Boss Lady (36 page)

“And downtown on Market Street, there used to be blocks of jewelry stores, clothing stores, record stores, penny arcades, movie theaters. Going downtown was a real adventure back then.”

Just talking about it was bringing back great memories for her.

I said, “So, you think the eighties was way better than it is now?”

She said, “Of course it was. And in my day, we didn't hang on the coattails of New York, like so many rappers do in Philly now. We had our own sound and identity. We had a whole posse of Philadelphia rappers: Cool C, Steady B, Schoolly D, EST, Larry Love.”

I started laughing.

“What's so funny?” she asked me.

It was funny to hear her talking so enthusiastically about hip-hop. Once you reached a certain age, it seemed that hip-hop music was no longer viable.

“That's all old school,” I told her.

She said, “What, I know about Fifty Cent, Eminem, and Ludacris. And I know about Beanie Siegel, Freeway, and The Roots in Philly. I'm hip.”

That only made me laugh more. Even some of my girls began to laugh as they listened to our conversation.

I said, “Of course you know about them. They're all over the radio, the clubs, and the news. How could you not know?”

Tracy said, “But I'm gonna tell you who's gonna be the next big star. That Beyoncé girl from Destiny's Child. I can tell she's waiting to break out. I can see it in her every time I see those girls perform. And I know her daddy's gonna push her to make sure it happens, too. So they're all doing solo albums now. Well, watch when her album comes out.”

“I like her,” Jasmine stated.

“What about Ashanti?” Sasha asked. “Is she yesterday's news already?”

“It depends on where she takes it,” Tracy answered. “Because that Irv Gotti camp is falling down just like Suge Knight's did with Death Row. So she might want to find a new label to deal with. That criminalistic stuff doesn't pay off in the long run. It eventually catches up to you.”

“Yeah, especially after those Fifty Cent songs attacking Ja Rule,” Maddy added to the discussion. “Their camp may not be able to recover from that. Fifty was going at 'em hard.”

It seemed that everyone was joining the discussion about the latest in hip-hop.

“So, who do you want on the soundtrack, Tracy?” Jasmine asked out of the blue.

I hadn't even thought of that yet.

Tracy said, “Missy, of course. She still has that old-school flavor. She still knows how to have fun with the music. Then I'd invite my girls MC Lyte and Queen Latifah.”

“All on a song together? That would be hot,” Sasha commented.

“Yeah, we can call them the Flyy Girl Crew,” I joked.

Tracy shook her head and said, “We're gonna have to stop using that name for everything. We don't want to wear it out.”

Sasha looked at her and said, “I disagree. If you look at the most
successful products, they say their names all of the time: McDonald's, Pepsi, Nike, Sprite, Def Jam.”

“Yeah, they got Def Jam everything now,” Jasmine agreed.

“It's a strong name,” I told them, “just like Flyy Girl is.”

“At first, you didn't want us to use it,” Alexandria reminded me.

“That's because I didn't want her to,” Tracy responded. “Those companies still control how, when, and where their names are used, just like I will with Flyy Girl.”

I put in my two cents. “Well, once you have it trademarked, it's nothing but free advertising for you when people use it.”

I still didn't get why Tracy didn't want to push the Flyy Girl brand more, like we all wanted her to. Was she plain scared of heights or what?

She said, “There is such a thing as overkill. And sometimes less is more. Like Polo. They are always in the cut with what they do.”

“But they advertise all the time in men's magazines,” Alexandria noted. “They just know where their audience is.”

“Yeah, if you chose like
Essence
magazine or something, and did a consistent ad, it would connect to a loyal audience,” I suggested.

Maddy frowned at me. She said, “
Essence
? What kind of audience are you after? They're not really into designer clothes. Them people look like they make their
own
clothes.”

“It was just an example,” I told her.

“The wrong example,” she argued.

“Yeah, you would try something more like
Vibe.
It's not too street like
XXL,
but it's not all stuffy like
Essence
either,” Alexandria explained.

Tracy looked at her and said, “You look like an
Essence
reader yourself, talking about stuffy.”

We started laughing again. Alexandria did seem like an
Essence
magazine woman.

She said, “I do read it, but not like I do with
Vibe.
I flip through a lot of
Essence
to see what they're talking about first. But with
Vibe,
I think a lot more about what they're wearing, their makeup, their hair, and what they're listening to because it's closer to my age. But my older sister will do the opposite. She reads her
Essence,
and then she'll flip through my
Vibe.”

“Well, the Flyy Girl brand is definitely for a younger audience, because a lot of older readers try to act like they read it a long time ago, so I know they don't want to wear the clothes,” Jasmine assumed.

“Not necessarily,” Tracy told her. “We do plan to have a more elegant line to balance out the commercial line.”

“Yeah, but with the word
Girl
in the name, a lot of mature women just won't go there,” Alexandria argued. “Like my sister, she called it ‘cute.' And when she uses the word
cute,
what she's really saying is that it's below her.”

“Oh, you don't say. Sounds like somebody else we know,” Maddy mocked her.

“But I'm not all that bad,” Alexandria said with a grin.

“I'm learning a lot listening to you girls,” Tracy commented to us.

“Anytime,” Jasmine told her.

“So, what do you guys all think about the locations we visited today?” she asked all of us.

“All thumbs up to me,” Jasmine spoke up first. “I mean, once you have the people there with the music, and color, and action, it looks like a movie that hasn't been done in a while.”

“It's just real. Like when I watch
Boyz n the Hood
and
Menace II Society,”
Maddy commented. “It's just real. I mean, you really feel it.”

Sasha said, “I like street movies because they feel more like actual life. With Hollywood movies, you know you're just watching a movie. But with street movies, you don't know if you're really watching someone's life or not.”

“I know. They do seem that way,” Jasmine agreed.

“That's exactly how
Flyy Girl
will feel,” I told her.

Tracy took it all in. She said, “Well, the first trip to Philly is just about done. Next time we go into more detail with the budget, licenses, schedules, and the works. Tomorrow it's back to L.A.”

No one said anything.

Then Jasmine said, “It seems like we just got here. I mean, I know we did a lot of work here, but . . .”

She sounded like she was sad to leave.

“Aw, don't cry, girl. If you make it as a production assistant, you'll be back,” Maddy told her.

“Not if you guys plan on fighting in the damn hallway again,” Tracy warned all of us.

Just like that, she shut us all up inside the limo. We were all as quiet as a whisper and at my cousin's mercy. And as much influence as I thought I could have on her, the reality was, Tracy was still the boss lady.

I
sat up on the bed in Sasha and Jasmine's room while they packed up their clothes. We were all glum, realizing that our excursion to Philly was coming to an end.

Jasmine shook her head and said, “I can't believe we're leaving. I mean, it's like I'm ready to do this movie right now, and I'm not even in it. I just want to be around it.”

Sasha nodded to her while folding a pair of her jeans. “We all feel that way.”

“Are you sure?” I asked her. I was thinking about Maddy and Alexandria. But I already knew they were both full tilt for the film. I just wanted to hear someone else say it.

Sasha never wavered. She said, “Yeah, I'm sure. It's not every day where you get this close to a dream being turned into a reality.”

I asked her, “But do you think this movie will feel the same for all girls? White girls don't seem to watch our movies. It's like we're all outsiders to them.”

“They watched
Mulan,”
Sasha joked.

“And they watch the cartoon
Dora,
and the Disney show
Taina,”
Jasmine added.

“Yeah, but not like they watch Hillary Duff in
Lizzie McGuire,”
I told them. “I mean, this is a black-girl movie. Will they watch a black girl from inner-city Philadelphia?”

“We have to make it and find out,” Sasha concluded.

Someone knocked on the door and we all looked around at each other. It was close to eleven at night.

“Okay, who's gonna go get that?” Sasha asked.

Jasmine said, “Vanessa, you're the guest, you go get it.”

“But it's your room. You should be the one to greet a visitor, not me,” I argued.

Jasmine sighed and went to see who was at the door. When she opened it she said, “Look what the catfight brought in?”

I leaned my head toward the door to see who she was talking about. Alexandria and Maddy walked into the room wearing their pajamas.

“Okay, where is everybody's pajamas?” Alexandria asked us. “We're ready to do the pajama party thing and order some more pizza for room service on our last night here.”

“You didn't tell us that earlier,” I stated. I guess Alexandria and Maddy were both willing to let the fight end and move forward with our friendships.

“Yeah, give us an announcement or something,” Jasmine added.

Maddy said, “You want us to come back in twenty minutes? It shouldn't take you that long to change.”

“What, we're all girls in here. You don't have to leave the room for that,” Sasha told them.

“Well, you're all acting like we caught you off guard with it,” Maddy responded.

I said, “You did. We didn't know if you guys were still beefing with us or not.”

Maddy said, “After we done spent an entire day together, if we still had a beef, you would definitely know about it.”

“For real,” Alexandria agreed with her. She said, “We thought about it, and we didn't want to end this trip on a bad note like that, especially after it was reported in the newspaper. It really made us feel silly.”

Sasha said, “Wasn't that crazy? I don't think I want to be a celebrity if it's all like that.”

“No joke,” Jasmine agreed.

Alexandria then looked at me. She said, “So we went ahead and called up Tracy to apologize to her before we walked over here.”

I nodded to them. “That's good to hear.”

Maddy spoke up and said, “We wanna apologize to you and Jasmine, too.”

“Apology accepted,” Jasmine told them. “I fight and make up with my sisters and cousins all the time. It's no biggie.”

Sasha said, “So that means we're all family again?”

Alexandria grinned and said, “Yup, that's what it looks like.”

“Well . . . I guess we can order pizza then,” I commented.

Sasha said, “The works.”

“But no onions,” Alexandria told her.

“Why not?” Jasmine asked.

“Because you both talk too much with onions all on your breath, that's why,” Maddy told them.

Jasmine opened her mouth wide and exhaled like a dragon.

Alexandria shook her head. “She's crazy. We need to check her in somewhere.”

I jumped on the phone and began to order the pizzas.

“Yes, we would like room service.”

*  *  *

The pizza had just arrived when Tracy called me on my cell phone.

“Hello,” I answered.

“What are you all doing?” she asked me. “I guess you're not in your room.”

I answered, “I'm in Sasha and Jasmine's room. We're all eating pizza and watching a movie.”

“All of you are together?”

“Yeah.”

“Even Alexandria?”

I guess Tracy was surprised by our last-minute unity as well.

I said, “Yup.”

“And Jason didn't show up at all tonight?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did he call her?”

“You want me to ask her?”

Tracy paused. “No, just leave it alone. But I do need to talk to you a few minutes just to wrap things up.”

“I thought you were hanging out with Raheema and Mercedes again tonight.”

She yawned noticeably over the phone. She said, “I thought so, too, but I've been pushing it all this week, and I really couldn't hang tonight. I'm exhausted. They said they might swing past late.”

“Are you sure you're still gonna be up?” I asked her. It was already late.

“No, but they can try me anyway,” she joked.

I chuckled and chomped on a slice of my pizza.

“Hey, stop being greedy, Jasmine. You always have to show off,” I snapped.

The girl had grabbed three slices at once.

She said, “Look, I'm hungry. Don't let this great body fool you. I have to feed it to keep it this way.”

“Whatever,” Sasha told her. “You got nothing on me.”

Sasha stuck her nicely rounded ass out and smacked it.

We all started laughing.

“Well, what are you, the amazing Asian?” Jasmine joked. “You just got lucky, that's all.”