Eventually Rap Star Wives became a franchise. Many of the other rap wives would come and go on the show, but C-Mello and his family remained the anchor of Rap Star Wives. My mother went from Cassie Dunhill, the pastor at a little Compton storefront church, to Cassandrea Mello, a “spiritual advisor” who regularly sold out stadiums in cross-country tours. And my brother moved up from cross-dressing to becoming Cee-Cee Mello, one of the most well-known drag queens in America.
In Season 1—which is nowhere on my reel—we’re exactly what we say we are, a loving family living in Compton. By Season 3 however, we’ve got a house in the Hollywood Hills, and I’m dropping my now iconic “dinner plate mic.”
On screen, Woods watches with squinted eyes as I go from a know-it-all twelve-year-old vegan, to a super spoiled teenager constantly stirring up catty drama amongst her crew of carefully curated friends, to a heartbroken eighteen-year-old crying over her little sister’s dead body and screaming at the cameras to get out.
“Just fucking get out of here!”
At this point we’re in Season 1 of my spin-off show, Rap Star Wives: College Mic Drop, in which me and three of the other kids who grew up on Rap Star Wives (barely) attend various colleges around California.
The next highlight is of me rolling my bag up a set of concrete stairs and collapsing in the middle because there isn’t anyone around to carry my bags for me. This is typical Nitra Mello behavior. Not only am I the snottiest vegan ever, but I’m known to fly into ridiculous rages when not shown proper respect by servants, friends, and ex-boyfriends alike. I also expect L.A.-level service every single place I go. Even if it’s a college dorm.
At least that was how the show portrayed it. But in reality, I collapsed and began crying for much different reasons. Because my little sister had died of a disease that didn’t give a fuck what popular reality show she was on six months prior to my first day at ValArts. Because the end of her life had been a ratings bonanza for both the original Rap Star Wives and my new show. Because here I was, pretending to haul my own luggage up the stairs, when obviously, obviously, there were like a million burly crew guys within a few feet of me who could have helped me do it.
Because I didn’t have any real friends.
Because I had never had a real relationship.
Because for the first time, I was realizing how silly and fake my entire life had become.
For that and a million other reasons, I ugly cried on those stairs.
And though the next few scenes go on to show quite a few ill-advised adventures with hard-partying “friends,” the only true friend I have is the one who never appeared on any episode of the show: Sola, who until a few years ago, was technically an illegal immigrant and therefore considered a legal liability and never filmed as a result.
The last highlight in my reel is of me coming home to tell my parents that not only was I dropping out of ValArts, I was moving across country to a place where the cameras couldn’t follow me to become a doctor.
On camera, my parents do a good job of acting like themselves. My dad tells me my decision makes no goddamn sense because it ain’t going to bring Chanel back. While my mom goes into full pastor mode, saying we should pray over it. This is our lives as lived on TV, so of course they don’t show the truly ugly stuff.
Dad yelling at me about ratings. Sandy, who no longer gives two shits what the Peabody folks think of her, threatening to sue me to the moon and back if I leave a half season into my new contract. Technically, America hates my spoiled, vegan ass—especially the parents who had to deal with an onslaught of children dropping toy mics on their empty plates whenever they didn’t want to eat what was being served for dinner. But the truth is, the ability to engender rabid hate is one of the true qualities of a reality star. So I’m easily the most popular character on the college spin-off show.
In real life, the producers knew the college spin-off wouldn’t survive without people tuning in to hate-watch my overly bitchy vegan dramatics. In real life, one of the reasons I couldn’t afford medical school without substantial loans was because I had to spend so much money on lawyers to get out of the reality jail they wanted to keep me in.
But on screen, my mom prays and cries over the fact that her baby is moving over three-thousand miles away. And no one mentions the months of litigation and screaming fights, or the fact that by the time this scene is filmed, I’ve already completed a semester of my combined program. Or that this episode is a part of a new seven-year “compromise contract” that requires me to film at least four episodes of Rap Star Wives a year.
Sandy watches my last highlight with a shake of her perfectly frosted head, “A born reality star, our Nitra. Too bad she decided to completely ass-fuck the franchise seven years ago.”
Dad shakes his head right along with Sandy. “Ratings took a real dip after she left,” he tells Woods. “And now the network’s talking about not renewing the Mellos contracts for next season, since Nitra won’t be coming back. Don’t think any of us ever going to forgive Nitra for leaving.”
“But maybe if she makes a big enough splash this weekend, that will be enough to convince the network to let the rest of you stay,” Sandy points out to Dad, though obviously, so ridiculously obviously, her comments are directed toward me.
But I don’t care about their latest guilt trip. Only about Woods who’s watching the credits roll in our dark screening room. His face unreadable.
I miss him already. His hand on top of mine. Our closeness. It feels like it’s all slipping through my fingers with each bitchy highlight of my on-screen life.
Shame and concern wash over me, making me want to talk this out with him and run away at the same time.
But in the end, hair and make-up makes the decision for me.
“NITRA!!!!” Frannie and Carlos, my freelance hair and make-up team, yell from the doorway of the screening room.
The next thing I know, I’m being pelleted with questions. “Is it true. Did you really get married, girl? Is that him? Where’d you find a hottie like that in West Virginia?” Frannie and Carlos demand, never giving me more than a millisecond to answer their questions
“Take her upstairs,” Sandy tells them irritably. “I’ve got to get him cleared and into hair and make-up, too.”
“But—” I start.
“We’ve only got a few hours to get you camera ready and rewrite the scenario for the Vemmies tonight. Do not fuck with me on this, Nitra. This is your last episode, and we’ve got our lawyers on standby…”
She’s right. I am too close to finally meeting my contractual obligation to risk having her go back to the deal table now.
“We’ll talk later, I promise,” I tell Woods as I’m dragged away by Frannie and Carlos. “Until then, don’t sign anything!”
“Why would you tell him that?” Sandy yells after me.
And the last thing I hear her saying to him is, “She shouldn’t have told you that…”
Chapter 22
Sandy’s right about how long it takes to get me looking like a reality star as opposed to a sensible doctor working in an understaffed hospital. By the time they’re done, Frannie and Carlos declare themselves true geniuses when they turn me around to face the vanity mirror over the dresser in my room.
But I can only shake my head at the woman in the mirror. Nitra Mello stares back at me now, a black-and-honey blonde lace-front wig cascading in waves over my shoulders where my kinky twist out used to be. The doctor who can barely bother with lip gloss has been replaced by a heavily contoured goddess with the lushest fake eyelashes money can buy. In place of her scrubs, there’s now a bright yellow floor-length Versace evening gown with a plunging neckline that gives way just as the skirt of the gown does.
This is who I really am. Who I still am as far as most of the world is concerned. Seriously, at this point I’ve been playing the part of Nitra Mello for longer than I ever played the part of Anitra Dunhill.
Usually it takes no more than this mirror tra
nsformation to turn me into her again. Just looking at myself dressed up like Nitra Mello makes cruel and cutting words magically appear in my head.
But today my mind stutters, and it feels like I’m staring at a complete stranger as I mumble a quiet, “Thank you,” as opposed to a more Nitra-appropriate, “Yeah, I guess you bitches didn’t fuck up your job this time. Congrats.”
“You’re welcome,” Fran answers carefully for the both of them, probably wondering what the hell is going on. Nitra Mello hasn’t so much as said please a day in her life, much less thank you to anyone providing her with a service.
I can feel their eyes on me as I leave my suite and head back downstairs in stilettos to find Woods. Only to be waylaid by Sandy in the hallway.
“Great, you’re out of hair and make-up. Let’s talk about you making your boyfriend, or husband, or whatever he is to you, get on board with this new scenario. Every time I try to run anything past him, he says he doesn’t have any answers for me until he’s talked to you. And I’ve got producers on stand-by with Terrell’s people to figure out how we’re going to play this.”
“Where is he?” I ask, wanting to pinch the bridge of my nose but restraining myself because the last thing I need is to go through another hour of contouring with Fran and Carlos.
Sandy sullenly points a blood red stiletto nail downstairs and I rush in, ignoring the call of “T-minus ninety minutes to show time!” that she lobs after me like an army general sending her soldier to war.
Explain this! Fix this! That’s all I’m thinking as I walk into our large receiving room to finally talk with Woods. However I stop short when I see him standing at the piano, near the wall of floor-to-ceiling picture windows.
My parents paid quite a few million for the spectacular view of the Sunset Strip that the receiving room’s wall of picture windows overlooks. But in that moment, I can easily say Woods is way more gorgeous than the multi-million-dollar view.
Apparently he did agree to one thing Sandy asked. He’s now wearing an on-trend tuxedo with the collar open for that extra bit of music award show cool. His formerly half-shaved head has been evened out on both sides for a more classic cut that hides his scar. The beard is also gone, revealing an even squarer jaw than I’d suspected beneath his hospital turned why-the-hell-not beard. The truth is, he looks like one of the stars who will be receiving awards tonight.
Better than Colin Fairgood even, I think, my mind going to the only other blond I’ve ever found remotely attractive before falling into this relationship with Woods.
But this man isn’t my John Doe. Even as I easily see why Sandy would order the beard, which wasn’t low enough to be cool or big enough to be hipster, completely removed…my heart cries out.
I don’t make a sound when I come into the room, but he turns around as if he senses me there. And my distress must be written on my face because he says, “You don’t like the new look?”
“No, it’s not that,” I assure him. “You look wonderful. So handsome...”
I trail off, because how do you explain to the man you love that you’re sad he no longer looks like the man you love? Woods didn’t just clean up. He’s drop-dead gorgeous, and sexy as hell. Plus, he now has that All-American white boy thing going for him, which puts him in deep contrast to my last “boyfriend,” a young rapper named Terrell on C-Mello’s imprint label.
Even if we’d held auditions, we couldn’t have cast him any better. This Woods now looks exactly like someone Nitra Mello would deign to date. This Woods looks like he belongs in the receiving room of a Hollywood mansion. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would have assumed he, and not my father, owned this place. And though it’s no fault of his that I dragged him into my world, the full erasure of the John Doe I fell in love with makes me kind of sad.
“Hi,” I say. I feel like a stranger, introducing herself to someone who’s never met her before, but who knows every single thing about her. In other words, I introduce myself to him the way I introduce myself to just about everyone who’s ever seen my show.
“Hi,” he answers back, looking down at me with squinted eyes. Like I really am a stranger now.
An awkward second ticks between us.
“Is this why you fought being with me so hard?” he asks, raising both tuxedoed arms to indicate the opulent bedroom with its spectacular view of the Sunset Strip below a darkening sky. “Because you’re rich and I ain’t? You thought I was after your money?”
Somewhere in the distance, I can hear Sandy cursing because he’s saying the perfect lines in one of the show’s favorite filming sites, but he hasn’t signed a release yet.
I lower my voice to tell him, “No! I didn’t think you were after my money! I technically don’t have any money. Most of my royalties and residual checks go toward paying back my student loans, and my mom and dad’s financial advisors locked all but fifteen percent of the money I earned before I turned eighteen into a trust I won’t have access to until this July. So no, that’s not why I was hesitant to get involved with you. And it’s definitely not why I waited to tell you.”
He shakes his head as if my denial has only confused him more. “Then why?”
“Because I didn’t want you to know this part of me,” I answer, too on edge to be anything but brutally frank. “I liked the way you saw me when we met. The way you called me Doc, as if my profession defined me more than this stupid reality show did…does. I didn’t want you to look at me like most other people look at me. Thinking they know me, even though none of this is real.”
Damn pregnancy hormones. I’ve played a hard bitch on TV for more than half my life, but I once again find myself overcome with real life emotion. I hold my head back so the tears won’t fall. Won’t ruin the hair and make-up that makes me Nitra Mello, and therefore unable to authentically feel anything without warning Fran first.
But eventually I pull myself together. Enough to let him know, “I mean, I did make that chicken joke that went viral. But three different producers rewrote it to make sure it was as funny as it could possibly be, and we did four takes to make sure I dropped the mic on my plate exactly right…”
I break off when I see the look on his face. “And I’m confusing you again. I’m sorry. But this is who I have to be when I’m here. I’ve got to talk back to my dad. I have to pretend I actually give two shits about my closeted, gay ex-boyfriend’s new beard. And I’ve got to go with Dad to the VMH music awards tonight. Because here’s a funny story: Dad’s actually been nominated this year for a song he did with your favorite country singer, Colin Fairgood. But you need to understand, it’s not really me. None of this is me. And that’s why I didn’t tell you. Because I didn’t want you to believe I was like this, and I definitely didn’t want you to get roped into any of this craziness.”
I let out a sad breath, the dream of him never having to know about my past long gone.
“But don’t worry,” I tell him, circling a hand around his new sexy tux look. “I’ll tell Sandy you’re not signing any of her releases. Then I’ll go do my duty tonight. I’ve got one more segment where I shop with Dad for their big thirtieth anniversary wedding renewal ceremony tomorrow, and then…”
I grab him by both hands to promise this next thing, “And then we’re going to leave for Seattle and pretend none of this ever happened. It’s just one more episode and then my contract on this show is done, okay? It has nothing to do with us, or the life we’re going to live together.”
But he shakes his head. “That ain’t going to work.”
Oh God. My heart clogs my throat. Yes, I realize I’m the one in the wrong. The one who purposefully kept things from him, the one who remained stingy with her love until he forced the truth out of me, the one who didn’t take the time to prepare him properly for a life as the husband of one of the most notorious bitches on reality TV.
But now I finally get what it feels like to have your behavior backfire on you. Every single time I’ve ever misbehaved, the show’s gotten hig
her ratings, but now the only man I’ve ever loved—for real love, not pretend love—is heading for the door. Walking out of my life for good.
Or at least I think that’s what’s going on, until he stops at the grand piano that sits between where I’m standing and the entryway.
“Now that I know this ex-boyfriend of yours Sandy wants me to make jealous is gay, I’m going for sure, Doc.”
He leans over the piano, which I can now see has one of our show’s standard guest star contracts.
He carefully signs it with the fountain pen Sandy left behind. Then he walks back over to where I’m standing and says, “I guess I really am part of your family now.”
And all I can do is press my knuckles to my lips and laugh when he holds up the last page of the contract for me to see. The signature reads, WOODS MELLO.
He chuckles, too, but then he sobers to say, “I’m your husband now, Doc. Where you go, I go. Even when you’re pretending to be somebody you obviously ain’t.”
I have never in my life loved anyone as much as I do Woods in that moment. I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him with more passion than bitchy Nitra Mello is ever supposed to show. I can’t help myself. He’s my husband and he’s accepted my whole package. Bitchy reality show diva and all. I know then that I’ll never be able to wrap my head around how I got so lucky to find a man like him. A man who now knows me like no one else in all of America ever has or ever will.
Chapter 23
The Dolby Theater, formerly the Kodak, is one of the best known event venues in the world thanks to hosting the Oscars, the VMH “Vemmies” Award Show, and the season finale competitions for a few popular reality shows. So it’s no surprise that some of the biggest music, movie, and TV stars in the world are already on the red carpet when the limo drops the three of us off.
His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Page 61