Educational Experience

Part II--Chapter 14 continued

The second half of a chapter that changes everything. For the better? Wait and see...

I got down, sat on the grass and used the little private video conference app we had done for us. And when the window popped up I was so stunned I almost couldn’t say anything.

And the woman on the other end—stupendously beautiful—started freaking out, too.

I mean, she started wringing her hands and going, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I am soooo blown away right now--that face! Oh, my God, I can’t stand it...”

Now, normally that would drive me crazy. But her face was too good to be true, too. A famous face--she was a big deal. Celie Something. I couldn’t remember the last name at first.

But I remembered that she’d won an Oscar a few years back and in her speech she had explained that she was named for that woman in The Color Purple. So I got off Butch and sat down on the ground to take this thing seriously.

First, let me describe her. If I can. She was this rich, mahogany color that had been all kinds of controversial at the time. There were actually people who thought she was too dark, right? It stirred up all kinds of arguments online and on TV and all that—in this day and age, yes, we’re still freaking out about color.

But honest to God, she was freaking Nefertiti this woman. With these big, onyx eyes you could fall into and never find your way back out of again. And just a long braid in back. Simple, Sade elegant, you feel me?

So I said, “You wanna talk faces, you should see what I’m seeing over here.”

She laughed and sat back with her fingertips pressed to her chest like she needed to catch her breath or was trying to slow her breathing down.

And then she said, “I just...I wasn’t sure he would even remember talking to me. But let’s--okay, I’m Celie Bechet. Like the jazz musician. We’re related in some way but—not you and me, the musician and—oh, my God, I’m not making any sense!”

“Yeah, you are. I know Sidney Bechet.”

“You do?”

“Yeah! Hugh’s all into jazz. So was...well, a friend of ours.”

“Well, I know it’s the holidays so I will try not to take up too much of your time,” she said.

And after another deep breath she settled down. I tried to do the same, but she was so scary hot it was hard for me to concentrate. Except once she started pitching me, all that craziness went away.

Because I realized in an instant that she was opening one of those Big Doors of Life, long distance. And she leaned into it with her heart and soul.

“I don’t know if you remember or even know about the award—the Oscar, I won,” she said first, not to brag, just as if it was something I’d need to know before she went on.

So I said, “Of course I do. It shocked the shit out of all those other actresses.”

She laughed and nodded and said, “I saw that on the news the next day. All the stunned faces. But the thing is...well, you’re supposed to be a hot ticket after that, you know? Scripts just flying in. But people don’t write scripts for this skin tone. Not even black writers.”

“They’re starting to have black leads in TV shows that aren’t really, like...black stories, though,” I said. “More TV than movies, I guess, though.”