Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
VANESSA
Shannon
What was he like?
Kami
(taken aback by the question—this outing was supposed to be about ice cream, not feelings.)
My brot—your dad? Oh, girl. He was just…the best. My best friend when we were growing up. He protected me from a lot.
Shannon
Why did he have to protect you? Didn’t you have your mom and dad?
Kami
Honestly? Not really. They were kinda all over the place. More like…grown people who came around sometimes than parents.
Shannon
Weird. My mommy and daddy were always around for me. Except that one day.
Kami
What day?
Shannon
(Just looks at her Aunt Kami, waiting for her to remember she had to make her way home from school alone, found her parents slain.)
Kami
Oh, shit. Uh…
(Looks around for help that isn’t coming, then lets out a deep sigh.)
You know what? I’m not surprised to hear that about Kaleel—like I said, he was a natural at the protector thing. And you look a lot like I did when I was a little girl.
Shannon
Does that mean I’ll look like you when I grow up?
Kami
Maybe. If you get lucky. And I think you will. Good looks run deep in our family, and that’s what you are. Family. No matter what your mom’s people try to say.
Shannon
They say the same thing about you.
Kami
Who? You talking about your uncles?
Shannon
(nods, continues eating ice cream.)
They told me they were gonna bust heads for me.
Kami
(rolls eyes.)
Let me guess—that was your Uncle Jude?
Shannon
He says not to call him that. Just Jude. Or Killer Jude.
Kami
I bet he does.
(Pulls phone from pocket to text something ugly to Jude.)
Don’t call him that dumb shit, okay?
Shannon
Uncle Silas said that too.
Kami
’Cause Silas actually has some fucking sense. Let’s go ahead and head out though—don’t you have homework for Ms. Maxwell?
Shannon
(frantically shakes head.)
Kami
(sucks teeth.)
You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, lil’ mama.
Shannon
How do you know that’s what I’m doing?
Kami
Context clues.
(Her phone vibrates—it’s a middle finger text from Jude.)
Come on, we gotta go.
Shannon
Did you ever meet my mom?
Kami
Rae? Yeah, I met her. We didn’t get along.
I loved scenes like this.
Even the set was just… doing it for me.
We weren’t on location for this one, but the show’s design team had either built out an old school ice cream shop or found one from another project to clean up for our purposes.
The karaoke machine, the coolers with the deep tubs of colorful ice cream, even the uniforms on the “employees” – all of it helped with the immersion necessary to really settle into the scene.
Scenes where I was “Auntie Kami” were my favorites.
Not that I didn’t enjoy shooting with my other co-stars, but when I was filming with Shannon’s actress, it felt like so much more of a stretch for my acting muscles.
A few of my cousins had kids, but they were all so young that portraying an aunt was pretty foreign to me. I had no experience. I had those women in my life at this age though, so I pulled a lot of the characterization from the relationships I had with them.
They’d always been very…straight up.
I couldn’t remember being spoken to like a child—and not in a way that inappropriate conversations were had with me. There was just no dumbing things down, no softening of the delivery to avoid me having knowledge of the real “real world.”
I was grateful.
I credited that approach for me coming into the entertainment industry without a lot of the blinders that allowed so many to be taken advantage of. Much of the wariness and mistrust people tried to tell me was unwarranted paranoia had kept me from signing shitty deals or ending up cornered in a room at the wrong parties.
I’d been protected, which allowed me to have a certain level of control, make moves I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to make.
Like signing on to this show, which my management had advised against—said it wouldn’t be good for the “image” I’d cultivated.
An image I wasn’t so sure about anymore.
Bad bitch?
Yes.
I was always going to be that.
I just didn’t like the way I’d been pigeon-holed.
The sexiness was simply engrained in me, part of who I was that was never changing, as long as I could help it. It would be amazing though, if people were able to see deeper than that exterior—hopefully triggered by this role.
The scene wrapped with Shannon—who was so damn perceptive, even as a young child—challenging Kami’s characterization of the relationship with Rae as them not getting along. Honestly, Kami was a bitch to her because she felt like her brother was being taken away, and by a family they didn’t get along with.
Which exacerbated the alienation that was exactly what Kami feared, and didn’t want.
Now Kaleel and Rae were both gone, leaving behind a child no one had known about because they were estranged from both families. It left Kami, Jude, and Silas—Shaw’s character—having to grapple with guilt and what family really meant, while Luna Maxfield—Elodie’s character, and Shannon’s grade-school teacher—had to play referee, all too often.
The shit was compelling.
I got compliments from Charlotte and Nolan about my performance today, so I practically bounced all the way to my trailer on a high. When I got to my phone to turn it on, it was flooded with notifications I mostly ignored, except for two in particular.
Alec had called, and so had Annie.
The return calls were going to put me in two completely different moods, so I made a quick decision to see what Annie—my manager—wanted first.
“Where have you beeeeeeen?” she asked, not even bothering with pleasantries or hellos. It was a video call, and from the angle, I could immediately tell she was in a moving car.
“Is that a real question?”
It couldn’t be.
She had to be playing.
Even though she’d preferred me to spend this time in a studio working on a new album, I refused to believe she’d progressed to simply pretending the show wasn’t happening.
“Oh yeah—your little acting thing,” she chirped, and I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t think a lead role on a major TV show should be referred to as a little acting thing , but okay.”
“I’m sorry—did that offend you?”
“Offend? No. Is the shit weird? Absolutely,” I answered, flopping into a seat on the ultra-soft couch I’d requested for my trailer. “You act like you didn’t get paid good money for just being in the room.”
“Damn, sorry,” she huffed. “I was just messing with you. Was it a rough day on set or something?”
“No, it was a great day on set, which makes it even more annoying that you’re starting up bullshit. I had a missed call from you, what did you want?” I asked, pivoting before we ended up arguing, which I hated was even a thing with someone who worked for me , supposedly.
But we had a contract.
The one I’d started to regret signing.
“Van, seriously—I was just fucking with you,” Annie said, trying to smooth it over as if she was reading my mind.
“What did you want?” I asked again.
She pushed out a heavy sigh, eyes on the road. “O-kay. Well, I wanted to ask about this thing with you and Alec Everett, but I don’t know?—”
“I don’t have anything about Alec Everett to talk to you about,” I quickly interjected, knowing how vital it was to nip that particular conversation in the bud. “It’s not a conversation for management.”
“Anything affecting your career is a conversation for management,” she said—kinda snapped, actually, which made me raise an eyebrow. “Van—you’re going to have to give your fans something to work with here.”
I frowned. “Huh? I’ve been posting on social media basically every day, the show is airing new episodes every week, I’ve been on interviews, I?—”
“Haven’t given the world new music, not even a teaser, in over a year,” she said, shaking her head. “All the other stuff is cool, but the music is what has been getting people on their feet for the last five years. You can’t leave them hanging.”
“The music ?” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s be real—the music the mainstream media cares about is only the stuff where I’m talking about my pussy. Which, fine, I like to talk about it, so whatever. But let’s not act like I’m…shit, the last Airbender, gone missing when the world needed me most. I’m here, I’m visible.” I sat up to grab a bottled water from the nearby table. “And I just featured on two different songs with Kyir, not even six months ago.”
“Six months is a long time in this industry. You know that.”
I closed my eyes.
I did know that, and there wasn’t much I could say to combat her very relevant point.
“What are you suggesting, Annie?” I asked, once I realized she was just going to let the awkward silence hang there until I broke it. “Since you’re telling me a freaking hit show isn’t enough. You have anything new for me?”
“Monica Stewart reached out, from that nail polish brand you always tag— against my advice. ”
My face lit up. “Oh, Vivid Vixen? What did she want?”
“She’s offering a collab—the numbers are attractive. Kind of a hybrid endorsement thing—you can take the option of just appearing in promo for your favorite existing colors, or she wants you to actually come into the lab and create colors for a line, which I know is right up your alley.”
“Hell yes.” I nodded. “Send over the numbers.”
“Okay. But you know this doesn’t actually solve our problem?”
“What problem ?” I huffed. “I’m still not understanding what you want from me—my mind hasn’t been on music, so there is none.”
“Yeah—your mind has clearly been on Alec’s big ass—which your fans will accept, and understand. You give them the scoop on the relationship, and they won’t even be thinking about music. They’ll be thinking if it was them, they’d be spending too much time on that dick to get in the studio too.”
“Absolutely not ,” I said, while the words were barely out of her mouth. “I’m not trying to have them in my business like that.”
Annie chuckled. “Van…sweetie, the whole world has watched you go viral busting it wide open for Bronx Boy—they’ve seen all your cracks and crevices. Is this really any different?”
“Girl, fuck you ,” I snapped, ready to hang up—but not before I made her understand. “You’re supposed to be on my side, and you say some shit like that to me? Seriously?”
“I am on your side,” she countered. “Which is why I’m not sugar-coating this. I’m giving you the real deal. And the real deal is that it’s ridiculous to claim to want privacy after something like that.”
“ I didn’t put the damn sex tape out ,” I practically yelled. “It’s not like I wanted the world to see it. You know what—as a matter of fact, I’m calling my lawyers in the morning. You talked me down from legal action last time it went around, but this time, somebody is gonna have to pay me.”
“You’re already getting paid off it—all your music is trending and charting again.”
“That’s not the point, not even a little,” I replied, annoyed that I even had to explain. “It’s a complete violation, and I’m tired of accepting those. Being a public figure should not mean I don’t get to have a private life. I deserve to have shit to myself—including my relationship with Alec.”
“So there is a relationship?”
“Annie…”
“I’m just saying—the pictures of him tonguing you down at the sushi place went viral, you know that, Van. If you don’t say you’re in a relationship, people are going to make their assumptions, and I’m sure you already know what that’s going to be. That you’re a hoe. Which fits with allll the other messaging. Is that what you want?”
“You know good and well it isn’t,” I snapped.
She shrugged, putting her car in park before she pulled her phone from where it had been mounted so I could really see her face.
“Yeah, I do—but if you want the narrative changed, you have to know it’s not going to happen just because you want it to. You have to change it. And what better way to combat being seen as the biggest whore in the industry than locking down a man like Alec?”
I shook my head.
As much as I understood her angle, and unfortunately kinda agreed…I couldn’t do that.
“This is too important to me to use in that way,” I told her, and she groaned. “I get it, I do, but…I have to keep something for me. And this is that thing. If people can’t see past my ass, that’s just going to have to be on them. I can’t take on that responsibility.”
“So you…what, expect me to just do nothing?” Annie asked, looking at me like I was crazy. “I’m your manager, Van?—”
“Exactly,” I said. “You’re my manager—supposed to be on my side, on my team. I’ve told you what I wanted, so…that’s it. Make it work for me.”
Nostrils flared, she shook her head at the phone.
Peeved.
But I didn’t care, not really.
We only exchanged a few more words before getting off the phone, and I couldn’t dial Alec fast enough after that. He’d barely gotten out a greeting before I was already putting in a request.
Hey…do you feel like company?