Rich or Famous...Rich Because You Can Buy Fame (9 page)

“Go to Page Six.”

“I don’t get the Post.”

“Turn on your computer and go online.”

“Can’t this wait until after I eat? I’m starving!”

“Get on your computer,” she demanded. I decided to do what Brittani asked because I figured the sooner I got her off the phone the sooner I could stuff my mouth.

“Oh my fuckin’ goodness!” I kept saying over and over again.

“Bitch, you’re back on the fuckin’ map! You can’t pay for that sort of publicity.” After I read it to myself like three times I read it out loud.

Maybe Hip Hop Superstar Sway isn’t over his former flame Dior after all. Sources say last night at Lebron James’s party he worked himself up in a jealous rage when he spotted his ex getting cozy with rising rap star Phenomenon. Sway must have thought that Dior’s leading lady role in Phenomenon’s new video wasn’t just for the cameras. Because he caused the beauty to leave the club after drenching the three thousand dollar dress he bought her in champagne.

“How fuckin’ amazing is that? He thought he was ruining your night but all he did was turn it around to work in your favor.”

“I can’t believe my luck. Maybe something good will finally come out of all this.”

“It already has. Everybody in the industry is
talking about you right now and what went down at the party. Your stock just skyrocketed.”

“I understand all that but I need for this talk to turn into some paying gigs. A bitch is broke!”

“Be a little more patient. The tide is about to turn and soon the money will come.”

I so needed that to be true. But Brittani was right. I would be the leading topic for at least the next couple of days. This was the best thing that had happened to me since my breakup with Sway. I needed to keep the momentum going which was difficult especially since I didn’t have a publicist to plant bogus stories for me. But shit like that cost money because I didn’t know one publicist that worked for free.

When I got off the phone with Brittani I decided to call Lorenzo. Once again his phone rang and then went to voicemail. Unlike the other times I called, this time I decided to leave a voice message. He was making me feel ignored and I hated that. But I wanted to know if this King Magazine cover was legit. It was the only thing brewing for me at the moment. I knew they weren’t going to pay me for doing the cover but the exposure would bring in some much needed cash from other sources. I had my fingers crossed so tight that Lorenzo wasn’t bullshitting and would get in touch with me soon. I thought I would’ve heard back from him by now but it was like he just disappeared.

I was pacing back and forth wondering how I could get in touch with him. I meant to ask Phenomenon if he had spoken to Lorenzo but Sway sidetracked me with the show he put on. Oh, how things had changed in less than twenty-four hours. Last night I was embarrassed and pissed but now if I had the money, I would send Sway a bouquet of flowers, thanking him for the unintentional generosity he bestowed upon me.

After printing out the plug in Page Six I taped it on my kitchen wall. I tried calling Lorenzo one last time and since I couldn’t get him on the phone, I decided to finally make myself something to eat. Between bites of my veggie omelet and drinking orange juice I continued to read the write up and smile at the same time. For the first time in a while I was feeling good. I turned my music on and brought some much needed life into my apartment.

“Dior, you are on your way,” I said out loud as I stood in front of my full length mirror. “No matter how hard he may try, Sway will not be able to stop me. Pretty soon, I’ll be back to walking the red carpet in the best designer clothes and it won’t be because Sway paid for them. The designers will be giving me clothes for free and will be begging me to wear their shit because I’ll give them press. Sway will regret the day he ever dumped me. I’ll be on all the blogs, magazines, doing television interviews and it won’t be as Sway’s girlfriend, it will be because I’m Dior.

I’ll show Sway and everybody else who thought I wouldn’t make it. I will be a star, I will be a star,” I repeated over and over again because I felt if I said it enough times, I would convince myself that it would come true.

Lorenzo

Hell Of A Life

“How is she doing?” I asked the doctor as I watched my mother sitting in her wheelchair staring out the window.

“We feel optimistic that we’ve found the right combination of medications but of course we won’t know for sure until we give it some time.”

“Has she started talking at all?”

“No, she’s still withdrawn in herself. As I told you before, Mr. Taylor, your mother may never speak again.”

I walked in my mother’s room and stood next to her but it was as if I wasn’t even there. Every time I would come to visit her the only thing that gave me peace of mind was that the doctor assured me she wasn’t in any physical pain but mentally my mother was gone. I didn’t know which one felt worse, when
she was a drug addict or when she was diagnosed with being schizophrenia.

After her diagnosis I found the best private psychiatric treatment center in the state of New York but in the three years she’d been here instead of getting better she seemed to be fading further away. She went from hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech to finally not speaking at all. At first I blamed the doctors, nurses anybody but it had nothing to do with them. My mother had been sick for a very long time but nobody noticed because her erratic behavior was blamed on her crack addiction. By the time I found her, my father was dead and I barely recognized her as being the woman that gave birth to me but she was. And even though she had been out of my life since I was a little boy, when I found her again, I still loved her as if she had raised me and never abandoned me.

What I hoped for each time I would visit was that my mother knew I was here and felt my presence. That never seemed to be the case but I think that’s what kept me coming back week after week. I was praying one day she would give me a sign that she did. So when she stared out the window I would stare too, wondering in my mind what she was thinking about, if anything at all. Did she notice when it would rain or when the sun would come out; did that make a difference in her mood? Did she appreciate the garden view she had from her room?

All these questions I had but I wasn’t able to accept I would never know the answers to any of them.

“Yo, what’s good?” I answered, as I got in the car

leaving my mother’s treatment center.

“We have a situation.”

“I see. I’m headed back that way, I’ll be in touch.” I ended the call thinking that I wasn’t in the mood for the bullshit today. When I would come see my mother it literally drained all my energy. It would be as if I left it in the room with her. Having to go home and deal with business bullshit wasn’t what I needed right now.

“Damn, who the fuck is this?” I moaned feeling the vibration of the phone. I saw Lala’s name and remembered I hadn’t been by there the last couple of weeks. “What’s up, Lala.”

“Hey, Lorenzo.”

“Is everything ok? You don’t sound good.”

“Tania’s been asking for you. Last time you were here you told me to tell her you would be back soon to visit but you’ve been a no show.”

“I apologize. I’ve had a lot going on these last couple weeks. I have some business I have to handle tonight but I’ll be over there tomorrow afternoon.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to tell Tania and then you not show up.”

“Lala, I’ll be there.”

“Ok, we’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.” As my call was wrapping up with Lala, Dior was beeping on the other line. I simply ignored it like I had been doing all her calls for the last few weeks. The crazy part was I really did want to speak with her but my life was on overload right now. Darnell used to handle a great deal of business for me and now that he was dead I had to oversee a lot of shit. I hadn’t found anybody that was knowledgeable enough to maintain some of my important dealings that I also trusted. So the shit was all falling on me. And when my mind was consumed with business the last thing I could make time for was a woman like Dior. She took high maintenance to another level and I didn’t mean simply materialistic wise, but emotional too. If I got on the phone with her she’d drill me about getting all her shit done and although I had every intention of coming through for her, right now it wasn’t a priority for me. It wasn’t even on my top five and I had no plans of talking to her until it was.

When I pulled up to my office building in Jersey City, I had this twinge of uneasiness. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the edge not wearing off from the visit with my mother or something else. When I entered the building two of my security guards were in the lobby waiting for me. They nodded their head for me to go back outside so I made my exit and they
followed behind me.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“We’re not sure if the offices are secure.”

“You think someone put a bug in the office?”

“We have our people up there checking now.”

“So is that the situation?”

“That’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

“Alexus has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom.”

“How much?”

“Two million.”

“Who kidnapped Alexus and why do they think I would pay two million to get her back?”

“From my understanding this shit all goes back to Darnell. The money he was stealing from you, he wasn’t giving it to anybody. He was keeping it for himself. The two guys he was partnering up with, he took their money too.”

“So if he was stealing from all of us, where is all the money?”

“Nobody knows but them dudes want their money back and they somehow found out that Alexus wasn’t Darnell’s girl like they initially thought but that she actually worked for you.”

“That’s why you think the office might have a bug because they know this.”

“Yes.”

“How did they make contact?”

“It all went down right here.”

“You talkin’ ‘bout today?”

“Yeah, right before I called you.”

“Ok, Brice, I need you to take me through this shit step by step.”

“Michael and Roy were upstairs. Me, Tony and Alexus was coming into the building. What looked like a delivery truck pulled up. Two guys came out in uniforms carrying boxes. By the time I realized something wasn’t right they had pulled out guns and told us to get on the ground. They called us out by our names. Then a third guy came out the back of the truck and grabbed Alexus. He said Darnell stole their money and they wanted it back. He told us if we didn’t give them two million the next time we saw Alexus she’d be floating in the Hudson River.”

“Did you get the plate number?”

“Yeah, as soon as we heard them drive off we jumped up and got the information. I was tempted to start blazing on they ass but I knew they might end up killing Alexus and in this area, people hear gunshots they most def calling the police. I know we don’t want them involved. ”

“Nah, we definitely don’t want that. So what did you come up with when you ran the plates?”’

“Nothing, they were bogus.”

“I figured that. Damn,” I huffed. “Even if I pay them cats, they might still kill Alexus. That foul nigga Darnell making problems for me even from
the grave.”

“So what do you want us to do?”

“Get the money together but something ain’t adding up.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Darnell had gotten that much money together, that shit ain’t just lying around somewhere. Where the fuck is it? The average nigga can’t just hide two million dollars unless they just making up an amount tryna pinch me.”

“Lorenzo, we found three bugs,” Roy informed me as soon as he came out the building.

“How the fuck did they get up in my office and have time to do that shit.” I noticed Tony put his head down. “Tony something you need to say?”