Reunion Girls (19 page)

Babe's eyes were stinging with tears. "What about you, Jake? How can you recommend the high road for me while you're pulling cheap stunts?"

"Because I'm a jerk. I saw those pictures in your apartment, and I knew it was a chance to put the screws to Dean Paul. That's all I could see. It's my blind spot. Rich guys like him always have been. But ever since college, he's come to represent the whole lot for me. Don't ask me why: I should probably be paying some therapist on the Upper East Side two-hundred an hour to help me figure it out. But instead, I tell myself that I work through all my problems in the ring when I bloody up my sparring partners."

Babe managed a faint smile. Jake had never been this candid before. Her urge to leave began to fade.

"I'll be honest. In the beginning, I only wanted you because of your history with Dean Paul. I knew that me being with you would drive him crazy. And I loved it. I wanted to hear you tell me that I was a better lover, that I made you come in ways he never could. But it's more than that now. You remind me of myself in a lot of ways. You're out there trying to prove something. Every day. No matter how far you go or how good people say you are, you never quite feel like you measure up. I know that feeling. It's like we're kindred spirits, Babe. But we spend all our time fighting each other. Why is that? Can you imagine how great we'd be if we supported each other? I think about that sometimes."

Babe put down her bags. The last thing she intended to do was walk out the door. That much she was certain of.

Jake stepped toward her. "Want to hear something funny?"

Babe nodded.

"It was Bizzie Gruzart who got me started on all this soul-searching."

"The PR?"

"Yeah," Jake confirmed. "My publisher tapped her to do the book party, and that bitch advised me to unload you. She thinks being with you will hurt my Q-rating with female fans. I told her to bag it. Like I'm here to please some slob in the Midwest. Should I listen to Neil Diamond, too?"

Babe laughed.

Jake wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, kissing the center of her forehead. "Do you know how many girls have told me 'we're over' the way you just did? Plenty. But you're the only one I've ever tried to stop. Every other time I didn't care. I knew I could hit a bar that night and find a piece of ass just as good or even better." He traced his index finger down the bridge of her nose, stopping at her lips. "I can't replace you so easily."

Babe kissed Jake James as if it were the first time. And in a way, she really thought it was. The aggression in his love making disappeared. He handled her with great tenderness. He climaxed without the self-aggrandizing chant. At that moment, it was precisely what she needed.

But when he woke up with a start a few hours later, the original version of Jake was back. He roughly extricated himself from her embrace. "Shit! We fell asleep. Look at the time. This is why I only like to cuddle at night."

Babe watched him scramble into the bathroom and turn on the hot water.

Jake boomeranged back to rifle through his closet. "Hey, get dressed and go pick up my dry cleaning around the corner. My favorite shirt is there. I want to wear it to the book party tonight."

Babe sat up in bed. "Ask me nicely."

Jake cut a glance in her direction. "I just did."

Babe began searching for her clothes and thinking about what she might wear, too. "What time do you want me there? Another photographer from
212
is covering for me. I'll actually be able to enjoy the event."

He headed into the shower, calling out, "It doesn't matter. Bizzie says these things are insane. Everybody will be pulling at me. I probably won't even realize you're there."

Babe picked up his dry cleaning and shoved it into the first trash can within sight. Then she got in a cab and cried all the way to her apartment.

The It Parade

by Jinx Wiatt

Fill in the Blanks

There's a new monster "get" in town. You know the drill. Major scandal. Damsel in distress. Every bitchy interviewer with an eye toward ratings-sweeps victory elbowing her way to nab an exclusive sit-down. We've been here before. We'll be here again. But this time out the fight is fierce. Yours truly just wonders which personality will show up for the chat. Will it be the ghetto-fabulous rapper or the Ivy League BAP?

Gabrielle

"MRS. FOSTER, HOW DID IT make you feel when your daughter changed her name to Brown Sugar and denied ever being a part of this Grosse Pointe community?"

"You are trespassing on private property," Diahann Foster said, exiting her Mercedes sedan with an imperial attitude.

Undaunted, the pushy
Hollywood Live
reporter trailed her prey all the way to the front door. "Mrs. Foster, what do you think about rap music? Are you proud to call Brown Sugar your daughter?"

"No comment!" Diahann screamed. "Now please get off our property and leave us alone!" And then she slammed the door.

"As you can see, Ainsley, in spite of our strongest efforts, there's still no official response from the Fosters in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. We know their daughter as the platinum-selling hip-hop diva Brown Sugar. They know her as the debutante Gabrielle. Where do the two intersect? No one knows for sure. Back to you in Hollywood."

Gabrielle zapped the remote control to obliterate the
latest development
from her life. It just wasn't fair. Her parents' lives were being turned upside down. Television crews were staking out her mother at the house and her father at his office. Ironically, Gabrielle was enjoying more of an escape in New York. Security at the Waldorf-Astoria had been militant about keeping prying media eyes at bay.

And then she had Baby Bear. He was fully recuperated, back on the job, and perfectly willing to body slam anyone who got too close. His loyalty was unyielding, even as her career limped closer and closer to death each day. In fact, Baby Bear had become her greatest cheerleader. "You'll come back, Sugar," he told her. "Stronger and harder."

It was an emboldening notion. But Gabrielle didn't believe him. The rap industry had closed ranks. Brown Sugar was out. Queen Bee was in. Other artists were speaking against her publicly. Big, powerful stars whom she admired. It was the most isolating feeling.

She had stopped listening to Shaniqua Jackson, if only to hold on to what remained of her sanity. The outcry from fans was just too brutal. They felt duped and manipulated. And Shaniqua put through only the angriest callers to vent on-air.

Anyone from her past looking for a quick ride on the scandal train had found their ticket. Theory stayed the busiest. That loser would show up anywhere to get a little attention at her expense. Even Morgan Atwood had joined in. Her first boyfriend. She had truly loved him. And it crushed her to see Morgan on television, looking smug, sounding mean. His print interviews were the worst. Nothing was sacred. Not even the night she had lost her virginity to him. In fact, that had merited a point-by-point account.

This was rock bottom defined. The world was completely against her. And that included her own record label, Riot Act. She saw the writing on the wall. "My Hot Box," the planned third single from
Queen of Bling,
had been scrapped. Even with Nicki Minaj guesting on the track, the suits didn't believe in it. Or her. Radio stations had stopped playing Brown Sugar music altogether. Sales plummeted. It was a total free fall.

AKA Bomb Threat had tried to comfort her with long distance platitudes. "Just lay low, baby. All this will blow over. Everybody at the label is behind you."

Yeah, right. Those bastards were behind her. But only because that was the strategic place to be when they stabbed the final knife in her back. Maybe the label brass had actually started to believe the bullshit they put out there in her press biography. That she was some uneducated project case with BMW dreams. Wrong, Mr. Executive. Brown Sugar was an Ivy League girl at heart. And she knew the deal.

Riot Act already had her replacement on the fast track. Diamonds and Pearls. Twin sisters with killer looks and badass attitudes. Straight out of a rough neighborhood in Atlanta. They were the reason Bomb had yet to return from Los Angeles. He was working overtime in the studio prepping their debut. Identical Brown Sugar sound. Identical Brown Sugar image. Only these girls were authentic. There were no Queen Bees or Shaniqua Jacksons waiting in the wings to call them out.

Gabrielle needed to take action. Find out where she stood in terms of personal finances. Like most new artists, she had been so starry-eyed at the chance to work in the music industry that the good business side of her brain shut down. Bomb handled everything—the contracts, the money, the major purchases. He set her up in this penthouse and shoved a few credit cards with skyscraper limits into her hand, and she never asked questions. There seemed no reason to. Everything she wanted was a bedtime whisper or a signature away.

It was the oldest mistake in the book. Every Motown singer had learned it the hard way, and that was decades years ago. So much for progress. Gabrielle had always told herself that she would investigate the finer points . . . later. Well, later was right now. And she had no leverage. A star had to be on the rise to put a bad contract in turnaround. There was incentive. The company wanted to keep you around. But a crisis case like Brown Sugar? Oh, God, Gabrielle didn't stand a chance.

How could she have been so naive? What good was the Ivy League degree if she failed to use it? To add insult to injury, she had started her career at MTV of all places. She had listened to the I-got-screwed stories firsthand. Yet here she was, starring in her own. Bomb had positioned her exactly where he wanted her to be—in the dark, appeased by expensive clothes, flashy jewelry, a high-rise penthouse address, and slick promises that she would only get bigger, better, and richer. And Gabrielle had fallen for it. Hook, line, and Rolex.

As it dawned on her how ignorant she was, the realization triggered a cold, naked, helpless fear. Gabrielle had no idea how anything got done. Even the most simple responsibilities. For instance, when did Baby Bear get paid? And who paid him? Everything had been done for her. Like she was a child. Or some kept woman.

She stared down on the metropolitan matrix below, shame stabbing into her. To think she had created Brown Sugar as a means of empowering herself. From weakling to warrior. What bullshit that was. Nothing had changed. The players were new. The circumstances were different. But she was still a victim.

Come on, brown sugar. Give us some of that sweet chocolate.

The cruel voices from the past invaded her mind. After all these years, the memory remained so potent. If she just allowed herself to think about it, the nightmare felt as fresh as yesterday. Only the faces lived on in a constant blur.
 

It had been dark, and it had happened so fast. She had just closed her eyes and submitted to the inevitable, merely waiting for the violation to end. But the voices. Oh, God, the voices. Even now she could hear them with such clarity. As if the monsters were whispering into her ear at this moment.
 

When her brain played back the transcript from that horrible night, it was always the leader that she heard. The one who taunted her the most. The one who held her down . . .

The phone to the suite jangled, the rapid ring signaling an internal call.

Gabrielle let Baby Bear answer it. He knew the drill. No parents. No media. No so-called friends. The only people with clearance to get through were Lara and Bomb.

From his perch in the outer seating area, Baby Bear ventured quietly inside. "Sugar, there's a cat on the line named Dean Paul Lockhart. Swears up and down you'll want to see him."

She just stood there, stunned.

"He's waiting downstairs in the lobby."

Instantly, Gabrielle's concern went to her looks. Was she presentable? Did she have time for a few quick improvements? It was an odd reaction, but Dean Paul conjured up those feelings in a way no other man ever had. Not Morgan. Not Theory. Not Bomb. She felt a flush of warmth. "Bring him up."

Baby Bear nodded dutifully and lumbered out, heading for the lobby.

Gabrielle stepped into the bathroom to check her reflection. For a moment, she didn't recognize herself. The woman in the mirror was stripped of Brown Sugar's dramatic hair extensions, war paint makeup, and glitzy, conspicuous, look-world-I-made-it trappings.

There was just her own close-cropped chestnut hair, loosely tousled, a sweep of mascara and a swipe of lip gloss, a chic Chanel J12 sports watch on her wrist, and a simple ensemble of white, fitted, ribbed cotton tank over pink low-waist yoga pants.

Baby Bear had remarked that she resembled Halle Berry. Gabrielle disagreed. That beauty was a force all her own. She smoothed out an errant eyebrow and smiled. He deserved a raise just for saying it, though.

When Dean Paul walked into the suite, he just stared at her for one prolonged, glorious moment. Finally, he spoke. "Now there's the girl I remember."

She approached him, smiling demurely.

He kissed her lightly on the lips and embraced her, stroking the small of her back with his hand. "I'm sorry. About everything. How are you holding up?"

Gabrielle withdrew from him. It felt too good to continue. "Worse things have happened to me."

Dean Paul looked at her strangely. "What I've seen so far is brutal. Are you a veteran of some war I don't know about?"

Of course, he had no idea how loaded that question was. At first, Gabrielle said nothing. Then she sat down in her favorite chair and curled her bare feet underneath her legs. "I thought you were in Greece."

He planted himself on the sofa opposite her, knees akimbo, elbows on his thighs. There seemed to be a great deal on his mind. "We cut it short." One beat. "I've been worried about you, Gabby. Is there anything I can do?"

Gabby.
Hearing him call her that always affected her. It did something to her central nervous system. She had always adored the sound of it tripping off his lips. Maybe because it was a nickname exclusive to him. "You could help me understand you."