More Lies and Alibis (Using Lies as Alibis #2) (10 page)

Excerpt from
Chocolate Dreams
by Tiffany L. Warren

Chapter One

Jake

“I’m not touring.”

“Jake, don’t be a diva about this.”

My editor, Carmen Washington, gives me an evil glare. Like she just told me she was having my baby and I said I wasn’t the daddy.  Just mad.  She sits back in her big, cushy leather office chair (that my book sales probably paid for) giving me attitude. 

I hate when she calls these meetings.  First of all, I live in Atlanta, and I don’t like to come to New York City.  There is too much dirt, and not enough green.  Second, Carmen always has orders for me to fulfill.  This time it’s a tour.  Next time, it’ll be a sequel I have no intention of writing. 

Along with the brown leather furniture, Carmen’s office is decorated in varying shades of blue.  It reminds me of the Caribbean.  Except that the ocean is calm and serene, and there is nothing peaceful of being harassed to go on a tour. 

“I’m not being a diva.  Stephen King doesn’t tour.  James Patterson doesn’t tour.  Anne Rice doesn’t tour.  I ain’t touring.”

Carmen rolls her eyes, sighs and begins again, “What’s the difference between you and all those authors you named.”

“They’re white,” I reply.

“The difference between you and them is that your sales are down thirty percent.  You’ve got a new book coming out, Jake.  May will be here before you know it.”

I shrug and try to get comfortable in this hard chair that matches Carmen’s mahogany desk.  “Everybody’s sales are down.  We’re in a recession.”

“Thirty percent of millions of books still looks good to the suits Jake, so the major authors don’t have to worry like you do.  You aren’t new to the game.  You know how this works.”

She doesn’t scare me.  I’m the best author she’s got.  I’ve made every bestsellers list, and I’ve sold over a million books.  I don’t do tours.

“Are you telling me I need to finally get an agent?  Do I need somebody looking out for my best interest here?”

Carmen throws her head back and laughs.  If she wasn’t seriously pissing me off right now, I’d be thinking about how delicious she looks when she does that.  There's nothing more enticing than a caramel colored girl with a tan.  When she stops laughing she gives me her serious, all-business face again.  I get so caught up in her big, light brown eyes that I momentarily forget that she’s fussing at me.

“Jake, you can get an agent all you want.  That’s not going to change the fact that you need to get your sales up.  We think a five city tour to all the hot markets can make that happen.”

“We?  I’m sure that means you and Vanessa Sherman.”

“Well…it was kind of her idea.”

I should’ve known.  This is Vanessa’s way of getting revenge on me for not wanting to sleep with her. She knows that tours aren’t my cup of tea. 

"Take out an ad or something.  I hate tours.  Hotel rooms, airplanes, restaurant food.  All bad.” I lean back in the chair and wave my arm around angrily to prove my point. 

“Are you kidding?  We’re going to put you up in five star hotels in every city, fly you first class and wait on you hand and foot!  What is so hard about that?”

“You’re only talking about the good parts!  What about being dragged all over the city by a draconian driver, being asked uncomfortable questions about my life, and being hugged and kissed by hundreds of strange women – some of them not attractive!”

“Those women you’re talking about are the ones who keep you in those expensive suits and shoes, Jake.”

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate my readers, Carmen.  You know that.  I’m an introvert and a
germaphobe.”

“Jake!  Get some hand sanitizer and call it a day!”

“When I get a cold sore from one of those slobbery kisses, I’m suing you and Times Square Books.”

“Occupational hazard, Jake.”

She clearly doesn’t understand my level of discomfort at this whole thing.  I did my due diligence, early in my career.  I’ve done tour buses, driven to bootleg conferences, and bought vending tables at churches.  The whole nine.

But then I wrote All Men are Dogs and my book sales went through the roof.  All of a sudden, I was some kind of heartthrob that knew the kind of man that women really want.  Some of my readers insisted that I was like the hero of my book – this suave dude named Desmond. 

Desmond is the man!  He knows exactly what to say to a woman.  His money is right all the time and he doesn't cheat.

I went and created some kind of fairy tale.

Truth is I’m nothing like Desmond.  I say the wrong thing a lot of times – Desmond gets the benefit of content editing – I do not.  My money is currently right, but it hasn’t always been.  I’ve cheated a time or two (or three...) because I’m not perfect, and a pretty half-naked woman in the hotel room with my wife a thousand miles away was not a good combination.

My readers are in love with Desmond, but they think they’re in love with me. 

When I can’t live up to their expectations, their chocolate covered dream turns into a nightmare.  Sometimes, I try to be witty and it comes across snarky, which to a black woman who just spent twenty-five bones on my book, is kind of mean.  I’m not trying to be unkind; it’s just that I’m not that dude, Desmond. 

“Carmen…I don’t think I can tour,” I finally say. “I’m not being a diva or
divo or whatever.  I’m just not good at it.”

Finally, I see something that looks like sympathy in Carmen’s eyes.  “Well, what if we sent you on a five-city tour with some other authors?  That might be fun.  I’ve got it!  How about a tour with three hot African American male authors?  You would sell a ton of books.”

I can only think of two other male authors I’d want to tour with.  I can think of many female authors I’d want to tour with, but we’re not really talking about that, are we?  The two male authors I’d tour with are my fraternity brothas, Derrick Shaw and Brandon Jamison.

Carmen shakes her head like she can tell what I’m thinking.  “No!  Not those two.  Don’t even think about it.”

“What?  You’re tripping Carr!  The readers love Derrick.  He’s selling more books than I am with his romance series, and he’s got a new book coming out in May just like I do.”

Carmen leans across her desk and replies, “First of all, Derrick is not on our line and second of all he’s a
manwhore.  You need to stop associating with him.”

I want to defend my boy, but I can’t!  He does…well…love the ladies.  I’m not the character in my book, but Derrick is just like his hero!  His books have a main character named Ian, who is an FBI agent.  Ian gets the prettiest women, and falls in love with a new one in each installment of the series.

Just like his character, Derrick is a hopeless romantic. In every city he visits, he woos some unsuspecting woman out of her panties.

“He’s my boy.  His publisher would love the idea of us going on tour together.  If he doesn’t go, then I don’t go.”  I give Carmen my serious face to let her know I’m adamant about this one.  At least with Derrick there, the trip will be entertaining.

Carmen eases back down into her chair.  “If Derrick goes, then I’m going to have to go too, to chaperone you.  I don’t need to see you guys on mediatakeout.com”

“They don’t put authors on mediatakeout.com.  And if they ever did, I’d become a hermit.”

“Still, you two would need someone to keep you out of trouble,” Carmen insists.  “Stop looking at me like that, Jake.”

I know she doesn’t like the face I’m giving her.  It’s my one eyebrow up, little smile thing that I give when people are not being real.  But she’s getting the face, because she's trying to act like I don’t know.

Carmen has a huge crush on Derrick.  Last time we all hung out together, Carmen got very intoxicated and I had to stop her from pulling her skirt over her head and hooking up with him.  It was pretty bad.

“You just need to make sure you don’t get mad about Derrick and his ladies.”

Carmen looks away as if this can hide her blush.  It doesn’t.  “When are you going to stop bringing that up? I’m not some heartsick puppy who spends her nights and weekends thinking about your
janky friend.”

I shrug.  "I'm just recalling facts."

"Well, if I have to deal with the two of you, Brandon’s raggedy self is definitely not coming.”  Carmen releases a frustrated sigh as if this is the most annoying conversation she's ever had. 

“You didn’t have to call my boy raggedy.”

“Your boy is tremendously raggedy.  His raggedyness has no bounds.”

I narrow my eyes at Carmen.  “That’s not even a word.”

“So what?  It fits.  Brandon is a buster.”

It is not Brandon’s fault that he’s fallen on tough times.  He was a literary hit, right out the gate.  He sold two hundred thousand copies of his very first book.  It was called Ghetto Chick and it’s about this girl named
Chalisa and all of her round-the-way exploits. 

The readers and book clubs loved it, and he was getting interviews in Essence magazine about a new genre of books he helped to create.  Unfortunately, a zillion other authors copied his style, and some even did it better.  The next installments of
Chalisa’s drama got lost in the shuffle with a sea of other ghetto girls.

Now, Brandon can’t get a book deal to save his life.  Part of it is that he won’t take any less than what he thinks he’s worth.  He thinks he should pull a six-figure deal, and the publishers aren’t hearing it.  So, instead of getting a deal, he’s decided to self-publish. 

He’s in Atlanta at every event selling his new street fiction, merged with erotica and real life – plus it’s got a message.  This is his description not mine. 

Although he’s having a rough time right now, Brandon is still my boy, and he’s still a solid writer, even if he doesn’t know what type of book he wants to write anymore.  If anyone could use a come up, he could.

Carmen says, “I thought Brandon and Derrick didn’t get along.  That could be problematic.”

“They’ve squashed all that…”

I’m telling a small, small untruth here.  Brandon and Derrick didn’t exactly squash anything.  They just haven’t dealt with one another since everything went down four years ago. 

We were at a book conference, and Brandon had brought his fiancée, Regina, some video vixen who was only interested in him because he had just signed a major book deal and had Ghetto Chick optioned for the big screen.  Everything was cool until Regina met Derrick during the book signing.

Derrick is a flashy dude.  He wears rings custom designed by a New York jeweler.  His suits are the original creations of an Italian tailor, and you can’t buy them in stores.  He wears Prada sunglasses at night, and he drives a tricked out Benz.  In short – he’s a baller, and he wants the world to know it.

Brandon’s fiancée was a climber – the type of woman who is always looking for the next best
brotha, so that she can have a baby, invest the child support money and never have to work a day in her life.  Derrick was the better, faster, flashier model, and Regina decided to upgrade. 

In defense of Derrick, he did not know that Regina was Brandon’s woman, because we hadn't met her before the conference.  She pursued Derrick, and he was not in the habit of saying no to a stripper body in spandex leggings and a halter top.  Brandon got played before he even knew Regina had left his side.

Needless to say, Brandon and Derrick had some words.  Well, they had some words and some blows. It was all bad.

That was four years ago.  Things are different now.   We’re all trying to stay in the game, and we all have to eat.  Plus, we're fraternity brothers.  We go way back to a time before random women and book deals.

“They’ll be cool,” I assure Carmen. 

“If you can promise me they won’t be on tour fighting, maybe I’ll agree to it.”

“I promise.  I’m flying back home to Atlanta tonight.  Got some business to take care of, and it’s Derrick’s birthday next weekend.”

Carmen’s eyes light up.  “Send him my birthday wishes.”

“You are pitiful.  You know that right?  Remember what you said…he’s a manwhore.”

“I can’t say happy birthday?”

I chuckle and shake my head.  “Sure, you can say happy birthday…but you can’t drool while you’re doing it.”

“Whatever, Jake.  It’s March, and we’ve got two months to plan and promote this tour.  You get your friends to agree, this weekend, and I’ll take care of the rest.  If I can do my job, I can get my boss and the publicity team off your back.  I’m pulling for you.  You know that, right?”

“I know.  I eat, you eat.”

“Right!  Now give me a hug and go round up your thuggish friends!”

Carmen and I exchange our customary hug.  I used to try to imagine that Carmen’s affectionate squeeze meant that she wanted me.  Because she’s…yeah…she’s hot.  But, the hug is too sisterly for me to think she’s attracted to anything other than my perfect word usage and pristine sentence structure.

“When you get to Atlanta, tell your Aunt Suzanne I said hello,” Carmen says after separating from our embrace.