Ritz Harper Goes to Hollywood!

by Wendy Williams

  Chas was speechless. He could see it all happening right before his eyes. His whole star was hitched to this radio game and, for the longest time, to Ritz Harper. But what Ruff was saying made him have to reevaluate because Chas wasn’t about to let his star fade.

  “The perfect storm of shady advertisers, greedy suits, and covert ratings manipulation has sounded the death knell for urban formats,” Ruff added as the final piece of punctuation.

  “What can save us?” Chas asked.

  “When everything is the same, the different thing thrives. Hot, celebrity-fueled escapism, as always,” Ruff blurted. “Fused with sex appeal and intelligent talk. No one is doing that right now but Michelle Davis. That’s why her ratings are through the roof. Studio drama is good. Fan devotion is better. She’s building that. And that’s the kind of loyalty that keeps you in business.”

  30

  TUESDAY, 1:13 A.M.

  NEWARK LIBERTY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  ARRIVALS

  Ritz Harper exited the plane with her hair pulled back into a long ponytail. She was wearing concealer, lip gloss, and wide-rimmed Moss Lipow shades. Ritz wasn’t the woman in red, she wasn’t the impeccable, impestuous diva, she wasn’t the Queen of Radio. She was complex: equal parts renewed, confused, and hopeful.

  After that stint in “Hell-Ay,” the old Ritz would have huddled in a dark corner and smoked a joint. She had the urge to score back when she was packing to leave Los Angeles. So she slipped on her antidrug shield—a throwback, white T-shirt with KDC emblazoned on the front in bold, red letters. No one knew what KDC stood for, not even Chas and Tracee, and that was the point. Ritz didn’t want to spark a fashion frenzy, she wanted a personal reminder for herself and to herself about what happens when talented people do drugs.

  The dressed-down Ritz resembled a caramel, six-foot Jackie O as she strolled to luggage claim. Usually Chas handled this part for her, but these days she was flying solo. Ritz was so awash in random thoughts that she didn’t notice the growing commotion behind her.

  “Ritz Harper! Hey, everybody, the Queen is back!”

  Ritz hesitated before she turned around. The last time a stranger called her name he shot her.

  “Ritz, we love you!” said one woman. “Ritz! Over here, Ritz!”

  Ritz smiled, gushed, laughed, and waved. The more they screamed, the more she loved them back. The crowd was growing larger and a motley crew of Transportation Security Administration officials (TSA)—an elderly white man, two youngish black guys, and a tall Hispanic guy—circled her and escorted her to baggage claim.

  The fans surrounded baggage claim, cheek to cheek, and at least six bodies deep. Camera phones and flashing lights blinded her. She heard the love, but she wanted to feel it, too.

  Ritz demanded that the TSA back off. “Those are my people!” she exclaimed. “Let me see my people! Long live the Queen, baby!”

  TSA eased up just a bit and allowed Ritz to plant herself by the conveyer belt and take photos with her fans. After well over an hour, the crowd still hadn’t eased up. By this time, the media were there. From CNN to BBC. Who told them?

  A mic was shoved in her face; at the other end was news reporter Michelle Davis. Ritz gave her a strong hug and whispered in her ear, “Thank you so much for representing. I heard you really raised the bar.”

  Michelle was puzzled by that. She was also livid that her producer at FOX had made her cover her competition.

  “We’re glad you’re back, Ritz Harper,” said Michelle, pretending to really care. “Now that you’re leaving the radio station, what will you do next?”

  “Leaving?” Ritz said in shock on camera. “I’m not leaving. Baby, I’m glad to be back!”

  With that, the crowd roared in applause.

  Above the noise, and the instant paparazzi, Ritz heard her Tracee: “Ritgina Harper. Get down from there!”

  Ritz craned her neck to see Tracee, looking the part of a feisty Penny today.

  “This is my best friend, Tray, everybody!” squealed Ritz.

  More photos, more love. TSA handled Ritz’s bags, and Tracee handled Ritz. Finally, they made it to the car, where Randolph was waiting.

  Tracee was still fussing as the TSA brought Ritz’s bags to the car. “I have to find out from the news that you’re home! Your security is at risk and you’re signing autographs? Ritzy, what were you thinking!”

  The TSA, lingering to get her autograph for themselves, laughed at that. Randolph, seeing the situation, asked if any of them had a camera. They all did. Ritz smiled and hammed it up for her impromptu security team. She was genuinely happy. Her huge smile reached her eyes and then some.

  “I can’t believe you are out here taking pictures in your Kurt Cobain T-shirt!” Tracee teased her.

  The color rushed from Ritz’s face. “How did you know—this is my special shirt!”

  “KDC is famous,” said one of the young TSA agents. “That’s Kurt Donald Cobain. Those initials are as famous as KFC!”

  The older white TSA guy chimed in, “I made a Jimi Hendrix shirt for my granddaughter who parties a lot at the University of Wisconsin.”

  “Ritz has a Bob Marley and a Billie Holiday shirt, too,” Tracee told the guy. “She’d never tell a soul, but Ritz has a love affair with grunge music. She can never get enough of Nirvana.”

  Everyone laughed. And Ritz, who was feeling as if she couldn’t have any more damn secrets, had to laugh, too.

  Tracee stood next to Randolph and he hugged her closer. Ritz did a double take. This was the first time that she had ever seen her brother and her best friend side by side. Morris Chestnut and Janet “Penny” Jackson—and they were glowing. Not that cheap-ass after-sex glow, but something deeper, something pure. They were in love.

  “And what have you two been up to? When did you flee that retirement village?”

  Tracee flashed her ring. “Randolph proposed last night. We’re kidnapping you later. We’re all going out to dinner.”

  BAM! SMACK! KAPOW! Ritz’s ego suffered the death blow.

  The night she met the Morris Chestnut look-alike—and before she discovered that he was her half brother—Randolph refused to sleep with her! He was saving himself for “wife material.” Randolph must have found it. Ritz could never compete with plain-Jane Tracee in the wifey category. The Bible-thumpers always get the ring; the deejays always get the married men.

  “Ritzy, baby, we’re going to be sisters!” Tracee cooed.

  “We have always been sisters, right?” said Ritz. “You didn’t have to find my long-lost brother to make it legit!”

  The TSA officers returned to the terminal. One shouted back, “Ms. Remington, thank you for the e-mail. I’ve been wanting to meet her for a long time!”

  Ritz looked at Tracee. “What e-mail?”

  “I know this business. Some people must stage an event for publicity, others just arrive. I sent a few social-media blitzes that you were due to arrive. But all of these people interrupted their lives to come see you, in the wee hours of the morning! I had to make sure WHOT didn’t forget who you are.”

  “And having Michelle interview me?”

  “Yeah, that was bad of me. That’s why I have to stay in my Bible. I know how bad I can be.”

  Randolph initiated the group hug with his two women—the one woman he was destined to find, which led him to the one woman he was destined to love.

  “Now that’s a picture!” said an onlooker. “I’ll shoot it for you. On three. Uno. Dos. Tres…”

  FLASH.

  Randolph leaned over and planted a big kiss on Ritz’s forehead. “Welcome home, Sis,” he said, feeling that he might actually get used to having Ritz as his sister.

  “This is so strange, Tracee.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “One minute, I’m known and pretty famous, the next minute I’m treated like a nobody. I go to Los Angeles and get treated like a peon.”

  “So things didn’t go well at the pitch meeting, huh?�
�

  “Shit!” Ritz slipped out. “They clowned me. For real.”

  Tracee smiled slyly. “So you know that you just confessed to going to the pitch meeting after you promised to skip it.”

  “Damn! That’s right.” Even Ritz had to laugh about it.

  “Not that you could keep a secret from me,” Tracee reminded her. “A colleague of mine called. She saw you at the Big Four.”

  “See what I mean, Tray? The fools that I was pitching to didn’t care who I was or what I had to say. I was wasting their time and they made sure that I knew it.”

  “There are beggars and choosers in Hollywood, and everywhere else in the world. The lesson from meeting with Rutger and the others is that you’ve got to know who you are and you’ve got to recognize your own status,” Tracee said. “If you walk in the door begging for a big break, you will be played like a beggar. You will be told that you’re nothing; or that it’s nothing they can do for you without calling in a special favor—that’s the game. They break you down—in order to make you believe that you need their services—because once you need them, they can demand things from you.”

  Randolph was nodding in agreement and couldn’t help but add his two cents. “And if you roll with a whore, you’ll be played like a whore.”

  “What?” Ritz thought that came out of left field. “What are you talking about?”

  “I told him everything that happened,” Tracee said.

  “I hope I’m not overstepping,” Randolph tried to explain. “But from what I understand, Rutger always viewed Chas as a sex partner, or his candy. If Chas introduced you, they can’t help but view you in the same way, as an extra piece of candy. Chas could have never brought you to the place you needed to be because of how he came to the game. So you were set up to fail.”

  And he’s wise, too! Ritz smiled to herself at this revelation. Randolph was absolutely right. But she was also concerned because she could no longer speak to her friend without knowing that she would also be sharing her business with Randolph, too. That annoyed her a bit. But she wasn’t going to ruin the moment by letting Tracee know this. Not quite yet.

  “You’ve worked hard for this, people have invested in you because they see your worth,” Tracee said. “You never have to beg for what is rightfully yours.”

  31

  How You Doin’?

  The Three Suits—the tanned and toned suit from the Culver City, California, office; the grumpy gray suit from the Chicago office; and the cowboy-hat-wearing suit from the Dallas office—called an emergency meeting with the entire WHOT staff, including Ritz Harper.

  The last time the Three Suits had made an appearance was to announce they were the new owners of the station. From that point, the Three Suits existed only as signatures on WHOT internal memos, bonus checks, and holiday cards. So whatever brought them to New York had to be big.

  The California suit was the only one who spoke.

  “As we all know, we made headlines because of a damning incident involving producer Chas James, and a disgruntled rap artist who had apparently stalked Ritz Harper.”

  Ruff and Abigail traded glances. At last the shoe was going to drop on Ritz’s big head! The ratings-hungry beast would no longer be WHOT’s albatross.

  “We’ve invited FOX News reporter Michelle Davis to join us to shed some light on why we’re here,” the California suit said. “Well, let’s get to it, shall we? How did the entire world learn about Chas’s unfortunate incident? Can you help us with that Ms. Harper?”

  Ritz treaded lightly. “I called the studio hotline.”

  “And what happened next?”

  Tony cleared his throat before responding. “I punched the call through to Michelle. At the time, I didn’t know what Ritz was going to say, she just said that she had breaking news.”

  “I asked Ritz if Chas was okay,” Michelle butted in. “Really, I was mortified that she would be so callous as to discuss his rape on air.”

  Rumblings fell over the room.

  “I ran from my office,” Ruff cut in. “I felt that call was damaging to our station and I had to put an end to it.”

  “And, Mr. Ruffin, what do you think of this whole scenario? Put it in perspective for us and tell us what should happen next.”

  “Ritz lowered the boom on quality radio programming. She’s ruthless and ratings-driven, even when it comes to a producer who slaves for her. For years, we’ve all worked as a team to support the Excursion, and she goes and plays one of us like that? I think we all can agree that Ritz Harper should be terminated. Immediately.”

  “Mr. Ruffin speaks for me,” Abigail said. “As a woman, I can imagine how devastating rape must be, and I am very, very disappointed in Ritz. Very.”

  Ritz remained silent. But she made a mental note of who was throwing daggers at her back and stabbing her right in the chest.

  “We’re not going to discuss personal ethics,” Jamie said, getting involved. “But as an on-air personality, she did the right thing. She broke the story first. The story involved her, but it was bigger than her. She was brave to do it.”

  “What are you smoking, Jamie?” Abigail argued. “What’s brave about Ritz poking fun at a rape victim who was trying to save her life? And you, you of all people should know how destructive that woman is.”

  “The word on the street and on all the other stations is that Ritz was in danger and that Chas hooked up with the dude anyway,” Jamie said. “Ask Aaron about how many calls he dropped or screened out when the callers tried to tell Michelle the truth. Better yet, why didn’t Chas talk about it? He loves the spotlight. Why did he lay low and then retire?”

  “The word on the street doesn’t mean shit,” Ruff growled.

  “It does in radio,” the California suit said. “The word on the street is our lifeline.”

  Ritz stared at Ruff and Abigail. Ruff was a radio relic, now mad at the new generation. Of course he would bond with Michelle Davis, a newsperson who had wet dreams about producing edutainment from her own soapbox. And Abigail was a powerless figurehead, without the figure. They weren’t friends; they’d always plotted against her, but now they’re brazen about it.

  Ritz looked at Jamie, and Jamie rolled her eyes, for the first time showing her true feelings for Ritz. Ritz scoped Aaron; his head was so far up Michelle Davis’s ass nowadays that he didn’t return her glance. Aaron’s loyalty had always wavered a little too much for Ritz’s taste, anyhow.

  Chas had thrown the biggest dagger of all. The rape would have devastated Ritz had she not known the real deal behind the incident, thanks to detectives Pelov and Maddow. The only person who got a pass from Ritz was Jamie. Ritz realized that Jamie was just an ambitious young woman, but she was honest and forthright and in the end would always do the right thing.

  Ritz had learned a few things in Hollywood, and one was that she had to change.

  Ritz made a silent and personal vow to atone to Jamie. She would begin by steering clear of Derek. (Where in the hell was he, anyway?) And, most important, laying a foundation for the young associate producer to blaze her own trail.

  “After hearing these sentiments, Ms. Harper, tell us, if you had the opportunity to do it all over again, would you make that call?”

  “Yes,” Ritz said adamantly. “If given the opportunity to break the story or hold it, I would break it all over again. This is a business. This is show business. No one in this room took a vow of silence with the media when I was shot and was left for dead. In fact, Chas sent a press release. Thus, my loyalty is to the listeners.”

  The suits clapped excitedly.

  “Yes, Ms. Harper, you are right!” the California suit said. “Ritz Harper is our future. She is the future of radio. She gets it. She gets why we are here. Ritz’s call was played all around the world, and we hit record ratings never before seen in the history of radio! That one phone call took us to a global audience. The only problem, which brought us here today, is that there was no video to accompany Ritz’s call.
And that’s why we’re collaborating with the Big Four networks to give the Queen of Radio her own daytime television talk show!”

  Ritz was stunned silent.

  The Chicago suit finally spoke.

  “Those of you who were so appalled by Ritz’s actions, you may want to reevaluate why you’re here and why we’re in the business. Ritz, Meredith at FOX, she’s on maternity leave now, has signed the most fabulous multitalented television-show producer for you, and we are very confident that you will work well together. Let’s all welcome the executive producer of the new Ritz Harper Excursion television show, Tracee Remington!”

  Ritz could not believe her ears. She was afraid to turn around because she wanted to contain her excitement, which was impossible.

  Tracee smiled and kept a professional demeanor. She was wearing her best blue pinstripe suit. She hadn’t had on a suit in years and she was surprised it still fit. Tracee was glad to be back from retirement and asserted her power: “Everyone in this room is entitled to a fresh start. I am excited and looking forward to working with each of you. And over the next few days, I will introduce you to our television production team.

  “Let me be clear: you’re either with the Ritz Harper Excursion or you’re out of here. And that’s not a threat: it’s a guarantee. However, for those of you who wish to join us on our television set, you are clearly welcome to do so. We need the extra hands and your great ideas.”

  32

  TUESDAY, 7:45 P.M.

  SHORT HILLS, NEW JERSEY

  HILTON TWILIGHT SPA

  SPA RECEPTION AREA

  For Ritz and Tracee, the after-work spa retreat was a welcomed stress buster that recalled fond memories.

  The Hilton spa was a favorite urban retreat for Ritz and Tracee in the days before Tracee retired and relocated to Florida. The location was great because it was close to Ritz’s home and offered privacy; the well-heeled clientele never tripped on Ritz’s celebrity. Now that the spa had twilight hours, the friends could visit as often as needed.