Crystal Read online

  “People do anything for a dollar.”

  “You want that kitty?”

  “I sure do,” Crystal said. “Does he have a name?”

  “None I know of,” Sister Gibbs said.

  “I’ll call him Gizmo, then,” Crystal said, taking the tiny kitten.

  “Gizmo? What kind of name is that for a cat?”

  “It just came to me,” Crystal said. “You don’t like it?”

  “I guess it’s okay,” Sister Gibbs said. “You know what happened to me yesterday?”

  “What?”

  “I was doing me some day’s work for this White girl over on Ninety-third Street and I was catching my breath a little when I seed her reading the paper. I look at the paper and then I look again. Then I said to myself, ‘Ain’t that my Crystal in the paper?’ Well, sure ’nough it was. So I told this White girl I knowed you. She didn’t say nothing, but she give me one of them looks like to turn hard cheese into buttermilk, like she don’t believe a word I be saying.

  “Now, nothin’ I like better’n Jesus Christ A-Mighty and I follow His ways. I don’t be going around here lying—Watch that kitty ’fore he pee on your bed, sweetheart.”

  Crystal took a hatbox from the bottom of her closet and put Gizmo in it. “He’ll be a fashion cat,” she said.

  “So when this poor skinny thing look at me like I’m lying, I look right back at her and say, ‘As God is my Secret Judge, I know that girl.’

  “You know what she say?”

  “What?”

  Sister Gibbs pursed large lips into as small and as tight a pout as she could and mimicked the girl she had been working for. “She said, ‘Well, why don’t you bring her around sometime.’ Well, what she say that for? I told her that Crystal Brown don’t be coming to no ordinary places like this. I would have said no second-class places, but I need them few dollars I get from her. Then I said I’d bring an autographed picture tomorrow. Which is today.”

  “Sister Gibbs, you are too much!” Crystal said.

  “You got to be as much as you can or these people will run over you and think they doing you a favor!”

  Crystal got an eight-by-ten glossy from her desk and signed it “To my best friend, Sister Gibbs.”

  “There,” she said. “That should do it.”

  “And who this boy your mama saying you going out with tonight?”

  “Charlie Harris. He’s on the tennis team. He’s really a friend of Pat’s boyfriend.”

  “Pat’s still saved, ain’t she?”

  “Uh-huh.” Crystal was taking off the cream with a tissue.

  “Your mama don’t seem too happy with your going out with these boys.”

  “You know how Mama is,” Crystal said. “They’re not in show business or anything.”

  “What time you planning to be home?”

  “Pat’s got to be home by twelve, so I’ll be home around that time, too.”

  “You want me to take care of—what you call him?”

  “Gizmo. We have to get a litter box for him and some cat food,” Crystal said.

  “I know how to take care of a cat, girl!” Sister Gibbs said. “They didn’t make me with this morning’s coffee, you know.”

  “Go on with your bad self, Sister Gibbs.”

  6

  “Everby’s paying Jerry for the shooting session,” Loretta said as she, Crystal, and Crystal’s mother sat in her office. “The thing is that La Femme gets to keep all of the pictures that he turns over to them. Which means that they might show up in their European edition, but that’s no real problem.”

  “Do you like Everby?” Crystal asked.

  “No, I think he’s a pig,” Loretta said. “But he’s a very influential pig, and he’s a very useful pig if you know what you’re doing, which is why I called you over here today. Carol, can I get you coffee or anything?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’ve asked you both here to discuss Crystal’s career. She can go a number of ways, some a lot more promising than others.” Loretta went on, “She can work fairly steadily as an all-around girl and make a fairly decent living. She’ll have the same struggle that White models have with the added burden that there just aren’t as many calls for Black models. Many agencies won’t even take on a new Black model’s bookings if they already have one. It just doesn’t pay. It doesn’t mean that she’s not beautiful or that she’s not a very good model.”

  “But aren’t there exceptions?”

  Crystal turned away from the anxiety on her mother’s face.

  “Any model that makes it really big is an exception,” Loretta said. “And, yes, there are Black models who have made it big. Naomi Campbell comes to mind, Tyra Banks, Iman, Kenya Moore, Tyrese, and a few others. But very few others. What Crystal needs is a big push.”

  “That’s where you think this movie will come in?” Carol Brown asked.

  “I think so,” Loretta said. “If the movie is a hit we can go the Hollywood route, but even if it’s not, it should be enough to give Crystal the kind of push she needs. Just the fact that accounts think that consumers will identify her with Hollywood is worth a lot.”

  “And this is a comedy?”

  “It’s a romantic comedy,” Loretta said. “Three American girls, two White and one Black, are on vacation in Europe. A letter is delivered to their room by mistake. It’s supposedly a bitter letter from a lawyer who regretfully says that a certain person has inherited a title and several million pounds. The girls look for this guy in the hotel and find that he’s a dishwasher and has no idea that he’s inherited the money. They agree to take turns pursuing him. Of course, it ends up that he planted the letter and so it’s all good fun.

  “Originally the part was written with a Hispanic girl in mind, but one of the backers wanted a Black girl. She’s supposed to be naïve, kittenish, and a little awkward, so Sidney doesn’t think the acting will be a problem.”

  “It certainly sounds good,” Carol said.

  “It sounds wonderful,” Loretta said. “But let’s know what we’re going into. There’s still a chance that Joe Sidney will choose somebody else.”

  “I thought you said that he liked me from the photos.”

  “He did,” Loretta said. “But with these Hollywood types that doesn’t mean much. He likes you because he thinks you’re hot and he can convince the bankers to give him the money to make the films. If he can’t get the guarantees he needs with you, and he can get them with somebody else, he’ll go with the somebody else. If we get the spread in La Femme, and he sees where he can get some free publicity, he’ll like you a lot more.”

  “It’s a chance, but I think it’s a worthwhile chance, don’t you think so, Crystal?” Carol Brown asked.

  “It also might mean a lot of smiling when you don’t feel like smiling, and some awkward situations that you’ll have to handle.”

  “Crystal can handle herself,” Carol said quickly. “You mentioned something about a line of dresses?”

  “Dresses? Oh, yes, Perigord is a new French line. They want Crystal if she gets the spread in La Femme. I’m asking for a flat ten thousand dollars per month for the six-month campaign they have in mind plus ten thousand a month for every month that the film is showing under the original distributorship.”

  “They’ll pay that much?” Crystal asked.

  “It’s a gamble,” Loretta said. “If you get the part, and if the movie’s a smash, they’re getting over like crazy. But from our point of view, if you sign with them, it means that you won’t be getting other clothing accounts for a while.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Crystal said.

  “Honey, look at me.” Loretta leaned across the desk. “Chances don’t come very often in this business—or in life. I’m sure your mother has told you that. Once in a while, in a very few lives, a great opportunity comes along. Think of yourself as a feast. Everybody is going to want a part of you, but you know it won’t last forever. So you have to take what you can get
while it does last. You have to think like a taker. Is that going to be hard for you?”

  “I’ll manage,” Crystal said, looking at her mother.

  “I’m sure you will,” Loretta said. “And now I have to go out and find a ten-year-old boy who looks like he’s five for a toy account. So if you’ll excuse me…”

  Crystal and her mother walked crosstown toward the subway line. The streets along the way bustled with the commercial life of the city. Cars honked and nudged their way through crowds of pedestrians, delivery men moved with sure swiftness, handling their packages, moving in and out of buildings like athletes in an arena of concrete and glass.

  “I’m really excited for you, Crystal,” Carol said as they waited for a light at Lexington Avenue. “You’re actually doing something with your life. Something so wonderful, I dream about it at night. Sometimes I feel that you’re doing it as much for me as for yourself. And I’m grateful.”

  “I’m excited, too,” Crystal said. “But sometimes I don’t know how to think about the things going on. You know what I mean? It’s so new. People talking about money, and—what did Loretta say?—thinking about myself as a ‘feast.’ It’s almost as if they’re talking another language. As if they’re saying one thing and meaning something else.”

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Carol said as a taxi turned in to the crosswalk and blocked it, making them walk in the middle of the street. “They are talking another language. It’s the language of success. You don’t hear that too much, I’m afraid. You’re taking a chance. You don’t get anywhere by not taking chances.”

  “Right,” Crystal said. “Right.”

  Pat came to Crystal’s house to wait for the boys. Pat told Crystal that Donald was taking them to a place called Los Hermanos. On the way out she had stopped and told her mother that she wouldn’t be home late.

  “I’m surprised,” Carol Brown had said, “that you’re going out at all with these young men.”

  Crystal had smiled, but the remark had bothered her. It was clear that her mother didn’t think much of either Donald or Charlie. She hoped the place they were going to would be nice, to prove her mother wrong. It wasn’t.

  “Normally you got to be eighteen to get in here, but the owner knows me,” Donald said.

  “He probably knows the police, too,” Pat said. “This place is terrible looking!”

  “You sure this is where we want to go, man?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah,” Donald said. “This band that’s playing here is going to be playing in a big jazz club on Broadway next week, and then it’s going to cost twenty-five dollars apiece just to walk in the place.”

  “What do you think, Crissie?”

  “Let’s go in,” Crystal said. What she was thinking was that she was overdressed. Donald wore a dark suit with a sweater, and Charlie wore slacks and a blazer with sleeves that were at least an inch too short. Pat had worn a simple little dress with a bit of material draped on one side, the kind that so many girls from the church called their “party” dress.

  Crystal had worn a Donna Karan dress a buyer at Saks had given her at a large discount. She had also done too good a job on her makeup. She could tell it in Pat’s eyes when she saw her.

  Maybe her mother was right, she thought. Doing her face just so was part of her life now. The way she dressed was part of her life, too. And as much as she liked Pat, the girl who had been her best friend for so long was not as important a part of her life as she had been.

  Los Hermanos was a Brazilian club and restaurant. The decor was simple with a real feeling of South America, and the accents of the thin waiters pleasing. As it turned out, the owner didn’t know Donald at all, but he did know his father. He whispered something to one of the waiters, who promptly took the wine list off the table.

  “The inside of this place looks nicer than the outside,” Charlie observed.

  “It’s okay,” Pat said.

  “The Big ‘D’ don’t take his friends to no chump places,” Donald said.

  “Is that you?” Crystal asked. “The Big ‘D’?”

  “He’s always trying to get some cool tag for himself,” Pat said. “He said he used to be called ‘Icing’ ’cause he’s so sweet.”

  “Hey, that’s what the ladies were calling me,” Donald said.

  “What ladies?” Pat asked, an eyebrow properly arched.

  They ordered, with Pat and Crystal both choosing Pollo Portuguesa and Charlie and Donald ordering shrimp with green sauce.

  “I got to admit that this is a nice place,” Charlie said.

  “It’ll do,” Crystal said. “The food’s cheap, anyway.”

  “Cheap?” Charlie looked at her. “That Pollo thing you and Pat ordered was the cheapest thing they had, and that was fourteen-ninety-five!”

  “If you say so,” Crystal said, glancing toward Pat.

  “So how’s the tennis going?” Pat asked Charlie.

  “It’s going okay,” Charlie said. “The coach said that if I can get my backhand together he’ll see about getting me into some outside tournaments.”

  “You going to play against Andre Agassi?” Crystal asked.

  “He’s going to be Andre Agassi’s ball boy,” Pat said as a white-coated busboy put bread on the table.

  Charlie made a fist and shook it at Pat. “I’m going to have to knock you out, woman, if you don’t stop putting down my game!”

  “You ever see Charlie play?” Donald asked Crystal.

  “No.”

  “Hey, he’s good!” Donald said.

  “You got to come check me out sometime.” Charlie leaned away from the table. “I’m playing against Stuyvesant next week, and they got this Vietnamese guy who’s supposed to be pretty good. You can come and see me wipe him out.”

  “If he beats him, I’m going to write one of those ‘Rocky’-type numbers for him,” Donald said.

  “Then every time he comes onto the court, the band can play it,” Crystal said.

  “Only the band doesn’t go to games, so Donald’s going to hum it real loud from the bleachers.”

  Crystal laughed with the others. She was surprised at how easily Pat made jokes.

  The waiter delivered the food with a great flourish. There was rice and a bowl of black beans—frijoles negros, Donald called them—and the owner sent a plate of appetizers as well.

  The band was made up of four players: a pianist, a guitarist, a drummer, and the leader, who sang and played flute. They introduced the numbers in Portuguese and played gentle sambas that caught Crystal in their easy rhythms.

  After several couples had begun to dance, Donald asked Pat and they went out on the floor.

  “You and Pat been friends a long time?” Charlie asked.

  “Since the second grade,” Crystal said. “That’s when she started going to the same church I go to.”

  “She told me you were going to be in a movie.” There was a flake of crust half the size of a dime on Charlie’s chin, which Crystal tried to ignore.

  “It looks like I’ve got the part,” Crystal said.

  “You like actor-type guys?” Charlie asked.

  “As opposed to what other kinds of guys?” Crystal asked.

  Charlie took a large mouthful of his shrimps and managed to get a drop of sauce precisely on the bread crumb on his chin.

  “There are lots of different-type guys,” Charlie said. “Doctors, lawyers, athletes.”

  “It depends on the guy, I guess,” Crystal said.

  Charlie flicked at the crumb with his tongue and missed it.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “What kind of guy are you?”

  “I’m an athlete,” Charlie said. “My mom wants me to get into law, but I figure I got time for that.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Crystal watched Charlie flick at the crumb with his tongue again. This time he dislodged it and it fell onto his collar. Crystal suppressed a laugh into a smile as Donald and Pat got back to the table.

 
; “I see you people are having a good time,” Pat said.

  “We’re doing okay,” Charlie said.

  “Half the people in this place are Black, and they’re all speaking Spanish,” Donald said.

  “They’re speaking Portuguese,” Crystal said. “It’s almost like Spanish.”

  “You people going to dance?” Pat asked.

  “No one’s asked me,” Crystal said, looking at her fingernails.

  “Okay, you want to dance?” Donald asked.

  “Not you, fool!” Pat gave Donald a shove with her elbow that sent the forkful of black beans in his hand into Charlie’s lap.

  “Yo, man, what you doing?” Charlie moved his chair away quickly and picked the beans off his lap. “These pants cost five dollars to get out the cleaner’s!”

  “It was Pat’s fault,” Donald said. “She bumped my arm!”

  “Come on, you want to dance?” Crystal took the fork from Charlie’s hand and put it on the edge of his plate.

  “No!”

  “Oh, go on, Charlie,” Pat said. “Don’t be a grump.”

  “I don’t want to dance!”

  “Please.” Crystal put her hand on Charlie’s arm.

  “Come on,” he said reluctantly.

  Crystal knew something was wrong when Charlie put the wrong arm around her. She switched arms easily enough but when he started cranking her right hand up and down as if he were pumping water, and she felt his knees banging against her legs, she cracked up completely. Charlie Harris, athlete type, couldn’t dance a lick.

  “So how was your big date?” Crystal’s father looked up from his racing form to the clock over the stove. It was eleven forty-five.

  “The guy was a real…” Crystal searched for a word. “A cute nerd is what he was.”

  “Bad time, huh?”

  “No.” Crystal sat at the table and put her chin on her hands. “Good time, really. You know, Pat’s really fun to go out with. And Donald is as crazy as they come.”

  “So what did you do?” Daniel Brown closed the paper.