Platinum

by Aliya S. King

  Bunny dashed down all three flights of stairs, grabbing her heavy coat from the front hall closet before going out the front door.

  During the ride from Greenwich to Electric Lady, she tried to convince herself that selling Zander’s story was a necessary evil. She’d have the money she needed to see Zander. And it wasn’t a real betrayal. Everyone knew Z was on drugs. And it was just a matter of time before the media found out. She’d learned the trick from watching Zander earn extra money. He’d call the paps and tell them where any of his father’s famous friends were going to be. He overheard his dad talking to Puffy, who invited him to an ultra-exclusive private party at the Borgata. Zander called the Enquirer, which got the first pictures of Puffy and his brand-new, barely legal girlfriend.

  By the time Bunny arrived at the studio, she’d checked her bank account: she was two thousand dollars richer. She texted Zander and told him she was flying down to Anguilla to see him that weekend. Then she downed a cup of mint tea with lemon, prayed, and stepped into the booth with Ras.

  KIPENZI WOKE UP WITH A START AND SAT UP STRAIGHT. SHE FRANTICALLY patted the bed next to her until she remembered that Jake had left for the studio soon after they had made love the night before.

  She moved her hand up to her throat, closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath, held it for as long as she could, and then exhaled slowly. Her hands were clammy and shaking and her head was pounding.

  She couldn’t remember what her dream had been about. But she just saw herself in the back office of some kind of supermarket, wearing a blue smock over her outfit and a name tag over her right breast.

  Kipenzi tried to shake the visual out of her head and twisted her body around to plant her feet on the hardwood floors. She stretched out and walked over to the windows and opened the curtains. New York City took her breath away—as it did every morning. The view from her apartment showed Manhattan in its best light.

  She yawned, then leaned her forehead against the glass. Kipenzi Hill was tired.

  When Kipenzi got tired, it wasn’t a normal level of exhaustion. It wasn’t the weariness of a new mom who is up around the clock with a screaming baby. It wasn’t even the sheer fatigue of a night-shift nurse on hour twelve. It was even deeper. Kipenzi moved on hyperspeed. Nine countries in eight days and eyes still bright. She popped off international flights looking more refreshed than some people do after a ten-hour makeover.

  But when it did catch up to her, exhaustion hit her hard. Kipenzi pulled her head back from the window just enough to catch her image in the reflection. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, her lower lip was swollen (she had a habit of biting it in her sleep—particularly if she was having a bad dream), and her hair, free of any kind of weave, was a curly mess, knotted and twisted in limp ringlets hanging just to her chin.

  Kipenzi looked out at the area where Jackson usually hung out in the park. He was there and she wondered, as she always did when she stood at the window, what people would do or say if she walked out of her bedroom just as she was right now, in a robe and slippers, and walked out of her apartment, onto the elevator, through the lobby, into the sunshine and sat next to him on that park bench.

  Would Jackson know it was her if she wasn’t wearing oversized shades and being hustled into the back seat of a stretch Hummer? Would he just assume since she wasn’t dressed up that she couldn’t be Kipenzi Hill? Would anyone approach her? Ask for an autograph? Sit down next to her?

  At her most recent show, a sold-out event at the Continental Airlines Arena, Kipenzi was blown away by the crowds. People were in the aisles, laughing, cheering, crying—singing along to every last line. And each time she came close to the edge of the stage, bodies would lean in and hands would rise up. People wanted her to touch them.

  She’d lean down, mic in hand, and slap a few palms as she worked the stage. But it made her very uncomfortable. She sometimes wanted to stop singing and bend down and say, “I’m just a person. My name is Kipenzi. I took a shit right before I came onstage. Do you really want to shake my hand?”

  But her fans always had that faraway look in their eyes. And in some ways it was depressing, because she knew it wasn’t her they loved, it was what she represented: money, glamour, excitement. In reality, Kipenzi knew she was flighty, unreliable, and spacey.

  Driven only when it came to her own career, she couldn’t remember the birthdays of her friends and family to save her life. She could be mean when she was recording. And a straight-up bitch on tour. She was absolutely sure that ninety percent of her fans would not like her one bit in real life.

  Kipenzi let the curtain fall and sat down on her bed, reaching for the special edition Hello Kitty phone she’d designed on the nightstand. She pressed speed dial and turned on the speakerphone as she fell backward on the bed.

  “Hi, this is Beth. Leave a message.”

  “Hey, Beth,” Kipenzi said, turning to the side to be sure the speakerphone picked up her voice. “I haven’t heard from you. I heard you went out to Anguilla. Hope you’re having a good time. Um, call me. Okay? I want to know how the baby’s doing. And I need to talk to you about—”

  The intercom rang and startled Kipenzi. She hung up the phone and picked up the receiver.

  “Ms. Hill, Melinda Davis is here to see you.”

  “Send her up. Thank you.”

  Kipenzi went into the bathroom and splashed water on her face. She pulled her hair back and secured it with a rubber band and then slipped into yoga pants and a T-shirt.

  Melinda Davis was the youngest executive at MusicTown. And she was coming to talk business. Everyone from Kipenzi’s new husband to her parents to her friends—everyone except Beth—was trying to convince Kipenzi that she didn’t want to walk away from it all. And now the president of MusicTown was sending Melinda to be the voice of reason. Officially Melinda was the head of the A&R Department. But in reality, she was everything.

  In the offices at MusicTown, they called her Mrs. Fix-It. Did Z need one more line of coke in order to finish a $50,000 shoot for Playboy? Melinda would fix it. An executive’s sidepiece gets pregnant? Melinda befriends her just long enough to get her to the clinic. But what really cemented Melinda’s status was an incident five years before. Jake stabbed an associate he believed had bootlegged his album. He was already on probation. Mandatory jail time was on the horizon, just as he was about to release his best work yet. Melinda told the cops she did it. With her clean record and a few phone calls from her father, she ended up doing thirty days in prison and serving one year of probation.

  That a white girl from Upper Montclair would take the rap for Jake was absurd. And it made her untouchable and powerful. Some of the rappers she worked for weren’t sure if their own wives would go to jail for them.

  As Kipenzi waited for Melinda to get to her door, she wondered if the woman who had helped mold her career for over a decade would play good cop or bad cop.

  Kipenzi went to the door and cracked it, peering down the hallway to see Melinda step off the elevator.

  “Good morning,” Melinda said, leaning in to peck Kipenzi’s cheek before breezing into her cavernous living room. She walked straight over to the dining room table and set down a sheaf of paperwork.

  “Kipenzi, you are out of your damn mind if you think you’re not giving MusicTown at least one more album. At least.”

  “Ah. So he told you to play bad cop.”

  Melinda wrinkled her brow. “I’m playing common sense. That’s what I’m playing. You want to quit the business? Fine. But you received a twenty-million-dollar advance. You have that money just sitting around? ’Cause I’ll take a check and keep it moving.”

  “I got an advance for twenty million for five albums. I’ve done four. I shouldn’t have to pay back the whole advance.”

  “You can be sued for what your last album would have sold. Future earnings included. Tell your husband that and see what he says.”

  “Who says I got married?”

  Melinda r
olled her eyes. “Anyway. You can put out a compilation to satisfy your last album requirement.”

  “Really? I could? That would be easy!”

  “But they want you to do a DVD of videos for each song and update a daily blog up until the release of the farewell album.”

  “Done. I can do that with my eyes closed.”

  “And you have to promote the compilation. Magazine covers, national late-night talk shows, morning shows, whatever they ask.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Melinda sat down at the table and pulled out the sheaf of papers. “Well, that’s it. When you’re done with that, I think your dad will be able to get them to let you go.”

  Kipenzi nodded slowly. She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. From the very first morning when she woke up and knew that her career as a singer was over, she’d been dreading all the steps it would take to be fully free. Jake needled her to give it more thought. Her father outright begged her to reconsider. And now Melinda was telling her that it was really over.

  “What if I didn’t want to walk away?” Kipenzi asked. “How much would they pay to keep me?”

  “You could get a hundred million for a three-sixty deal. You know what that means: tours, albums, endorsements. Everything.”

  Kipenzi’s eyes crossed and she held on to the back of a dining room chair to steady herself. “That’s fuck-you money.”

  Melinda chuckled. “Yeah. It would be a good retirement plan.” She got up from the dining room table and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, the way everyone did when they came to Kipenzi’s house.

  “Sometimes I really wish I could sing.”

  Kipenzi snorted. “And sometimes I wish I could manage my own life as well as you have.”

  Melinda put her hands on her waist and looked down at Kipenzi, who had moved to her sofa. “Please.”

  Kipenzi tried to look surprised. “What?”

  Melinda dropped her chin and looked at Kipenzi from a side angle. “You trying to bullshit me? You forget I’ve been working with you since your father drove you to my office in a damn Chevy Nova?”

  Kipenzi smiled on one side of her mouth.

  “You looked me up and down and asked me why none of my artists had been on the cover of Vibe,” Melinda said.

  “I was just curious …”

  “Hey, heads up. The Happy Hair folks called. They are pissed.”

  Kipenzi groaned and sank into her seat. She took a throw pillow and covered her face with it. “What now?” she asked, her voice muffled.

  “Your hair color is wrong. You took the weave out and now it’s too dark.”

  Kipenzi kept the pillow over her face and didn’t move.

  “Your contract explicitly states that your hair color will never be lighter than James Blonde or darker than Berry Bonds or it invalidates the agreement. According to their people, you are now a half shade darker than the Berry Bonds color.”

  Kipenzi took the pillow off her face but didn’t sit up. “Are you serious?”

  Melinda threw up her hands. “And the contract says you’ll seek permission before deviating from the preapproved styles. All of the preapproved styles involved hairpieces. And you’re sitting here with six-inch corkscrew curls. Is that the hair that actually grows out of your head? Um, no. You knew what you were getting into when you signed the deal. They own you. They pay you for wearing your hair a certain shade and length and shooting two commercials a season.” Melinda shot a meaningful glance around Kipenzi’s apartment. “And it looks to me like it’s worth it.”

  Kipenzi rolled her tongue around in her mouth for a half second. What she wanted to say curled up and died just before she could spit it out. “I am very blessed,” she said instead. “I’ll have Ian make an appointment for me to get my hair done.”

  Melinda nodded, and scribbled in her notebook.

  “And when is this contract up?”

  Melinda flipped through the papers. “Looks like it’s year to year. So you’re just about done. But you know, they’d probably still bring you on for another year even if you don’t have an album to promote …”

  Kipenzi didn’t look in Melinda’s direction. “No, thank you.”

  Melinda shuffled some papers and started to put them in her bag. “How could you just throw this all away?”

  Kipenzi’s eyes grew wide. “I’ve worked my ass off since I was three.”

  “And that’s it. You’re done. At your peak? You’ve got film offers on the table, your last album could go diamond if you would support a rerelease. Your dad could get you overseas endorsements that would put your great-great-great-grandchildren through college.”

  Kipenzi closed her eyes and shook her head firmly. “No.”

  “You don’t even know what the real world is like,” said Melinda. “You have no idea. Even with all the money you have. You don’t even know what it’s like to spend it. It goes fast.”

  “Thank you for the advice.”

  “You owe your father better than this.”

  “What?”

  “He quit his job, took night classes in economics. This man turned his whole life over to making your success. Both of your parents. They sacrificed a lot for you—”

  “And I haven’t repaid them?” Kipenzi asked. “They have to eat off me until I’m dead?”

  “They’re not eating off you now—”

  “My father earns ten percent of my income. That’s how he eats. I’m not mad at him. But, seriously, it’s a job. He’s being downsized. Company’s folding. I have a right to do this.”

  “Of course you do,” Melinda said. “I just want to make sure you’re ready to deal with life on the other side. Without me to buffer you from the real world.”

  “I’m a big girl.”

  “Did you hear about the book? The video girl who’s been with all the rappers?”

  “What about it?”

  “Her attorney sent a chapter to Jake’s attorney. Sounds like either Jake or at the very least someone close to him may make an appearance in that book.”

  Kipenzi looked up at Melinda. “Did you read it?”

  “No. They sent it via messenger. And the messenger was instructed to stand there as the attorney read the chapter to make sure no copies were made and no written notes were taken.”

  “Does Jake know?”

  “I hear he was in the office. So, yeah.”

  Kipenzi turned around, stood up, stretched her arms out, and stood on tiptoe. “Would you mind if we finish up over the phone this afternoon? I’ve got a few meetings and I still need to jump in the shower.”

  “Of course, of course. I totally understand,” Melinda said, sweeping her things into her bag and standing up.

  Kipenzi walked her to the door and opened it.

  Melinda turned back as soon as she crossed the threshold. “Have you spoken to Beth recently?”

  Kipenzi’s heart flipped over and she searched Melinda’s face while trying to appear calm. “Why?”

  Melinda looked both ways down the hallway and then leaned in the doorway. “Look. Z’s my client, not Beth. So I’m not really supposed to tell her anything. But there’s a warrant out for his arrest.”

  Kipenzi let out a breath of air and rolled her eyes. “What now?”

  “Possession of crack cocaine. Trying to board a flight to Anguilla with it. Boo bailed him out and he went to Anguilla. If he’s not back in time for his court date …”

  Kipenzi’s shoulders slumped.

  “I don’t know how much Beth knows, but …” Melinda trailed off.

  “Thanks, Melinda.”

  “All right, sweetie, you might want to check in on Beth if you can catch up to her. I know she’s pregnant. This can’t be easy for her.”

  Kipenzi nodded, gave Melinda an air kiss, and closed the door.

  She called Ian.

  “I need to get out to Anguilla by this evening. Call Mead’s Bay and tell them I want the oceanfront villa. And can you please book the other
three villas? One for security, the rest empty.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Your favorite threader is in Mead’s Bay. Should I have her come by to do your eyebrows in the morning?”

  “That would be perfect. And also make an appointment for both me and Beth for a full day of services at the spa at Cap Juluca. And please send a car to pick me up in one hour. Tell the driver we’ll be making two stops. First stop: the label. And then the airport.”

  Kipenzi climbed into her unmade bed for a quick minute to collect her thoughts. Somewhere far away, she was worried about Beth. But knowing that she was flying out there temporarily pacified her. Two percent of her mental capacity was focused on getting out of her contract and endorsements.

  At the forefront of her mind was Cleo Wright. When she’d first heard rumors and whispers about the book, she’d instantly felt sorry for Beth. She knew Z would be in that book. But Jake?

  “Hell fucking no,” Kipenzi said out loud to her empty apartment. “Hell motherfucking no.”

  Kipenzi had already asked Jake a few nights ago. And he’d sworn he’d never slept with her.

  Kipenzi pulled her knees up to her chest and held them there, keeping her eyes closed tight.

  Jake had been rough with her the night before, so much so that she was still throbbing between her legs seven hours later. It always concerned her when he was like that. Most times, Jake moved slow with her, usually bringing her to orgasm twice before even entering her. Last year, after a show in Prague, he spent twenty minutes kissing the inside of her left thigh until she forced him inside her.

  But last night was one of the other nights. He came into her apartment tipsy and just slightly disheveled. No conversation. He twisted her arm and broke her gold bangle as he pushed her down onto the floor.

  Kipenzi loved it. But it also let her know something was brewing. The last time he went all Animal Planet on her, he’d lost a million dollars playing a game of horse with a player from the New York Knicks. She couldn’t walk straight for two days.

  So Kipenzi had a feeling when she woke up that morning that something was going down. She just didn’t know what. She’d assumed that it had something to do with Z, and maybe it did. But maybe it had something to do with this book that was now surfacing. Kipenzi rolled over to her stomach, buried her face in her sheets, let out of a muffled scream, and then quickly got out of bed and started running in place. She stopped, looking at herself in the mirror above her dressing table.