“Don’t forget you’re doing ‘Nightline’ tomorrow,” Felicia told Lexis as they snuggled together before getting up to start their day. Since she’d filed for divorce, she and Lexis had been together constantly, though discreetly, not wanting to give Trace any fuel for the divorce proceeding.
“On what topic am I supposed to be representing the entire black race this time?” Lexis asked with a sleepy yawn.
“ ‘Hollywood and History: Telling the Complete Story.’ ”
“I don’t think Ted Koppel wants me to get started on that subject.”
“It will be great publicity for Praline Livin’,” Felicia pointed out.
“We’re still on for tonight’s premiere?”
“Definitely. I’ll meet you at the theater. So, are you nervous?”
“Should I be?”
“Yes. Releasing a film during the Christmas season is a big deal. If the trades are any indication, you’re in for some major success. That certainly would make me nervous.”
“You really think it’s that good?”
“Better, though I still think you should have done a love story.”
“I told you, romantic flicks aren’t my thing. The only love story I want to direct is happening right here,” Lexis said, gently pushing the tip of her nose.
“I must admit, it’s a story you tell very well,” Felicia said as she kissed him on the lips before rising.
“Wait. Don’t go yet. I have a proposal for you.”
Felicia sat up and looked at him. He couldn’t possibly be thinking about marriage; she wasn’t even divorced yet. Even if she were, Felicia wasn’t ready for a step like that.
“Don’t worry, it’s not that kind of proposal,” he said, once again sensing her thoughts. “It’s business.”
“What kind of business?”
“I’ve been rapping with MarMa pictures about going into a limited partnership with a select group of black investors to create a small but funky movie studio called Sepia Films. My company would be one of its mainstays, but we’d bring in other black producers and directors. MarMa would kick in some venture capital and act as our distributor. Of course, they’d be gettin’ a reasonable chunk of the profits.”
“What a great idea!”
“We’ll be able to green-light our own projects and tell our stories the way they should be told, not the way we’re told they should be told.”
“And every story about black people won’t have to involve drugs, gangs, guns, or silly sidekicks?” Felicia said.
“And the brother wouldn’t be the first to die in every movie.”
“I think you’re onto something,” she said, laughing.
“Damn right I am.”
“Why haven’t you mentioned this before tonight? How could you keep news this exciting to yourself?”
“I wanted to get everything nailed down before I told you. Felicia, if this thing works out the way I think it will, I want you with me all the way. I want you to head up all the publicity and marketing. Of course, you’ll own a piece of the action as well.”
“This is all very exciting, but I already own a company.”
“I know, baby, but think about it. You’d be making history with the first black-owned film studio. Plus, you could beat that dog husband of yours by simply closing the doors of WJ and A and starting fresh. Lois and practically everybody you have working for you could come along.”
“My company is a black-owned firm, with a damn good reputation of its own.”
“I know, but instead of helping white folks make more money, you’d be concentrating on helping your own people.”
“I’d like to think by successfully managing all my clients—black and white—I am helping my people,” Felicia said, getting annoyed.
“Felicia, I really want you to be a part of this. We’d be working together all the time, bringing our vision to the world.”
“Why can’t you simply contract your work out to WJ and A?”
“Because we’d need your full-time attention. Getting this off the ground is going to be too intense for us to be just another client.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s see how the deal shakes out.”
“I swear it’s gonna happen. Just think about it. You’ll be able to meet all the MarMa bigwigs at the premiere party tonight after the screening.”
“I’ll be there, and I promise to give your proposal some thought, but not now. I have to get to my office,” Felicia told him. Lexis’s proposition was intriguing. The idea of being an integral part of such an exciting and historic business venture was tempting, and, as Lexis pointed out, it would be a fine kick in the teeth for Trace.
Then why do I feel like I’m being controlled again? Whether it was his intent or not, Lexis sounded suspiciously like Trace, not taking her business seriously and certainly not respecting the amount of work she’d put into it to make it a successful firm.
But Lexis isn’t Trace, she reminded herself. Lexis didn’t want her to shut down the business so she could stay at home and tend to his every whim. He wanted to use her expertise and professional acumen to further his dream. But whatever the reason, wasn’t that just as selfish?
“Another great idea, Felicia,” Peter Montell declared.
“Thanks, Peter. Once you—”
“Excuse me, Ms. Wilcot, Lois Jourdan from your office is on the phone,” Peter’s secretary interrupted. “She says it’s urgent.” The word immediately got Felicia’s adrenaline pumping.
“Lois, what’s wrong?” Felicia asked.
“Don’t freak out or anything, but it’s Trace. His office has called several times wanting to know if you know where he is. Apparently he didn’t show up for work yesterday or today. And there’s no answer at his apartment.”
“That’s strange.”
“Could he be traveling?”
“Not without letting his office know. Trace doesn’t do things like that. I’m going home. If they call again, tell them they can reach me at the apartment in fifteen minutes.”
“Trouble?” Peter Montell asked, seeing the concern on Felicia’s face.
“I hope not, but I have to run. I’ll wait to hear from you. Thanks, Peter.”
Felicia rushed back to her apartment and immediately called Trace’s office to get a firsthand account of the situation. His secretary filled her in, revealing that Trace had not been seen or heard from in two days. Felicia promised to call around to friends and family and let Trace’s secretary know whatever she found out.
After phoning several of their friends and his tennis club to no avail, Felicia called the hospitals in the area. She was relieved to learn that Trace had not been admitted. Finally she dialed the police precinct near his apartment, only to learn that her estranged husband had been arrested for allegedly robbing a cabdriver and had been sitting in a jail cell the last two days.
Felicia hurried down to the precinct and took the officer in charge to task. Twenty minutes later, after she’d finally convinced him of the officer’s blunder, Trace was released with a halfhearted apology, and Felicia ushered her somber and humiliated husband out of the police station and back to their former home in Brooklyn Heights. They rode in silent outrage, each trying to grasp the reality of what had just happened. It wasn’t until they were safely within the privacy of the brownstone that they began to discuss the situation.
“What happened?”
“I was on my way to the corner deli when a police car rode up beside me and told me to stop. The two officers got out and asked me for some ID. I didn’t have any. When I tried to get them to tell me what I’d been stopped for, they told me to shut up and turn around so they could frisk me. When I refused, they threw me up against the car, handcuffed me, and took me down to the station.”
“Why on earth would they think you tried to rob a taxi driver?” Felicia asked.
“Because I fit the description—a five-foot-seven-inch black man with a beard, wearing a black-leather jacket,” Trace said angrily.
“Trace, you’re over six feet, clean-shaven, and your jacket is brown.”
“That obviously didn’t matter.”
“This is too ludicrous to believe. Didn’t you tell them who you were?”
“I tried to explain the situation, but they somehow found it difficult to believe that this ‘boy’ could actually be a lawyer.”
“Why didn’t you call somebody? Everyone was worried sick.”
“I was too embarrassed to call my office, so I tried to call my cousin Stan at home, but he wasn’t there. Apparently the NYPD is as serious about that one phone call as they are about staking out Dunkin’ Donuts,” Trace explained with dry sarcasm. “Since I had no identification, they weren’t about to let me go. I guess they thought they were doing their duty, getting another perpetrator off the street.”
“This is all so frightening. If an educated, articulate, reasonable man like you gets treated like this, what do they do to the other folks?”
“Just about every man in that jail was black or Hispanic. How many were there on bogus charges like me?”
“This has got to stop. It happens too often and with no repercussions. Like when Harris got stopped and questioned for window-shopping on Madison Avenue, or when the police stopped Cliff and harassed him for walking ‘funny.’ Since when is it a crime to have a limp in New York City?”
“The irony of the situation is that those guys are two of the most successful traders on Wall Street. They’re both brilliant and both can buy and sell the average policeman six, seven times over, but they still can’t walk down the street minding their own business without being hassled,” Trace added furiously.
“And people wonder why black men are so angry.”
“You know, I never thought anything like this could happen to me. I did everything I was supposed to do,” Trace said, his voice full of hurt and confusion. “I went to the right schools, read the right books, played the right sports, but that wasn’t enough. Underneath the suit and tie, the fat investment portfolio, and the Ivy League education, I’m still just a common thug to these people,” he said in a voice that, in all their years together, Felicia had never heard. His words resonated with the hurt and anger of a man who’d been robbed of his ego, his self-respect, his dignity. Felicia watched as the mighty, cocksure man she knew as Trace Gordon disappeared. Only the physical remnants of the man remained. It was a sight that broke Felicia’s heart.
Seeing him crumble before her left Felicia with only one course of action. She took Trace into her arms and held on for dear life. Any dissonance between them was replaced with the empathy and understanding that only two people who have shared a considerable part of their lives together could share.
“Those cops accomplished in forty-eight hours what nobody has done in the almost forty years I’ve been alive. I was humiliated to the point that for the first time in my life I felt like a nigger,” Trace said after a long silence.
“It seems that when some people think we’re getting too big for our britches, they feel the need to knock us back down to size.”
“So they held me in that piss-hole just to put an uppity nigger in his place? That’s insane,” Trace responded angrily.
“I guess now you understand that racism is still a reality of this world.” Felicia was encouraged to hear some of the fire return to his voice.
“You talk like I don’t know that racism exists.”
“On the surface you do. You feel it in the subtle slights you receive from women who clutch their handbags when you walk by or security guards who follow you around stores for no apparent reason—”
“Or when an associate in the firm where you’re a partner demands to see your ID because you’re wearing workout gear instead of a suit,” Trace interrupted.
“Or having some woman with collagen-enhanced lips and a frizzy perm tell you that you’re really pretty for a black woman. Those kind of things you hear so often you don’t even feel outraged anymore.”
“I think you could safely say that I’ve had my share of racist experiences.”
“You have, but for the most part we don’t feel racism like most black folks do. We were raised in a world where money and power kept the bigots at bay. We ceased being black in the eyes of most white people the minute they determined that we didn’t live in a certain place or speak in a certain way, or that we could stand as their intellectual and social equals—”
“Or superiors. Those cops knew that I wasn’t some petty thief. They kept me in that cage because I was something much worse—an educated black man who had the nerve to be more successful than they were.”
“I guess at sometime in our life we all get the wake-up call.”
“Wake up to what? To the inane idea that despite the fact that I bust my ass every day of my life to make sure I live a life that counts for something, I shouldn’t be too successful because I’m black?”
“No, wake up to the fact that white people control the game because they make the rules.”
“I don’t know if I can play the game anymore. Two days ago I walked out of my house a man, confident that I could conquer the world. Today I left that jail feeling like a fucking eunuch,” Trace said wearily.
“You’re not a eunuch. You’re a strong, virile black man who will not allow the life to be sucked out of him by some billy-club-wielding jackass wearing a badge. You did nothing wrong, they did. Once you’ve had time to sort this thing through, you might want to make that point to the NYPD in a big way. Being the fabulous lawyer you are, I’m sure they’ll get the message loud and clear.”
“Feli, I can’t do this alone. I need you. Will you stay here with me, tonight?” Trace pleaded, trying to contain his tears.
“Of course I will,” Felicia said. Seeing Trace hurt like this tugged at her heart and made it impossible to say no. “Why don’t you get out of those clothes and take a shower. I’ll fix you some hot tea and cook dinner. You must be hungry.”
“Thank you,” Trace said, staring deep into Felicia’s eyes. “I have been such a fool,” he said sadly, resting his head momentarily on her shoulder before trudging heavily down the hallway to the bathroom.
Felicia headed to the kitchen to make dinner. When she put the chicken in the microwave to defrost, the digital clock on the oven caught her eye. It was 8:57. She’d completely forgotten Lexis’s premiere. She picked up the phone and dialed his beeper number. Within three minutes the phone rang.
“What the hell happened to you?” Lexis screamed into Felicia’s ear. His anger began to dissipate as he listened to her explanation. “Man, that’s some sorry shit. I feel for the brother.”
“How did it go?”
“We turned it out, baby. Too bad you had to miss it. Why don’t you come on over to the party? It’s just getting started.”
“I can’t, Lexis. I’m here with Trace. I told him I would spend the night.”
“You what!”
“He’s pretty upset. I couldn’t let him be alone.”
“Sure he’s torn up now, but give him a couple of days and he’ll be right back to the same punk who was trying to snatch your company. I can’t believe you’re letting him play you like this.”
“He’s not playing me, but I do owe him.”
“Because this was the man I made a home with for almost ten years. Tonight he had the scare of his life, and I refuse to let him go through it alone.”
“Maybe it’s about time he realized that he can’t hide behind his Harvard degree and his house in the Hamptons forever. Maybe what Trace got was what he needed—a kick in the ass to wake him up to the fact that he’s a black man livin’ in a world where he ain’t liked and ain’t wanted, despite his extensive knowledge of fine wines.”
“I think he learned that lesson the hard way, which is exactly why he needs me. Trace’s entire world is falling apart. I can’t just turn him away.”
“I’m tryin’ not to hear this, Felicia.”
“And I’m trying not to argue about it. I’m sorry I missed the premiere, but this is an extenuating circumstance that could not be avoided.”
“Well, I need you, too, so you make the choice. It’s either him or me.”
“This isn’t necessary, Lexis, but if you can’t understand that—”
“Understand what? That you can’t let go of the man who’s been controlling your life for years?”
“I’m not holding on to Trace. I’m just helping him through this rough spot,” Felicia tried to explain.
“This is the kind of thing that brings people together. You were in the process of emotionally distancing yourself from him and now—bam!—you’re right back in the mix. I can’t wait forever, Felicia. I won’t.”
Felicia heard the sound of the dial tone singing in her ear before she could open her mouth to respond. She hoped like hell that Lexis was wrong about her getting emotionally caught up again with Trace, but she was also afraid he might be right.