Boss Lady by Omar Tyree Page B

myself. I don’t know. It just seemed to me that my cousin had gotten soft and a little bit lazy. She was not the kind of woman to take no for an answer before, but there she was, living in a fully furnished Hollywood crib, with the black Mercedes parked out front, while telling me no about a project that she knew would work and would benefit her more than anyone.
    My cousin was the official Flyy Girl. No one could ever deny that.Her book had come before all of the other urban-girl books and before the urban-girl clothing lines. There were no Baby Phat or J. Lo lines before Flyy Girl. Tracy could have racked up with Flyy Girl everything.
    I thought about the Flyy Girl franchise all night long. I just couldn’t get the idea off of my mind. I mean, you have to understand, that with me waking up and going to bed near my cousin every night, it was like living with chocolate on your lips that you were never allowed to taste. So you walk around pushing your lips away from your tongue to keep from accidentally licking the chocolate off. You know what I mean? It was driving me crazy.
    I had a million ideas about how to blow up Flyy Girl Ltd. as an urban-ladies clothing line. But Tracy always managed to cut me off and ignore me. One time, in the heat of the discussion, she even told me that maybe I should think about my own career and stop sweating hers. I ignored her at the time. People always say things in heated arguments they don’t mean to say. Then again, a heated argument is also when the truth comes out. And maybe that was the truth. Flyy Girl the franchise was dead, and I needed to think about something else worth my time and effort.
    I figured maybe I could start my own flyy girl following. But I couldn’t call it that. My cousin wouldn’t allow me to. She still protected the name. So maybe I would call my club The Urban Ladies. Or better yet, The Urban Miss. That title had more pizzazz to it. I wanted to create something that symbolized the fact that urban American girls had it going on. Black girls, Puerto Ricans, Asians, mixed girls, and everybody in between who just wanted to fit in with the urban scene.
    I mean, we rarely got a chance to shine in our own light. We were always the trifling girlfriend, the unknown girl waiting at the bus stop, the invisible secretary with no lines, or more commonly, the swimsuit-clad, dance-video chick. Hip-hop videos were what urban girls were becoming the most known for. And that was a crying shame, because they were pushing nothing but sex. Make it shake and bounce, swing it to the left, swing it to the right, drop it like it’s hot, stick it out the back window, pull it in, push it out, wiggle it all around, slide it down the pole, rub it up against the wall, now stop,and do it all in slow motion for me. Thank you very much. Here’s your paycheck and free CDs, and make sure you come out tonight to the after-party.
    Need I say more? We needed better imagery than that. And I was becoming more pressed by the minute to make it happen.
    *  *  *
    Tracy woke me up that morning after I had gotten about three hours of sleep. It was a little after eight o’clock in the morning, and I hadn’t gone to bed until after five from thinking so much about my ideas.
    I strained to look up into my cousin’s face. When I focused on her, she looked like she had seen a ghost that morning. She had that deadly still look in her eyes.
    I asked her, “What’s wrong?”
    â€œSusan’s uncle died in his sleep last night.”
    I just stared at her for a minute.
    â€œEdward Weisner?” I asked her to make sure.
    Tracy nodded. “Yup,” she said. “So I need you to drive over there with me.”
    I had classes to go to, but I wasn’t about to say it. My classes were not until later that day anyway. But I was still tired as hell.
    I mumbled, “Okay. Let me get up and get myself together.”
    We hit the middle of