Mick Sinatra: The Harder They Fall (5 page)

Tee Salley
came into Roz’s office, closing the door behind her.
 
“Guess who came to visit?” she asked.

“Kinna
Franks?” Roz did not look up from a contract she was editing.
 
“I’m expecting her.
 
Jerry Copeland gave the lead to the producer’s
niece, when he promised to give it to her.
 
She’s devastated.
 
As you can
imagine.”

“It’s not
Kinna,” Tee said.
 
“I can deal with our
clients all day long.
 
An even bigger
prick than Jerry Copeland is out there asking to see you.”

Now Roz was
intrigued.
 
She looked up.
 
“Who?”

“Your
friend.
 
Miss Charity?”

Roz thought
about it.
 
She had quite a few
friends.
 
But then she smiled.
 
“Tamron?”

“I can’t
stand that woman, boss.
 
She puts on a
charity event and brags about it all year long.
 
Who does that?”

“I hear you,
Tee.
 
But at least she puts on an event
and gives the money to the needy.”

“She
wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room with those same needy people.
 
But I guess you have a point.
 
She just brags too much for my taste.”

“Mine too,”
Roz said.
 
“But Tamron has her good side
too.
 
Is she arrogant?
 
Check.
 
Braggadocios?
 
Double check.
 
Helped me out when I could barely pay my rent
in New York?
 
Check.
 
Gave me a shoulder to cry on when man after
man broke my heart?
 
Check.”

Then Roz
exhaled.
 
“Tamron’s not perfect,
Tee.
 
She has some serious deficits.
 
But what friend doesn’t?”

“I know, I
know,” Tee agreed.
 
“But she’s just too
much!
 
Has all of those airs about her
like she’s better than everybody else when you’re married to a millionaire and
don’t even bring it up!”

Roz allowed
Tee some liberties because of her older age, and the fact that Roz knew she had
her back.
 
But at the end of the day Roz
was still the boss.
 
“Send her in,” she
ordered.
      

Tee might
not have liked it, but she left and did what she was told.
 
And Tamron Dawson-Blake walked in and headed
straight for Roz’s desk.
 
They met years
ago in New York, when they were both struggling actresses.
 
Tamron was a socialite now, married to NFL
wide receiver Benny Blake, and was heralded more for her charity work than her
acting chops.
 
But she was still one of
the best pure actresses Roz had ever known.

“Hey,
darling,” Tamron said as she plopped down on the seat in front of Roz’s
desk.
 
“You need to fire that bitch of a
secretary.
 
She knows how close we
are.
 
I don’t think I should have to be
announced to see one of my best friends.”

“Let me stop
you right there,” Roz corrected her.
 
“You have to be announced.
 
You
can’t just barge into my office.
 
I may
have a client.
 
I may be in a
confidential meeting.
 
Tee knows what
she’s doing.”

“The bitch,”
Tamron said.

“And she
loves you too,” Roz said with a smile.
 
Then she tossed her marker aside and leaned back.
 
“So what have you been up to this beautiful
day?
 
No, let me guess.
 
You’ve been shopping.”

“All day,
girl,” Tamron responded with a smile of her own.
 
“Up and down those aisles like a maniac.
 
I bought more clothes than my car could
carry.
 
I had to call in a back-up car.”

Roz shook
her head.
 
“You’re going to shop so much
until you drop dead one of these days.”

“I sure hope
so,” Tamron said with a grin.
 
“There’s
no better way to go in my book!
 
I’ll die
happy.
 
I sure hope so!
 
But you’re right.
 
I go overboard.
 
Now I’m tired to the bone.”

“But yet you
still managed enough energy to drop by here.
 
Which means you came for a very specific reason.”

“You know
it’s for a reason,” Tamron said as she began removing her gloves.
 
“I’m a very busy woman too you know.
 
You aren’t the only somebody running
something around here.”

“You’re
absolutely correct,” Roz agreed.
 
“I run
this talent agency, and you run your mouth.”

Tamron
laughed.
 
“You’re wrong for that,
Roz!
 
I run Benny’s foundation, thank you
very much.”

“So what’s
up?
 
What did you have to say that a
phone call couldn’t say?”

“I wanted to
know the answer.”

Roz was
puzzled.
 
“What answer?”

“Rosalind!
 
The answer about the invitation to my
masquerade ball!”

Roz
remembered.
 
“Oh, right!
 
I’ll be there, yeah.”

Tamron
looked sidelong at Roz.
 
“Come on now,
you know what I mean.
 
Will Mick be
there?
 
That’s the question I need an
answer to.
 
I know you’ll support
me.
 
You always support me.
 
But I need that hubby of yours to be there
too.”

“He can’t
make it, sorry.”

Tamron’s
look changed from whimsical to disappointed.
 
“You asked him, Roz?”

“Of course I
asked him!
 
Why would you think I
wouldn’t?”

“Because I
know how you protect his ass.
 
But if you
only knew!”

Roz stared
at Tamron.
 
“If I only knew what?” she
asked.

But Tamron
wasn’t going to go there.
 
“What reason
did he give this time?”

“He doesn’t
have to give me a reason, Tam.
 
I asked
if he would come with me to your annual charitable event, and he said no.”

“And you
just left it at that?”

Roz
frowned.
 
“Yes, I left it at that.
 
How did you expect me to leave it?”

“When I
truly want something from my husband,” Tamron said firmly, “I know how to get
it.
 
I’m just saying.”

“Your
husband isn’t Mick Sinatra,” Roz shot back.
 
“I’m just saying.”

Tamron
leaned her head back.
 
Like Roz, she was
a petite African-American woman.
 
But
unlike Roz, her beauty was more in her style and self-confidence than in any
actual attractiveness.
 
“I was really
counting on Mick showing up this time,” Tamron said.
 
“I already told people he was going to be
there.
 
That’s why they RSVP’d.
 
People want to rub elbows with a gorgeous bad
boy CEO like him.
 
He’s good for
business.
 
This was going to be my
biggest fundraising event ever.
 
I was
counting on him, Roz!”

“I don’t
know why,” Roz said.
 
“I told you I would
ask him, but I also told you he was probably going to say no.”

“Oh, come on
Roz!
 
He loves your black ass!
 
If you would have bothered to work that magic
right, he would have said yes.”

Roz was
dismissive.
 
“I don’t know what magic
you’re talking about.”

“The magic
that’s in that twinkle in your big eyes and in those dimples on your pretty
face.
 
And especially that magic in that
golden retreat between your legs.”

Roz
laughed.
 
“Girl bye!
 
You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I do know!”
Tamron fired back.
 
“I know Mick Sinatra
did not put a ring on your finger, of all these attractive fingers around this
town he could have put a ring on, just because he likes your brain power.
 
He likes your fuck power.
 
Don’t get it twisted now.
 
A man like him has to have that, and you gave
him that unlike any other woman was giving it to him.
 
And what’s upsetting to me is that you could
have used it to get his Italian ass to come to my ball.
 
But you didn’t!”

“Oh, please,
Tam,” Roz said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
 
It was always all about Tamron.
 
“You’re full of shit.”

“No, you’re
full of shit!” Tamron fired back.
 
“You
know I’m telling the truth!
 
Now will you
at least ask him again, and this time in the bedroom?”

“No.”

“Please,
Roz?”

“No!
 
Just because you’re saying I’ve got all this
power over him doesn’t make it true.
 
He’ll send a very generous check.
 
I’ll see to that.
 
And I’ll be
there.
 
But contrary to what you are so
certain of, I cannot make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.
 
And he doesn’t want to attend your masquerade
ball or anybody else’s.
 
Besides, what
about all of those big names you dropped last week?
 
Who were they again?
 
The Bloombergs, the Kirklands, the Viettis,
the Yannicks?
 
Even the Kardashians,
right?
 
Aren’t they still coming?”

“Very
funny,” Tamron said. “You know I never mentioned any Kardashians!”

“But
everybody else is still coming, right?”

“I still
need Mick though,” Tamron tried to impress upon her friend.
 
“I promised them Mick!”

“Then that’s
a promise you can’t keep,” Roz said bluntly.
 
She knew her husband.
 
Tam was
wasting her time.
 
“Sorry,” Roz added.

Tamron
didn’t respond, as if she was moving on too, but she knew better.
 
Because she had a trump card.
 
She had the kind of goods on Mick Sinatra
that would change his mind in a heartbeat.
 
She valued Roz’s friendship.
 
But
she knew, if what she had to do got back to Roz, it could fracture that
friendship irreparably.
 
But Tamron was
the queen of the ball in Philly, and she had promised too many people that Mick
Sinatra would be at her biggest ball yet.
 
She didn’t give a damn what Roz said.
 
He was going to be there.

“Anyway,”
she said, “what have you been up to today?
 
No, let me guess this time: trying to get jobs for those sorry-ass
clients of yours.”

“They aren’t
sorry, and yes, I’m trying to get them jobs.
 
That’s
my
job.”

But Tamron,
who knew Roz well, saw something more.
 
“So what’s going on?
 
And don’t
tell me nothing because I see it in your eyes.
 
It’s not the twins, is it?”

“The
twins?
 
No, they’re great.”

“I was gonna
say,” Tamron said.
 
“Mick has four
nannies helping you?
 
You should never
have a complaint about your children ever.”
 
But she continued to stare at Roz.
 
“So what is it?” she asked again.

Roz needed
to get it off her chest, and Tamron knew the history.
 
There would be no need for explanations.
 
“I saw Chad today,” she said.

Tamron was
floored.
 
“Chad Dawkins?
 
Get out!
 
When, girl?
 
Where?”

“Today at
lunch,” Roz said.
 
“At Akon’s.”

“But I don’t
get it.
 
What is he doing in Philly?”

“On business
I guess,” Roz responded.
 
“How should I
know?
 
It’s not exactly a small town.”

“You’re
right about that.”
 
Then Tamron shook her
head.
 
“But dang.
 
That had to feel strange seeing his butt
again.”