“Actually, I was looking for one of my girls,” I correct.
“Don’t worry, Amaya. If she’s remotely like you, I’m sure she’s up in here having herself a great time,” he assures me as he pulls me close and runs his fingers down my back. Before too long, I completely lose consciousness of everything around me except for the heat from Jamal’s rock-hard joint on my butt.
I have no idea how much time has passed when I feel a hard jabbing sensation on my shoulder. Shaken out of my private-dancer mode, I spin around to confront whoever the hell is poking me like that. “Excuse you,” I ask.
“We’re ready to go,” Trista states nastily with a hard eye roll for emphasis.
“Trista, we just got here, why don’t you relax,” I sigh, annoyed by her intrusion.
“Look, Amaya. It’s damn near five o’clock in the morning, I have a splitting headache, Elise is grinding on some dude that looks like he just got released from jail, and Viv is in a bathroom stall about to vomit. Please say good night to your little friend and come on,” she snaps as she cuts her eyes at both Jamal and me.
Jamal takes one look at Trista and chuckles softly, “Go head, ma. You got my number and I know where you’re staying. We’ll definitely get up.”
“Fine,” I turn around, give Jamal a long-ass good-bye kiss and whisper, “I will see you later.” Then I brush past Trista to go collect Viv and Elise. It was time to go all right.
THE NEXT morning the sound of steady knocking at my door jars me out of my slumber. “Amaya! Come get the phone,” insists Trista from outside my door.
I’m so groggy, I can barely form the words to tell her that I’m on my way. As I attempt to sit up, I’m suddenly pulled back onto the bed. What the hell? Oh shit, my right wrist is tied to the freaking bedpost with a slipknot.
“Amaya, will you please come on. Keith’s on the telephone,” Trista continues.
“Just a second,” I answer, trying to sound as normal as possible while struggling to untie my wrist. I can’t believe this shit. After a few seconds I realize it’s simply not coming undone. “Um Tris, do me a favor and please just bring the phone in here,” I ask trying to cover myself with as much of the sheet as I can reach with my free hand.
As soon as Trista steps through the door and sees me tied to the bedpost her look of annoyance turns to disgust. Ignoring it, I motion for her to pass me the phone so that I can cradle it between my head and shoulders.
“Hey, baby,” I whisper softly into the phone, desperately trying to sound sleepy.
“Hey, birthday girl, what took you so long to get to the phone,” Keith questions. “I sure hope that you weren’t up late celebrating with no nigga.”
“Aww, naw. I’m just dead-ass tired from last night, that’s all.”
“Hmm… if you say so. I just wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday. I know it’s early but I’m going to be tied up in the studio all day with Young Daddy.”
“Oh, okay,” I whisper. “And babe, thank you so much for everything, I’m having a blast. I just wish you could be here with me.”
“Next time, sweetie, next time. I’ll holla at you later, okay? I love you.”
“I love you, too, Keith.”
As soon as I hear the phone click, I drop the receiver into my lap with a sigh of relief. That was too close. I call out to Trista to come back into my room. Trista walks back in with a super stank look on her face.
“What?” she demands.
“Ugh, what is all that for? I was simply going to thank you for helping me out and ask you to please pass me the pair of scissors that are in the desk in the living room.”
Wordlessly, Trista turns and walks back out. When she finally returns with the scissors, she’s mumbling under her breath. She drops the scissors on my lap, rolls her eyes and walks back out. As I cut the silk headscarf that’s holding my wrist captive, I can feel the heat from my anger rising through my body. I have officially run out of patience.
I can’t believe that Jamal left me tied to the bed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, from what I can remember, last night was definitely the jump off—Jamal came up to the suite about an hour after we left the party with a bucket of ice, a bottle of Moët, and a rock-hard penis. I know what we did about the dick, but from the look of the slightly damp sheets, I can only guess what happened with the rest. But did he have to leave a sista hanging?
Either way, that was the least of my worries right now. Now, Trista, on the other hand… As soon as I free myself, I grab my robe and head over to her bedroom. I knock with the same urgency that she used earlier at my door. She finally opens the door.
“May I speak to you out here in the living room?” I ask between clenched teeth.
“Can this wait?” she replies snottily.
“No, it can’t. So either you grab a robe and come out here or I’ll come in there with you,” I respond, staring her down.
“Fine. I’m coming,” she answers and closes the door in my face.
As I sit down on the couch, my body is trembling with anger. Trista is really on some next-level nonsense right now. “You know what, Trista?” I start as soon as she crosses the threshold of her bedroom, “I don’t know what the hell has crawled up your ass, but you really need to get over it! ’Cause this bitchy attitude you’ve got is for the birds.”
“Fuck you, Amaya. The only one that’s acting up is you. Maybe the reason you recognize the attitude is because you’ve been acting like a trick,” she angrily retorts.
“You guys,” says Viv, who appears in the entrance to her bedroom, looking green around the gills. “Please stop yelling, it’s not that serious.”
“Actually, Viv, I think it is,” Trista snaps. “First, Amaya, you totally embarrass me at the gallery and fuck up any chance that I may have had with Garrett’s family, then you have the nerve to cop an attitude when I give you honest feedback about the soft-porn cover that’s about to end your half-assed career. Last night you were acting like a stripper in the middle of a huge party with photographers everywhere, and this morning I had to help you out of some bondage shit that God only knows who left you in,” she continues. “I’m sick of your thoughtless and irresponsible behavior.”
“First of all, let that be the last time you ever speak to me that way or I will slap the taste out of your mouth,” I hiss jumping up to stand directly in her face. “I have apologized a thousand times for the incident at the gallery, but the bottom line is I am a grown woman. I’ll do whatever the hell I feel like when and where I want. And that happens to include having sex on my birthday! PS, I don’t give a damn about what you think about my King cover. You don’t even have a clue how hard I had to hustle to get that shit. In case you haven’t noticed they’re not handing out magazine covers to black actresses these days. Oh, but how would you notice since you refuse to work with anyone but white folks? Or is it that you’re just mad that I’m the one that’s on the cover and all you’ll ever do is beg to get others put on? Either way, I don’t give a damn. Those are your issues. Just know that Garrett’s family isn’t acting up because of me. It’s because of you! Garrett’s family doesn’t want you around their son because they can smell your fraudulent behavior a mile away.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she retorts, stepping back slightly.
“I’m talking about the way you front like your shit don’t stink and we all know that you ain’t nothing but ’hood. Bitch, you’re more ghetto than any of the four of us in here, and you’ve got the nerve to look down on someone? Please. You need to get your life together.”
“Umm, excuse me but my life is together. Unlike some who are dependent on a piece of dick to provide, I’m handling my business standing up, not lying down!”
“But you didn’t have enough of a problem with the way I’m living to accept the free trip out here, huh? Not for nothing,” I add the final twist, “the time you take to worry about me, you’d figure out why your own sister can’t stand the sound of y
our voice.”
If looks could kill, I’d have died as soon as the words escaped my lips. Trista’s face immediately turned a deep red, and her normally expressive eyes narrowed to mere slits. “To hell with this, I’m out of here,” Trista mutters and brushes past Elise, who has just come out of her bedroom and slams her bedroom door.
WHEN I FINALLY emerge from my room later in the afternoon, Trista and all her things are gone. I can’t believe that she really left, but I’m still too angry to care. What was supposed to be a celebration of friendship, success, and happiness has turned into one of the worst weekends of my life. Best friend, my ass—it’s obvious that Trista wants someone to blame for all of her personal issues. Well, I’m not about to be anybody’s scapegoat. So what if I’ve had to rely on the men in my life to provide? She’s a hater. I deserve that shit and more. And as far as I’m concerned, Trista can keep it moving, because I damn sure don’t need it.
15
VIVIAN
The hot sweet coffee sprayed out of my mouth, droplets landing all over my morning paper, my computer screen, the edge of my desk, and on the back of my pod-mate’s Mac. I reached for a napkin to wipe my mouth and cover up my cough, trying my best to stifle it so my coworkers couldn’t hear me choking. Not that it would have mattered, mind you; they’d probably already seen for their own eyes what made me lose my double mocha latte: a picture of me cursing out Daddy in front of Mr. Chow’s in the gossip section of my newspaper’s chief rival, the Los Angeles Herald. In color. With a completely fabricated blow-by-blow account of what the columnist said went down.
“Rapper Young Daddy MC may be the suave ladies man in his super-hot videos, but when it comes to handling a Los Angeles Daily News entertainment scribe named Vivian Evans, he’s not so smooth. The two were spotted outside the trendy eatery Mr. Chow’s engaging in verbal fisticuffs after Evans apparently busted her celeb paramour for scribbling a statuesque model’s number on a piece of scrap paper while he thought she was out of sight. ‘She called him everything but a child of God,’ said one of our spies, who witnessed the Thursday-night altercation at the valet stand just outside the restaurant. With the bevy of beauties vying for his attention—particularly now that they’ll be able to see his goods, both on the big screen in his soon-to-be-lensed flick Metro and in an upcoming Playgirl spread—perhaps Plain Jane Evans should focus on covering her hip-hop honeys instead of dating them…”
I buried my head in my hands and peeked at the item a few times, half-hoping that, if I stared at it long and hard enough, my name, in bold, and my face, contorted in what appeared to be anger, would fade off the page. They didn’t. Still splayed across my desk was an inaccurate account of a dinner date I’d had with Daddy, in which I playfully laid him out for using my business card to write down some broad’s number while he was out with me. But trust me when I say: I didn’t give a damn that he was walking around collecting numbers like he was a rep for the Yellow Pages. We’re just friends. I’ve made that clear to him a few times since his declaration of admiration at the hospital. And he’s finally got it into his thick skull that (a) I’m on a man break and (b) he and I can’t ever be more than just friends. So friends he settled for. On the night that picture was taken, we were engaged in a not-so-serious argument—like friends who get into a heated debate, then change subjects and voice pitches as if the disagreement never happened. “Verbal fisticuffs”? “Plain Jane”? I was mortified.
The ding of my email account snapped me out of my stupor; it was Joel summoning me into his office. He didn’t say what he wanted, but I knew, and I’m sure that he knew I knew. I was going to be reprimanded—or worse—for making myself scandalous gossip-column fodder for the competition. Hell, I wanted to put my own foot in my ass. I could definitely see him wanting to plant one of his square-toe Gucci’s there. I dragged my behind into his office like a child who’d just been ordered to walk outside and break a switch off the front-yard tree, in sure knowledge that she was about to be damn-near skinned alive.
“So, tell me you’ve got something on Young Daddy MC that you can write to justify your being out with him at Mr. Chow’s in front of paparazzi,” Joel said. He was tapping his pencil on his desk, which just happened to have the Herald’s gossip pages spread out across it. “Just tell me that.”
I wiped my brow and kept my mouth closed. I hadn’t quite figured out what to say.
“Come on, Viv—give me something,” he said, his voice getting louder as he hopped out of his chair and walked over to the door. He slammed it shut, adding, I’m sure, to the low murmur of drama among my coworkers that hung like a fog out in the newsroom. Then he made his way back to his chair, talking without missing a beat. “Young Daddy MC is about to star in an action flick opposite some of the biggest names in Hollywood. He’s spread all over the pages of Playgirl. He’s being talked about on every celebrity gossip show imaginable. And now he’s in the pages of the Herald. With you. Tell me that I have an exposé you can write up today that I can crash onto the Sunday cover with so that I can justify why one of my top reporters is on a date with him and shows up in the comp’s gossip pages. I want exclusives on the projects he’s working on, how much cash he wastes on cheap diamonds, what he washes his ass with in the morning, whether he’s got the goods in bed…”
“Whoa, whoa,” I said, cutting him off. “First of all, that picture of me with him isn’t what you think. Second of all, even if we were an item, you can’t be serious when you say you actually want me to write a story telling people intimate details about my love life, like I’m some cheap prostitute selling her story to the National Enquirer!”
“A prostitute, I’m going to presume, can’t write a cover story,” he said, slamming his hand on his desk for emphasis.
“And neither can I,” I yelled back. “I’m embarrassed enough that some gossip monger put an inaccurate version of my personal business in the newspaper for the entire world to see. I will not be pimped by you or anyone else for dirt on what I do when I leave these offices.”
“You will if I tell you to,” he seethed.
“You know what? Go ahead and insist I do that, then,” I said, going for the door. “And make sure you call Human Resources to let them know what you’re planning. I know I’m going to.
“Ain’t this a bitch?” I said as I slinked through the newsroom, grabbed my purse, and walked out to the lobby. I lit up the arrow on the down elevator display and stood there, desperate for one of the doors to open so that I could escape the office without having to actually talk to any of my coworkers. After what seemed like an eternity, the door to the left car opened—and who should be in it but Annie, the new young chippy intern that Joel had become quite smitten with over the past few months. She practically begged to cover parties into the wee hours of the morning; he loved that she could go out and mingle with the celebrities and come back with enough trash to fill the gossip pages to the brim. In my heyday, I would have felt threatened. Now I was just glad someone else was doing the dirty work, so I could focus on working my industry connections to pitch long, serious magazine pieces about culture, entertainment, and politics, the reason I became a journalist in the first damn place.
“Good morning, Vivian,” she smirked. She held a copy of the Herald in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. I didn’t say anything—just looked her up and down and put my hand on the elevator doors.
“You coming out? I’m in a rush,” I said.
“From the looks of the paper, I can see why,” she said. “So, is Daddy as good as they say?”
“I’m sorry?” I said, wrinkling my entire mug. No, this heifer was not asking me this.
“Daddy. The story says you’re dating him. I hear he’s incredible in bed.”
I stared daggers into her eyes, but, unashamed and seemingly emboldened by the newspaper article in her hand, she stared right back. This was a DEFCON 1 situation. The bitch is going down. “I’ll tell you what: after you finish wiping what’s left of Joel’s cum f
rom the corners of your mouth, why don’t you set up an interview with Daddy and find out for yourself? You seem to be really good at that. I hear you usually are. I hope it tastes good going down. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
So stunned was she by my blow that the only thing that moved on her body was her bottom lip. It was quivering. I had to stop myself from laughing. She wasn’t moving, so I got onto the elevator, never once taking my eyes off her after I pushed the down button. Just as the doors began to close, she squeezed between them and scurried down the hallway. I shook my head, then watched the lights as the elevator descended.
I burst out the front doors and out into the cool air. It smelled like rain. I jammed my hand into my pocketbook, pulled out my cell phone, and scrolled through my numbers until I got to Jerome, and then I hit send. His cell phone rang twice before he picked up. “Well, if it isn’t Plain Jane,” Daddy said cheerfully.
“I can’t say I’m glad you’re amused,” I sneered as I walked into a Starbucks just down the road from my office. I sat on a stool by the window. “Can you please explain to me where the hell the Herald got that damn picture from? We haven’t been to Mr. Chow’s in months.”
“Why you upset? At least they got your good side—you looked good, girl,” he joked.
“I’m not laughing, Jerome,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m a reporter, in case you forgot. I’ve been an entertainment reporter for five years, and never once have I ever considered dating the people I interview, precisely for this reason. I know plenty of writers who sleep their way to exclusives, but I can honestly say I never did that—I’ve always taken pride in being able to get my stories the right way. So it sucks that even though I hooked up with you well after I covered you, my career is about to go down the toilet over a silly-ass gossip story that’s nowhere near truthful.”
“Damn, Viv—that’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? Your career going down the toilet?” Daddy said, incredulous. “Over a picture? You and I both know we were just chillin’ that night and nothing went down.”
The Vow Page 27