CHAPTER SIX
An hour later and Roz, along with two of her co-stars, were at a popular coffee shop a block down from their rehearsal hall when Kelly Cochran, the director of the latest revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, walked in.
As he began making his rounds from table to table and talking with various Broadway insiders who were also having lunch at the café, he immediately caught the attention of Roz’s table.
They were actors in his latest play. He was their director.
But for Roz, he caught her attention simply because she liked Kelly.
He gave her the lead role in his big production when no other director would have even considered her.
Like Kelly, she was African-American for one thing, when the lead role was designed for a white actress.
And for another thing, the latest trend on Broadway was to cast the youngest actresses with the most social media followers to play every major role no matter the age of the character.
Roz was not even on social media, was no kind of influencer, and had no intentions of becoming one.
Kelly bucked the trend when he cast Roz.
But the reason he immediately caught the attention of her two younger co-stars had nothing to do with work. They were young and beautiful social media influencers who had no problem finding work. They were drawn to the man himself.
“Gorgeous as all get-out,” said Meg, the older of her two co-stars. “I’m a white girl from Nebraska who grew up in an all-white community, but I know fine when I see it. And that black man right there is fine as pure wine with no chaser needed thank you very much.”
Roz laughed. “You need to quit.”
“He’s not my cup of tea, but he’s fine. I’ll give him, that,” said Leslie, the younger of the co-stars. “But he’s a little too old for me, and too flirty for my taste. Especially towards you, Roz.”
“Ah that’s just Kelly,” said Roz, dismissing her concern. “He likes to kid around all the time. That’s why I enjoy working for him. He keeps it light and easy. We’ve known each other for years.”
“Are you two friends then?” asked Leslie.
“I would say so, yes.”
“With benefits?” asked Meg.
“Girl bye!” Roz said, and they all laughed. Roz sipped her tea.
“Does that really work?”
“Does what really work?” Roz realized she was looking at her cup of tea.
“Oh that. It works for me. I’ve got to keep my voice together when I’m doing these major roles, and I’ve got that scene coming up where Martha lets George have it after a long night of boozing.
If my voice starts cracking, I’ll lose the power she’s trying to project. I’ll lose that advantage.”
“You still didn’t answer Meg’s question,” said Leslie. “Are the two of you friends with benefits?”
“I didn’t answer it because it goes without saying. I’m a married woman. There are no benefits over here.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Meg, still staring at Kelly, “I’d take that benefit any day of the week.”
“And your husband?” asked Leslie.
“I’ll take him next week,” Meg said and she and Roz fell against each other laughing. Leslie just shook her head in a kind of superior disgust.
Then Kelly found his way to their table. “Hello ladies.”
All three looked at him. Roz and Meg couldn’t help but notice his thick biceps and his beautiful smile.
Leslie couldn’t help but notice his seemingly well-endowed mid-section.
She’d heard how black guys had more than their fair share in that department, but she never tired it herself.
She wasn’t into black guys, although she believed every single one of them was into her.
But Roz noticed how she was the one checking him out.
“How’s it going, Kelly?” said Meg.
“It’s going,” Kelly said with that killer smile of his. Then he looked at Leslie. Leslie said nothing. So he looked at the one he walked over to see anyway. “Hiya, Roz.”
“What’s up?” asked Roz. “You aren’t calling us back to rehearsal early, are you?”
“No, no, no. Nothing like that.” Then he looked at Meg and Leslie. “But if you don’t mind, ladies, I would like to talk with our leading lady for a sec.”
Meg immediately began getting up. Roz and Kelly could tell that Leslie felt put-upon, but she got up and went to another table as well. And Kelly sat down.
“Was that necessary?” Roz asked him.
“You mean getting rid of them? Not really, no. But if you’re going to have a little power, why not use it?”
Roz smiled. “Better watch that one though,” she said.
“Which one? Leslie?”
“You know it.”
“Why?”
“She’s building a case against your ass. That’s why.”
Kelly was confused. “What kind of case?” Then he was surprised. “You mean sexual harassment?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. I see her on set. Always trying to get the other girls to agree that you’re too flirty. That you invade their personal space. That you’re just a little too touchy-feely. That chick is up to something.”
Kelly laughed. “You’ve been around those gangster family members of yours way too long, Roz.”
“Okay, don’t take it seriously. That Shannon guy from Club Shay-Shay, or whatever that podcast was called, didn’t take it seriously either. He found himself staring down the barrel of a fifty-million-dollar lawsuit.”
Kelly’s smile left. And a look of recognition came on his face. “I did find it odd that she would act so stuck up around the cast, but yet whenever she was alone with me she was always propositioning me.”
Roz was shocked. “For real?”
“Every time. She’s always asking if I cared to join her at her apartment after rehearsal most every night. I finally asked her to do what. She said ‘fuck, what else?’”
Roz shook her head. “And she’s always Miss Ethical on set. What did you say?”
“I said hell no. I told her I had shoes older than her. I don’t go for the twenty-somethings, and I don’t go for white girls.
But some of those girls believe they’re the cat’s meow and every brother in their sight wants them.
This brother doesn’t. Most of us educated brothers are trying to keep it in the family.
But yeah, she did proposition me. No doubt about it. ”
“Good thing you didn’t go to that apartment,” said Roz. “It was probably rigged with so many video cameras and listening devices that you would have been Live on Facebook committing all kinds of unseemly acts and didn’t even know it.” They both laughed.
“But I’ll take your advice under advisement” he said, “and stay clear of her.”
“And anybody else on set. Keep it professional and you can’t go wrong. I just don’t wanna see another brother going through that shit again with these white girls.”
“What you care about us brothers? With your white man.” Kelly looked at her with a smile on his face, but she could tell he was dead serious.
And Roz was dead serious too. “If a brother would have come to me correct and would have snatched me up, I would have been snatched up. Mick came correct and snatched me up. I got snatched up. How he treated me mattered. His race? I didn’t give a shit.”
Kelly laughed. “That’s what I love about you, Roz. You keep it real. You keep it real girl!”
Roz smiled too. She really liked Kelly. “So what’s up? Why did you feel a need to get rid of my lunch dates?”
“I just wanted to check on you. To make sure you’re okay.”
Roz stared at him.
“I know your stepson was in that bad car crash: I saw it on the news. I heard he was fine, but I wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”
He was the only person in months that bothered to ask about her wellbeing. She was touched by that. “Thank you, Kelly. I appreciate you asking. But I’m good.”
“No offense, Roz, but you don’t look so good.”
Roz wasn’t offended in the least. She knew what he meant. She took another sip of her tea.
“It’s Mick again,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
She looked at him over her tea mug. “Who’s to say it’s not me?”
Kelly raised his hand. “I say it’s not you. Hello? It’s never you.”
Roz gave a weak smile, finished sipping her tea, and then sat down her mug. “Anyway,” she said. She wasn’t about to even try to unpack her personal mess with Mick with some other man. “I heard you bought a house in Philly.”
He nodded. “I did, yes, I did.”
Roz studied him. “Why?”
“Why not? Because it’s a beautiful place to live. I love all the lovely people there. I love the food.” Then he looked a Roz. “And I love me some Roz Graham.”
“That’s not the reason and you know it.”
“The point is, I own property everywhere. And Philly works for me. It’s close enough to New York that I can get here in a hurry if I have to.
And it’s far enough away from New York that I can feel like I’m not at work all the time.
That I’m away from work. And,” he added, “I love me some Roz Graham.”
“I’m not a Graham anymore, Kelly, and your ass know it.”
“You’re always be Roz Graham to me.”
“Roz Graham been gone a long time ago. I don’t even recognize that girl. I’m Roz Sinatra through and through now. Mick saw to that.”
“But did you see to that, Roz? Why would a strong, powerful woman like you let some crooked-ass man like him erase you, and who you are, like that?”
“He didn’t erase me.”
“He defined you then.”
“He didn’t define me either. My love for him did that.”
Kelly stared at Roz. His handsome face was filled with that loving look Roz remembered Mick used to give to her. It was so sweet that it was uncomfortable. She was a married woman! “You’re staring,” she said to him.
“How I envy that man,” Kelly blurted out. “I’d give both arms to be with you when he won’t give you the time of day.”
“Careful, Kelly. That’s my husband you’re talking about.”
“Remember that Gladys Knight song If I Were Your Woman?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you remember it, Roz?”
“If I Were Your Woman and You Were My Man? Yeah I remember when she wrote that song. I play that shit all the time.”
The director in Kelly took over. “There’s a lot wrong with what you just said,” he couldn’t help himself from saying.
“The actual title isn’t that long, number one, and it was penned by McMurray, Jones, and Sawyer, number two.
But be that as it may! You remember where Gladys sings (and he began singing in a less than on-key voice):
“She tears you down, darling.
Says you’re nothing at all.
But I’ll pick you up, darling.
When she lets you fall.
You’re like a diamond.
But she treats you like glass.
Yet you beg her to love you.
But me you don’t ask.”
“Remember those lyrics? Well that’s how I feel, Roz.
You beg Mick to love you. Beg the man. But me?
A brother that’s ready, willing and able, in every way I might add, to give you the world, you don’t even ask me to give you a thing.
” Then he smiled. “You do a brother wrong, Roz,” he said, and she laughed.
“It’s a crying shame how you do a brother. ”
That was Kelly. Always good for a laugh.
But it didn’t take long before neither one of them were smiling anymore. They were just staring at one another, assessing one another, sizing up one another.
Roz understood what he was saying. She understood it perfectly.
He was everything he said and more. He was smart and witty and talented and gorgeous as gorgeous could be.
And a good man on top of all of that. He checked all the boxes.
Every single one. If only she’d met him before she met Mick. Her life would have been so different.
But that was wishful thinking.
And Roz, a realist to her soul, was never going to allow herself to live in the land of wish.
“I need to review my lines for the upcoming scene,” she said, got up, and took herself back to rehearsal.