It just didn’t seem good enough.
As much as I heard and was doing my best to accept Nick’s assurances about the quality of the script after we’d spent all those intense days going over it in rewrites… there was something I couldn’t get off my mind.
Even though I was just a kid, and hadn’t really understood what she meant, I remembered my mother chastising my father that no matter how much critical review he got from his sycophant peers, his scripts were only as good as the care they took of the women who appeared between the pages.
Heroines and villains alike, they deserved more than flat characterizations that only existed as a complement to the men who were – typically – the “real” focus.
Again, back then, as a kid I couldn’t really understand it. Now though, when I saw my mother’s movies, and thought about the work my father had done since then, I could very clearly see it.
There was a difference.
Without looking up a single word from the creators on social media or watching past interviews, however the creator of a movie presented women on the screen was a clear indication of how they felt about them in real life.
And when I did see them in action, read their interviews, whatever… well, the assumption panned out with near 100% accuracy.
It was important to me to not become another part of my own statistic.
So I called Sienna.
Well more accurately I called Sienna, and she didn’t answer, which I took as a sign from God, attempting to protect me from myself.
But then, instead of calling me back, a few hours later she shot me a text saying that she was already about to get on a plane from LA to Vegas for something else she was already working on. Instead of hashing it out over the phone or email, we would just meet and talk about it in person.
I… didn’t love the idea.
But if she was already on her way anyway and would be in town… maybe it was for the best. Depending on what her schedule was like, it – maybe – wouldn’t be too big an imposition to hire her for some script consultation work.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Shit.
Shooting was due to start in exactly two weeks. If nothing else, maybe she could lend her experience with the creation of one of this past summer’s hottest Black shows to my first episode, at least. Whatever insight she could offer – specifically from a woman’s perspective with her added expertise as a writer – would be enough for me to apply to the rest of the script.
Whatever happened, as it stood now, I did not feel prepared for that first table read. So between now and then, something was going to have to happen.
I could not blow this.
Especially after seeing how phenomenal Elodie was in the Tracy role. If she shined despite a bad script – which I was pretty confident she would – it would make my failing of our parents look even more drastic in contrast.
I really, really did not want that.
I downplayed it when talking about it to Logan, but what the media had taken me through in the wake of my father’s death contributed to an even worse downward spiral than I was already on. Yeah, most addicts were under the mistaken impression that they had it under control, but the traumatic, dramatic way in which my father left me, paired with the intense scrutiny, judgment, unmerited commentary, and overexposure from what felt like the whole world at the time… honestly, I still had nightmares about it.
Sure, I felt like I was pretty well past that now.
On a day to day basis, at least.
But there was still the fact that a common refrain amongst the media had been that I was supposed to overtake my father’s legacy, but I didn’t actually have the tools to do so.
I was a drunk; I was supposedly a druggie.
According to “sources” I was nothing more than a big dick and a pretty face, nothing between the ears, no comparison to the legend that was my father.
I knew I shouldn’t give a shit about proving them wrong, that making this show wasn’t about that. It was about honoring a legacy, doing something I was passionate about – and maybe even good at.
I wanted to create something my parents would be proud of, if they were here to see it.
And I wanted to prove the naysayers wrong.
So I would do what was necessary.
When Sienna arrived for our unscheduled meeting the day after I’d called her, it was with big hair and a bigger smile. She was very touchy, very flirty, just like she’d always been.
I’d hoped to have Logan here, even though I hadn’t told her about this meeting. I’d put enough on her plate and didn’t want to throw her off. Still, her keep this shit professional energy would have been a great buffer for Sienna’s fuck work, let’s play mentality.
Instead she was off being productive, still dealing with contracts.
So many contracts.
There was a contract and hiring paperwork, waivers, and non-disclosures and all sorts of other shit for every single person that would step foot on our set.
It was a lot.
And I was glad as hell she was on it, instead of me.
“P-Threeeeeee!” Sienna gushed, rushing to wrap me in a hug as soon as I met her downstairs at the security desk. She went from talking Freddy’s ear off to looping an arm through mine, not stopping to ask what it was I’d even called her for before she started chattering away about everything that had been happening in her life from the major to the minutiae.
I let her.
Because it really had been a while, and despite my reservations, it really was good to see a familiar face. For better or worse, Sienna reminded me of home, and my memories of LA were by no means all bad.
She was present for some of the bad though.
“Okay,” she said, once we were seated in the lounge area in my office, and she’d rambled for another twenty minutes. “Tell me what’s going on, what did you have me hop on a plane for?”
My eyes went wide. “Well… you hopped on a plane because you had something else going on here in Vegas I thought?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s always something going on somewhere, right? What did you need me for?”
I sighed. “Well, I’m making the show.”
“Oh right,” she exclaimed, grabbing me for another hug. “I heard about that, but you’ve been a little stingy with the details – nobody knows anything! I can’t believe you haven’t gotten a press run started yet.”
“We haven’t even started filming, which is part of why I wanted to talk to you. I—”
“Nooo, you do not want to wait until you start filming to build a buzz! What kind of people do you have around you that don’t have your marketing together? Do you need me to call someone?”
“I’m good on that front,” I told her, even though… should I already be doing that? I’d have to run it past Logan. But in any case – “I was calling you because I wanted to have you take a look at the script for me. Everybody was talking about The Common Room, like… I couldn’t have avoided it if I wanted to. You killed it.”
Sienna beamed. “Well, thank you – and thank you again for the congratulatory bouquet, it was beautiful.”
“You’re definitely welcome – gotta hold it down for our old crew, you know? I remember how we were all just trying to make our shit happen.”
“Right,” she huffed, crossing her arms. “Until some people got too good to hang around us anymore…”
Yeah.
I should’ve seen that coming.
“Don’t do me like that, Sienna. You know why I left.”
“You didn’t have to go all the way to Blackwood for it though. You could’ve just told me you didn’t want me anymore – didn’t have to go allll the way over there. I’m a big girl, I could’ve taken the hint.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Really? Cause we definitely weren’t on any serious shit when I left, which was mutual, I thought?”
“Okay, you’ve got a point there,” she smirked, leaning in. “That was then. What about… now?”
“Now, I’m trying to get my show made, and I could use your expertise – like a consult or something. Paid, of course,” I added, trying to make it as clear as possible that this would be a professional collaboration – nothing more.
She sighed. “You’re not as fun as you used to be. But… fine. Tell me about the show and explain what you think is the problem.”
I spent a few minutes giving her a basic rundown of the show, then shifted into my concerns for Tracy. To Sienna’s credit, she gave me her full attention the whole time, nodding along as I made my points. And then, when I finally stopped, she asked to see the script for the first episode – which included the audition scene Elodie had murdered.
I… wasn’t expecting her to frown so much though.
This was exactly why I didn’t typically hang around when people consumed my work – I preferred not to be present for the reaction. But I’d asked for this, so I forced myself to peck around on my phone until she was done, and ready to give her feedback.
“So… she’s like a Black manic pixie girl trope with a decent vocabulary or something, huh?”
Well damn.
“That… wasn’t exactly how I intended it,” I said, still cringing over that framing. “She’s definitely different from what Jason is accustomed to, but she never gave me… manic?”
Sienna waved that off. “Okay maybe not manic, but she’s giving me overly-woke vibes. I mean, what is this reference here, about people walking away… ? What does this even mean? This is the kind of highbrow shit that turns the audience off.”
“I’m aiming at a highbrow kinda show,” I explained. “It’s not a comedy, it’s not light.”
“Right, it’s a drama. But I’m telling you, if you can connect the millennial crowd with your heroine – they either wanna fuck her or be her friend or both – then you’re golden. You’ll get the show trending, everybody talking, you’ll be the main topic every week. But Tracy is too… confident. She’s too certain, too focused, to together. And she’s not pressed about Jason. She’s not relatable enough – audiences want messy, insecure women they can relate to.”
I frowned. “Logan called her aspirational. Inspiring.”
“I don’t know who the fuck Logan is, but they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Sienna assured. “Remember, The Common Room is my third hit show – I know what I’m doing. Send me the script – all the episodes. I’m gonna get this fixed for you.”
She had all the confidence in the world in her tone, but… I wasn’t nearly as certain. “I’m gonna run it all past Nick, and after that, we can talk about your compensation and all that. Cool?”
“Nick Davison? Of course he’d connected to this – I see his lofty fingerprints all over this,” Sienna grunted, rolling her eyes. “I bet he’s trampled your original script, hasn’t he?”
“Nah,” I chuckled. Sienna and Nick were never exactly the best of friends – they tolerated each other when they needed to because of their shared connection to me. Nick was never into the drinking and partying – it wasn’t really his personality for one, and his sickle cell disease made it potentially dangerous anyway.
Sienna was always about that life and tended to be very vocal with her opinion that people who weren’t were boring.
So yeah… that wasn’t exactly a match.
“Eighty-percent of this is my words,” I explained. “Maybe more than that, just guided by his advice, and he definitely has a lot of outright input too. Don’t forget – Nick is an award-winning filmmaker. You can’t sleep on his talent just cause you don’t really fuck with him.”
“Yes I can,” she sucked her teeth. “Anyway, enough about that – this little reunion right here,” she purred, suddenly shifting energy back to the flirty shit as she practically crawled into my lap. “Where are we going to celebrate?”
She was right in my face, lip pulled between her teeth, one hand planted – too high – on my thigh. And… I couldn’t and wouldn’t front; Sienna looked good as fuck, with her signature sandy-brown fro, big brown eyes, and that mouth… that I was quite familiar with. She had a body too, that she wasn’t shy about showing off. Right now she was in ultra-low-cut jeans and a crop top that left her lacy, see-through bra peeking out the bottom.
It was quite an appealing picture.
I didn’t have an opportunity to think further than that though because Logan came breezing through the door very suddenly, wearing a big smile about something until her gaze landed on us.
Her smile dropped immediately.
“Oh! Oh my goodness,” she said, turning away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had… um… company. Moving forward, I’ll knock and announce myself before coming in.”
“Logan, I—”
“All the contracts are handled,” she kept on, like I hadn’t spoken, “Everybody is confirmed, signed, all that.”
“Oh, you have an assistant? Cute,” Sienna giggled, somehow getting even closer. “I should’ve known. She’s sexy. If you’re into that body type.”
That made Logan turn around.
“You think you can make us some lunch reservations?” Sienna kept fucking talking, and I… didn’t even know how to stop what was bound to be a misunderstanding happening right before my eyes.
Well… what could’ve been.
Logan smiled though. “Of course? How about Beauchamp’s?”
Sienna looked at me. “The food any good?”
“I… yeah,” I nodded.
“Okay cool,” Sienna giggled. “If they’ve got good food and a good bar, I say let’s do it. Set that up,” she told Logan.
“Wonderful,” Logan agreed, with a tight smile before she shifted her gaze to me. “I’ll get that set up and forward the details to your email, and then I’m actually heading out for lunch myself, per my schedule I sent you earlier in the week. You and I can get together later today or tomorrow to go over the marketing plan I’ve been working on, but you should be aware that I managed to secure a small piece in Sugar&Spice, with Rashad Martin doing the photography. If we want to take that option, they’ll need an answer very soon, so they can squeeze us into the next issue. Think on it and we can discuss later. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
Without giving me a chance to respond to any of that, she slipped out, which Sienna laughed over.
“What the hell kinda assistant is she, talking to you like that? You’d think she was like… part of the team, not the girl who fetches coffee,” Sienna jeered.
I got up, putting some distance between us as I informed, “She is part of the team. And she only brings my coffee to be kind – not because she has to.”
“Oh here you go, always wanting everybody to feel important.”
“Logan is important,” I corrected. “Beauchamp’s is impossible to get in for a same-day reservation, but she’s gonna make it happen because her name holds the weight in this city – not mine.”
Sienna smirked. “Okay. Fine. I’m just saying… if she’s the Logan who found all that literary feminist bullshit Terry was giving aspirational… now I see why.”
“Tracy.”
“What?”
“My character’s name is Tracy,” I repeated, shaking my head. “And where Logan is concerned, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, so how about you just don’t?”
“Wow,” she laughed, holding up her hands. “Fine. You know I didn’t mean any harm, right?”
I nodded, letting the issue die for now, but… that was exactly the problem.
She never meant any harm.
But the harm was there, whether or not it was meant.
Sienna headed out, citing wanting to change before we met for lunch. When I sat back down at my computer, I already had an email from Logan – reservation info and the Sugar&Spice feature details.
Nothing more.
I grabbed my phone, wanting to shoot her a text to explain that whatever it looked like between me and Sienna when she walked in, really wasn’t.
But why?
For weeks now, there had been no flirting, no innuendo – Logan wanted to keep shit professional, so we had. And it hadn’t even been awkward – we’d been incredibly productive, we’d talked, we’d laughed, there was nothing weird…
Explaining to her that Sienna wasn’t a potential girlfriend or whatever else might’ve gone through her head though… it didn’t feel like the type of thing that would improve our vibe.
So I put the phone back down.
We had a good energy going, and I wasn’t about to be the one to fuck it up.