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to wonder what she had heard. She was breaking me down.
    I said, “You must have heard the wrong things then,” and lost my eye contact with her.
    â€œAre you sure?” Yolanda pressed me.
    I was wondering if Tracy had told her about my scuffle with my mother. I doubted it, but I wasn’t certain. That’s what pressure makes you do. Yolanda was running me through a test to see how much guts I had.
    â€œHey guys, what are you two talking about?” Susan Raskin popped up to rescue me. I took a breath and relaxed.
    I answered, “Movies,” and caught Tracy’s nod to me from across the room. There were too many people smothering my cousin as the star of the movie for her to just break away, so she sent her agent Susan over to me just in time.
    Yolanda asked her, “What do you think about her chances?” referring to me in starring movie roles.
    Susan took a good look at me in my lime green satin dress and said, “As long as she prepares herself accordingly, Vanessa has the chops to do whatever she wants to.”
    It was a good answer. Susan was helping to encourage me while keeping me on my p’s and q’s about proper preparation. It was one thing to lift a person up, it was something else to tell them the truth while you’re at it.
    I was learning what to expect rather quickly there. The wrap party was like a Hollywood crash course. A couple of older guys even tried to come on to me, rich white men.
    â€œSo, ah, I hear you’re the star’s cousin out of Philly.”
    â€œYeah,” I answered a blond-haired white man with poise. He looked around forty, but he was probably older than that. I was aware that people in Hollywood spent millions of dollars to maintain their youth.
    He slipped out a business card without telling me his name and tried to slide it inside my small purse.
    â€œIf you need anything you just let me know, okay?”
    I moved my purse away from his reach and told him, “I can’t take that. I’m underage.”
    I was embarrassed again, and wondering who was watching us. It was simply too many people in the room to think that no one would see it. I’m sure he knew it as well.
    So he performed a quick trick with his hand and hid the card inside of his palm.
    In passing, he told me, “There’s no such thing as underage in Hollywood, my dear.”
    That was it. Mr. Man moved on to the next conversation.
    I was tempted to fade into the corners of the room and keep out of sight at that point. But a lime green, satin dress made that hard to do.
    â€œHow are you? I love this color,” an older white woman said, while rubbing my dress material in her fingers. She didn’t even ask if she could touch it first.
    I looked into her aged face and said “Thank you.” I don’t know how old the woman was, but she had so many lines in her face that I realized instantly why so many older white men chased after girls who could pass for their daughters.
    I must admit, I was ready to leave that place early. It wasn’t my kind of party. They had no hip-hop or R&B music, few people my age, and few people of color.
    â€œAre you having fun yet?” Tracy’s friend Kendra asked me. She was being sarcastic. I’m quite sure she could read the look of bewilderment on my face. I had no idea what I was getting into out in Hollywood.
    I took a deep breath and responded, “This is really different.”
    â€œTell me about it,” Kendra said. She blended in a lot better with the crowd in her black business suit. But she was one of the brownest faces in the room.
    She said, “By the fourth party, you’ll get good and used to it. But that still doesn’t mean you have to like it. I only come to these things because Tracy asks me to, to keep her grounded in reality. So when she sees me, she relaxes. We have a little system going.”
    I told her, “I see. Are there any black parties out in