For the Love of Money (28 page)

Vanessa broke up laughing again. I bet she never had anyone talk to her before like I was, but I couldn't front on her. I
went
through all of that crazy shit.

I stopped and said, “I need to write a poem about
that.
Let me jot that down. ‘A Sweet, Tight Push.'”

I asked her, “Did you think that I would get back with Victor when he got out of jail?”

She smiled. She didn't even have to answer me. I knew her answer already. Too many girls believed in that damn fairy tale.

I said, “The truth is, he was still a
boy,
trying his hardest to hold on to his
girl
from jail, but I can't front because he's a
man
now. He just didn't become a man with me. And that's
real.
”

I looked out at the water and had nothing left to say. I was all talked the hell out and feeling lonely for some reason. I had a long-ass journey in my life, and for what, to come home to nobody? Something didn't seem right with that, and the money and fame changed nothing.

I took a deep breath and stood up.

Vanessa smiled and said, “You need to wipe off your skirt.”

I didn't care about any damn skirt. If I did, I wouldn't have sat there in the first place. I could take the whole damn suit to the Salvation Army and buy a new one. I just couldn't buy it at a mall in my hometown where everybody knew me. However, since I had to drive my father's car, I had to brush off my skirt anyway.

“They have water fountains near the building to wash your hands,” Vanessa told me.

I grunted at her. “Okay, Ms. Neat.”

I washed my hands and dried them against the front of my skirt. I looked at Vanessa. She looked shell-shocked, as if she didn't know what to say to me, so she looked away.

I chuckled and said, “I'm sorry, little cousin. I shouldn't take my frustrations out on you.”

She looked back at me and asked, “Frustrations about what?”

She didn't get it.
No one
seemed to get it! That's why I had to write a new book about it. Fame
was not
all good.

I said, “I can't shop at the damn malls. I almost got carjacked right around the corner from my parents' house. People have a million different opinions about my movie. Some people
think
that I'm Mrs. Santa Claus now with a bunch of presents and goodies for everybody. I just found out yesterday that one of my most positive girlfriends married a white man, and now she tells me that brothers can't handle women like
us,
who have something we would like to do in our lives. Then my
best
girlfriend Raheema, who was
terrified
of guys when we were next-door neighbors, ends up with a smart, handsome brother, and she just invited me up to their house in New Jersey for the weekend, so they can smile all up in my face with their two kids and have a great damn time while I sit there looking like a fool with no damn man, and no damn family of my own.

“And I
need
to put all of this shit in a new book somewhere, but Omar Tyree won't fucking write it, because he's on some other shit now, and my agent feels that if I write it myself, it may not sell as well because too many people wouldn't be able to make the connection between the two. Or I may not write it as well as Omar can,
nor
do I have the
time
to write the shit in the first place.”

After all of that, Vanessa just stood there motionless with a grin on her face and didn't know what to do.

I said, “Now can I get a big hug, cousin? Famous people need love, too.
Real
love.”

She didn't say a word. She just smiled, stepped over, and hugged me.

I said, “And I'm
not
a lesbian either.”

Vanessa leaned back and said, “What?”

“I guess you didn't hear about that on the
Williams Wendy Show
then?”

“The
Wendy Williams Show?”
she corrected me.

“Yeah, whatever.
Her.
You know who I'm talking about.”

Vanessa laughed and said, “Nobody believes all that stuff she says.”

“Good,” I said. We walked back to the car together.

I asked, “Okay, where do you want to go? And if people come up and bother me, I'll just tell them, ‘Look, I'm out with my cousin right now, and this is
our time
to be family.'”

Vanessa climbed into the car and shrugged. “I don't know.”

I took a deep breath and turned the ignition.

“All right then, we'll just go wherever. I'm okay with that. As long as you
do
know where you want to go in your life,” I told her. I backed out of the parking space and hit Kelly Drive again.

“Age nineteen is
not
the end of the world,” I added. “I just want you to realize that before this pretty boy calls you back trying to
promise
the world to you, because he
can't
give it to you.
Nor
will his ass even try.”

My momma told me
when I was young,
“Don't eat too much of that chocolate.”
She said it only tastes good
when it's a bite.

But I was hard headed,
so I bought the whole box
and ate every piece
until the sweet turned sour in my mouth.

Not sour like candy,
but sour like rotten milk.
Lumpy.

And I hurled,
because I was sick
to my stomach,
sick
to my heart.

And I had to wrap it back up,
and throw it away,
even when it still looked good.

Copyright © 1997 by Tracy Ellison

Y
olanda was right.
Conditions of Mentality,
a science fiction show, turned out to be a valuable strategy for my future, and once the writing staff realized that I was pretty good at looking over their scripts, I was able to roll along smoothly in my first Hollywood job. I even felt confident enough in my new employment to go out and finally buy some furniture.

Working for an hour-long science fiction show topped employment for a black, half-hour sitcom by a long-shot! It wasn't so much a money thing, but an experience thing. Number one:
Conditions
was not just another funny show, but an intelligent action drama, utilizing scripts that flowed with plenty of edginess to keep you guessing. So I learned the formula of writing intelligent scripts that moved and kept you on edge. Number two: Since we did not use the same actors every week, we worked like a mini movie production team. Number three: A lot of our scripts were actually submitted from outside writers, so I had a chance to see a variety of different styles and who used them. I also had a chance to see plenty of B- and C-list actors, so that I could study what made the difference between them and the higher-paid, more recognized A-list actors. To be honest about that, it looked to me as if a lot of it had to do with better looks, powerful agents, and more confidence in your dramatic delivery. I had the good looks and the confidence to act, but a powerful agent I did
not
have; a strong agent
and
a few acting classes, of course. However, first thing was first, breaking into the
writing
game.

After a while, I started coming up with ideas of my own for the show,
but I dared not to bounce them around with the other staff members until I could complete a script that I felt confident enough to have produced. Otherwise, my ideas would have been developed either without me, or as a cowriter. Not on my life would I allow that to happen. I wanted the entire credit like other writers were getting, whether I was an “assistant” to the show or not.

However, before I actually completed anything, I took a couple of days off at the end of January for Raheema's wedding back home in Philadelphia. It turned out that Ernest, her fiancé, had an older cousin who preached at a church in North Philly, right off of Broad Street near downtown. Hotel accommodations were made at the Four Seasons. Very nice!

$   $   $

After being away from home for five months, and as dry as I was with no love life established in California, I pressed my luck and called my old friend Mike when I got back into town on a Thursday night. We had stayed in touch with each other off and on, but not on any serious note. For all I knew, Mike had a new woman.

“I'm not intruding on anything am I?” I asked him outright over the phone. I guess my girl's wedding occasion made me ask him that question. I wanted to respect the space of a sister who Mike could have been getting serious about.

“Naw, I'm still a free man,” he told me with a chuckle.

Typical; even if there
was
another woman, Mike was willing to pick right up where we left off. I guess if
I
were the other woman, I would have been pissed. Since I was not, his freedom was my good fortune.

“Well, I'll try and call you tomorrow night or Saturday to hook up. I have to see how loaded my schedule is first.”

“That's cool with me. I look forward to seeing you again.”

I repeated his words to myself when we hung up. “I look forward to seeing you again.” That didn't sound like much of anything to me. I thought,
Whatever happened to something like, “I missed you so much that I can't
wait
to see you!”
I guess that Philadelphian cool can be a blessing
and
a curse sometimes. Sometimes you want a brother to
act
like he really cares.

After talking to Mike, I called my parents.

My mother asked me, “So, how do you feel about this wedding?”

Translation: Are you jealous?

I said, “I'm happy for Raheema, Mom. That's my girl.”

“Well, I
know
that, but, you know . . .”

Translation: I still want to know if you're jealous.

I took a deep breath and sighed. “What do you want me to say, Mom, when it will happen for me?”

She got defensive. “I didn't say that.”

“Well, you're
thinking
it.”

“How are you gonna tell me what I'm thinking, Tracy?”

I didn't hesitate for a second. “Because you're my mother,” I told her. Hell, after twenty-five years, if I didn't know what my mother was thinking by then, I needed to be
shot.

She paused and started laughing.

“Where's Dad?” I asked her. I wanted to push the subject away from the wedding.

“I just sent him out on an ice-cream run. I had a craving.”

I
was
jealous about that. When was the last time I could fulfill
my
sweet tooth with a man?

“You sent him out on Wayne Avenue?” I began to think about Victor Hinson again. I couldn't help myself. Wayne Avenue had been one of his stomping grounds, and I had heard through the grapevine that he owned storefront property there.

“Yeah,” my mother answered before a pause. She said, “You know your old
friend
has a health food store around there now.” She didn't even want to say his name.

I smiled, reminiscing on the eighties and my young love affair with Victor.

My mother took in my silence and said, “I hope you're not still thinking about him. He's married now, right? I thought we went through this already, Tracy.”

Although my mother had always considered Victor handsome, how many mothers
do you know
who would openly accept her daughter holding on to a jailbird while she goes away to college? “
You mean to tell me that no nice young man has interested you at
Hampton?!
Get a
grip,
girl!
” my mother had told me during my years of dedication to Victor while he spent time in prison.

“I can't help but think about him every once in a while, Mom,” I admitted to her.

“Mmm, hmm,” she grunted. She knew that she couldn't say
too
much about it, because she had held on to my father after he walked out on us years ago, where many women would have filed for a divorce. So I guess I
got my stand-by-your-man approach from her. Nevertheless, my mother was married to my father and had borne his only children. That's where the similarities stopped. Victor had his
own
family, and I had become an outsider.

“Anyway, is Jason around?” I asked my mom. There was no sense in lingering on about the past, and Victor and I were
definitely
in the past, because there was no getting back together for us. I was wishing on a miracle.

“Yeah, he's home, you want to talk to him?” my mother answered me concerning my brother.

I told her I did, and I had never talked to Jason as much as I
should
have. I felt bad about that. If I had a little sister, I
knew
that I would talk to her a lot more about the birds and the bees and stuff. But with boys ...you know,it's different. You want to see them test their wild oats and everything, but at the same time, you want to protect them from the trifling 'hood rats.