Boss Lady

by Omar Tyree

  I didn’t plan to shoot the breeze with them. I was already tired. So as soon as I reached my door and pulled out my key, I let them know.

  “Well, I’ll see you guys tomorrow. We have another long and early one,” I commented.

  Maddy finally spoke up. “Don’t we know it.”

  “So, we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow then.” Shamor sounded extra chipper for midnight. I guess it was a New York thing. They slept much later than everyone else.

  As soon as I walked into my room, I heard a good amount of noise coming from my girls in the room beside me. I was still tired, but then I got curious. I heard male voices in the room with them. I debated about letting them be, but Tracy had told me to look out for my crew. So I took a deep breath, gathered an extra tank of energy, and walked over to their room to see what was up. Maddy and Shamor were out of the hallway by then.

  I knocked on the door.

  Jasmine looked through the peephole and said, “Oh, it’s your cousin Vanessa.” I could tell it was her from her voice and her quick steps to the door.

  She opened the door, wearing a long, gold Los Angeles Lakers jersey as her nighty.

  I looked at her Lakers jersey and said, “Good idea. We should do Flyy Girl jerseys like that.”

  “I’d wear that,” she promised.

  “Of course you would,” I told her.

  I walked into the room and spotted my infamous, girl-chasing cousin Jason sitting up in the sofa with one of his boys. They both had freshly braided hairstyles.

  “What, did y’all just get your heads done?” I asked them. The braids looked very much intact, like they jumped straight out of the braiding chair.

  Jason’s small-eyed friend said, “My hair stays done.” That’s all I needed to hear from him to know that he was another skirt-chaser. He just had the look. However, two brown pretty boys up in my girls’ room at close to midnight when we had work to do in the morning didn’t sit well with my conscience. And the fact that it was my cousin allowed me to be bolder about it than I would have been had I not known them.

  I said, “Well, you know we have to get up early to work this casting call again tomorrow.” I was addressing my girls. Then I addressed Jason, “Have you checked in with Tracy yet? She’s still up and busy. But we all need to get some rest,” I told him on behalf of all of us.

  Jason said, “They don’t look tired to me. Let them speak for themselves.”

  Sasha spoke up on cue from across the room. She was the only one sitting up on her bed.

  She said, “I’m pooped, man. I was a clothing-selling, order-taking machine today. It’s gonna be the same thing tomorrow. But this new line is really gonna work, Vanessa. These girls were literally fighting over the last pieces of clothing that I had out on the table today. I think they took the term Limited to heart.”

  “Yeah, that’s an easy sell right now,” Jason’s friend spoke up. “Anything with a tight fit, colorful, and a cool name like Flyy Girl will sell all day long.”

  Jason looked at Sasha who was still dressed in her sky blue Flyy Girl Ltd. clothes.

  “So, you’re ready to go to bed on me now, hunh?”

  He was still sweating her comments on being tired.

  Sasha said, “I’ve been ready for bed ever since Jasmine opened that door. I won’t even lie to ya’.”

  I was pretty secure in knowing that Sasha wouldn’t throw herself around too easily. Even Jasmine was a tight one to pull. I mean, she got excited about things easily, but she would rather have good, clean fun with a guy than go to bed with him. So a lot of guys would get burned after reading her extroverted personality the wrong way.

  After being shot down by Sasha, my cousin looked back to me. He stood up from his spot on the sofa and walked toward me to pull me toward the door.

  “Vanessa, let me talk to you right quick.”

  I asked him, “What, you have to take me out of the room to do that?”

  He kept pulling me by my arm as if my comment was meaningless. So we walked outside into the hallway where my eager beaver cousin asked me, “Who is that girl with the eyes, you know who I’m talking about, in the other room? Her eyes tighter than Tracy’s. She got like them rainbow rings in her eyes. Is Tracy trying to cast her?”

  He was referring to Alexandria Greene. Everyone assumed that she would make the movie, at least as a camera-ready extra, but Tracy had yet to address her.

  I asked him, “Have you tried to talk to her yet?” I imagined that he had.

  “I mean, I said hi, but you know. She slipped into the room too fast. I didn’t want to be out here knocking on her door. But why don’t you just introduce me to her right quick.”

  I was too tired to even smile at how pressed my cousin was.

  I said, “What about Sasha?” I just wanted to hear his response.

  Jason frowned at me. “What about her? I mean, we just cool, man, she not like my girl. I haven’t even seen her since I was out in L.A. I wouldn’t talk to her like that seriously anyway.”

  I asked him, “Why, because she’s Asian, or because she’s not as easy to get in bed as you thought she’d be?”

  Jason said, “For real, for real . . . both. I mean, I wanted to try something new, but if she ain’t really wit’ it . . . I mean . . . anyway, man, who’s this girl? She could be the one.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. He was pitiful. You would think he’d be a lot more mature about girls after having such a famous sister. I don’t know if that fact made Jason better or worse as a person. I began to wonder what he would be like if he didn’t have a famous sister.

  I was ready to go back into the room without even responding to him.

  Jason grabbed my arm and pressed me.

  “Come on now, Vanessa. All I’m asking you to do is knock on the door and say, ‘This is my cousin, Jason Ellison, Tracy’s little brother, in the flesh, and he just wanted to meet you and say hi to you right quick.’ You know, and I’ll just go from there.”

  I smiled and shook my head. My cousin was telling on himself.

  I said, “So you do use her name to get girls.”

  “Who, Tracy? Naw, I’m saying, I’ll say it right now. But on an everyday thing, I mean, y’all on the other side of the world from us. How I’m gon’ use her name like that?”

  “Jason, Flyy Girl is more popular in Philly than anywhere. What are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying, if a girl read the book, that’s on her. It’s not like I bring it up. You know my game is stronger than that. I don’t have to do that. I was just joking with you anyway.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” I told him.

  “So are you gonna introduce me to this girl or not? First of all, what’s her name?”

  He was serious. He wasn’t going to let it go.

  I said, “Jason, it’s midnight, and we all have to get up early tomorrow. So if you want to meet her so badly, you know where you’ll be able to find her tomorrow.”

  He said, “Yeah, I heard it was off the hinges down there today.”

  “It was,” I told him. “How come you weren’t down there?”

  “Tracy told me not to come, man. She said she didn’t want the distraction on the first couple of days. Those are her exact words,” he told me.

  It sounded about right, too, so I said no more about it.

  He said, “That’s why I’m trying to meet this girl tonight. I could have her meet me somewhere tomorrow when y’all get done.”

  I leveled with him and said, “Don’t get your hopes up. She’s about the hardest girl to talk to.”

  He nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s always the case when you get with them girls who know they look good. But I look good, too. It ain’t nothing but a word to me. Introduce me to her.”

  “She’s probably in bed now anyway,” I told him.

  “Yeah, ’cause you keep wasting time.”

  He went ahead and knocked on the door while holding me there beside him.

  “
You are so pressed,” I told him. So I had something in store for his behind.

  Maddy answered the door instead of Alexandria.

  “What’s up?” She was in her nightclothes, a long, light blue cotton T-shirt.

  I asked her, “Is Alexandria still up? I got a pressed boy out here who wants to talk to her.”

  Jason didn’t flinch. He kept his cool about it.

  Maddy said, “She’s still up, but she’s not dressed.”

  “That’s what I told him,” I commented to her.

  “Tell her I only need a minute. I just want to introduce myself to her.”

  Maddy looked him over, shook her head, and grinned. I’m sure she could see for herself how pressed my cousin was.

  She looked back into the room and said, “Alex, somebody wants to meet you out here.”

  There was silence in the room while we waited at the door.

  Jason spoke up and said, “Tell her it’s Tracy’s handsome brother.”

  Maddy looked at him again and said, “You do look like her.”

  “Yeah, but I’m taller, darker, and I’m all man.”

  I had to give it to Jason, he was pretty bold with his bullshit. He was really putting himself out there.

  Alexandria finally came to the door and she looked irritated.

  I said, “I’m sorry about this. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t leave me alone about it.”

  Jason wasted no time. He stuck out his hand to hers and said, “Look, I just wanted to meet you. I’ve been hearing a lot about you, and I only got a chance to say hi, so I just wanted to say a little more and see how you were planning to occupy your time while you were here up in Philly.”

  “What did you hear about her?” I asked him. I wanted to stop his bullshit immediately before my friend started to think that I told him something when I didn’t.

  Jason looked me right in my face and said, “You just told me that she was the hardest girl to talk to, and that you’d be surprised if she would talk to me. And then I said that I’m handsome, too, and that it ain’t nothing but a word to me. I mean, we just stood here and had that conversation, did we not?”

  He had me on the spot like I don’t know what.

  “I didn’t say all that,” I grumbled.

  “I mean, I don’t know your exact words, but that’s how you put it. You made it sound like she didn’t like guys or something. ’Cause I know it ain’t nothing wrong with me.”

  That boy needed to be in his own damn movie. He was working it. He even had Alexandria smiling. At first she looked like she was ready to curse his behind out.

  Then he took the whole cake. He asked her, “I mean, you do like guys, don’t you? Please don’t waste your prettiness hanging around all these girls all day. You need a nice, tall, handsome man on your arm sometimes.”

  He said all of that while he held on to her hand at the door.

  I finally broke down and said, “This is my cousin, Jason, Tracy’s younger brother.”

  He said, “I’m still older than you though, so don’t let that younger brother stuff go to your head. My sister was just born before me.”

  Alexandria opened her mouth and asked him, “So how did you feel about her writing a book about your family?”

  “I mean, it’s life, man. What can I do about it? What I’ma sue her for it? She didn’t say nothing bad about us. She just told the truth.”

  Alexandria’s question didn’t sound like one you would ask at midnight unless you planned to be up for a while. That meant one thing: she liked him. Because if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have asked him a question at all. Jason obviously had impressed her, and she was ready to go there with him, into long-form conversation.

  He said, “But I don’t really like to talk about that. I got my own life to live. You know what I mean? I got stories to tell of my own.”

  Please! I thought to myself. That boy was so full of shit.

  I said, “Well, I’ll let y’all go ahead and talk, because I’m going to bed now.”

  “Aw’ight, I’ll see you tomorrow then, Vanessa.”

  He was even making it sound like we were the best of cousins. But I just decided to let it go. Somebody needed to break down Alexandria’s high-horse–riding behind anyway.

  Before I walked into my room, I told Jason, “Don’t forget about your friend in Sasha and Jasmine’s room.”

  He said, “Aw’ight, I got ’em in a minute,” and went right back to talking to Alexandria.

  I gave them one more look and shook my head before I used my key to get back into my room.

  Day 2

  This seventeen-year-old girl named Shannon Gray from Willingboro, New Jersey, was killing the lead as TRACY. Her interpretations were as natural as you could get to the real thing. So we had her perform five different scenes from the script to see how she would interpret each one of them.

  In the drug house scene with a MERCEDES character to play off of, this girl actually made herself cry with real tears. We were all impressed.

  Tracy asked her, “How many times have you read the book?”

  She looked stunned. “Oh my God. At least twenty times.”

  “And you were practicing the scenes in the mirror?” Tracy asked her. It was obvious that this girl was very much prepared.

  “Since I was like, thirteen,” she told us.

  She had the light eyes, the pretty face, long hair, and a nice body, but she lacked the imposing height of a real-life Tracy. But who said you needed to be exact on everything. This girl could really play the part. She fit.

  “So this role would be a dream come true for you, hunh?”

  Shannon placed both of her hands across her heart. “Very much so.”

  She spoke like a true academic, but she could play the role like a real home girl. Yet, she was still innocent and witty in her interpretation, and we all liked that. Many of the young actresses performed the lead character too hardened and street, which was the wrong interpretation, especially while performing in front of the real thing.

  Tracy was very much aware that many urban girls read her teenaged behavior as “ghetto.” But Tracy always considered herself more spoiled than anything else. She was used to getting what she wanted by any means necessary. And she had always made it clear that she never lived in the ghetto, nor could she relate to girls who did, including my mother, Patricia, her first cousin.

  I understood exactly what Tracy meant. I was born and raised in the ghetto of North Philadelphia, but I never acted ghetto. That was not me. I’ve always been academic, and every ’hood in America still has girls who have their heads on straight. There are plenty of people from the ghetto who attend Catholic schools, private schools, and full academic schools, who never get caught up in their surroundings. Nevertheless, my two sisters, who grew in my same household, represented those other realities. On the whole, the black community was a lot more complicated than many of the interpretations and stereotypes gave it credit for.

  Tracy explained that the neighborhoods of Germantown and Mt. Airy were unique in that they mixed kids who had been born and raised middle class with new kids who were just moving into the neighborhood from bleaker areas of Philadelphia, developing what she called a “hybrid” of middle class and lower middle class. These were kids who walked the line of having the option of doing what they needed to do to go to college, or getting caught up with the wrong crowd, where you could end up pregnant, in jail, strung out on drugs, or dead. This girl Shannon Gray from Willingboro, New Jersey, was able to capture that fine line dead-on in her performance. So Tracy scribbled four stars on her file.

  When we took a lunch break and stepped away from the stage for a minute, an important discussion broke out between Tracy and Robin.

  Robin said, “Tracy, I just want to warn you about getting these girls’ hopes up too high for these roles. This is a very serious movie you have on your hands, and you don’t want to undershoot it with too many unknowns. Now, I like this girl Shannon too, bu
t can she open a movie? And does she have star personality? Because these performers are gonna have to help us to sell this thing.”

  Tracy said, “I know, but at least we can have some of these people as the base of what we need from the roles. I mean, I could have this girl Shannon coach whoever else would play the role from a Hollywood perspective, because she really understands it. But do we really want a Hollywood perspective at all?”

  “Do you want Hollywood money?” Robin asked her.

  “Do we?” Tracy questioned herself. “Because if we shoot this film right, it becomes a cult classic that these urban girls, who have read the book ten times each, will buy on DVD to watch over and over again. But if we do it the Hollywood way and it becomes just another vehicle for B-level stars, then it gains a little more exposure up front just to lose that cult following. Because the Flyy Girl readers would recognize the Hollywoodization of the story and not like it as much.”

  “Or, these B-level stars could become A-level by giving a great performance here that becomes their springboard for other roles,” Robin argued. “So you still achieve the cult following that you want, with real up-and-coming stars who can always make reference to the film, like with Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, and Nia Long in Boyz n the Hood. You see what I mean? Let’s just make sure we mix it up.”

  Tracy said, “Oh, well, you know that’s gonna happen. This is only the preliminary castings. There are real stars I want to go after, including Lynn Whitfield to play my mother.”

  Robin said, “Well, I also don’t think we need to go to a bunch of different cities, looking for more unknown people. I mean, this is a Philadelphia movie, right? We’re going to end up shooting it here, so I would use all of the people that we can use right here, and fly in the other performers that we’ll need. Because you’re giving yourself a bigger workload and spending more casting money when you don’t need to.”

  Tracy said, “But the casting calls would spread the excitement for the film on a national level to make producers want to get in bed with us on it.”

  Robin said, “Tracy, we can do that with a good P.R. firm.”