All About Him

by Pat Tucker

  When I dipped my toe into the water, it felt really hot, but incredibly good, so with caution, I stepped into the tub, lowered my body in, and released a breath when I was able to sit.

  I slowly leaned back and laid my head on top of a folded towel. I allowed the music to take me back to the memories I struggled to forget.

  Cooper wasn’t making a lot of money, but with the gigs Evelyn had arranged, we seemed to make ends meet. We had left my mother’s by then, but we were there so much, it was like we hadn’t moved into our own apartment. And the apartment was worse than a starter place for students who had done their time in a dormitory, and finally had a place, so it wasn’t as if we were making great strides. Without his job, I knew we would be back to living at my mother’s, indefinitely. And that thought really pissed me off.

  What made the situation worse was, Evelyn felt she had full unchecked access to her client, my husband. She knew no boundaries. To save face and try to get back at them, I had been scouting new talent in hopes of showing her and Cooper that she wasn’t the only game in town.

  “Oh, Licia, I’m glad you’re here, I wanna show you something,” Cooper said as I walked into the kitchen. I instantly regretted the decision to enter a room they occupied.

  He and Evelyn had all types of pictures, folders, and paperwork spread across the table. The way she carried on, as if she were doing so much work on his behalf, screamed fake and overdoing it. My mother was at the stove where she hovered over a pot.

  Cooper insisted on trying to pull me into any discussion or project with Evelyn, and I resisted as much as possible.

  He was excited as he adjusted the computer monitor for me to get a better look.

  “Eve made sure all my music is up on SoundCloud and YouTube.” Envy crept up on me fast.

  He used his index fingers to bang on a few keys, then I watched as the screen came to life. There was a performance of Cooper belting out a sultry song about the power of sex. The lyrics and beat were real catchy, and I knew the song would be an instant hit.

  What stood out even more than the music and sexually charged lyrics was Cooper himself. I wasn’t sure how she’d done it, but there was a spotlight on him that highlighted his skin color and those amazing eyes.

  Instantly, I scolded myself because years ago, I had watched Oprah Winfrey discuss the importance of being seen in the best light possible. She’d talked about how her team specifically adjusted her lighting to make sure she glowed. I wasn’t representing a client back then, but that was information I should have remembered. It was something that was simple and made such a tremendous difference. It was something small that would have made a difference with Coop.

  Cooper looked amazing in the videos; it was as if he glowed while on stage. He stood out from the band, and it looked like it was all about him.

  “That’s nice,” I said with as much lackluster as possible.

  After the second video that looked just as good and polished as the first, he stopped me before I could leave. I was disgusted, but had to act like all was well.

  “Wait, I want you to see this. Eve said it’s essential that we have synchronization with all of my social media platforms,” he said as his index fingers banged on more keys.

  “Yes, that’s especially important, so we don’t confuse your fans by making each one of your social media pages different,” she chimed in as if anyone had asked her. While I believe she was speaking to him, she said it in a way that let me know that this was yet another thing that illustrated just how ineffective I had been as my husband’s manager.

  “That means, my Facebook cover photo is the same as my Twitter header, and my SoundCloud display picture is the same as my website and YouTube display picture. Everything is the same, so now I have a recognizable brand that my fans will be able to see.”

  He beamed with so much pride as he showed off everything that Evelyn had orchestrated.

  “We’re really playing catch-up. These are things that should have been done long before now. It’s a wonder I found him. These kids are doing this stuff, and they’re upping their chances of being discovered. Nowadays, it’s not even a must that all of this is done. It’s almost like a calling card that speaks about your professionalism and your readiness to play with the big boys.”

  The things she said sounded great, but the way she said them implied that they should have been common sense, and I, of course, was a loser for having not done them for my client.

  And I would have sworn that when our eyes met, and Cooper’s were focused on the screen, she taunted me. There was no way I could bother him with the foolishness because of course, he’d take it as me being petty.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Cooper had a photo shoot the next day, and I knew Evelyn would be by trying to taunt me. So I had to work smart. First. I told him that we needed to go to Tabitha’s early because she needed his help around the house. That was easy; he’d bend over backward to help my mother. I already had several outfits with his accessories packed.

  “What time did you say you needed to be at the studio?” I asked Cooper as I scooped scrambled eggs onto his plate.

  “Eleven, I think that’s what Evelyn said.”

  He attacked the biscuits and bacon before I turned my back.

  “Oh snap! I’m glad you said something. She called while you were in the bathroom, wanted to know if you could get there an hour earlier, said something about someone she wanted you to meet.”

  Cooper nearly choked on his food. “Damn, why didn’t you tell me that before I sat down to eat?”

  I turned around, confusion all over my face. I looked at the clock and waited for him to follow my gaze.

  “It’s eight forty-five. What’s the big deal?”

  He jumped up from the table, took a bite of the biscuit sandwich he had created with the eggs and bacon, then washed it all down with juice. He rushed toward the back and yelled over his shoulder, “You just don’t get it.”

  If I didn’t want to make sure he was gone when Evelyn arrived like I knew she would, I would tell him just who didn’t really get it.

  As I washed the dishes, he rushed back in. “How does this look?”

  Before I could answer, my mother, who seemed to come out of nowhere, chimed in. “What else you got?”

  “I didn’t know you were still here,” I said to her.

  “Yeah, forgot something, but looks like I’m right on time.” She looked down at the plate. “Whose food, and is anyone eating it?”

  “Ma, you can have it. It was mine, but now I have to hurry and get ready for a photo shoot,” Cooper said. I hated when Cooper called my mother Ma, instead of Tabitha.

  My mother snatched up the biscuit. “You need to wear red or burgundy. Those colors look good on you—your power colors.”

  Cooper snapped his fingers.

  “See, that’s why I like when we were around you more often. But we brought a few options,” he said, kissing up to her. The grin on her face was spectacular. I rolled my eyes at the two as he left, then returned with a different outfit. He could be worse than the pickiest woman. We hadn’t brought anything—I had.

  By the time he dashed in wearing a wine-colored button-down with detailed designs on the collar, cuffs, and a pair of dark designer jeans, my mother nearly had a fit.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about! You look great, son!”

  “Thanks, Ma,” Coop said.

  Again, they behaved as if I wasn’t in the room, but I didn’t mind. I wanted to save my words for Evelyn anyway.

  “I can drop you, if you need me to,” my mother offered.

  “Oh, that’s what’s up. I’ll be ready to go in five. I can’t find my cell.”

  “Just go, I’ll look for it,” I said.

  Cooper stopped and looked at me. “But what if Evelyn calls?”

  “I�
�ll let her know Mom dropped you.”

  He seemed reluctant at first, but at my mother’s urging, he grabbed his bag and rushed to grab the door for her.

  “Later, Felicia,” my mother said as she walked through the door. “Don’t leave no dishes in my sink!”

  By the time ten in the morning rolled around, I was good and ready. The doorbell chimed. I rose from the sofa, checked my reflection in the mirror, then pulled the door open.

  There was no need to ask who was at the door. I pulled it open and waited for her to walk in. She sauntered in like she were the fucking First Lady of the United States.

  “Where’s your husband? His cell is going straight to voicemail.”

  Evelyn strolled straight to the kitchen and never looked around to notice that we were alone. By the time she did, I met her at the doorway with a good firm slap to the side of her face.

  She stammered back, grabbed at her cheek and allowed her mouth to hang wide in shock.

  “What the hell is your problem?”

  “You! If you think I’m about to sit by and let you move in on my husband, you need to think again.”

  Evelyn rubbed the side of her face, but the shock quickly disappeared, replaced by a smug expression.

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  I was breathing fire as she straightened her back and seemed to brace herself for my next blow, but I was the one who nearly fell to the floor.

  “You don’t have to worry about me moving in on Coop; that’s already happened. Once he told me about your open marriage, I figured why not. You think I’m gonna invest all of this time and work into some man, so that the two of you can reap the benefits of my hard work?” Evelyn giggled. She dug for a compact and used it to inspect her cheek. “You better be glad that didn’t leave a mark. But anyway, as I was saying, Cooper thanks me continuously for the work I do.”

  My eyes narrowed at her words, and while I wanted desperately to knock Evelyn on her ass, something in me stopped.

  “Yeah, so while you over here thinking you need to check me, looks like you should’ve been checking the man who committed to you.”

  “You bitch!”

  Evelyn’s laugh was so loud and wicked she made me even more angry. There was nothing funny about our situation, but still she howled with laughter.

  “That’s the thing about you desperate wives. Y’all wanna come after the other woman. Honey, ain’t no man gonna step out unless he wants to.”

  Before I could fire back at her comment, she adjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder, passed by me, with a harder than necessary bump, and walked out.

  I wasn’t sure what pissed me off more—the bump or what she had said about my so-called open marriage.

  By the time I had learned that Evelyn had lied through her teeth, it really was too late. She may not have done the deed with Cooper before that day, but that night, when he failed to come home, I knew that she’d told him about the confrontation, I guess that was his way of letting me know how he felt about what I had done.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  "Don’t you see what she’s trying to do to us?” I asked Cooper the next day when he finally came home. It was more like the next night, and despite that he was the one who should have been begging for mercy, he had a chip on his shoulder the size of a brick.

  At first, he walked in and behaved as if he had done nothing wrong. When he finally acknowledged my presence, he did so with a look of disgust. But suddenly, and to my surprise, his features softened, and he changed his expression.

  He eased back onto our bed and for a second, I thought maybe I had finally broken through the façade that I was convinced was Evelyn.

  “She’s messy and that’s all it boils down to.”

  Before I could finish my complaint, the frown had already returned to his face.

  “Damn, Licia, why does everything have to be about you? We supposed to be focusing on my career, but yet we keep going back to issues you have with your own damn sister.”

  “My issues with her?”

  I was dumbfounded. Had he heard anything I’d said about Evelyn?

  “Yeah, man, you waste so much time worrying about what she’s doing, how she’s doing it, the amount of time we together, that I don’t even think you think about my career anymore. And where the fuck you get off slapping her like that?”

  “That’s how you really feel?”

  Without a millisecond of hesitation, he said, “It needed to be said. It needed to be said because you need to stop throwing shade and kill the hate.”

  Stop throwing shade?

  Kill the hate?

  “Look, all I’m saying is, either you’re Team Spears, or you’re flying solo. I don’t know how else to put it, so you’ll understand.”

  “So what are you if you going around telling people that we have an open marriage?”

  If the question took him by surprise, he didn’t flinch.

  “Evelyn told me what she said to you, and after you laid hands on her, you better be glad that’s all she said.” He shook his head.

  “Damn, she working her ass off for us, and you go and pull some ole dumb shit like that? Ain’t nobody got time for that.” He dismissed me with the wave of a hand.

  As he basically put me down, I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. Just like she had done with everything I had, Evelyn was trying to take my man.

  “This ain’t got nothing to do with making you a star, Coop; this is what Evelyn has always done. You are my husband, married to me. She ain’t got one, so what does she do? She tries to take mine, like she’s always done.”

  Cooper’s laugh was so hearty, I wasn’t sure whether he was faking it. That was the thing that drove me crazy about being around Evelyn. She had a way of putting everyone in a mood.

  My husband looked at me like I had grown a third eyeball.

  “So you on some ole ‘she stole my boyfriend’ bull?”

  From his side of the bed, he gave me a look that said he wasn’t buying any of my revelation when it came to Evelyn. He sighed hard and loud as if it were all he could do to have to go over this with me again.

  “Licia, you said yourself, she left home and never looked back, but suddenly years later, she decides she wants a man, so she passed up all the eligible bachelors between L.A. and Texas and came back home to Houston, after all these years and decided she wanted your husband.” His words were soaked in sarcasm.

  I rolled my eyes and blew out a hard breath. He wouldn’t hear me out. He wouldn’t listen even though I was trying to tell him what I was witnessing. Evelyn wanted to do more than make him a star, and I doubted that she could actually do that.

  But he couldn’t be bothered.

  Our days and nights started to look different. We passed each other, many times with few words between us. It hurt my heart the way he ignored all of the signs I tried to show him.

  “I got a gig tonight,” he announced after I had put our son to sleep one night.

  It made little sense to me that he would be telling me at the last minute that he had a gig. I had felt something wasn’t right.

  “Oh, let me call my mom. I’m gonna go with you, so she can keep an eye on the baby.”

  The reaction he gave me was so unexpected, that it threw me.

  “Eve said you might want to come tonight.”

  I whipped around and had to catch myself. In that moment, I asked God to soften my words because I was about to go in about what Eve said. God answered my prayers because instantly, I regrouped and asked, “Where are we going?”

  It was hard to tell whether he was as surprised by my reaction as I was by his. If he was, he didn’t skip a beat. He finished fiddling with his shirt, then looked over at me and said, “I’ll call her and ask. I forgot, it was a last-minute thing.” He shrugged.

 
There was no need for me to go with them, but I couldn’t back out. I wasn’t curious about Cooper’s new gigs, especially since I already knew about the changes she’d made.

  It was strange how Cooper went out of his way to keep me updated, but rarely asked for my input or opinion on anything Evelyn suggested. It was as if her words were the gospel, and once spoken, his only mission was to follow through on her suggestions.

  His behavior made me wonder whether he got some kind of pleasure out of dangling everything Evelyn was doing in front of me. And that’s what he did. If Evelyn told him to piss sitting down, he’d let me know, then rush and do it. The entire situation was maddening.

  As things progressed with them, I found myself trying too hard to find a talent as good as Coop. There was Milkdrop. Every time I heard his name, I rolled my eyes. He was an R&B artist trapped in a rapper’s persona. The problem was I wasn’t interested in having a rapper as a client.

  Milkdrop’s voice was okay, nothing much to talk about, but at least he could hold a note. But he had other issues.

  “Yo, look all around you. Yo, rap is straight taking over; e’erybody is rapping, Yo.” He wore his skinny jeans that sagged beneath his butt and showed off his boxers, had sleeves (tattoos from his fingertips to the top of his shoulders), and always wore a cap turned backward with a bandana underneath. The bandana covered his long cornrows.

  Then there was Seduction. She was in her mid-twenties, nice-looking, but with her, the elevator refused to go all the way to the top.

  “I think we need to promote me like they did Britney,” she’d say.

  When I’d suggested she needed more voice work, her response was simple.

  “Miss Felicia, you need to get with the times; ain’t nobody trying to be like Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, or any of those old ladies you used to. If you get me some studio time, they can make me sound good enough to get us a deal, and make me a star.”

  That was the mentality I was dealing with. I visited talent shows, open mic events, spoken word events, and anything else I could find that showcased talent. The problem was, talent was subjective, and a lot of the younger people I encountered felt they deserved fame without any real talent or even any effort.