe that more black women, in general, will relate to it. So this film can reach a much wider audience. Hell, even white girls can relate to running too fast after the wrong boys.”
“Asians, too,” Sasha spoke up with a proud grin.
“And Latinas,” Jasmine told her.
“I can’t see why we can’t do both movies,” Maddy suggested. “We have a lot of different perspectives in the black community.”
Robin said, “Oh, believe me, if The Coldest Winter Ever or Flyy Girl gets made, and either one of them is successful at the box office, you can plan on seeing many more of them. That’s just how Hollywood works.”
“They didn’t make a lot more movies after Set It Off,” Alexandria finally spoke up. She had been quiet for most of the ride.
Robin smiled and said, “Yeah, you’re right. But they didn’t need to make more movies like that one. That movie had the wrong messages everywhere you looked.”
“But it was about sisterhood,” Alexandria commented.
“That movie was about foolishness,” Robin argued strongly.
Alexandria smiled it off. She said, “Sisters can be foolish, too. That’s all a part of real life. Everyone can’t play the good-girl roles.”
“Yeah, but it seems like the bad girls get all the attention,” I commented myself. I had been quiet, too, just listening to everyone.
Tracy nodded to me. She said, “That reminds me.” She held her index finger up and kept her thoughts to herself for the moment.
But when we arrived at Freedom Theater for that third day of casting, she pulled me aside and said, “I want you to go out with me to dinner tonight. Raheema’s coming into town this afternoon, and I’m going out to eat with her and Mercedes, and I want you to be there to vibe with us.”
I was speechless. It was an honor.
I said, “Okay. But what about my girls?”
I didn’t want to just abandon them in Philadelphia.
Tracy answered, “I’ll have Robin hang out with them tonight.”
So what else could I say?
“Okay.”
* * *
I was sitting at a four-chair table with Tracy and Raheema at the Zanzibar Blue restaurant and jazz club on Broad Street downtown. And I was nervous. I had met Raheema a little earlier at the casting call when she stopped by, but to have her and her sister Mercedes at the same table was different. It was as if I could feel the tension before Mercedes even arrived.
“Excuse me, aren’t you Tracy Ellison Grant, the actress and book author?” a long-blond-haired white woman stepped up and asked.
Tracy looked up and nodded to her. “Yes, I am.”
The blond woman flashed a million-dollar smile on cue. She looked like a tall, lean, top-flight model.
She said, “I love your work. Let me give you my card.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a card to hand to Tracy.
She said, “I’m Ellen Carter, runway model and aspiring actress myself. So if you need a blonde in any of your upcoming films to beat up or tell off, then I’m your girl.”
It was a great line. She got a laugh out of us.
Tracy took her card and said, “I’ll think of something.”
As soon as the woman left us, Raheema grinned and commented, “I guess she feels that you can’t get along with a white woman in your films.”
Tracy shrugged. “Maybe I can’t. I haven’t gotten along with them so far.”
I tried to relax and just enjoy their company. But then Raheema looked dead at me.
“So, how do you get along with your sisters?” she asked me out of the blue. Her hair was cut shorter than Mercedes’s, with the same fine texture, and her complexion was as light as mine. She wore a dark blue pants and shirt set that blended in with the dark ambience of the restaurant. Her personality was extremely calm and professional. She carried herself like the college professor that she was, and she was in her early thirties, like Tracy.
I said, “Actually, I was supposed to take my sister out to eat, too.”
“Who, Veronica?” Tracy asked me.
“Yup.”
“And she didn’t want to hear about you being busy, did she?” Tracy assumed.
I didn’t want to put all the blame on my sister.
I answered, “I should have taken her out to eat Sunday. I did promise it to her.”
Tracy said, “You’ll do it tomorrow. We’ll have even more downtime then.”
I said, “And now Tiffany keeps asking me about the casting call and being an extra in the movie.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tracy told me. “If we shoot it in Philadelphia, she’ll be in the movie. And most likely, we’ll be shooting this movie in Philadelphia.”
Raheema smiled. She asked, “How many of the roles have you locked in already?”
“None,” Tracy answered. “Nothing is set in stone until this film has been green-lighted with a giant paycheck.”
“When do you find that out?”
“Really, there’s no time line on it. I’ve written the screenplay, we’re casting people, we’re scouting locations, we’re identifying food caterers, we’re thinking about directors. . . . The more we can account for in a prospectus budget, the easier it becomes for producers to back us on it.”
Raheema nodded. “I see. So in other words, you’re getting the party started so the producers can decide if they would like to dance to the music or not.”
“Exactly.”
I became more concerned with watching the entrance of the restaurant for when Mercedes would make her grand entrance. I understood how much of a stir Mercedes was capable of making, so I guess I was expecting a display of fireworks from her.
“Excuse me, do you mind if I ask you for an autograph. You can sign it on the back of my card.”
I looked up and spotted a dark brown man in a dark sports jacket and a burgundy tie. He placed his business card on the table next to Tracy, face up. But she picked it up and gave it right back to him unsigned.
She looked into his handsome dark face and said, “Maybe when I’m done eating.”
He nodded and said, “I’ma hold you to that. By the way, my name is Rick Bailey. I’m an attorney.”
She said, “Yes, I saw that.”
“So I’ll speak to you later then?” he pressed her.
“We’ll see.”
When he walked away, Tracy looked irritated. She told Raheema, “It looks like I’m gonna have to tell these people at the restaurant to put some security guards around us or something to stop people from fucking up our dinner.”
“You mean security guards around you. The rest of us are just fine,” Raheema stated. Then she looked down at her gold-plated watch. “It looks just like old times,” she commented of Mercedes’s tardiness.
Tracy only grinned at her while taking a sip of the chicken broth appetizer she had ordered.
It was nearing ten o’clock, and the dinner meeting had been set for nine. But we hadn’t arrived until quarter after nine ourselves.
Of course, as soon as I stopped watching the entranceway, Mercedes slid inside the door and made her way over to the table to surprise us.
“Nobody was here at nine, so I made a quick stop at the bookstore,” she explained to us as she took the empty seat directly across from me. She carried a Borders purchase bag in her left hand with a black leather purse in her right. Opposite Raheema’s dark blue, Mercedes wore blinding yellow that stood out in the dark.
Tracy smiled at her. “No big deal,” she commented. “We’re all here now.?
??
“This is your cousin, Vanessa?” Mercedes asked in reference to me.
“Yeah.”
Mercedes reached her hand across the table to me. I took it in mine and shook it lightly.
“So now I finally get to place your face,” she stated. We had talked briefly over the phone on several occasions. Mercedes then shook Raheema’s and Tracy’s hands as if we were all at a serious business meeting. I guess she was thinking all business.
“I was at the casting call the other day when you stopped by, too,” I told her.
“Yeah, I was just in the neighborhood that night and remembered that Tracy was at Freedom Theater.”
I didn’t believe her, but I wondered how badly I was judging her based on the books that Tracy had published. I realized that Mercedes was right, I was judging her behavior almost solely on the material that I had read about her. So what would everyone else do?
“You need to order,” Raheema told her. “We got tired of waiting for you.”
Mercedes picked up the menu that was set out on the table in front of her. She said, “It’s a simple order for me. If all else fails, order chicken.”
And that’s what she ordered when the waitress came back to serve us.
“So now we have two books and a movie about us in the works,” Mercedes commented.
“You don’t feel good about it?” Raheema asked her. “I look like a crybaby and a wimp in the first one, and a survivor in the second.”
Mercedes grunted, “Hmmph. Well, I don’t look good in either one of them.” Then she looked at me.
“What would you do in my position, Vanessa?”
She had me on the spot. I was only there to observe. Why was she calling me out?
I said, “The only thing I can think about doing is making sure that my life has changed so I can use whatever as a stepping-stone.”
It was the best answer I could come up with to play both sides of the coin. The truth was the truth, but every person deserved their right to privacy. Then again, Mercedes’s right to privacy would kill a major part of our movie. And I call it “our movie” because Tracy’s story had become very meaningful to everyone, and Mercedes happened to be a major part of that story. Therefore, the overall power of the book overruled Mercedes’s own concern for privacy. She was still able to live and be employed. She just had to make the best out of her life. Hell, if she chose, she could have used her downfalls as a teenaged drug addict to speak at drug centers across the country about how to turn your life around after being addicted and decimated by recreational drugs. However, I didn’t dare say that to her in public. I would offer that advice to Mercedes in private, and hope that she wouldn’t chew my head off for it.
She stared at me and grinned. “Use it as a stepping-stone, hunh? To do what?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Tracy told me. She was already becoming irritated with Mercedes, but I figured I could handle myself, so I answered her question anyway.
I said, “You could speak about it and make your story just as important as Tracy’s and Raheema’s. I mean, it is, really. Without you, there would be no Tracy or Raheema. Somebody had to start things in motion, and that somebody just happens to be you.”
“Start things in motion?”
Mercedes eyed me across the table with a grill. I don’t believe my attempted logic was making the situation any better.
Raheema said, “She’s right, both of us were drastically affected by you.”
“Oh, so now everything is my fault?” Mercedes asked us.
“Yeah, it’s your fault,” Tracy told her. “Without you, none of us would be famous.”
Mercedes said, “I have nothing to do with what you did, Tracy. Are you gonna give me credit for writing your poetry, too?”
It was a complicated question.
Tracy said, “I give you the credit for creating the stimulus of my thought process, but it was up to me to decide how to transform that into something that can be used for all of us.”
Great answer! I was proud of my cousin.
Raheema said, “We all have that choice to challenge ourselves and make something positive out of the chaos that may be around us. And the truth is, your situation brought both of our families back together in a stronger way, Mercedes. Tracy was on her way to being kicked out of her house, and I had no way of healing my own pain without you coming back home like you did. So you have to stop looking at it as if you were going through everything by yourself. We were there with you all of the time, and we still are. You’re our big sister no matter what.”
Wow! I felt like crying and calling my own two sisters. You’re our big sister no matter what? That statement from Raheema meant a lot to me. I was a big sister myself. And Mercedes couldn’t argue with it.
“Hmmph,” she grunted again. “Some big sister I am. I should be proud of both of you. But all I’m thinking about is myself.”
No one responded to that.
Mercedes took a deep breath and said, “Okay. So you guys wanna make this movie. I just have to deal with it then. I can’t stop you from telling the truth.”
“Nobody’s gonna chastise you about the role you play in it once they see the entire film. You have the most redeeming role in the movie, hands down,” Tracy commented. “It has to be there. And it’s gonna outshine both of us.”
Mercedes let it all sink in. She nodded her head at the table and said, “Okay.” Then she smiled. “So, who’s gonna play me?” she asked.
Tracy smiled right back at her. She answered, “We don’t know yet. We’ll keep working on it. But whoever it is, they’ll have to act their asses off.”
“I know that’s right,” Raheema agreed with a chuckle.
“Yeah, because the real thing is a serious character,” Tracy added.
Mercedes looked at them both and said, “Look here, don’t patronize me. I know good bullshit when I hear it. Now, I’ll let y’all do this movie without interfering, but I still won’t like it until it’s all over and done with.”
I sat there and listened and made note of everything. I still didn’t feel that Mercedes understood the importance of her story within Tracy’s and Raheema’s stories. It would never be all over and done with. Once we made a movie based on the book, based on real life, all of their stories would become an urban bible, whether they liked it or not.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
That was beautiful the way you two explained your love to Mercedes tonight,” I told my cousin.
Tracy just looked at me and shook her head with a frown. She said, “That conversation is hardly over with. Mercedes is gonna need money, or think she needs money, long before this film is in the can. And she is most definitely going to ask me for it.”
We were on our way back to the hotel, and since Zanzibar Blue on Broad Street was literally three blocks away from the Marriott on Market Street, we decided to walk.
I smiled and asked, “So, you think she’s going to continue to bring up money, hunh?”
Tracy gave me a look and didn’t bother to repeat herself. I got the point. She knew Mercedes well. And Tracy never did autograph a business card for Mr. Bailey. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. My cousin already had her hands full, and a new man was not on her menu.
* * *
When we arrived back at the hotel, I began to think about Jason and Alexandria again.
“So, did Robin take my girls out, do you know?” I asked Tracy. I was just about to call them on the cell phone.
“As far as I know, they went out somewhere,” she told me.
I decided to knock on their doors and check their rooms before I called them.
“So, what are you gonna do for the rest of the night, order some movies?” my cousin asked me. It was after eleven o’clock.
“Probably not,” I answered. “All I seem to do is fall asleep when I order hotel movies. I guess it’s too much of a relaxed environment for me.”
Tracy smiled at me. She sai
d, “Well, I may have someone else for you to meet tomorrow. My girl Kiwana is coming down to the casting, and I’ve already made a couple of phone calls to get in contact with Bruce.”
I looked into her eyes to make sure.
I said, “You’re gonna contact Bruce from your high school days?”
“Why, is there something wrong with that?”
“I mean, what are you gonna ask him?”
“You just let me do the talking, girl,” she huffed at me. “You don’t worry about that, just listen and keep an open mind.”
“So, how many of your old friends are you planning to meet up with?”
She told me, “Plenty of them. I have a few more phone calls to make right now to track them all down. Why, are you afraid to meet them?” she asked me. “They’re all regular people. And you better get used to meeting all kinds of people if you want to be in the film business, Vanessa. You won’t have any time for being shy.”
Once she got started, who would ever think that I actually had to push my cousin into producing her life story for film? She was really taking the bull by the horns.
I said, “I’m not afraid to talk to them, I just have to prepare myself for it.”
We had made it up to my floor on the elevator.
Tracy said, “Prepare for what? You listen, respond, and take your mental notes. What’s there to prepare for?”
I was at a loss for words when the elevator doors opened.
“Uhhh . . . okay,” I told her.
Tracy held the doors open. She said, “If you must, then put a few of your thoughts down in reference to Bruce, Victor, Carl, Kiwana . . . I mean, you’ve read enough about all of them to have plenty of questions and comments. So prepare away, and I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
* * *
I was certainly excited at being an insider on all of the meetings between Tracy and her old friends, I was just a little nervous about it, that’s all. Who wouldn’t be? These people were practically icons as far as I was concerned.
Anyway, as soon as I approached my hotel room, I remembered that I wanted to check up on my girls. I walked to Sasha and Jasmine’s room and heard nothing, so there was no sense in even knocking on their door. They were not in. Jasmine even slept with the television on loud. I felt sorry for Sasha. Then again, Sasha had a way of tuning things out and zoning into her own little world. So I guess the two of them were a perfect tandem of friends.