Un-Nappily in Love Read online

  One cameraman pointed his lens in my direction, then lowered the camera when he realized I wasn’t Jada Pinkett Smith—and even if I was, today didn’t seem to warrant a photo op.

  “Your flight leaves at six in the morning. You may want to get a move on, catch a few hours of sleep.” Ramona sipped her shimmering pink martini, the signature drink of True Beauty. “I’ll have the driver take you to the hotel.”

  I could barely breathe in my dress so I stayed with water and a wedge of lemon. “No, I’d rather stay.” I peered at Jake, who was yucking it up with a popular celebrity who’d gone from female rapper to actress. Sirena stood in the middle like they all went way back, and I’m sure they did. Good memories for all. Since Jake wasn’t the type to name-drop after spending many years in the music industry, I wasn’t privy to who his industry friends were. He never talked about the celebrities he knew. He always said everyone knew everyone but no one really knew anyone.

  Sirena Lassiter’s name especially never came up. Not once after watching one of her many movies on DVD did he roll over and say, That Sirena’s a cool gal. She and I used to party together. You’d like her. It was only when Jake was faced with a life-or-death situation that Sirena miraculously appeared in our lives.

  About a year ago, henchmen in a case of mistaken identity had accosted me. Before Jake could come rescue me he had to make sure Mya was safe. He had no one else. Sirena was the first person who came to mind, someone he could trust. The famous Sirena Lassiter had picked up my daughter and brought her home safely. No one could’ve been more grateful than me. I thanked her profusely. I had her over for dinner. She came bearing gifts—for Mya a princess Nokia doll, for me a Marc Jacobs bag, one she was given for promotion, for Jake, a pricey aged cognac that made him nervous just holding the bottle. I’d made lasagna that night. She cleaned her plate like it was her last meal. The girl could eat.

  We made small talk. She asked about the flower business. I asked about her next movie, still impressed to have Sirena Lassiter at my dinner table. Four hours later, and I just wanted her to go home. I stretched and yawned, and started cleaning up the kitchen. Sirena didn’t budge. She stayed at the table laughing and talking with Jake as if I were the busboy.

  “These things can go on all night. It’s best if you—” Ramona stepped toward me but stopped talking abruptly when she saw an editor she’d yet to nail down for an interview.

  I gravitated toward Jake and his small group.

  “So you must be JP’s better half?”

  I smiled and did my best to contain my giddiness. Seeing someone in the flesh after seeing them in movies was a huge deal, and never got old.

  “Queen Latifah,” I mouthed with no sound. “I love everything you do. I have your last album too. Play it all the time.”

  “Call me Dana.” She peeled her hand out of my death grip, then put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Glad to see somebody made an honest man out of you.”

  “That she did.” Jake tilted his head, offering a sexy grin. “A better man.”

  “Now ain’t love grand.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I said to the Queen’s back as she was already moving toward the comedienne who had a late-night talk show. I hadn’t seen it and didn’t want to pretend I would. Staying up past ten was a feat I’d yet to manage since running my floral business. And being a mother, wife, and occasional super freak in the bedroom left little time for TV watching.

  Sirena remained by Jake’s side as if her life depended on it. No one would guess she was the main superstar. She’d sold millions of albums before she’d even stepped foot in the movie business, but she clung on to Jake like he was the center of attention.

  “I didn’t have time to tell you earlier, I love that shade of red on you.” Sirena reached out and tried to help my one-sided tulip stand erect.

  “This dress has been nothing but a nightmare,” I said. “Yours is gorgeous but I bet you can’t breathe either.”

  Jake’s arm slipped around my waist. “You look beautiful.” He nuzzled my ear. Sirena looked away as if witnessing his show of affection toward his wife was too much to bear. I snuggled closer to him. If I could sit through their love scene countless times she’d have to acknowledge some real-life husband and wife romance. I reached over and straightened his tie.

  Ramona came back worse off than she’d left, slurring her words after the many martinis she’d drank. “Your wife has a six a.m. flight. She should be in bed, ’sleep right now.” Her right eye flittered. She was the one who should’ve been in bed.

  “I can sleep on the plane. It’s a straight four-hour flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll make sure she makes her flight,” Jake affirmed.

  “And you need your beauty rest, young man,” Ramona said to Jake.

  “Right.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said, giving him the sexy eye.

  Again, obvious discomfort from Sirena. She excused herself and briskly moved to go talk to someone else.

  “Let me say good-bye to a few folks and I’m ready to roll.” Jake kissed my hand before heading off. The afterparty crowd had thinned. He made his way around thanking everyone.

  “I know you’re not trying to leave without talking to me.” LL Cool J announced. Over the years, he’d transformed himself from a gold medallion, wife beater–clad sex symbol to now Todd Smith, wearing a clean, tapered black suit. He threw out a hand and shoulder-bumped Jake. This was the first time I’d seen him at any of the promotional events. He played Jake’s brother, who died early in the movie. Jake’s role was to avenge his death by taking up with the woman responsible, only he actually falls in love with the femme fatale, played by Sirena.

  He was taller and overall better looking in person. I tried to act unaffected, but damn he was fine … if you liked that sort of thing. Please, not the one-dimple smile.

  “This is my wife, Venus.”

  Oh, the smile.

  “Very nice to meet you. Your man here is going places. Betta hold on tight.”

  “Don’t worry. I have the only key to his ankle bracelet. He won’t get far.”

  Jake kind of choked.

  “Nice.” Todd winked. “All right, man. Take it easy.”

  Jake leaned in my ear. “You’re too much, you know that.”

  I watched him slowly making his way around, offering thank-you hugs and handshakes. Everyone wanted a piece of Jake these days. His phone buzzed constantly with offers to be at one place or another. Funny how one little film and the hit song on the soundtrack could change everything. From invisible to a name on everybody’s lips. Extraordinary.

  Well, he’d always been extraordinary to me, movie or not. I gazed back to Sirena and she was watching him too. No surprise there.

  “All right, baby, let’s hit it.” He took my hand and I rushed to keep up with his elegant stride. Sirena watched, cognizant of the fact Jake hadn’t directly said good-bye to her. I waved for him as a good cocaptain should. She gave a slight but disappointed smile.

  “Honey, say good-bye to Sirena.”

  Jake squeezed my hand. “It’s cool. It’s not like I won’t see her tomorrow.”

  And the next day, and the next, I was thinking. But it was also out of Jake’s character. Trouble in paradise for the screen lovebirds. I’m not sure if it was a good thing or bad since it would mean emotions had spilled over into real life. My life.

  Cinderella’s Coach

  A bright-eyed little boy faced me over the seat on the plane. He stared at me with cherub cheeks and intense brown eyes with infinitely long lashes that refused to blink. Our son would’ve been about his age. I still counted the months since the date of his birth. Twenty-eight. He would’ve been two and a half years old. It used to make me sad to be in the presence of other people’s babies. Not anymore. I’d see my little guy in their eyes, I’d hear him in their laughter. After a minute or so I smiled; he smiled right back. I closed my eyes after having a starin
g contest with him. He won since I blinked first.

  I shoved the iPod headphones in my ears and pushed play on the playlist Jake made for me. I slept the entire way once my seat belt was snapped. I think I woke up once when they served omelets, croissants, and sausage. It smelled good. They served real food in first class, not the rickety stale peanuts and pretzels I was used to. But I wasn’t hungry, only exhausted. The whirlwind partying and schmoozing had left my feet aching, and my big and pinky toes throbbed from standing around in high heels.

  The fairy tale was over as quickly as it’d started. I was back in my Cinderella castle cooking and cleaning.

  I kissed Mya on the forehead where she sat eating her breakfast. “Hey, sweetpea.”

  “I saw Daddy on TV with that lady again.” Mya stuck a spoonful of oatmeal in her mouth. “She’s pretty.”

  I scooted around in my house slippers, sat on the breakfast stool, and eyed my mother, Pauletta. “Mom, I asked you not to let Mya stay up watching television. Were you up with her? Or did you let her watch anything she wanted, flipping channels with reckless abandon?”

  “I was in the room.” She averted her eyes.

  “Don’t tell me, you fell asleep.”

  “You didn’t ask me that. You said, was I in the room? And the answer is yes.”

  “Mom …”

  “I think I would’ve heard panting or moaning if she landed on one of those nasty channels,” my mother said, pouring herself some orange juice. “I’ll tell you what I did see: Sirena what’s-her-name sure was looking cozy with Jake. How much longer do they have to globetrot promoting this movie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’mma about sick of her. She’s a pretty girl but do I really need to see her every day on every channel, on every magazine, on every—”

  “Yes, I know. She’s everywhere.” And so my day began as my night had ended—with Sirena Lassiter on the brain.

  “Well, you need to ask your husband. Like this … ‘Honey, how much longer do you have to continue backpacking with Sirena what’s-her-name?’ Then he’ll say, ‘I see you’re concerned. I’ll put an end to it immediately.’ Then you say, ‘You need to bring your ass home.’ I think he’ll get the message real quick.”

  Her new bob-cut wig was slightly crooked. She’d started wearing the premiere Star Jones collection over the last year after the resurgence of the cancer she’d fought and, we’d thought, beaten. A full mastectomy on both breasts for safe measure, so it was a shock to learn it was back, this time in her right lymph node. The chemotherapy made her new hair growth come in thin. I tried to talk her into wearing it short and natural. Pauletta was not the one. She reminded me on many occasions that it was hard enough maintaining an air of femininity after what she’d gone through. The last thing she needed was to look in the mirror and see short boy hair staring back at her. In Pauletta’s world, a good head of healthy hair and a good man made the woman—contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t pricey handbags and shoes.

  “Sirena’s everywhere because everyone loves her.” This was more an explanation for myself. I’d rehearsed it a number of times.

  “Apparently everyone does.” Pauletta grabbed the remote and pushed the volume up.

  And so it continued. The entertainment segment of Channel 10 news showed a quick flash of the very event I’d attended with Jake, although no one would know this since I’d been shoved to the back of the crowd. Jake stood with his arm wrapped around Sirena’s waist. She flashed her pearly whites and those big doe-in-the-headlight eyes.

  My coffee got cold real fast. I poured it down the sink. “Let’s go, Mya. We don’t want to be late.”

  Pauletta turned the TV off. “Don’t forget my flight out is at four.”

  I trailed behind Mya, sad at the thought of my mother leaving. As much as my mother liked to point out the brazen truth, I didn’t want her to go. She’d come to stay with Mya so I could tour with Jake for a few of the premieres. I’d come to depend on her. My mother had been by my side for every up and every down of life. I knew she had to get back home to my father in Los Angeles. I just wished for a few more days with her and thought about asking her to stay—but why get in the way of love?

  Mya’s school was a twenty-minute drive. I never believed in private schooling. I thought people who threw away money like that were being show-offs. What was a first or second grader going to learn for an extra ten grand that she couldn’t learn in the general population? Addition, subtraction, how to belittle and tease one another, were lessons equally taught amongst children of every income level. There was no getting around it.

  However, once Jake got the role in the film, my tune changed. I had an entirely different view now that we could actually afford private school for Mya. I guiltily wrote out the deposit and accepted my new state of mind.

  Whitherspoon Academy offered the best in early education. Cookies and warm milk were served at naptime. All the children wore cute little navy blue vests in the spring and blazers in the winter. Best of all, the school frowned upon and discouraged recess beatdowns by playground bullies. You could say I’d studied their brochure way too long.

  To top it all off, it’s what Mya wanted and begged for. This was the school Jory Stanton was attending, her best-est friend. They had survived preschool together, announced their undying love, and threatened to make life miserable for anyone who tried to separate the two. But at the time, we were broke. Jory’s dad, Senator Robert Stanton, had even offered to pay for Mya’s tuition just to keep the boy from being a first-grade dropout. But money hadn’t been the only impediment.

  The wait list to get into Whitherspoon was as long as my arm. Thank goodness the young woman who ran the front office was a big JP fan. She knew every song off his first album and couldn’t believe her luck that he’d resurfaced in her office. We were suddenly bumped to the top of the list for the small price of an autograph and camera-phone picture with Jake. She nearly wore out her battery sending it out to all her friends.

  “Wait for me, Jory!” Mya screamed from her open window.

  The children were filing inside. The sprawling estate made of brick and flanked by tall white pillars was built in the 1800s by African settlers, or in layman’s terms, slaves. At least there was a plaque at the entrance dedicated to a black man, Milo Redding, 1843–1892, for helping design the building. The inside parlor gleamed with hardwood floors and dark lacquered desks.

  Jory’s bashful smile lit up when he saw his partner in crime but he tried to keep his excitement under wraps in front of his buddies. The mop of dark blond hair had gotten thicker and curlier in the ripe old world of first graders. He was looking more and more like his father, who I was hoping was nowhere in sight.

  Mya unbuckled her seat belt before I pulled to a complete stop at the curb. “Hold on, wait a minute. Kiss, kiss, little girl.” I touch my cheek to show her where to plant it. “Have a good day, sweetpea.”

  “I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you three times more,” I boasted.

  “Four,” she yelled before slamming the door too hard. She escaped with her long twisted ponytail swaying with each step. It would be a giant puff by the end of the day. She was growing up so fast. She knew her own mind, kind of like me when I was her age. Except if I’d talked back as much as Mya, my mother would’ve shown me the door with a red knapsack tied on the end of a stick.

  I eased out with caution, then hit the brakes.

  “Yoo-hoo!” a voice called through the open window Mya had left down in the backseat. Not just any voice, but that of Paige Lawson, the room-mother who liked to delegate. There was a birthday party every Friday with confetti-sprinkled cupcakes ordered from Fredrica’s Bakery, whether it was anyone’s birthday or not. I guessed it was my turn to pick them up and distribute them to tiny unwashed hands.

  I rolled down the front window to show I was ready to take on my duties. “Hi, Paige. How’s it goin’?”

  “Wonderful. Can’t complain one io
ta.” Her Southern drawl was artificially pitched for happiness. She, like the rest of the mothers of Whitherspoon Academy, refused to acknowledge frustration. There was no just cause for stress when life had blessed you with enough money to send your child to the finest private school in the state of Georgia.

  “I saw your husband on TV last night. You must be in heaven right now.”

  “Yes, opportunities like this don’t come often.” I preened. But I was running late and hoped she got to the point.

  “I guess so, honey, married to a movie star. You are the envy of all the girls.” She looked around as if we were the new high school clique and everyone was dying to get in.

  “Okay, well, it was good to see you.”

  “I have a huge favor. Big. Gigantic, so get ready. You ready?”

  “I’m ready.” My patience was running low like my gas tank. Idle conversation would leave me empty in more ways than one.

  “This weekend I have to go out of town to see about my poor uncle who’s in the hospital, and I need someone to take over the Hansel and Gretels this Saturday.”

  “I work on Saturdays, Paige. I would do it, if I could.”

  “This meeting doesn’t start until six. It’s only for the girls, so there’d be half the trouble. They’re scheduled for a tea party and etiquette class. Please, oh pretty please.”

  “Okay. Sure,” I agreed. Anything to stop her from pursing her gooey nude lips in a fake pout. Pink lipstick would forever be in the don’t column. I put the Range Rover in gear. The car lurched forward and made a screwy noise.

  “Whoa, looks like I know what you’ll be spending all that new Hollywood money on.”

  I started over, putting the car in park then back to drive. The transmission had been slipping. No time to take it in for service. I had a business to run. I rolled up my windows to let her know, conversation over. The car moved forward without a glitch. I did a small baby wave. Paige blinked her eyes too many times, as if she weren’t the one bothering me. The Hansel and Gretel Club began in the early 1920s specifically for children of color and privilege so they would have a place to celebrate achievement without feeling inferior. The twenty-first-century version of the Hansel and Gretels made sure to have pictures of children from all backgrounds and races on their Web site, but the underlying message was still clear. If your child wasn’t a member of the H & Gs, eventually she or he would grow up without a sense of self, lost in the Barbie and Ken world, without a date to the prom—or worse, no spouse of the correct persuasion. Jake disagreed with putting Mya in the club. He didn’t like groups that excluded people based on race, or any other sanctions. What kind of example were we setting? Yet he couldn’t help but wince every time Mya mentioned the love of her life, Jory. He was Mya’s best friend forever. His blond hair and blue eyes didn’t bother Jake at all. He swore it was merely the fact that our five-year-old had already been bitten by the love bug. Wouldn’t matter if the boy was green with polka dots, it was just wrong.