THE IT PARADE
BY
J
INX
W
IATT
Â
Fill in the Blanks
Â
If ever there was a sign that feminismmight be a lost cause, then it is any young woman engaged in a relationship with a certain hip-hop mogul. This urban high roller fancieshimself as a modern-day king of decadence. It's
his
world. And the women in his court are just living in it. Hopefully that too-lovely-for-wordsBlack American Princess (she's a
buzz
beauty with some seriouspersonal finance issues) will rememberthat Helen Reddy (“I Am Woman”) came before Britney Spears (“I'm a Slave 4 U”).
24
Simone
“This is too tight. Bring me the next size up.”
“What do you have on now?” Simone asked.
“An eight.”
Simone sifted through the Wal-Mart clothing racks. Apparently,ten was a popular size in Franklin, New Jersey. There were plenty of fours, sixes, eights, twelves, and fourteens, but no tens. “I can't find a ten!” Simone called back to the fitting room. “Let's try another style.”
“But I like this one!” the woman yelled.
“Then lose some fucking weight,” Simone muttered under her breath.
“What did you say?”
“I said ... you'll just have to wait and see if more tens come in,” Simone answered.
This was a career low point. Perhaps the very lowest. Schlepping to a Wal-Mart in New Jersey to play celebrity personal shopper for a lousy two thousand five hundred dollars.
“It's easy money, sweetheart,” Sue Hotchner had assured her. “You're just helping people shop for an afternoon. It'll be fun. I bet it won't even feel like work. I've got another client who'd do this all day long if I let her.”
The woman stepped out of the fitting room, a fleshy white leg jutting out of a barely wrapped polyester wrap dress. “Somethingmust be wrong. I can usually wear an eight.” She looked to be on the verge of tears. “How did I get so fat?”
“Some garments are cut differently,” Simone said, trying to be kind. “It's probably a very small eight.” She gave her a comforting smile.
“Either that or I'm really a nineâon the fast track to a ten.”The woman shook her head. “This was a bad idea. I took vacation hours at work to be here, because I never have any time to shop for myself. I've got three kids and a husband who travels all the time for his job.” She shrugged miserably. “I thought you could work some star magic and make me look pretty. It probably wasn't meant to happen here anyway, but a Wal-Mart dress is about the only thing I can afford.” Self-consciously, she closed the gap in the dress and shuffled back through the flimsy curtain of the fitting room.
“Does this look too slutty?”
Simone turned to see the thirteen-year-old she had been assisting earlier. The girl stood there in a skirt so small that it looked as if she had been squeezed into a sock with the toes cut off. “
Too
slutty? Sweetheart, there are no varying degrees of appropriate sluttiness. Any and all should be avoided. But the short answer is yes. Too slutty.”
The girl flounced away, disappointed, maybe, but also bettereducated.
An obese woman stepped into Simone's personal space zone. “I had my colors done by a professional colorist, and she said that I should only wear peaches and browns.What do you think?”
Simone took a reflexive step backward. “I think black is naturally slimming. It's also a wardrobe basic that nobody should avoid.” A gnawing feeling of guilt kept ricocheting in Simone's mind. “Excuse me for a moment.” She returned to the wrap dress rack that she had rummaged through just minutes before with barely a glance. This time she carefully checked the tag on each garment, and she was delightedâafter allâto find a size ten. She rushed over to the fitting room. “Look what I found! Try this one!”
The expression on the woman's face was pure hope and gratitude.
And so on it went for another two hours, after which Simone was exhausted and slumped into the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car being transported back to New York. In a way, the experience had humbled her. She had been complainingabout the meager money she was set to earn from the appearance only to meet a woman whose shopping trip to Zanzibar was a twenty-dollar Wal-Mart dress. The realization provided some keen perspective.
But now, speeding back toward Manhattan, Simone was once again preoccupied with her own woes. Though grateful for the Target and Wal-Mart appearance money, it failed to add up to much after Sue chopped out her cut (twenty percent)and another twenty-five percent was tucked away for taxes. What remained hardly put a dent in Simone's money problems. They had grown that severe.
Her anxiety over her finances had triggered a sleeping disorder that prevented her from resting through the night. Even Tylenol PM could not knock her out, and usually she reacted to those over-the-counter treatments as if she had been given a heavy narcotic. And
The Beehive
rumors were hardly a reason to sleep peacefully. Gossip was swirling that major changes were imminent.What with Sutton having missed the last few shows and hushed talk about Emma quitting, Simone had no idea what to think. Even with none of the whispers zeroing in on her, she felt no sense of job security. Critics still pointed her out as a disposable set piece, and everyoneon set from Jay to the grips seemed to regard her with a certain degree of ambivalence.
So her bank account was a wreck, her career was shaky, her ex-boyfriend was stalking her, she had stumbled into the role of Girlfriend Number Whatever to Kevon Edmonds, and her most trusted confidante was Tilly Lockhart, who rarely listened to a word out of anyone's mouth that was not about her.
Simone's cellular jingled. And who else would it be but Tilly calling to discuss Tilly. Simone had already been held hostage as she droned on about the nanny crisis. At almost every point in the story, Simone kept waiting for even the faintest sign of sympathy for Veronika's predicament. But apparentlyhaving a kidnapped sister in a German prostitution ring guaranteed you nothing from Tilly Lockhart. “Hi,Tilly.”
“Where are you?”
“In a car on my way back from New Jersey.”
“Oh, how awful!” Tilly cried. “I'd ask why, but I've had enough distressing news for one day. Listen, I wanted to let you know that I spoke with Dean Paul, and I've agreed to let him take care of Cantaloupe while I'm away. I see no other recourse, and I think it will be a good exercise for him to act like a responsible parent for once. I wish I didn't have to go, but the 24/7 people are paying me buckets of money, and the travel is first class, so it's hardly a root canal. Anyway, we had a civilized discussion. I suppose he might make a decent ex-husbandafter all. Although he did try to defend his dance floor romp with that bleached sack of bar trash by saying I had lost interest in sex. Can you believe that?”
“Have you?” Simone asked, grateful for the moment to be tackling someone's problems other than her own.
“Have I what?”
“Lost interest in sex.”
“Simone, I'm a smart woman with two homes, a career, and a young baby. Of course, I've lost interest in sex. Plus, I take Lexapro to keep the edge off, and that medication really messes with your ability to climax. It takes
forever
. Trust me. And frankly, I don't have forty-five minutes to lay there while Dean Paul works harder than an illegal immigrant day laborer to prove that he can make me come. I mean, honestly. Just forget it. I'd much rather have the sleep than the orgasm. Now why on earth are you coming back from
New Jersey
?”
Simone simply did not have the energy to think up a lie. “Sue booked me for an in-store appearance at Wal-Mart, becauseI need the money.”
For several long seconds, Tilly was silent. Finally, she spoke. “Your agent is a hack, Simone. Dump her.”
“Tilly, Iâ”
“I'm serious. She thinks too small. If you're going to drag yourself to New Jersey and stomp through a Wal-Mart, then at least be there to promote your own product. You should have your own line of cheap clothes or something.” Tilly let out an exasperated sigh.“
Please
. Listen to what I'm saying. Sue could never make any of this happen. And you have to act now while
The Beehive
is hot. Every single one of those
Queer Eye
boys made out like bandits. And several of those
Trading Spaces
people did the same thing. Laurie Smith has her own line of fabric. And now she's designing lamps.”
Simone just sat there waiting for the insult to drop.
“You know what? I'm going to break my personal policy and tell my agency about your situation. I can't stand by and watch you wallow in the kind of low-rent promotional opportunitiesthat are meant for reality show stars. I mean, we're closely associated with each other, and this could be damagingto
my
reputation as well. So I'm going to have a conversationwith Michael about someone's career other than my own.”
“How selfless of you,” Simone sniffed, simultaneously touched, grateful, and irritated.
“Well, let me go. I have a million things to do to prepare Dean Paul for the care of sweet Cantaloupe. Now as soon as I hang up, I want you to call Sue and fire her. It'll be the best career decision of your life! Call me soon.”
Simone briefly considered making the call to Sue but ultimately decided to wait. It would be just like Tilly to never have the talk with Michael, and then where would Simone be?
She faded in and out of a catnap until the Town Car coasted to a stop outside her apartment building. Indulging in a yawn, Simone thanked the driver, swung out, and strolled into her building.
“A rooty-poot doorman don't mean shit to me. If you want my black ass to leave, then you better call motherfuckingS.W.A.T. Because I ain't leaving until that bitch drags her scrawny little ass through that door.”
Simone stood there in horror as Luscious Brown read the riot act to Lewis, the normally bored but currently terrified doorman.
Lewis glanced up with relief at the sight of Simone. “This woman insisted onâ”
Luscious stormed in Simone's direction. “Oh, this bitch knows
exactly
what I insisted on.”
Simone raised a halting hand. “This is
not
the projects. This is a respectable apartment building with high communitystandards, and if you can't conduct yourself as something more than a common streetwalker, then I'll be forced to instructmy doorman to telephone the authorities.”
“Well, bitch, I might be forced to put my foot up your bony ass!” Luscious shot back.
Simone stepped sideways to address Lewis.
Luscious moved right with her. “This ain't got nothing to do with him. This is between
us
. Now I'm tired of running you down to have the same conversation, okay? You are workingmy nerves, bitch.”
Simone's mobile began to buzz. She glanced down to see that it was Kevon calling and picked up straightaway. “We have a situation here.”
“I know, baby girl,” Kevon answered thickly. “I'm about to roll up outside your building, so I hope it's a sexy situation.”
“Don't tell me that's Kevon burning up your cell phone minutes!” Luscious screamed.
“You've got to be fucking with me,” Kevon griped. “Is that Luscious Brown I hear talking shit in the background?”
Beyond disgusted, Simone slammed the phone shut and stomped outside onto the sidewalk.
Luscious followed in hot pursuit. “Bitch, don't walk away from me! I'm talking to you!”
Several car lengths away, Simone thought she could make out Kevon's Hummer limousine cruising toward the building.She narrowed her gaze to be sure.
Suddenly, Luscious was upon her again, this time pulling on Simone's arm and attempting to shove her down to the concrete. But her efforts were no match for Simone's Pilates-stronglegs.
“Get your hands off me!” Simone cried.
Luscious continued to push, even as two fake nails popped from her fingers and clattered onto the sidewalk.
Passersby simply walked past the melee with little interest. “Goddamn, Luscious! What the fuck are you doing?” Kevon shouted from his lowered limousine window.
Luscious stopped pushing Simone the moment Kevon's first syllable dropped and stalked toward the curb and the idle Hummer. “This ain't got nothing to do with you! This is betweenme and her!” She air-jabbed a finger in Simone's generaldirection.
“No, you got it all wrong,” Kevon shot back. “What
I
got with her ain't got nothing to do with
you
. This woman's on TV. She ain't no girl from the block you can go running down. Damn! Now take your crazy ghetto ass back home and stop stirring up shit.”