Mick Sinatra: Between Love and Hate

CHAPTER ONE

“This is crazy you know.”

“I know.”

“That man is not going to listen to us.”

“I know, Teddy, I know. Why you keep bringing it up?”

“Because I don’t have time for this bullshit and you don’t either, Nikki.

We got cargo coming in by the tons and we’re over here at some swanky restaurant sipping mint juleps and listening to this old-ass music these old-ass rich white folks love to listen to, and we’re sitting up here acting like we got it going on like that too. ”

Nikki, who was the only black person in their section of the restaurant, laughed out loud. “Your ass rich and white just like their asses. You should feel right at home.”

“Get out of here,” Teddy said as he started moving around in his booth seat. “Give me some SZA with some Kendric Lamar mixed in and I’m good. But this Neal Sedaka/Neal Diamond/Barry Manilow shit or whatever it is? Don’t even try that.”

Nikki nodded. “I hear you. For real. But Roz asked for our help. The least we can do is try it, Teddy. I know it won’t work. You know it won’t work. But Ma needs to know it won’t work.”

“Roz already knows this ain’t gonna work. She’s just desperate now. Pop’s got her desperate now and that ain’t right.”

Nikki sipped her drink and then exhaled. “What else can we do? It is what it is.”

“It still ain’t right.”

“But here we are, Teddy. She wants us to participate in her intervention. As if we’re in any position to speak on somebody else’s relationship.”

Teddy and Nikki shared an uncomfortable glance. They got into it almost as much as Mick and Roz, but yet they were supposed to be the voices of reason? Them? “It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” he said.

“But what’s her alternative? More of the same? She’s tired of it. That much I know is true. And she’s ready to do just about . . .” Nikki sat erect. “Never mind. Here she comes.”

Teddy, who looked over at the entrance where Nikki was looking, saw her too. Then he started grinning.

Nikki thought he saw something about Roz that she didn’t see. “What?” she asked, confused.

“Listen to what’s playing on the stereo system.”

When Nikki heard what was being played over the restaurant’s stereo system after ignoring it all that time, she laughed too. It was Hall and Oates singing Maneater:

“Oh-oh here she comes.

Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up.

Oh-oh here she comes.

She’s a man-eater!”

“She sure looks like one too,” said Teddy, still grinning, as he and Nikki looked admiringly at Roz Sinatra as she made her way to their booth.

With her Prada sunglasses on her flawlessly smooth, high-cheek-boned, dark-brown face, and an elegant, champagne-gold, form-fitting dress on her slenderly-curvaceous body, she came across as a fierce black woman who didn’t take no mess.

She was an eye-catching figure to behold.

Although Nikki was a larger, full-figured woman that Teddy felt carried her weight extremely well, nobody carried anything better than his stepmother.

She was the walking embodiment of elegance and sophistication.

She was in a class all by herself, inside and outside, as far as Teddy was concerned.

Which just pissed him off that his father treated her so shabbily.

Nikki had similar feelings, too, as she watched Roz walk their way. “What’s wrong with these men that they can’t appreciate when they strike gold?”

“Because they always feel they deserve platinum,” Teddy said, and Nikki looked at him. “They always want more,” he added. Then Roz walked up and he smiled. “Hey, Maneater,” he said jokingly, and Nikki laughed.

What they liked about Roz was that she got the reference immediately.

“Yeah right. Get over,” she ordered Teddy as he scooted over and she sat on the booth seat beside him while he sat across from Nikki.

“If I’m some maneater then I must be eating every man except for the one I wanna eat.

Cause I’m not getting even a snack out of that particular man. ”

Teddy shook his head. “Pop again,” he said.

Roz nodded her head. “Pop again,” she said.

It didn’t become clear to Teddy nor Nikki just how much Pop was giving her fits again until she lifted her sunglasses off of her large eyes and sat those glasses on top of her thick hair.

Only her eyes weren’t full of life and vibrancy the way they usually were.

They looked tired and strained, as if she’d been crying more times than she’d ever want anybody to know.

Under the table, Teddy’s shoe kicked lightly against Nikki’s shoe as if to ask her with that kick if she saw it too.

Nikki looked at Teddy and gave a quick nod. She saw it too.

After the waitress came over and took Roz’s drink order and left, Teddy looked at her. “Ma, do you really think this is gonna work?”

“It’s not about if it works or not,” said Roz as she removed her scarf and sat it on her lap.

“It’s about letting somebody else call him on his shit.

I’m tired of doing it. Charles and Millie’s tired of doing it.

Reno, Sal, and Tommy don’t wanna get involved in Mick’s shit because they know how he is. You two are all I have left.”

“But what do you want to accomplish?” Nikki asked.

A depressed look came over Roz’s eyes as she sat there, her hands in her lap, momentarily. “I truly don’t know, Nikki. But I can’t keep going on this way. And I know I say that more times than I say my name, but it’s the truth this time. I’m too damn old.”

“Old?” Teddy’s voice was incredulous. “You? Ma, you don’t look a day over thirty.”

“For real,” agreed Nikki.

But Roz would hear none of it. “Looking and feeling are two different things. My ass may not look that old, but let’s face it: I’m no kid anymore okay?

And living with a man like your father ages you even faster.

I don’t feel like myself, that’s the problem.

I don’t feel like I know who I am anymore and I don’t like feeling this way. Something has got to change.”

They had never seen Roz so determined. That much was different.

After the waitress returned with Roz’s drink order and left again, Teddy, who was not only close in age to his stepmother but was her close confidant too, decided to change the subject. “How are rehearsals going?”

It was a good decision. It seemed to lift Roz’s spirit immediately.

“It’s all good actually. Kelly’s working us like damn slaves, but he’s getting the best out of us too.

Opening night is less than a couple months away and he wants us ready.

But that’s Kelly. Nobody does it better. I love that man’s hustle.”

It wasn’t lost on Teddy nor Nikki the way Roz lit up when she said that name. “Who’s Kelly?” Nikki asked her.

“He’s our director. I’ve known him for years. If it wasn’t for his advocacy, I wouldn’t have gotten the lead.”

“With your talent? Why not?”

“Because Broadway is never about your past successes, Nikki. It is and will always be about what have you done for me lately. And I haven’t done shit lately.

That’s why they wanted a bigger name that’s hot right now, but Kelly told them if I don’t get the lead they won’t get him as director.

Since he’s the biggest name out there in terms of directors right now, I got the lead. ”

“He sounds like a great man.”

“Oh he is, Nikki. He is so . . .”

Teddy hit Nikki’s shoe again with his shoe.

“He’s just the best.” Then Roz smiled. “Last night, after rehearsal, you know what he did?”

“What did he do?” asked Teddy.

“He comes into my dressing room, gets down on his knees with the biggest diamond rock in his hand that I’ve seen in a long time, and he asks me to marry him.”

Although Roz laughed, Teddy and Nikki glanced at each other with deep concern in their eyes. Did she just say what they thought she said?

Teddy looked at her. “But you’re already married, Ma.”

Roz looked sidelong at Teddy. “Don’t you know I know that fool? Kelly knows it too. He jokes around like that.” Then that smile on her face turned to something different. Something they couldn’t define.

“What is it, Ma?” Nikki asked her.

“The crazy thing was that when he got on his knees and actually said will you marry me to me, I wished. . .”

They were staring unblinkingly at Roz. “You wished what?” Teddy asked her.

“I wished I could have said yes.”

Those words stunned Teddy and Nikki. They glanced at each other in shock, and then looked at Roz.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Roz fired back at them. “That’s where it’s at with me and Mick. That’s how fed up I am that I would even entertain another man’s joke proposal.”

“You’re saying it’s a joke,” said Teddy. “Did he say it was a joke?”

“I’m a married woman, boy, what’s wrong with you? He didn’t have to say it. It spoke for itself.”

Another shoe to shoe hit from Teddy to Nikki. The idea that Roz might leave his father upset Teddy in ways he never thought possible.

But then he showed up. “Mr. Sinatra’s here,” Nikki said.

“What’s with you and that Mister Sinatra?” Roz asked Nikki as she and Teddy looked where Nikki was looking. “You can call him Pop or Dad or even Mick if you want to.”

But every time Nikki settled on a name like Pop or Dad, she would get in Mick’s presence and freeze up.

She could never be that casual with that particular man.

Outside of his presence, yes. She could call him Pop all day just like Teddy did.

But whenever he was around? Whenever she was in his presence? No way. He was Mr. Sinatra to her.

“Look at all those females assessing him,” Roz said as Mick made his way toward their booth.

Teddy and Nikki saw it too. In his designer suit and his well-built body and that sleepy eye that most women found most attractive, he struck a powerful pose.

Nikki looked at Roz as she watched those much-younger ladies make no bones about checking him out and even murmuring with the other ladies at their tables as he walked past.