She waved to Mars and blew him a kiss as he came in and sat down. “The Plush Collection” had been a goal of hers for some time and she was finally laying the groundwork to bring her hip-hop-to-couture line to market. She was so excited about the ideas that were coming to fruition and she was zealously managing every aspect of the development of this brainchild by herself. She loved high-end clothing and accessories almost as much as she loved music and she’d become something of a fashion trendsetter in the industry. “The Plush Collection” was destined to become yet another endeavor of hers that was larger than life.
Keshari tossed one idea after another at the designer on the phone, and then discussed taking a trip to Milan to view more fabrics and a few runway shows for insight. Mars pulled off his suit jacket and tossed it across the arm of the library’s leather sofa. He went over and spun Keshari around in her desk chair to face him.
“I didn’t fly all the way here to watch you work,” he said.
“In a minute, sweetie,” Keshari whispered, placing her hand over the receiver’s mouthpiece.
She smiled up at Mars distractedly, and then turned back to her laptop and phone call. Mars spun her chair around again, knelt in front of her, and kissed her though her satin pajama pants. Keshari smiled and attempted to shoo him away. Mars reached under her top, untied the drawstring of her pajama pants, and pulled them off.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” she mouthed at Mars as he smiled up at her mischievously.
He buried his face between her thighs and found what he was seeking.
“Woo-o-o-o!” Keshari yelped as she felt Mars’s tongue exploring her intimately.
“I’ll have to call you back,” she said to the person on the other end of the line. “You are a very bad man,” she told Mars, wagging a finger at him.
With freshly polished, pink toes dangling over Mars’s shoulders, she put her head back and allowed her gorgeous man to have his way with her.
The kickoff of the Miami auditions at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale received as huge a turnout as the Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta auditions. News cameras panned the huge crowd of young hopefuls. Many of them had camped out outside the performing arts center like they had in Los Angeles. All of them wanted to secure one of the highly coveted, numbered wristbands that guaranteed them a place in the auditions.
The local FOX news station did an exclusive interview with Keshari to discuss the nationwide talent search. Keshari put on her public relations face and talked candidly about how pleased she was at the amazing talent that her record label had discovered in the audition cities they’d hit so far and how excited and assured she was that Larger Than Lyfe would discover some equally amazing talent in Miami.
The interviewer pleaded with Keshari for the name of a celebrity or two who would sit on the celebrity panel of judges at the televised grand finale show. Keshari smiled demurely and stayed mum. The celebrity panel of judges was not being revealed to anyone. It would be a complete surprise that would not be revealed until the night of the grand finale event.
The interviewer changed the subject.
“You’ve been keeping company with the very handsome general counsel for ASCAP. I know that he accompanied you to the Atlanta auditions and very reliable sources tell me that he flew into Miami late the other night. Are things serious? Any wedding bells in the near future?”
“The nationwide talent search and other projects demand my complete focus,” Keshari responded. “I barely have time to sleep, much less establish and maintain a love life.”
“Oh, come on,” the interviewer cajoled. “I know that you’re not attempting to convince me and the public that you’re not in love. You’re GLOWING, for God’s sake.”
“It’s the Miami humidity,” Keshari responded coyly.
On day two of the Miami auditions, a very, very special discovery was made. Sharonda Richards and Andre DeJesus had been carefully observing the incoming crowd of auditioners from the television monitors set up around the judges’ panel. Although Keshari was also present as a member of the panel of judges, she’d been preoccupied on her laptop for the greater part of the morning, trading communications with her attorney.
A twenty-year-old female singer took the stage wearing a flowing, Asian-inspired sundress and high-heeled sandals. She was stunning, an amalgamation of cultures…half-Black, half-Korean, with warm, flawless, brown skin and a cascade of silky, raven curls. Physically, she looked a lot like Keshari and almost everyone commented on that. Her voice was PHENOMENAL. It was an intoxicating mix of smoky, sultry, with a streetwise edge and a hint of the angelic. She sang a song that she had written herself and her whole aura exuded star quality that could not be denied.
The New Millennium music industry is roughly 70 percent image and about 30 percent true talent. Only a handful of artists possess the kind of transcendent creativity in production and writing and vocal ability and range as singers that makes the music industry and public music enthusiasts just KNOW that music was what these artists were MADE to do. The rest of the industry are illusions very carefully concocted from strategic marketing plans, state-of-the-art recording studio technology, and whatever is most popular in the music industry at the time.
A significant goal that Keshari intended to accomplish with her label’s nationwide talent search was to firmly establish its R & B and jazz genres by filling its repertoire with fresh, amazingly talented, new R & B and jazz artists. Keshari was a lover of MUSIC, not just hip-hop, and one of her long-range plans had always been to have all of the Black music genres under her label’s umbrella and she wanted to fully start realizing that goal with a female R & B singer possessing the kind of magnetism and crossover quality to make millions for her record label.
Larger Than Lyfe had been searching for quite some time for a young, beautiful, highly talented female to groom to become a worldwide superstar, its R & B-hip-hop princess. Beyoncé Knowles was one thing. What Larger Than Lyfe had in mind was even greater. Prior to the nationwide talent search project, LTL’s A & R team traveled the country, hitting nightclubs on the tips of others. They’d listened to hundreds of demos and viewed stacks and stacks of photos with accompanying CDs of models-slash-singers. They’d attended high school and college talent events. Not once had they found the female who possessed the distinctive qualities that they were looking for…until now.
The moment that she took the stage, Sharonda Richards was in awe. She leaned over and tapped Andre DeJesus, but he was already on the same vibe. He leaned over and whispered to Keshari. Keshari had already stopped what she was doing and was watching the young woman with interest.
“She’s the one,” Andre said.
“I know,” Keshari replied.
All of the judges seated at the panel leaned together in a huddle. They were about to make the very first exception to the rules of the audition process and the entire nationwide talent search project since the project commenced. The young lady’s name was “Ntozake,” a Swahili name that means “she who comes with her own things.” She was named after the famous, Black poet-activist Ntozake Shange. She was a military brat. She was extremely talented and her background was interesting without their PR department having to create a bio for her.
Keshari Mitchell and Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment wanted to extend to her an invitation to bypass the entire audition process, come to Los Angeles, and go into their studios to record for them. She’d get the opportunity to flex her writing chops, she’d work with some of the country’s best producers, and LTL would give her project the kind of attention and promotion that was usually reserved for megastars.
“Tell me,” Keshari said. “How would you like to come to Los Angeles and record an album for our label?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question,” Ntozake responded. “Are you asking me how I’d feel to be the winner of the nationwide talent search?”
“No,” Keshari said. “We’d like you to forgo the talent s
earch altogether and sign with Larger Than Lyfe immediately.”
Ntozake’s screams and tears of delirious delight were surely confirmation enough of her acceptance of their astounding offer. The local news got wind of the story later in the day and covered the story for the remainder of the Miami auditions.
Mars had only been able to spend a day with Keshari right before the Miami auditions kicked off because he had to fly back to Los Angeles to be in court, but he returned to Palm Beach the night that the Miami auditions wrapped. He planned to fly back to L.A. with Keshari and her crew on the Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment jet.
Keshari was unusually quiet now that the excitement of the auditions and a multitude of press coverage were past. Mars simply believed that she was exhausted and needed a little time to fully decompress. He had no idea that there was so, so much more weighing on her mind than fatigue. The two had dinner on the terrace, swam naked in the middle of the night in the infinity pool, and curled up in the master bedroom suite in the wee hours of the morning to watch a movie.
“What’s on your mind?” Mars asked her. “You’ve been so quiet and you seem tense.”
The two were lying in a pile of pillows on the floor in front of the huge, wall-mounted plasma television. She pulled Mars’s arms around her tighter as they spooned, half-watching Love and Basketball.
“I feel like, at any moment, I’m gonna wake up and ALL of this…even you…will have just been a dream.”
Mars chuckled. “As long as you’re not talking about a nightmare when you say that.”
Keshari was serious. “Mars,” she said softly, “I love you. There is so much that I want to say to you. There is so much that I need to say to you, but the timing is always off. Over what’s only been a very brief period, we’ve had an incredible time together. I feel as if I’ve known you all my life. But there is still so much about me that you don’t know…and, right now, my life is on the verge of spiraling completely out of control.”
“Why don’t you take some time off?” Mars suggested. “You have a more than competent staff to manage your record company’s operations in your absence while you take some personal time for yourself to regroup. I know that this talent search…flying from city to city week after week…has got to be wearing you out, and your mind and your body are trying to tell you that they need a break.”
“Mars, it’s more than that.”
“Then, what is it?” Mars asked.
“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m probably…no…most likely…going to lose you.”
The telephone rang and postponed their discussion. The call was from Los Angeles. There’d been some sort of security breach at Keshari’s mansion.
Portia was sickly obsessed and a part of her absolutely knew it, but she’d come to a point where she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing what she was doing, even if she wanted to. She’d always been something of a “drama queen” and she was definitely no stranger to the “Naomi Campbell syndrome” when she was provoked. The pregnancy stunt absolutely took the cake, but what she had been getting herself into lately was extreme, even for her. Almost every day, Portia had been orchestrating her hectic work schedule around her driving up to spy on Keshari Mitchell’s Palos Verdes mansion.
If it was daytime, she would sit up the street from the entrance to the bitch’s house and watch the comings and goings of delivery trucks, pool cleaners, gardeners, security officers, Keshari Mitchell’s employees from her record label, Misha Tierney, the party promoter, Mars, and the bitch herself. She’d even begun to notice who she believed to be paparazzi in an unmarked van photographing, and sometimes videotaping, movement on Keshari’s enclosed property.
If it was nighttime, Portia would often boldly sit directly across the street from the mansion’s driveway, ducking down in her car seat and waiting until the bitch came speeding up the street in one of her fleet of six-figure-price-tagged cars. She’d watch the bitch get out of her car and go into her beautiful home. A couple of times, she saw Keshari running on the lawn, tossing a tennis ball at her two massive Rottweilers.
Portia had no earthly idea what she was hoping to accomplish after weeks of “surveillance” outside Keshari Mitchell’s mansion. The whole problem with Portia’s situation was that Mars was not her man. He never had been. Portia and Mars had dated off and on for some time and exclusivity was not something that existed even once between the two of them. Portia had wanted an exclusive relationship with Mars, but Mars had made it pretty clear that he didn’t want anything resembling a serious relationship, so Portia acted as if she didn’t want anything serious either. Then Mars went and got himself involved with that Keshari Mitchell bitch and it was serious from day one and, well, GOD-DAMMIT…that’s why Portia was parked outside that bitch’s house right now! The hurt and the anger of Mars unceremoniously dumping her so that he could give that bitch exclusivity was as fresh in her mind and heart as if it had happened only moments before and Portia was now strangely fixated on doing damage to the bitch who had walked up out of nowhere and assumed HER position. Portia just hadn’t firmly decided yet what that “damage” would be.
From a sane person’s point of view, nothing would come from what Portia was doing except a lot of wasted time and trouble, particularly if she got caught, and it kept her from moving on with her life. But Portia was not working from a very sane place these days. She knew that the bitch was out of town again. She was in Miami for another leg of auditions in her nationwide talent search project. Portia caught the details regarding the Miami auditions on the E! channel on the day the bitch left. Portia watched the limousine arrive and load up her luggage to take her to the airport.
The armed guards who were typically present were not patrolling the grounds. Security seemed to be lighter on the property whenever the bitch was traveling and Portia was going to use that as an opportunity to sneak past those remote control gates and onto the property.
Portia had timed it all perfectly. The timing mechanism on the remote control gates took about fifteen seconds to completely close the gates. As soon as a FedEx delivery truck was pulling out of the gates, Portia literally ran from her parked car and straight inside the closing gates.
The little piece that was left of the rational side of Portia was screaming at the top of its lungs, “Why are you doing this?! What is this going to accomplish?!” The side of Portia that had just gotten onto Keshari Mitchell’s private property and was about to take a close look around at how that bitch lived gave the “rational” side a slug in the face and kept Portia focused on their far better plan. “Hurt the bitch!” it said, a twisted, horned, little devil sitting on her shoulder and angrily serving up horrific advice. “She’s got your man!”
Armed with a black backpack containing a couple of cans of black spray paint, a loaded .22 handgun, a digital camera, her cell phone, and a handheld copying device, and dressed in black sweats and black running shoes as if she was participating in a caper from Mission Impossible, Portia hopped behind a hedge and took a deep breath, amazed that she was actually inside. She looked around and thought for a moment and figured that she could scamper across the lawn and make it into the house through the open solarium doors. Little did she know that high-powered, security cameras were capturing her every move and, while the bulk of the security team who generally walked the grounds seemed to be off duty, the regular security who manned the guard office and patrolled the property twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week were definitely on duty.
Before Miss “Mission Impossible” could even swing into action, two of the armed security guards exited the guard office and chased her across the grounds to apprehend her. Sometimes a person never really realizes how stupid she’s being until her actions leave her looking like “Public Idiot Number One.” Portia Foster was placed under arrest by the Torrance Police Department and placed in the back of a squad car as she wilded out like Zsa Zsa Gabor, kicking and screaming profanities as the squad car drove awa
y with her inside.
The media made it over to the Torrance Police Department in record time to capture the unfolding story. They even secured Portia Foster’s brazen-looking mug shot photo and plastered it all over the local news.
Keshari was still in Palm Beach, having just wrapped the Miami auditions, when she received the call from her security company in Los Angeles, alerting her of the security breach and arrest. Keshari had no idea who Portia Foster was. Because of the immediate media coverage that made it all the way to Miami, she was promptly provided with a complete background of the woman who’d slipped onto her property with the clear intention of vandalizing it and possibly doing her harm.
“Ex-Girlfriend of ASCAP’s West Coast General Counsel Arrested for Stalking,” a local, Miami news station reported.
Keshari and Mars flew back to Los Angeles together out of Miami and were hounded by the press as soon as their plane touched the ground. Reporters questioned Keshari about Portia Foster and whether or not she and Portia had ever met. The media wanted to know if Keshari was responsible for Mars and Portia’s breakup. The press posed the same questions to Mars, and then asked if Keshari recently finding out about Portia Foster had hurt his and Keshari’s relationship in any way. The press asked Mars if he was aware of Portia having any history of mental illness. They asked if Mars and Keshari were afraid that Portia would do something to try to harm the two of them after her release from police custody. Then reporters went way-y-y off into left field by asking if Mars and Keshari were getting married. It was all very intrusive and more than a little ridiculous.
Portia was released from jail on bail, pending her court date, and the media immediately accosted her as well. Keshari’s attorney acquired temporary restraining orders for both Keshari and Mars and they were served to Portia the moment she exited the Torrance Police Department following her release. Portia was not allowed to come within 1,000 feet of Keshari or Mars or either of their workplaces and their residences. Portia was both embarrassed and livid.
Larger Than Lyfe Page 17
