Larger Than Lyfe

by Cynthia Diane Thornton

  “I love y’all, too.” Jay-Z smiled modestly, looking over at LL Cool J, and exchanging an all-knowing chuckle.

  The troupe of sixty finalists took the stage and the grand finale competition was underway.

  It was two days after the wrap of the week-long, televised, grand finale miniseries of Larger Than Lyfe Entertainment’s “Nationwide Search for a Star” and Misha was so glad to see a bit of calm come into the record label. She was exhausted. She had a couple of press interviews that afternoon to discuss what was upcoming for the winner of the talent search, and what some of her future plans were for the record label, particularly since Larger Than Lyfe was delving into the genres of R & B and jazz. After that, she was going to take a ride out to the studio in North Hollywood to take a listen to the label’s new artist, Ntozake. The word was that the tracks for this extremely talented, young, twenty-something’s first CD were coming together impeccably well. Her vocals were lush with an urban edge to them and there had already been comments around the label that she bore a strong, physical resemblance to Keshari Mitchell. Larger Than Lyfe was putting together a package for her that would render her the record label’s new premier artist, taking the place of Rasheed the Refugee, who had left the label shortly before Keshari’s death.

  After Misha left the studio in North Hollywood, she planned to take a long weekend to catch up on sleep and some of the projects at Misha Tierney, her events planning company. Misha’s preparations to leave were abruptly intercepted by a most unexpected visitor. Marcus Means bypassed the receptionist, walked into Misha’s office and took a seat in front of her desk.

  “Ms. Tierney, would you like me to phone security?” the receptionist said over Misha’s intercom.

  “No, it’s okay,” Misha said, puzzled at Marcus Means’s abrupt presence in her office. “Hold all of my calls.”

  She clicked off the intercom.

  “Marcus Means,” Misha said, “not even in the farthest recesses of my mind can I imagine why you are here.”

  Marcus smiled. “Same ole Misha. You and that gorgeous mouth of yours.”

  “Why are you here and what do you want?” Misha snapped, her patience quickly leaving her. “I’m not in the dope game. I don’t owe you any money. I truly hope that you’re not looking to get a record deal, so to what do I owe the displeasure of your goddamned company?!”

  “I see that you are settling very nicely into your new role as CEO. You had a lot of naysayers in the industry betting against you. It’s good to see that you’re working so hard to prove them all wrong.”

  “So, that’s why you stopped by…to give me some positive reinforcement?”

  “I have a proposition for you,” Marcus responded. “I guess you might call it an offer that you can’t exactly refuse.”

  “You wanna bet?” Misha said.

  “Wait,” Marcus said. “Take a listen to what I’m about to tell you and, perhaps, you’ll weigh your feisty, little snaps a lot more carefully.”

  Misha crossed her legs and sat back in her chair.

  “Somewhere along the way, in the ongoing saga of the past few weeks, media has formulated the conspiracy theory that Keshari is still alive. Can you believe that shit? Just like Tupac Shakur.”

  “No. That shit is patently ridiculous,” Misha said, “which is why I pay it absolutely no mind. Is that why you’re here? To discuss conspiracy theories?”

  “I think you know me better than that,” Marcus responded. “I have more than a theoretical reason to believe that your best friend is still alive and has pulled off an intricate, little ruse in which YOU were an active participant. What if someone located your friend and finished what Tim Harris failed to finish?”

  “Get the fuck out of my office right now!” Misha snapped.

  Marcus Means didn’t even consider budging.

  “Here’s my proposal,” Marcus said. “I’m going to need ten percent of Larger Than Lyfe’s revenues every month until further notice. In return for this ten percent, I make the promise to you that your best friend will remain safe wherever she is, wherever she goes, and I will not divulge her and your little secret to the authorities.”

  “You sick son of a bitch!” Misha snapped, furious tears splashing down her cheeks. “Keshari is gone! GONE! And I don’t give a fuck what you believe to the contrary. I will not dispense one penny of Larger Than Lyfe revenues to you, or anything like you, and you can take that shit to the authorities!”

  “Misha, when your brother was charged and tried for the first-degree murder of Phinnaeus Bernard III, did you ever wonder if he might be telling the truth and that he had nothing at all to do with his attorney’s murder, just like he said? I mean, think about it. Rick took two sets of polygraph exams and passed them both. In all these years, Rick never got caught up with any murder charge that could stick…and now he’s dead.”

  “You know what I think?” Misha said irritably. “I think that I couldn’t give a fuck about Richard Tresvant’s murder trial. If he finally went to prison for a murder he did not commit, it sounds like the karma of a man who got away with far more heinous shit FOR YEARS! Now, why the fuck are you still here?! Do I need to have security remove you?”

  Marcus stared at Misha pensively, and then shook his head sympathetically.

  “I know what it is. You still blame your brother for your mother’s death. You still hold so much anger about it. Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with me. Ten percent. You have twenty-four hours to decide how you want to go about this. I’ll be back at the same time tomorrow…and I don’t think you’d be foolish enough to stand me up.”

  “Do whatever the fuck you think that you can get away with,” Misha responded. “I will NEVER give you one penny from ANY source. I don’t have any business with you and I never have. You won’t be strong-arming me for shit! Come back at the same time tomorrow if you want. You can be assured that my answer will be the same.”

  A six-hour flight out of Los Angeles International Airport and Darian Boudreaux landed in São Paulo, Brazil. Because it was not a vacation, but an abrupt, one-way departure from the life she knew into the unknown, all she felt was numb, unable to fully process the lights, the hustle, bustle and excitement of the airport in the major, foreign city that she’d just stepped into. Neither sadness nor fear had hit her yet, just numbness through every fiber of her being.

  A limousine driver loaded her luggage and delivered her to Hotel Intercontinental in downtown São Paulo. Less than thirty-six hours before, she had still been Keshari Mitchell, pulling off the greatest stunt and fraud of her life, her very own suicide. From the paramedics who had arrived on the scene, worked on her valiantly, and pronounced her dead, and then quickly transported her lifeless body away from the scene, to the first police dispatched to the scene, to the pathologist at the coroner’s office who had falsified the paperwork confirming her death, including a falsified death certificate, and then provided an actual body to represent her at the mortuary, to the mortuary who had knowingly cremated a Jane Doe and represented it on even more falsified paperwork as Keshari Mitchell, to the authentic passport, birth certificate, social security card and other legal documents issued for her new identity, everyone had had a price, Keshari had met their price and they all had willingly participated in the intricate plot that had liberated her from her former life.

  She sat in the living room of her luxurious hotel suite and stared at her new passport for more than an hour. “Darian Boudreaux,” born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 27, 1979. For the moment, she was safe. There was no way to be sure how long the safety she had at that moment would last. For all intents and purposes, she was deceased. But there had been numerous people involved who had been paid and who had assisted her and her attorney in carrying out her suicide. Eventually, and there was absolutely no way to be sure when someone would talk. The thing about paying for silence was that it could not really be bought and if you gave it a blank check, it would never prove to be enough. The only way that
silence was assured was if the persons who held her secret ceased to exist. Going in that direction only opened up a whole new set of problems.

  Darian looked all around her at the chic and modern furnishings of her hotel suite. Even after the colossal sum that she’d incurred to do what she’d done, she was still a very rich woman. But all of the luxuries all around her seemed to hold a very blatant emptiness to them now. All of it was just so much expensive stuff. The people who had once surrounded her and had been her friends and business associates and advisors and confidantes were no longer people to whom she could turn for advice and support. When Keshari Mitchell ceased to exist, every single person in her life ceased to exist as well. For the very first time since the ambulance had taken her away to South Bay Hospital and the coroner had formally pronounced her dead and her attorney had quickly spirited her away from the hospital unbeknownst to media and she took the six-hour flight to Brazil, it now began to sink in for her how truly alone she now was and that it would be this way for a very long time. Darian knew that her thoughts would seriously entertain again and again, probably for the rest of her life, whether she had made the right decision.

  The first couple of weeks after Darian’s arrival at São Paulo’s Hotel Intercontinental, she stayed in bed practically the entire day like someone battling a serious depression. She barely ate. She didn’t go out. She thought about Mars a lot. She missed him so, so much. She thought about Misha…her sister…the very best friend that anyone could have. She thought of David Weisberg, her attorney, who knew absolutely everything about her life…The Consortium and all. Over time, David Weisberg had become a father figure to her and tears filled his eyes as he hugged Keshari for the very last time in an underground parking garage in downtown Los Angeles and she slid into a limousine in disguise, headed to the airport, exiting the life of Keshari Mitchell and about to become Darian Boudreaux.

  Intricate planning had been put into getting Keshari away from her former life. Virtually no planning had been given to what she would do and become once she entered her new life. Formulating a game plan for what Darian Boudreaux would do with the “blank slate” that was the rest of her life would become the project to occupy her days and nights in the unfamiliar territory of her new home, Brazil, over the days and weeks to come. But she didn’t know how long she would be able to live like this. She truly didn’t know how long.

  Her eyes welled with tears as, once again, she felt the vast expanse of aloneness that surrounded her. When she finally pulled herself together, she pulled out her new laptop, logged into her new Internet account, and began to review Stateside news stories.

  There was coverage of Keshari’s funeral. There was sensationalized coverage of the reading of Keshari’s will and the distribution of millions of dollars’ worth of assets. There were numerous good reviews on the nationwide talent search finale and the amazing job that Misha Tierney had done in bringing all of the final details together for the week-long event, which had been the last major project that Keshari Mitchell had worked on at her record label prior to her death. And there was substantial coverage and photos of all of the entertainment names that had come out for the much-talked-about after-parties connected with the show.

  Darian smiled with pride. She had always known that her best friend would be able to carry it off.

  Darian ordered dinner, a humongous, loaded cheeseburger and french fries and a bottle of wine and a slice of cheesecake with fresh berries, a calorie-ridden, extra-extravagant splurge that she never indulged in as her former self. As she savored her decadent meal like a child, she went back to her laptop and commenced to order music and books for herself. For years, she had worked eighteen-hour days, driven to succeed, and had never had the opportunity to sit back and read simply for the leisure of it and enjoy music without it, ultimately, having something to do with her business. She ordered everything that Me’Shell N’Degeocello had ever done. There was something incredibly mesmerizing and deep and sexy about the woman and her music. She ordered Slum Village and a lot of Cam’Ron, Tori Amos, Earth, Wind & Fire, Anita Baker, Sade, Sarah McLachlan and Rasheed the Refugee. She ordered software so that she could immerse herself in the Portuguese language, which was the predominant language of Brazil. She called the concierge and expressed to him that she wanted to take a tour of São Paulo and wanted the best, English-speaking tour available. The concierge called her back a short time later and let her know that he had scheduled her on a three-hour bus tour of São Paulo and the surrounding area the following day.

  When Darian fell asleep that night, after having taken up activities to busy herself and to make her more comfortable in her new environment, she dreamed of Keshari and Mars. The two of them were lying on the upper deck of her yacht, “Larger Than Lyfe,” in the moonlight, wrapped in a blanket together just talking.

  “Do you believe in redemption?” Keshari asked Mars.

  “Yeah, I do,” Mars answered matter-of-factly.

  “Do you believe that, after all that I’ve done, there’s a possibility of redemption for me?”

  He kissed the tip of her nose reassuringly and, just as he was about to answer her question, he was gone and only the darkness of the hotel suite’s bedroom surrounded her.

  Darian turned over and tried to fall asleep again.

  Hours turned to days, days turned to weeks, and more than a month had passed since Keshari Mitchell’s death. Darian was becoming stir crazy and the touristy-type things that she had been doing to occupy her time had just about run out of gas. She began to orchestrate plans to lease a yacht and travel along the coast of the beautiful, Brazilian nation, stopping at ports so that she could see some of the exotic cities she’d always heard about but never had the time to explore like Ipanema, Copacabana, Salvador de Bahia, and Pão de Açúcar, which translates to “Sugar Loaf” in English, and was said to be entirely too beautiful to be real. She also considered traveling to Switzerland, where she had money in the Bank of Switzerland. She also thought of various nations in Africa that she’d like to visit. She knew that the change of venue would definitely, if only temporarily, brighten her state of mind.

  Time was, also, now making it a necessity for Darian to start planning to make a move. She’d now been at the Hotel Inter-continental for more than a month and, until she had undergone her physical transformation, there was always the risk of recognition…even if it was only a very small risk in such a densely populated nation like Brazil.

  With the need to begin making moves in mind, Darian touched bases with one of the contacts her attorney, David Weisberg, had provided to her. The contact was a world-renowned, plastic surgeon who would completely alter Keshari Mitchell’s physical identity all the way down to her dental work so that she could fully assume her new identity as Darian Boudreaux. The surgeon gave Darian a full tour of his surgical facilities, showed her photographs of some of his previous work, discussed each of the procedures that she would be having, and then showed her pictures of the beautiful, secluded piece of real estate near Ipanema where she could very comfortably recuperate. Darian would have to commit herself to remaining in Brazil for at least one year in order to complete the several rounds of surgeries and for recovery and healing. The surgeries were very drastic, very high-risk, and expensive, and the surgeon had a pretty substantial list of clients who had elected to completely alter their physical identities and who federal law enforcement, in a number of nations, would surely be interested in knowing about.

  Keshari expressed to the surgeon that she’d like to take a few more weeks before she scheduled a firm date to commence the work. While the physical transformation had always been a part of the plan in the intricate scheme to fake her death, she had much to think about, especially in terms of the dangers involved in the surgeries. She also thought of Mars over and over again. Late at night when she couldn’t sleep, as was often the case, she would sit, staring out her huge, living room windows, and miss Mars’s touch. She missed his arms around her. She missed
the intoxicating smell of him, that perfect, masculine scent that left her thinking of him even when he wasn’t there. She missed his lips, his voice. She missed him making love to her. She missed how they talked about everything…well, almost everything…and the way that he just GOT her. She missed Mars so much that she was frequently left in tears, sometimes sobbing as if there was no tomorrow, thinking how she had had to, literally, terminate that part of her life.

  For the fourth time that month, she strode through São Paulo’s Museum of Modern Art that she had come to love so much, where she was surrounded by Marc Chagal, Pablo Picasso, José Antonio da Silva and Emiliano Di Cavalcanti. While browsing in the museum’s gift shop, she was overcome by the strangest impulse. She purchased a set of postcards depicting vibrant photographs of Brazil’s most famous landmarks. She took one of the postcards and, using a typewriter provided by the hotel, addressed it to Mars’s condo and typed the message, “I miss you…SO much.” No signature.

  She rode a taxi to the post office and sent off the postcard that very same day. For some reason, she felt better after mailing the card. The overwhelming loneliness that she had been feeling seemed to dissipate just a little bit.

  When Misha messengered Mars a pair of tickets to Larger Than Lyfe’s “Nationwide Search for a Star” opening night along with a handwritten note, telling him how much it would mean to her if he came, Mars had been extremely reluctant to commit himself. He rationalized repeatedly that he wasn’t ready to be around people. The day before the event, Mars had a change of heart. Misha had been so kind to him since the reading of the will…before that even. She’d called several times just to check on his well-being. She’d sent him flowers multiple times and a Ghiradelli chocolate basket and Mrs. Fields cookies to cheer him up, always with handwritten notes containing words of encouragement and little prayers to try and help him feel better. She was reaching out to offer comfort to him as only a friend would.