When he’d opened his production company four years earlier, he saw himself as the next Spike Lee, doing important, controversial work. The day had yet to arrive. It had taken all of his savings and a major bank loan to get G.L. Productions up and operational. For a small facility, it had all the latest in digital equipment and could easily compete with the bigger houses if it had the chance. But a small, black company already had two strikes against it right from the starting gate. Small and black.
If he could only get that Williams woman to accept the proposal, he knew that would be his ticket. Although, he had to admit that wasn’t his thought two months earlier. But now he had thirty days to get her to agree, or he would lose his grant, unless he could miraculously find another shelter for wayward girls that fit the grant criteria. And grants like this one were few and far between.
In the two months since he’d made his telephone pitch, which he followed with a formal letter and the outline of what he wanted to accomplish, he’d called several times to try to get an appointment, but he’d never been able to get past her assistant. He knew if he could sit down face-to-face with her, he could convince her to go for the project.
Garrett made an adjustment to the image on the screen. Who did she think she was anyway that she didn’t even have to give him the courtesy of a reply?
Satisfied, he turned off the equipment and stood, stretching his arms above his head hoping to loosen the kinks from hours of sitting.
Chances Are. Hmm. Wonder where they came up with the name? Chances were, loose girls wound up in places like that, or worse. People needed to see that. See them for what they really were: a burden on society.
When the request for proposals from the funding agency had been sent out, he originally had no intention of going for a contract documenting the lives of teen mothers—glorifying them. The very idea resuscitated the anger and the hurt he struggled to keep buried every day. It was his business partner and best friend, Jason Burrell, who’d finally convinced him that with the money and the exposure, it was the ticket they needed to take the company to the next level. “Get away from this instructional BS and do something worthwhile,” he’d said.
Reluctantly, Garrett had agreed. He knew it would be hard working with and talking to a group of females who epitomized everything he despised. But he knew Jason was right. So he did his research and found Chances Are, and wrote his proposal based on the premise that the director would agree to be filmed. Ha. So much for assuming.
“Hey, man. Whatsup?”
Garrett turned toward Jason who stood in the doorway. “Just finishing up the collection agency piece.”
“Hmm, glad that’s out of the way.” Jason stepped into the room and straddled an available stool. “Hear anything from the shelter?”
“Naw. Not a word. She doesn’t even have the decency to return our calls.” He sneered. “Probably too busy trying to keep those girls out of trouble—again.”
“I say we start looking elsewhere before we blow the grant, man. It’s a lot of money to lose.”
“Yeah, I’ve been tossing around the same idea. Problem is, the grant was real specific about what it wanted: a documentary on teen mothers living in a residential setting and how they got there. Chances Are is the only one of its kind not funded by the government. And we dug the hole deeper by detailing how we were going to do it.”
“I hear ya. That does limit our choices. But we gotta make a move. And soon. You want me to try to call again? Maybe I’ll get lucky and get past that guard-dog assistant of hers.”
Garrett blew out a breath. “Let’s give it another day or two. I’m going over to the research library this afternoon, do some more hunting. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find someplace else that meets the guidelines.”
“I sure as hell hope so.” Jason stood. “Well, I have a shoot at New York University. I’m gonna pack up the equipment and get rolling.”
“Who’s on the crew?”
“Najashi, Paul, and Tom.”
Garrett nodded. “I’ll probably see you in the morning, then. I’ll lock up when I’m done in here. Make sure they give you our check before you guys leave.”
“I’m getting the check before we start. I don’t want to hear nothing about how ‘the person with the check is gone for the day’ after we’ve done the work.”
Garrett chuckled recalling the many times they’d been stiffed and had to wait weeks, sometimes months, after a shoot to get paid.
“All right, I’m out. Good luck with your research.”
“Yeah.”
Garrett switched off the lights, checked the studio where they did their on-site shooting and the adjoining rooms, set the answering machine and the alarms and stepped outside to the lukewarm October afternoon. He stood in the doorway of his West Village office space and watched the passersby.
All up and down the avenue, folks strolled, stopped, peeked in antique shop windows, hugged, laughed. Everyone seemed to have somebody. Someone to experience and share their day with. He watched a young mother laughing with her son, then she bent down and picked him up and gave him a big hug before setting him back on his feet. The little boy looked up at her, a hundred-watt smile on his face.
A sudden, razor-sharp pain of hurt and betrayal sliced through his stomach. Why wasn’t he good enough to be hugged and kissed from the mother who gave him life to the wife who left him for greener pastures?
His chest filled. His throat constricted. Most times he didn’t think about those things. His work filled his days, and most of his nights. But this whole business with the documentary and the shelter brought back all the ugly memories. Hey, he’d get through it. He was tough. That’s what he’d been told the doctors said when he’d been found only hours old, wrapped in a sheet, wedged between two garbage cans.
He swallowed. Yeah, he was tough.
Chapter 3
The last of the girls, accompanied by their infants or toddlers, filed into the basement, which had been transformed from the day-care setting to a formal meeting space, the cribs, bassinets and playpens replaced with folding aluminum chairs.
Everyone tried to find a seat next to their buddy, whispering and speculating among themselves about why they were there.
“They’re probably going to tell us about the loud music again,” Kisha whispered to Denise. “You know how Ms. Betsy is about music.”
Denise sucked her teeth. “Pleeze. They wouldn’t call an emergency house meeting just to tell us about no darn music.”
“Betcha,” Kisha insisted.
“Probably gonna tell us about curfew again,” Gina said under her breath, knowing she was one of the culprits and hoping she wouldn’t be singled out to have her visiting privileges suspended. She wanted to see her boyfriend on the weekend. But she’d come in late two nights last week and had her toes and fingers crossed that she’d gotten over this time. Her daughter Brandy began squirming and whimpering. Gina stuck a bottle in her mouth and began bouncing Brandy up and down on her knee.
