For the Love of Money (20 page)

I answered, “One day,” and left it at that.

Juanita read into it and said, “Oh, I get it. You want to get a few of your
other ideas green-lighted first so that you can build up a track record and do what you
really
want to do.”

I said, “Yeah, that's it,” just to go along with her.

She looked at the book jacket again and asked, “Who's Omar Tyree?”

“He's a writer that I know from back home in Philly. He started his own publishing company, and when
Flyy Girl
came out in '93, based on
my
life story, we sold so many copies that a bigger publisher wanted to pick it up and republish it.”

Juanita grinned and said, “Word?! It must be good then!”

I smiled, not wanting to toot my own horn. However, when I thought about all of the early sex that I went through in the book, I had second thoughts about giving it to her. It was too late for that. Thousands of people had already read it, and I could count on thousands more who would.

“Well, let's just say that I went through a lot of different changes,” I told her, feeling self-conscious. I had already given Kendra and Yolanda their copies. I kept wondering if their opinions would change about me once they read it.

Anyway, Juanita was all smiles. She said, “You know what, there's a party over in Culver City this weekend that I want to invite you to, where we can both meet up with what they call
Black
Hollywood out here. I was just invited to it myself yesterday.”

I said, “Oh yeah? I heard about Hollywood parties and whatnot, but I haven't been to one yet. It seems like you need connections to do
anything
out here.”

Juanita said, “Well, I'm already used to that from the New York crowd.”

I smiled. “I guess so.” In Philly, a blue-collar city, we were less concerned about keeping up with the Joneses, but I couldn't say that we didn't think about it at all. That would be a lie. So Juanita and I traded phone numbers before we went our separate ways.

$   $   $

“I don't know about going to these Hollywood parties, Tracy. I told you I didn't come out here for that,” Kendra was telling me at her house in Carson. I was begging her to tag along with me because I wanted to feel secure with more than one friend there. I also wanted to introduce Kendra to Juanita. I thought that we would all get along well together: three East Coast sisters.

“You know you want to go. Stop fronting,” I teased Kendra. I already knew that she would agree to it, if just to see how I would get along there. Kendra continued to think that I was too over-the-top with my actions.

“As long as you don't sneak off in some back room somewhere and leave me,” she said with a grin.

I looked at her skeptically. “Sneak off in some back room for what?”

She laughed and said, “I'm just joking with you, girl.”

I caught on and said, “I'm a mature woman now. Okay? So don't let that damn book go to your head.” I
knew
that
Flyy Girl
shit would rub me the wrong way!

Kendra said, “I know, Tracy, God! I mean, you obviously had to learn a lot from your life to get to where you are now. Everybody went through some of the things you went through in your book.”

“Yeah, well, don't throw that shit up in my face.”

Kendra stopped and looked at me seriously. She said, “Tracy, if you're going to react like this, then maybe you shouldn't have agreed to put this book out with a major publisher.”

She had a point. I had to get over it.

“Okay, that was childish. I admit it,” I told her. “I'm just getting defensive now because I'm going to deal with new people reading this book who don't know anything about what I'm doing now.”

“And when they get a chance to find that out, they'll leave you alone about it,” Kendra advised me.

“Yeah, well, I just hope that these Hollywood guys don't trip like I'm easy to get in bed, because I'm
not.
If you
read
the book correctly, there were
hundreds
of guys who
wanted
to sleep with me, but I only had
five.
”

Kendra started to laugh again and said, “Tracy, calm down and let it go. Now let's go to this party.”

I was still beefing when we made it to Kendra's car, but by the time we pulled up to the party in Culver City, I had mellowed out.

“Do you think that we're dressed properly for this thing?” Kendra asked me with a grin as we climbed out of her car.

“I have no idea,” I told her. “That's why we went with this.”

We were both dressed somewhere between formal and casual in our skirts and blouses.

“Yeah, I guess we can't miss too bad. Unless everyone else in here is dressed up in tuxes and gowns, or dressed down in blue jeans.”

Judging from the cars that were parked around the private houses in Culver City, it was definitely a money spot. There were plenty of loaded SUVs, Jags, Lexuses, and Benzes parked outside. I even spotted a green Maserati and wondered who the driver was.

We walked right into the large, elegant flat with no problem and blended
right in with the crowd. It seemed that most of the people there were playing it safe, dressed casually formal with skirts, dresses, and sports jackets.

The music of choice in the background was Tha Dogg Pound with Daz and Kurupt, which seemed out of place to me. The majority of the crowd were older than us. Maybe they should have been listening to smooth jazz or something.

“They still listen to rap music?” Kendra whispered to me.

I smiled. “That's the same thing I was thinking.” However, no one was really dancing to it, just nodding occasionally.

“Ladies,” some tall brown guy in all blue said, approaching us with his hands out. He looked as if he had been waiting to receive us all night.

I asked him, “Are you speaking to us?”

“If you're in my house and I don't recognize you, I am.”

He said it super cool, but why did we feel like he had just dissed the hell out of us?

I said, “I was invited by my friend Juanita Perez, and I brought my girl Kendra along with me.”

Kendra just stood there and had me do all of the talking.

“Juanita
who
?” he asked me.

“Juanita Perez, from the UCLA Extensions course.”

I felt like a bigger fool with every word I spoke, and this guy was still looking blank at us.

He shook his head and said “I don't know any—”

I cut him off and said, “Okay, I'm sorry. I can see that this is a know-only party, and since you don't even know who invited us here, I think it's best for us to be on our merry way.”

I was so fucking embarrassed! It seemed like everyone in that room was looking at us, but trying to play it cool at the same time like they were not.

“Well, you don't have to leave, just tell me who you are,” he told us with a smile.

I guess he could sense how embarrassed we both felt. Kendra didn't have to say
a word
to me, and I just
knew
she would talk about it the entire way home.

I said, “I'm Tracy Ellison from Philly, and this is Kendra Dayton from Baltimore.”

He smiled even wider.

“East Coast,” he said. “So what brings you out west?”

“I'm just getting my feet wet in the industry,” I told him. “And Kendra already lives out here. She's a schoolteacher.”

He nodded to Kendra and looked back to me. “You're getting your feet wet in what industry?” he asked me. I still didn't know who the hell he was.

I said, “Well, I'm not out here to cheer for the Lakers. I'm talking about the business of television and film.”

I was beginning to set myself, and it never took me long. Who was this guy?

“Oh really? So what do you do for a living until you can get all the way wet? Because you
do know
that some people never get a chance to jump in the pool, don't you?”

“I hear some people don't even get a chance to try on their bathing suits,” I teased him. I didn't care anymore, frankly. No damn party was going to make or break me, so I played along with him. I could feel people listening in on us too, but so what? In the meantime, I kept asking myself,
Where the hell is Juanita?

“And that doesn't discourage you at all?” he asked me.

“What is your name again?” I finally asked him back.

Kendra nudged me in my side. I guess she thought that I was getting too bold and bad for my own good, but to hell if
I
was going to continue to stand there while this guy ran off twenty questions at me. I would leave his damn house before I allowed him to do that. I wanted to at least know who I was talking to. I had dignity, and I was
not
being interviewed for a position. If I was, then I would like to
know
about it
in advance.

All of a sudden, a shorter brother wearing brown and black stepped out and introduced himself to us instead. “How are you doing? I'm Harold Wiggins, creative producer of Laugh Out Loud Wednesdays on Warner. Let me introduce you to one of our head writers, Joshua Pendleton,” he said, motioning to the guy in all blue who had been asking us twenty questions.

That's when we realized that we were the guinea pigs in an ongoing joke. Apparently, Joshua had been embarrassing newcomers with the “Who are you and what do you do?” routine.

He laughed along with a few others in the crowd who had been watching us.

“She's tough. She was holding her own,” he joked to Harold.

I said, “Yeah, because I didn't even know who you were, and you were asking us a million questions about who
we
were.”

“Well, this
is
my house. Remember that,” he told me.

Harold said, “Correction. This is
my
house.”

“Well, I still haven't found my friend Juanita yet,” I told them.

“You're looking for me?” Juanita slipped from behind me and asked. She was dressed casually formal herself, in black.

“Now who invited you?” Harold asked her.

“Reginald,” she answered him.

He looked relieved and nodded to her.

“Oh, okay. Reginald just stepped out about a half hour ago. He should be back soon.”

“Who is Reginald?” I asked for my own knowledge. They were kicking his name around as if he was someone important.

Harold said, “Reginald is pretty much a creative talent hawk. He runs around this town and pulls together anyone coming in with raw, untapped talent that we might be able to use.”

“If you don't watch out, he's gonna have
your
job soon,” Joshua joked to Harold before he slipped away to join the crowd.

Harold smiled it off. He looked in his early forties, but he was possibly younger. Joshua looked thirty-something or younger himself. I couldn't quite tell their ages. They all had a youthful, energized presence about them. I guess you
would
have to be energized in a fast-moving atmosphere like Hollywood's.

Harold looked past us toward some other arriving guests. “If you'll excuse me. HAAY!” he screamed as he moved on.

“God!” I snapped, cradling my ear.

Kendra shook her head and finally spoke up. “Tracy, you are just too much.You
do
have what it takes to make it out here, I'll give you that. Just don't push it too far.”

I turned and introduced her to Juanita.

I said, “Well, we have Philly, Baltimore, and New York. All we need now is New Jersey and D.C., and we'd have a full East Coast Nation out here,” I joked.

We all laughed and held our space, but it wasn't as if we were doing much there. It seemed like one of those parties where people had to warm up to each other for a full hour before they really started talking. Unless, of course, everyone knew who you were already, because when Martin Lawrence and then Jamie Foxx walked in with their separate posses, people started running to get up close and personal. I just sat there and laughed.

“I can't see
myself
doing that,” I said out loud. It looked like a groupie convention from then on, as other A-list entertainers walked in. Or at least A-list for
Black
Hollywood. No one in that place could command the raw income that many white entertainers could. However, as all of the people there ran for attention from the incoming stars, I felt lonely as hell and insignificant. I guess that was supposed to be the time to “schmooze,” as they
called it, but that wasn't my thing anymore. I didn't want to be
with
a star, I wanted to
be
the star.

“What's wrong with you?” Kendra asked me.

“I'm just thinking,” I told her. Hollywood made me feel like I was a nobody.

I looked to Juanita, and she was in her own world too, as if she was searching for someone. When this slim, busy body of a brother walked in she nearly jumped for joy.

“Reginald!” she called out to him.

I read his face immediately. He didn't want to be bothered with her, but his look was snap-finger fast. You had to pay close attention to catch it. Let's just say that I had plenty of experience in reading Reginald's
type
from dealing with so many players in Philly before I even made it to college. In reading guys, I considered myself a veteran.

He walked over with a fake smile and hugged Juanita.

She said, “This is Tracy, the one who I told you had a book out.”

When he looked into my face, I read “dog” all up and down his body. It even seemed like he was panting.

“So, you have a book out?” he asked me, searching everything with his rapid eyes.

“You
need to be the one with the book,” I said to him. “
Everybody
talks about you,” I bullshitted. I wanted to see if my hunch was right on the dog vibe that I felt from him.