Chapter 7

The Christmas break came up quickly. I passed my course work and submitted my thesis. I was happy to be going home, because regardless of how busy I stayed, I missed Joey all the time. As I supervised the movers packing up the apartment, I thought about that. I was happy! Now that we were dating, so was Joey. Yet, I knew that it was only a matter of time before word of our involvement got back to my family. To forestall surprising my folks, I decided to introduce Joey to my family, and get in front of things. After all, I reasoned, we were just dating. While they might not be thrilled with the idea, they wouldn’t go nuts over it, either.

I also had something else on my mind. I wanted to find a place of my own to live. I was twenty-two, a college grad, and gainfully employed. It was time to move out of my parent’s house. Of course, if I had a place of my own, I could also drag Joey off to bed whenever the mood struck me; and it struck me just as often now, as it did when we first started sleeping together!

The evening I arrived back home my parents sat me down for a talk about the future. It was a conversation I was eager to have. My dad told me how proud of me they were, and Mother nodded her agreement. Then the conversation shifted to work.

“Have you decided which part of the company suits you best?” he asked.

“In fact, I have. Let me get my laptop and I’ll show you,” I replied.

I returned with my laptop and squeezed in between my parents on the couch. I put my computer on the coffee table in front of us, and while it was booting up, I started my carefully prepared presentation.

“I have an expansion idea that I believe has the potential to increase profits for Rainbow Talent by thirty percent or more and add five to fifteen percent in new investments for Spellman Financial,” I boldly stated.

My declaration insured my parents’ total attention, so I clicked an icon on my desktop and started my PowerPoint presentation. When I told Joey that any help I gave him would also help me, I was telling the truth. It became even truer when I saw his studio because my expansion idea was to start a division of Rainbow, that represented artists, writers and creative people other than actors and models. My parents listened intently to my spiel and asked plenty of questions. When I finished, my mother sat back with a thoughtful look, while my father beamed proudly.

“Nicely done, Princess! Do you have a business plan to go with this?” he asked.

I did. It was the same one I’d included as an appendix in my thesis. I handed him a copy.

“Your idea is something that never occurred to me,” Mother admitted, “but I see potential, there. I also see some potential problems. For instance, most established writers and artist already have agents. In addition, we don’t have staff knowledgeable in those fields. How do you plan to address those issues?”

“We hire away a couple of good literary and art agents and let them train new hires. We offer established clients a bundle that includes artistic, legal and financial representation at a rate lower than they pay for the services individually. Since we make money off their talents and their income, lower rates won’t hurt us. But I think we will make our mark by discovering new talent. We’ll discover that new talent through competitions. We’ll hire well known artists, writers and critics to judge the competition and sign the winners to contracts with us; much like the modeling competition you won, Mother. Then, of course, I think the reputations of Rainbow and Spellman will also generate clients.”

It took some back and forth and they both gave me some good ideas, but by the time our little impromptu meeting broke up, I was Vice President of the Writers and Artists Division of Rainbow talent. I would get a small office suite, an initial staff of three, a nice salary, and a year and a half to show results.

I started looking for a place of my own the next day. I checked a number of places, most of them on the beach; before I found a very nice, brand new two bedroom three bath bungalow. It was a block off the ocean, and less than a quarter mile from the jetties. The house was built to be a tourist rental; but, after some negotiation, I signed a one year lease. At dinner that night, I broke the news to my parents.

“I found a place of my own, today,” I said without preamble. “I can move in the first of the year.”

My parents both stopped eating and looked at me. My mother’s expression was unreadable but Dad looked decidedly unhappy.

“But you just returned home, can’t you wait a few months?” he asked.

I shook my head negatively.

“No, Daddy, it’s time for me to try living on my own. I have already signed a lease. Besides, you’ll see me every day at work, and I’ll probably eat over here a couple of nights a week, so it’s not as if I’m moving to China.”

Mother surprised me by taking my side. Before the meal was over she and I made plans to decorate my little bungalow as my dad grudgingly agreed. Of course his agreement came with the caveat that he was having an alarm system installed first.

Flush with the success of my idea for work and plan to move into my own place, I decided to hit the parentals with Joey the following day.

This time I brought the subject up while were watching television on the big screen in the family room. I waited until a commercial break came along during Dancing with the Stars.

“So are you two going to be home Friday night?” I asked in my most casual manner.

My dad looked towards my mother with a quirked eyebrow because Mother was the family social secretary.

“Yes, we are free until New Years Eve,” Mother said.

I had been fairly certain that was the case because it was the twenty-first of December and the Christmas party season was behind us.

“That’s good,” I said, “because I have a date that night, and I’d like for you to meet him.”

Since as far as they knew I hadn’t been on a date since I broke up with Michael seven months ago, you can imagine my parent’s interest.

“That’s wonderful, Dear,” my mother gushed. “Who is the lucky young man?”

“Yeah,” I replied nonchalantly, “now that school is finished, I thought I’d give dating another try. He’s a nice guy I went to school with, and we have been friends for a couple of years.”

That was as much as I said because that’s all I figured they needed to know. They would learn the rest Friday. That thought almost make me giggle.

Joey knocked on our front door at exactly seven o’clock on Friday night. I was dressed and ready to go so I answered the door. He smiled nervously when I tugged him inside the door.

“Relax Baby,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

I led him into the family room where my parents were sitting on the couch watching the news. I suppressed a grin as my parents eyes widened when they saw Joey. Dad clicked off the television and he and Mother exchanged a look of bemusement.

Mother, Dad, this is Joey Spacey,” I said.

Joey, probably the politest person I’d ever met, stepped forward and extended his hand towards my father. Dad stood up and shook it. My dad is a big man. He was at least eight inches taller and seventy pounds heavier than Joey. But Joey didn’t seem intimidated in the least.

“Pleased to meet you, Sir,” Joey said.

Dad just nodded and dropped his hand. Joey turned to face my mother and gave her a slight bow.

“And you also, Mrs. Spellman.”

Mother was the first to regain her voice.

“Likewise, I’m sure,” she said, her voice even more haughtily British than usual.

Figuring I’d shocked them enough for one night, I grabbed Joey’s hand and headed for the door.

“We are going to grab some pizza and catch a movie. I’ll be home by eleven,” I chirped over my shoulder.

Joey was very happy that I’d introduced him to my mother and father; but I knew that for me, the interesting part of the evening would happen when I returned home. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, but I was determined to stand up to my parents if things got ugly. Joey had me home five minutes before eleven. We had not let our passion out that night, as I would be in control and unruffled when I faced whatever was coming. Joey kissed me sweetly on the porch, wished me good luck then headed home.

I told him I’d call him later and went into the house. I walked to the family room and Mother and Daddy were sitting right where I’d left them, almost as if they hadn’t moved the entire time I’d been out. They both looked up when I walked in and it seemed they were scrutinizing me closely. Mother was the first to speak.

So, My Dear, did you have a nice evening?” she asked.

“Yes, Mother,” I replied just as coolly, “it was most pleasant.”

Daddy cleared his throat, “that was the young man at Robert’s funeral, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “He and Robert were friends, and he works for your old school chum Mister Collins. He asked me out again after Christmas and I accepted.”

Both my parents nodded; they were at a loss for words. My parents were decent people and I’d like to think that they weren’t racists or anything like that. I am sure that as a person, they had nothing against Joey.

I moved into my new digs right after the first of the year. True to his word, Daddy had an alarm company rep there before the movers arrived with the furniture from the Gainesville apartment. Dad insisted on a state of the art system with monitoring and two remote panic buttons. He even had a remote camera installed that covered the small front porch and back door. I figured it was overkill, but because it made Daddy feel better, I went along with it.

For the next few months my life was a whirlwind of activity. I hired an established literary agent whose only client had died and he was teaching me the ropes. I also hired an art critic to a consulting position. From my new hires I learned that writers and artists as a group were just as difficult as performers and models when it came to ego. It also took an entirely different skill set to represent them. It took three months to have everything in place.

On April the fourth, we had the grand opening of Rainbow Writers and Artists. I had gone all out for our launch, inviting a host of established artists, critics, media and patrons of the arts. Part of the media blitz I conducted before the grand opening was in publications produced by YES Media, my Aunt Yolanda’s company. YES printed a weekly entertainment news magazine aimed towards the Black community and had two popular black cable entertainment channels.

The two day event featured presentations on what we could do, tours of Rainbow, Spellman and Yes Media, plus testimonials from existing Rainbow Talent clients. In addition, I hosted a formal dinner and a cocktail party with live entertainment, again using existing Rainbow talent. By April the sixth I had spent half a million and didn’t have a single client to show for it.

That changed in a big way in the middle of the following week when Opal Winfield, the media diva, called me directly. I’d met Opal briefly once, when she and my mother were on the board of some charity. I was much pleased that Opal remembered me, and thrilled when she referred me my first client. Opal knew a young talented woman who was close to finishing a novel that Opal swore would be as big a blockbuster as Alex Haley’s ‘Roots‘. It was just the jump start we needed!

The author was a thirty-something cultural anthropology professor at the University of Georgia; her name was Tamika McCoy. I called her and left a message; she returned my call a couple of hours later. Tamika and I established an instant rapport on the phone and we made arrangements to meet the following day. My assistant made my flight reservations. I rushed home, threw a bag together and hauled butt to Orlando International. By seven that evening I was ensconced in a Southwest Air seat winging toward Atlanta.

The flight was uneventful except for some drunken cretin across the aisle from me who thought I was Serena Williams and tried to hit on me. It would have been amusing if he hadn’t been a middle-aged fat slob with a bad comb-over. I spent the night at the Airport Hilton, then rented a car and drove over to Athens.

Tamika met me at an Applebee’s just off campus for lunch. She was a petite woman with short cropped, tightly curled hair. Her skin was ebony and her features were strongly African. She was shy and reserved at first but as we got to know each other she displayed a quick wit and ready smile. We liked each other immediately and I knew that we would become friends regardless of her book. We spent a pleasant hour getting to know each other. Before we left the restaurant she handed me a thumb drive with her novel on it.

“This is just a near final draft,” she warned, “as it still needs some editing.”

I told her I understood, and we agreed to meet again the next day.

I found a nice bed and breakfast not far from campus. Once I was settled in, I loaded Tamika’s novel onto my laptop and started reading. The novel was one of those that once you started reading, you couldn’t put it down. It was probably the best thing I’d ever read. I told Tamika that the next day. I also told Tamika that I was confident enough in her work that I would provide her book with the biggest launch the publishing world had ever seen. I explained to her about the interlocking companies of the Spellman Group and how they would work on her behalf. She liked what she heard and committed to us representing her.

I had the contract prepared by Spellman Legal and e-mailed to me. The following day I went home a happy girl, my first client firmly in the fold. When I returned to my office, three days after I’d left it was with a vision and a purpose. The first thing I did was go to my mother for the funds to make my vision reality. The meeting did not go my way.

“This is an unknown writer’s first book, Andrea,” she said, “and you are asking for almost half of our promotional budget for the year. I cannot, in good conscience, do that. If the book is as good as you say, sell it to a publisher. Let them do the promoting.”

I was unhappy with my mother’s reasoning but after I sat at my desk and thought about it for a few minutes, I saw her point. Although I was certain any publisher with a brain would snap the book up, there were no guarantees. Since my first duty was to my client, I needed to sell the book first. As I thought about that, I realized that I knew a publisher personally: my Aunt Yolanda. True, her media empire only included a few magazines aimed primarily towards black women, but I figured she knew who would treat my client and her book right. I called Yolanda on her direct line. She answered on the third ring and after some pleasantries, I gave her my spiel.