It didn’t matter that he couldn’t act a lick…he simply wanted to put on a stupid costume and show off his muscles as he performed amazing feats on the big screen.
“You don’t want to get involved with Hollywood,” Kevin offered with a sage expression. “The film industry is a fickle business. One day you’re the toast of Hollywood, walking red carpets and hobnobbing with A-listers, then the next thing you’re on the D list and nobody will give you the time of day. You have a great career with us, Mav. An investigative journalist won’t be taken seriously if he’s dancing around like a fairy in tights and a cape. I’d hate to see you throw away a lifetime career to hobnob with those phonies in Tinseltown.”
“Yeah, but—”
Kevin cut Maverick off with the wave of his hand. “We plan to send you to Pamplona, Spain to not only cover the big sporting event but to also participate,” Kevin said, pouring Maverick a glass of expensive tequila.
“What’s in Pamplona, Spain…soccer? I hate that boring-ass sport. Nah, I’m not feeling it, Kevin, man. Soccer puts me to sleep.”
“It’s not soccer. We want to send you to Spain to run with the bulls. Strapped with a mic pack, you’ll cover the story in an exciting, interactive way.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll report the event while running with the bulls.”
“The hell if I will! I’m not running with any goddamn bulls. That’s not even a real sport. What makes you think I’d do something that stupid, and risk getting gouged in the balls?”
At that point, one of Kevin’s flunkies put a glass of red wine in front of Maverick, trying to improve his mood and loosen him up. He offered me a glass as well, but I shook my head. The strong tequila was enough for me.
Our final course arrived, and I must say, I was very impressed with the way the chef had prepared a vegetarian version of every course that had been served for Maverick and me.
But Maverick, totally intoxicated, seemed more impressed with the two magnums of 2009 Bond Estates St Eden Napa Valley Red, and two bottles of 1942 Don Julio tequila that the network had spent a whopping $2,500 on.
Before the evening concluded, Maverick and Kevin were laughing together and shaking hands. “We have a deal, man,” Maverick slurred as he drunkenly pumped Kevin’s hand up and down.
A good wife would have intervened on behalf of her intoxicated husband and told him to wait and discuss such an important matter with his agent. But I didn’t want my husband gallivanting around Hollywood with A-listers. I didn’t want to risk him being cast opposite a megastar like Angelina Jolie or Halle Berry. I understood New York celebrities and knew how to deal with them, but those Hollywood hoes were a totally different breed. They didn’t abide by any established rules. They’d claim your man as soon as they shot a love scene with him. Then before you knew it, he’d hit you with divorce papers and marry his costar-side bitch. She’d tie him down for life by adopting a bunch of foreign kids and then get knocked up with triplets. Your man would end up with eight or nine kids—all at the same time.
No, honey. Maverick did not need to be making any new friends in Hollywood.
Kevin’s lawyer pushed papers in front of Maverick and with my encouragement, my inebriated husband signed his name, unwittingly agreeing to forget about becoming a film star, and staying his ass at the TV station in New York.
When we exited the restaurant, a horde of paparazzi were swarming outside the venue. Obviously, someone had tipped them off as to where Maverick and I were dining.
Having gotten what he wanted, Kevin Berenbaum didn’t hang around. He dashed inside his waiting limo with his lawyer. His management team scattered in different directions, leaving me alone to guide my staggering husband to our car. The short walk to the car seemed like a long distance while in the midst of being hounded by the media with their ridiculous questions and asinine comments.
One photographer remarked, “Looks like you had too much booze, Maverick. Are you dealing with alcohol issues?”
Before I could formulate a sarcastic reply in my head, another photographer asked, “Are you planning on checking into rehab, Maverick?”
Maverick muttered something unintelligible, exposing himself to be as drunk as a damn skunk. Infuriated, I clutched Maverick’s arm possessively and spoke for him. “My husband does not have a drinking problem. We were out celebrating a special life event and he overindulged. But what man wouldn’t allow himself to have a good time after discovering he has fathered a son?” I flashed a victorious smile.
The uproar from the paparazzi was deafening as they asked a million more questions. “Are you pregnant, Cori? It’s been reported that you’re using a surrogate; is that true?”
“I don’t have anything else to say at this time, but my husband and I will make an official statement after he sleeps it off.” I laughed gaily and allowed the photographers to take a few more pictures of me as the driver helped Maverick into the car. “What I can say is that my husband and I have wanted a child for a very long time, and we’re particularly happy that we’re having a boy—a son to carry on the Brown last name as well as his father’s sports legacy.”
In the backseat of the car, Maverick was already snoozing. And that was fine with me. With Maverick dead to the word, I had an opportunity to call my assistant and speak openly.
Ellie picked up on the first ring. “How’d it go?” she asked.
“Perfect. The tip you gave the paparazzi worked out better than I imagined. The media will probably run with the Mavcor baby story in less than an hour, and my darling husband will wake up in the morning to the amazing news that he’s going to be a father.”
• • •
Hung over and grouchy, Maverick was taking longer than usual to get dressed for work. Luckily, I didn’t have to film today and was looking forward to lounging around and having the apartment to myself. But the way he was slow-poking around and bothering me with a bunch of questions, was beginning to steal my joy.
Seeming not to know his ass from a hole in the ground, he kept asking me one question after another. First, he wanted to know if I’d seen his newest watch, a TAG Heuer Aquaracer.
“You left it on the hall table,” I told him.
Then he asked me to make him a cup of coffee.
Damn! I got up and plodded to the kitchen. I wasn’t his goddamn personal maid, and it felt like he was taking full advantage of the fact that I had the day off, trying to work me like a mule.
My network was trying something new this season. They were taking the kids on a field trip to Harlem, where they’d be filmed cooking in various home kitchens of the local residents. Having the kids compete outside of the normal environment at the studio and in unfamiliar houses seemed like a disastrous undertaking to me, but Josh thought it would give the show an intriguing new twist.
Josh had tried to get me involved in the bullshit, but I refused, and when he attempted to throw his weight around and insisted I join the cast and crew, I lost my temper and cursed him out. I wasn’t about to sit up in some funky kitchen shooting the breeze and swapping recipes with some ol’ bitch who probably cooked with old chicken grease she kept stored in a coffee can next to the stove.
After my tantrum, Josh saw things my way. With the magic of television, I didn’t have to step foot into one kitchen in Harlem. I would be filmed later, sampling replicas of the food, prepared by our in-house chefs. And by plugging in voice-overs, it would seem as if I had appeared in the same segments as the contestants.
“Cori, my head is killing me and my stomach is upset,” Maverick called out from his private bathroom.
“Take an aspirin or something.” I was back in bed, propped up with luxurious pillows and secretly reading what the bloggers had to say about our pregnancy, and I didn’t want to be disturbed anymore.
“I checked the medicine cabinet, but I don’t see any in here.”
Grudgingly, I got out of bed, again. I checked the medicine cabinet in my bathroom and grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen and tossed it to him. I whirled around to leave, but Maverick struck up a conversation, holding me captive.
“I can’t believe Kevin went out of his way to keep me at the network for the next ten years. Hell, for the kind of money he offered, he didn’t need to get me drunk with expensive wine and tequila.” Maverick chuckled and fixed his lips in a crooked smile that I detested. He only smiled like that when he was feeling cocky and full of himself.
“Kevin’s a smart man. He came out of pocket to keep that Hollywood producer from stealing you.”
“As badly as I wanted to play a superhero, I’m not foolish enough to turn down millions of dollars to appease my ego. But then again, maybe I should have squeezed an extra ten million out of Kevin. After all the blood, sweat, and tears I left on the football field—”
The blare of my cell phone cut him off, thank God. Any minute, he was going to start quoting his football stats. Happy to escape having to stand there and watch Maverick slap aftershave on his face while he bragged about his former career, I hurried out of his bathroom and went to retrieve my phone from the nightstand.
Expecting it to be Ellie, I was surprised to discover it was the concierge of our building calling.
“Good morning, Mrs. Brown,” the concierge said. “A package has arrived for Mr. Brown. It was hand delivered. I’d bring it up personally, but I’m unable to leave the front desk at the moment. If you’d like, I can bring it up when I get a break. Or I can put it aside until either you or Mr. Brown comes downstairs.”
“Is the package light enough for me to carry?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then, I’ll be right down to pick it up.” My curiosity had gotten the best of me and I wanted to see what was in the package. I hoped that bitch, Katya didn’t have the gall to send my husband a present. It was bad enough that they’d started seeing each other on a regular basis. Since I booked the hotels where they rendezvoused, I was well aware of their numerous hookups.
Wearing a plush robe and slippers, I dashed to the elevator and rode down to the lobby. When the doors opened, the concierge was standing there and handed me the package. During the ride back up, I ripped open the stylish wrapping and was impressed by the beautiful wooden box of Cohiba Luxury Selection Cigars.
I didn’t know much about cigars, but I’d heard that a box of Cohibas cost around $4,000, and I doubted if Katya would spend that kind of money on a gift for a trick.
Beyond curious, I open the enclosed card and smiled with relief when I read: Congrats, I know you’re going to be a great father. Best Wishes, Kevin Berenbaum. I doubted if Kevin had personally written the note, but it was a classy gesture.
In my head, I went over the pregnancy story I planned to tell Maverick, but as I exited the elevator, I was startled to find him standing outside our apartment, wearing only his briefs. I froze and briefly pondered the situation. I thought about stashing the cigars under my robe to buy myself more time, but the box was too big to conceal.
“Why’d you run out the apartment without saying anything? I didn’t know what happened. I thought you’d been kidnapped or something.” Maverick searched my face, waiting for me to explain why I’d suddenly gone down to the lobby in a bathrobe.
He ushered me inside the apartment and then noticed the package. “What’s that?”
Caught like a motherfucker, there was nothing I could do except hand him the box. “It’s a gift from Kevin.”
“I signed the contract, so why’s he still kissing my ass? Damn, I should have held out for more money.” Maverick gazed at the insignia on the outside of the luxurious box and whistled. “Cohiba cigars—Luxury Selection! These are the shit!” He opened the box and ran a finger over the collection of luxury cigars. After perusing the gift card, he looked up at me, confused. “Kevin’s congratulating me on becoming a father. What’s that about?” Maverick handed me the card and I scanned it, pretending to be reading the message for the first time.
“It’s all over the Internet, honey.”
“What is?”
“The news that we’re going to be parents.”
“Don’t tell me you went behind my back after I told you I wasn’t feeling that in-vitro bullshit?”
Fast on my feet, I began blurting out the story that I’d come up with. “I didn’t have a choice, Mav. That hooker, Sophia was pissed that you bit up her thighs. She said the condom broke and you gave her an STD and—”
“That’s a lie! The condom didn’t break, and I don’t have any STDs.”
“It’s her word against yours. She threatened to sue us and she was going to go to the press with the story. She said she has evidence that she was in that hotel with you. I had to do something to keep her quiet.”
“So, you offered a lying, scheming whore the opportunity to carry our child? That’s ridiculous, Cori.”
“I doubled the original price for a surrogate and agreed to pay her tuition to nursing school after the baby’s born. She wants to get out of the sex peddling business and lead a normal life.”
Maverick snorted. “Oh, yeah? She wants to lead a normal life on my dollar, huh?”
I caressed his arm. “Our dollar,” I corrected. “But we have so much, Mav, we won’t even miss that little bit of money.”
He looked at me with suspicious eyes. “You’re slick, Cori. You figured out a way to get exactly what you wanted. I hope you’re happy now.”
“Maverick, sweetie, we both should be happy. We’re having a son.”
“Whoopty-doo! We’re having a fucking test tube baby, and everyone will be wondering if the kid is really mine. With the messed-up way it’s coming into the world, I’ll be wondering my damn self if the kid is actually mine.”
“We can get DNA testing later in the pregnancy, if you’d like.”
“Believe me, I insist on DNA testing.”
“Okay, not a problem.”
“I can’t believe you trapped me into this shit. In vitro fertilization is for white folks. A virile brother like me has more than enough healthy sperm to make a kid the right way. I’m not happy about bringing a Frankenstein baby into the world. It’s not a good look for me.”
“You should have thought about your image when you were mauling that escort and ramming her so hard you burst through the condom,” I countered with a hand on my hip.
CHAPTER 14
We were behind schedule and had to film three episodes in one day. It was grueling work, and watching the kids getting kicked off the show, one after another in the course of a day wasn’t fun, either. One of the departed had been my girl, LaTasha, and her teary-eyed exit had been heart-wrenching.
What the audience would see was the prerecorded exit scene of each of the departing contestants, but what actually happened on set was loud sobbing and emotional outbursts that often escalated to anger, profanity, and even violence. When the dwarf had been booted off the show, he kicked one of the cameramen in the shins. That dwarf was a mean little son of a bitch.
Josh would have loved to showcase the contestants showing their asses, but he couldn’t use the footage since the kids often blabbered about their mistreatment and other dirty little secrets of the show while in the midst of their tirades. For example, one of the contestants, Touki, the blue-eyed, blue-haired Asian girl, left the show screaming, “It’s not fair! How could the judges be expected to properly critique my food when it’s been left sitting on a tray for two hours while you assholes did like a zillion retakes?”
Sadly, Touki’s words were true. The reason the judges took such tiny bites of the dishes set before them was due to the fact that while the crew made changes and shot retakes, most of the food was often cold and unpalatable by the time it reached the judges’ table.
On the day that Maverick appeare
d on the show, he refused to chew or swallow the food. Off camera, he spat the food into a napkin, but when the camera was on him, he smiled charmingly as he launched into his critique, often praising the awful food that had been placed before him.
Down to our final five, I’d managed to keep my favorite, Ralphie, in the competition despite Josh’s fear that an appearance by Ralphie’s ghetto-fabulous foster mother would bring down the ratings. When I’d informed Josh that the foster mother had managed to get a set of dentures, he had no choice but to give up the idea of kicking Ralphie off the show. Little did Josh know that I had secretly arranged an emergency dental visit for the woman and had spent money out of my own pocket to get her teeth fixed.
But my motives hadn’t been purely altruistic. A part of me wanted America to see what the network wanted to hide. It wasn’t only poor little black kids getting rescued by good white people; there were heroes in the ’hood, too. There were black folks out there who opened their hearts and homes to unwanted white children.
After being flown to New York, the mothers of our five finalists were herded to a hotel in midtown Manhattan, away from the madness taking place on the Chelsea set. It was brought to my attention that Ralphie’s foster mom was running up a hell of a tab at the hotel bar, and I made a mental note to give her a call and encourage her to arrive at tomorrow’s taping sober.
I had to tape one-on-one pep talks with the final five that consisted of Ralphie, Michelangelo, Yancy, Becca, and Angus, the tattooed-covered asshole whom I was convinced was a white supremacist.
There were only three real contenders: Ralphie, Michelangelo, and unfortunately, Angus. But Angus with his neo-Nazi self would win over my dead body.
During the taping of my one-on-one with Michelangelo, I was nearly moved to tears. Exhibiting his sensitive side, he spoke in a somber tone as he mentioned wanting to win the competition to honor his dad, a New York firefighter who had died tragically while trying to rescue victims during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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