Picking up the vase that decorated the table beside her, she heaved it at the mirror in an attempt to stop the hollowing-out process unfolding before her eyes. This film was sucking the life out of her. She dragged herself to the vanity and took a seat in front of the mirror. She rubbed the palms of her hands together and pushed back her face and looked in the mirror. Javier’s sharp eyes met hers in one of the distorted pieces of the cracked glass in the mirror. She hadn’t noticed when he walked in.
He closed the door of her trailer behind him and rested his palm on the frame of the door for a moment. He walked over to her in silence and stood behind her seat at the vanity. He placed his hands on her shoulders, and she squirmed beneath his heavy hands like a fish out of water. A sharp and vicious look clouded his eyes.
“Why are you doing this, Javier?” Grace asked.
“I came to check on you, dear. I’ve already told hair, makeup, and wardrobe that you’ll need to be touched up and to change your clothes.”
Grace twisted partially in her chair and faced Javier. “You know what I mean. Why are you making this film?”
“America loves these kinds of stories. They love the embattled hero who defeats the villain. They long for the moment when the pigs outsmart the wolf. Danger and redemption mixed together is so classic. It’s a pity you were never able to outsmart the wolf or slay the dragon, but this picture will change that.” Javier cupped Grace’s rounded chin. “You should be grateful I threw you this bone. My work has laid the foundation for you, and now I’m setting the stage for you.” Releasing her chin, he twisted Grace’s body so that she faced straight ahead.
Grace’s cheeks expanded as she held back another round of vomit, induced by being in close proximity with Javier.
Working from the center part of Grace’s fluffy jet-black wig, Javier ran the palms of his hands down the sides of her head. “What I want you to do now is gather yourself. I knew this scene might be a tad bit difficult for you, so I’ve got something to take the edge off.” Javier dug his fingers into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small key. Bending over slightly, he unlocked the cabinet in the vanity to reveal a drawer stocked with some of Grace’s favorites—whiskey, Jägermeister, and marijuana. The urge to pour a drink seized her, and she reached around him and pulled out the Jägermeister.
“Now, you take a few sips and smoke a couple of joints and relax,” Javier said, patting her lap before walking out.
“Grace King, open this door,” Ethan commanded, jiggling the knob on the door of her trailer. “The knob is twisting, but the door isn’t opening,” he said over his shoulder to Javier. “Why don’t you get a crowbar or something and pop this door open, instead of standing over my shoulder, yapping about lost time and money wasted?”
Ethan didn’t usually snap on sets, but something about this film wasn’t right. Lately Grace had been acting more erratic than she usually did. He couldn’t believe he’d fallen for Javier’s fortune and fame speech. Now his client and closest friend was unresponsive on the other side of a locked door. The Bible verse of the day came to mind. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
The events of the past few weeks unfolded before him. Each nasty word and threatening tone was magnified before his eyes one blink at a time, like he was viewing his life through a child’s viewfinder. Frame by frame, he saw his own growing obsession with the successful career he envisioned for himself, which had caused him to dismantle his greatest career achievement—his work for the Kingdom. A whiny client wasn’t on the other side of the door; a soul precious in the sight of God was locked in the trailer. Ignoring the commotion surrounding him, Ethan called on his Father for help.
“Father God, please forgive my absentmindedness. Please forgive me for neglecting the call and not acknowledging my true profession. As a lawyer, you have positioned me in the same place as your dear Son. I am supposed to serve as an advocate and mediator, and to help those who need to reconcile their relationship with you. Please, God, restore my faith, and focus and order my steps, Lord, in Jesus’s name. Amen.”
Ethan stood in front of the door with his hand on the knob, waiting for specific instructions from God. He turned the knob slightly and pushed the door.
Not so hard.
He pushed it again and could see strands of black hair caught beneath the door.
“Grace.”
She moaned in response to his call. He pushed the door again, this time using his body weight. As he pushed, Grace’s skin squeaked as she skidded across the tiles of her trailer. Once the opening was large enough for Ethan to wiggle through, he eased into the trailer. He checked her vitals. Her breath was flat. Then he checked the surrounding area for the culprit in this escapade. An empty bottle of Jägermeister was at her feet, and an overturned bottle of whiskey was near her right hand and quickly spilling. He detected a hint of marijuana in the air.
Ethan swallowed hard and rammed his fist into the wall of the trailer to suppress the anger welling up in him. He could feel a good lecture mounting in him, but the grace of God was greater than all the words he could speak to her right now.
“What’s going on in there?” Javier asked, poking his head in the cracked door.
Protect her.
“My client is leaving this set,” Ethan told Javier while swooping down to pick Grace up.
“For how long?”
“Do you see the condition she’s in?” he snarled. “She’s leaving this set indefinitely—until I get to the bottom of what is really going on here, Mr. Roberts.”
Ethan kicked the door back with his foot and charged down the steps.
“What do you mean, indefinitely?”
“I mean I don’t care more about you or all the riches in the world than I do about Grace’s well-being, and I will not compromise her to fulfill your lust and my thirst for success. Believe me, Mr. Javier Roberts, I will get to the bottom of this. I’m going to find out why your film has Grace over the edge, and when I do, you better have an excellent lawyer sitting next to you when I call you on the phone.”
Ethan didn’t wait for Javier’s response. He bumped Javier out of the way, using Grace’s legs to bat him back. He dived into the car he’d rented for her, and took her back home. On the drive back uptown, he texted Candace for some more hangover soup and Junell for moral support for Grace.
“Driver, please pull into the garage. I don’t want anyone to see her like this.”
“Understood, Mr. Summerville.”
As planned, they coasted into the garage, while the paparazzi waited in two separate huddles. One group stood near the subway station, because Grace was notorious for taking public transportation, and the other group was perched a few feet away from the glass and gold doorway of Grace’s high-rise building. Just in case there was a paparazzo lurking in the garage, Ethan removed the dark chocolate brown blazer that Grace had ripped into him for wearing and used it as a shield for her face.
He carried her through the garage and took the service elevator up to her unit. Grace moaned and mumbled gibberish in Ethan’s arms. He responded to the statements he understood. Ethan was at a loss for words as she mumbled over and over about the Big Bad Wolf being after her.
“There’s no wolf here,” he said, once they were safely inside her condo. He removed the blazer from her head. “We’re in your condo, Grace.” Ethan laid her on the couch. “Look, Grace, you’re home. Everything is going to be fine.”
Grace reached for his yellow- and navy blue–striped tie, catching the triangular tip of it between her fingers. Her fingers inched up his tie until she was able to grasp it with the palm of her hand. “You don’t understand.” Her cheeks tightened and fright filled her eyes as she yanked Ethan’s tie and pulled him closer to her. “The Big Bad Wolf is coming for me.”
“Don’t worry, Grace King. I’m going to protect you from the Big Bad Wolf.”
Chapter 32
With one open eye and both ears fu
lly tuned in, Grace eavesdropped from her couch, listening in on the powwow taking place in her kitchen. Ethan was playing commander in chief as he prepared to head into the office.
“Candace, Junell, come closer,” he said, wrangling them to his side. “I’ve been holed up here with you ladies all weekend, and now it’s time for me to hit the office and do major damage control.”
“Damage control? Now, Ethan, don’t you think you’ve waited a little too long for that?” Junell said. “Since you texted me, my phone’s been ringing off the hook with calls from every outlet from TMZ to E! News. Javier and his people are way ahead of you.”
Ethan placed both of his hands on his hips like he was Superman and responded firmly to her. “Junell, I’m not going unless God sends me and tells me what to say. When Grace hires you as her publicist, you can tackle these mishaps any way that you would like. Now I’ve had enough time to meditate and hear from God just what it is I need to say to cover Grace.”
Grace wanted to clap her hands when she heard Ethan speak. He had returned to his senses and was back on her side.
“And what is that?” Junell asked, twisting her neck in what Grace could see was a failed attempt to bully Ethan into revealing what the Lord had spoken to him.
“Junell, I understand that’s your best friend in there, but we’re all concerned about Grace,” Ethan said.
“We’re all concerned about Grace? Is that right?” Junell sucked her teeth and turned her back slightly toward Candace. “No shade, but I know you’ve been treating my girl funny ever since you met ole girl over here, and I don’t want to see G get hurt any more. I can’t take this. I need her well and ready to spoil her goddaughter rotten when she pops out,” she said, rubbing her belly repeatedly.
“Believe me, Junell, Candace wouldn’t be here if she didn’t care,” Ethan said, grabbing Candace’s hand. “What I need from the two of you is for y’all to work together to coax Grace into sharing what the real problem is. Something happened to trigger all this drinking. She was ready to give her life to Christ the other day, and now she wants to be the worm in a tequila bottle. The only way her image and career can recover from this is by airing the truth, and I need y’all to get it out of her.”
“Not a problem, Ethan. I know how to talk to Grace,” Junell declared confidently. “Candace, you just keep on making soup.”
A small burst of laughter escaped out of Grace’s mouth. She muffled it with fake coughs coupled with the phony hawking of spit. Junell sounded ridiculous trying to throw shade. After all these years of friendship, unfortunately, Junell hadn’t learned how to sling mud properly.
“Candace,” Ethan said, looking at her, “before I leave, please cover this situation with a prayer.”
Candace sweetly shook her head. “Father God, right now we pray that you would intervene on behalf of Grace. Bring every truth to the light, Lord. Search the hearts and minds of everyone gathered here, and remove every ounce of pride that is preventing us from operating on one accord, in Jesus’s name. Amen.”
Now, that is how you throw shade. Grace popped up in appreciation of the art of throwing shade disguised as a prayer, something that Christians did so well.
Grace cocked her legs open and rested her forearms on them. “Ethan, isn’t it time for you to hit the office? I’m sure these ladies are going to take good care of me.”
Ethan snatched his briefcase off the countertop and shoved his iPhone into his pocket. He squinted at her from across the room, and Grace could see the questions forming in his eyes.
“There’s no time for you to examine me, Counselor. You promised to protect me,” Grace said, quashing his concerns about her miraculous recovery. He didn’t need to know she’d been lying there listening in on their conversation.
“I will do just what I said I would do.” He pecked Candace on the forehead and waved good-bye to Junell and Grace before exiting.
The three of them stood there, looking at one another. Candace’s right eye quivered a little as she looked at Junell. Junell smiled at Grace. Both women had been caught off guard by Grace’s sudden awakening. She’d left them with no time to figure out how to attack her.
“You look good, Junie,” Grace said, admiring the sleeveless purple and gold Donna Karan wrap dress that clung to her body. “I didn’t know that dress came in maternity sizes.”
“It doesn’t. It came from your closet,” Junell said, laughing hysterically.
Her high-pitched chuckle was contagious and spread almost instantaneously to Candace, whose rosy cheeks were on fire as she bent over in laughter.
Grace threw the pillows she’d had her head buried in for the entire weekend at them. She narrowly missed Candace, who twisted out of the way like she was an extra in The Matrix, and smacked Junell right in the face. Still in a fit of laughter, Junell tossed the pillow back at her best friend.
“Glad you’re feeling better,” Junell said.
“I’m not feeling better until I get some water on my behind,” Grace said, pressing her index finger into her glutes. “And some BB cream and concealer on this face. I feel like the bride of Frankenstein.”
“You look like her too,” Candace said, doubling over with laughter as Grace and Junell froze and looked at her.
“It’s a little bit too early for you to be telling jokes,” Junell said, giving Candace a funny look.
“Calm down, killer,” Grace said to Junell as she walked over to them. She hadn’t expected Junell’s possessive nature to pop up when she was the one who had suggested Grace fix things between Candace and Ethan. “Candace is a good girl. You’ll enjoy her if you give her a chance. I’m going upstairs to shower. You two make some coffee, polish your nails, or do something normal women do to bond.”
Grace recognized she was asking for a lot by trying to get Junell Pierce and the thirteenth apostle to act normally under the given circumstances. That really wasn’t a possibility. Unless Jesus came down Himself and told Junell to stop acting like the first girl who got kicked out of the Bad Girls Club. Right now she was a little too anxious to prove how aggressive she was. Junell didn’t like sharing her best friend and was always willing to whip out her claws when she thought Grace was in danger.
“Junie, why don’t you see what you can find for Candace to put on? I’m going to die if I see her in another cardigan. And at least put a swab of lip gloss on that pucker of hers.” Grace shifted her weight to her left leg and twisted up her mouth as she looked Candace up and down. “What happened to everything you learned during our field trip to Bergdorf?”
“At least I’ve been keeping up my hair,” Candace said, shaking her bob from side to side like she was trying to land a spot in a shampoo commercial.
“Hair like that does not go with a knee-length black skirt and a black cardigan. Ugh! Let me shower up before I get sick.” Grace turned and headed up the steps. “I’m sure you’ll find something that fits you if the pregnant girl did.”
When Grace returned from the shower, she was pleasantly surprised to find Candace perched on a stool at the island, dressed in a mustard-colored maxi that grazed the last rung of the stool and a scoop-neck white tee that showed off her clavicles and a trace of cleavage. Junell was seated right beside her, hugging Candace, with her hand pressed to her chest. Both of them were holding hands, staring at the screen of Junell’s tablet.
“What’s got you two singing ‘Kumbaya’ over there?” Grace said from behind. “No one made me any coffee?” She walked around the island, looking for a third cup of something freshly brewed. Neither of them responded to her; only more bated breaths and chest clutching came from each of them.
“What is going on?” Grace asked.
Junell slowly curved her fingers back and forth, the way you did when a child was in trouble. Grace stood beside her, looked down at the tablet in her hands, and watched as a camera zoomed in on Javier Roberts’s gaunt, ghoulish face before he said, “I cannot believe she’s still not over me. I thought that having her
in this film would be therapeutic for us both. This was supposed to be an opportunity for us to make the magic we made in her early days. I really thought this was a great opportunity for her to turn the page on a new chapter in her life and revive her career. People need to see each one of us in a new light.”
“Wh-who is he talking about?” Grace asked, pointing at the screen.
Junell pushed Grace’s floating finger back to her side. “Hush. There’s more.”
“What made you come to Access Hollywood today, Javier?”
“If I had done this to her . . . you know . . .” He rotated his hands in front of him. “You know, if I had made sexual advances toward her while no one was around, I’d probably be receiving death threats from her legion of fans. I could not let her just be whisked off of my film set, like she was some damsel in distress, because she decided to hit the bottle after I rejected her advances.”
“There you have it. An Access Hollywood exclusive. Supermodel Grace King returns to alcohol and storms off the set after her sexual advances are rejected by director Javier Roberts,” the reporter stated before going to a commercial.
“Allegedly!” Junell shouted. “Allegedly.”
“Who are they talking about?” Grace asked again, still mystified by the comments she had heard. She knew the reporter had said her name, but there was no way on earth that Javier was walking around telling people that she wanted to sleep with him, and that, after being rejected by him, she had resorted to drinking. “Who are they talking about?” she repeated, now shaking violently as she spoke.
“You.” Candace said innocently, giving voice to words that Junell didn’t seem to have the courage to say to Grace.
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