You Don't Know Me Like That

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  “This is a women’s restroom,” I said, instinctively backing up.

  “I-I know. I s-saw you run in h-here, and I just had to see you again.”

  My heart started racing as Chris took a step toward me. “I was just sitting out there reading when I saw you.” He pointed toward the door. “I think, it was, it was like some kind of divine intervention.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy but didn’t say a word because homeboy looked like he wasn’t wrapped too tight.

  “It would m-make my day if I could just have a kiss,” he stuttered.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, stepping back again. “Get away from me.” I tried to push past him, but he grabbed my arm.

  “Why do you have to be so mean?” he snapped.

  His tone caught me off guard, and my whole body tensed up. He no longer sounded like some creepy nerd. His voice was deeper, and he scowled like some kind of madman.

  “I can’t stand teases like you,” he said, pushing me up against the wall.

  “I was nice to you,” I managed to say.

  “But you’re not being nice now. If you were nice to me, you would give me a kiss!”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to keep him calm. “I didn’t mean anything by it; it’s just that I don’t kiss strangers.”

  “I bet you kiss your boyfriend, Bryce.”

  If I hadn’t been scared before, I was definitely freaked out now. How did he know who my boyfriend was?

  “Excuse me, but I really have to get going. My friend is waiting.” I again tried to push past him. He grabbed me again and tried to force a kiss. Before I could scream, he put his hand over my mouth and pinned me harder.

  “Let me go,” I mumbled as his nasty hand covered my mouth.

  I was just about to try and bite the mess out of him when the door to the bathroom swung open.

  “What are you doing?” a girl screamed as she raced toward us. She took her purse and hit him over the head. “Let her go!”

  The girl kept kicking and hitting him until he let me go. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. “Let’s go!”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. I raced out of the bathroom behind her and didn’t stop until we were out among the crowds of people again.

  I immediately began scanning the crowd for a security guard. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I tried to catch my breath. “Oh my God, I can’t believe that.”

  “Did he hurt you?” she asked, examining me.

  “No, no. I’m okay. Thank you so much. Who knows what he would’ve done.” I felt myself fighting back tears. I took a moment to pull myself together. “I need to find a mall security guard.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” she asked again.

  I nodded as I kept looking for a security guard. “Hey,” I said, spotting one. “Excuse me, officer,” I called out, waving toward him.

  “Yes, ma’am, may I help you? Is something wrong?” he added when he noticed my panicked look.

  “Come on,” I told the girl who had helped me.

  I turned, and the girl who had just literally saved my life was gone. Did she really leave without saying anything?

  I shook my head. I couldn’t worry about her. I quickly began explaining what had happened to the security guard, who didn’t seem all that interested. I thought about tracking down the mall representative who had set up my appearance, but she’d have to tell my station, and Tamara would fuss about my sending Mann away when I had been the one begging for them to hire him in the first place.

  No, I chalked this one up to my letting my guard down—something I vowed never to do again.

  Chapter 6

  I had just wrapped up another bomb taping and was absolutely worn out. I had also taken two tests and had three meetings today. Yeah, I couldn’t wait until graduation, because this balancing act was killing me.

  That’s why Tamara’s summoning me to her office on my way out the door was more than a drag. I was tired and meeting with Tamara was definitely not on my list of things I felt like doing right now.

  Even still, I poked my head in her office door. “Hey, Tamara. You wanted to see me?”

  She excitedly waved me in. I didn’t sit down, because I didn’t want her to think I was staying long.

  “Great show today, Maya.”

  “Thanks,” I said, looking at her like “I know that’s not what you called me in here for.”

  “Well, you know at Rumor Central, we go digging.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded as I tried to figure out where this conversation was going. Of course I knew that. I was the one doing most of the digging.

  “So,” Tamara continued, “we just had to figure out who was the person responsible for making Maya Morgan a hot topic on social media.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, me. I’m the one responsible.”

  Tamara laughed. “Besides you, of course. We know there would be no hot topic if it weren’t for you. But someone was helping us trend each week. So, at your suggestion, we put those Rumor Central skills to work and found out who it was, and actually it was your own assistant who was able to dig up a name for us.”

  So, Ariel was good for something? She’d found the person behind the Rumor Central Twitter handle.

  “Well?”

  “It’s the president of the Maya Morgan fan club.”

  “What fan club?”

  Tamara leaned back in her chair. “The fan club that has over twenty thousand members.”

  Wow, I had a bona fide fan club. “That’s what I’m talking about.” I smiled.

  “Kelly, can you send her in?” Tamara said into the intercom.

  I waited in anticipation. How cool was this? I was actually about to meet the president of my fan club.

  The door slowly eased open, and in walked a girl, with long, curly brown hair and deep dimples. She was dressed a little frumpily for my taste, but she looked like if you cleaned her up good, she could pass for Keke Palmer’s twin sister. I studied her for a minute. She looked really familiar.

  “Maya, this is Jayla Cooper,” Tamara said.

  “Hi, Maya.” She was giddy with excitement. “It’s a huge honor to meet you.”

  “Have we met before?” I asked.

  She nodded. “It’s an honor to meet you, officially. The last time we met was Saturday in a bathroom at the mall.”

  I jumped from my chair. “Oh, my, God. You’re that girl from the mall! The one who got that guy off of me in the restroom.”

  “What?” Tamara asked.

  “Yeah, some creep followed me into the ladies’ bathroom at the mall.”

  Tamara looked shocked. “What? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. I really had intended to say something, but it was my own fault that Mann wasn’t around, and I didn’t want anyone chewing me out for sending him away.

  “What happened? Were you hurt? Where was Mann?” She started firing off questions.

  “It’s no biggie. Some guy followed me into the bathroom.” A part of me wanted to tell the truth—that jerk had scared me to death, but I didn’t need the drama, so I left it alone. I pointed at Jayla. “This is the girl that helped run the guy off. She beat him with her purse.” I turned to face her. “Why didn’t you introduce yourself then?”

  “That wasn’t the time or the place. I was actually there earlier to take some pictures for my blog site when I saw you go in the restroom. I was going to wait for you to come out and ask you a question.”

  “You have a blog site?”

  “Actually, it’s for you. It’s called All Things Maya. We actually just got it up and running on Monday. I’ve been working on it a while. I sent you an email about it. But I know you’re pretty busy.” She was right. I got so many emails; no way could I reply to half of them.

  “And Maya, this website is phenomenal,” Tamara said, finally interjecting. “This girl right here is a technological genius.”

  “Have a
seat,” Tamara continued, speaking to Jayla. “This site has all the bells and whistles.” Tamara motioned for me to come around her desk so I could see. I was amazed. It didn’t look like a blog site. It looked like a bona fide website, designed by some expensive web designer. The colors were my favorite, pink and silver. The writing was classy. All the photos of me were my absolute best. This thing was off the chain.

  “I just wanted to make it nice, because I’m like your biggest fan ever,” Jayla said. “This is just for now. I’m actually working on something a little more high-tech.”

  “Something better than this?” I said.

  She nodded modestly.

  “Well, I love this, so I can only imagine how I’ll feel about anything that looks better than this,” I said.

  She looked relieved to have gotten my approval.

  “I still think you should’ve said something,” I said to Jayla as I walked back around Tamara’s desk.

  “You weren’t in any condition to meet anyone new,” she replied. “Besides, I knew one day I’d get to meet you correctly.”

  “Well, we’re looking forward to big things with Jayla,” Tamara said. “I just wanted you to take a look at the site. If you like what you see, then we’d love to have her work with you to help you build your brand.”

  I looked at Jayla and smiled. “Well, I love it, and make sure we have your info.” I looked back at Tamara. “Because I’m with the boss. We need to see how we can make you a permanent part of the Rumor Central team.”

  Jayla’s eyes grew wide. “Wow, I’d like that. B-but . . .”

  “But what?” Tamara asked. “Please don’t tell me that’s not something you’d be interested in. I think you’ll be pleased with the terms.”

  “Oh, it’s not that,” she said. “I’d work for Maya for free. It’s just, I’m eighteen.... I’m still in high school. I graduate in May, but I’m still in school.”

  Tamara and I laughed. “Around here at Rumor Central, age ain’t nothing but a number,” I said.

  She broke out in a huge smile. “Then let me say I’d love to work for you, and I look forward to talking to you more.”

  “Give all your info to my secretary on your way out,” Tamara said.

  She nodded, rose and turned to leave. But she stopped and turned back to me. “Maya, let me just say, I can’t wait to get to know you better.”

  “I second that, Jayla Cooper. Hope to see you soon.”

  “I love it,” Tamara said after she was gone. “All this young talent.”

  “That’s the best kind to have.” I stood and headed to the door. “And I guess I need to thank Ariel.”

  Tamara nodded. “We both do, because I think this was a score for Rumor Central.”

  Chapter 7

  I couldn’t believe Bryce still hadn’t called me. Usually, when he got mad, he cooled off after a couple of days, but so far, hadn’t called me, and I wasn’t about to pick up the phone and call him.

  Even Sheridan noticed Bryce’s stank attitude as we walked down the hallway on our way to lunch. Even though Sheridan and I had made up, I didn’t share details about Bryce’s and my relationship like I used to, so she didn’t know what had happened between us.

  “Girl, what is his problem?” Sheridan said when she saw Bryce side-eye me and keep moving.

  I was dumbfounded that he was still trippin’. He had dropped me off at the house after dinner without saying a word to me. I had tried to talk to him on the way home, but he had just turned his music up louder.

  “He’s trippin’ because he took me out and some guy fans wanted to take pictures.”

  Sheridan laughed. “He ought to be used to that by now.”

  I shrugged as I discreetly turned around to see if he really was going to walk off without saying a word to me. He was now at the end of the hall laughing and joking with his boys. Forget him. Two could play that game.

  I turned back to Sheridan, ready to find the first guy I could to flirt with, when I saw Evian and Shay—my former Miami Divas costars—walking by us.

  “What’s up, Evian?” Sheridan said.

  Evian turned her lips up and kept walking. She’d been upset with me since I outed her little cheerleading escort ring on my show. So while Sheridan and I had made up, Evian and Shay hadn’t had two words to say to me.

  They’d actually become distant from Sheridan as well. They’d told her if she was friends with me, she couldn’t be friends with them. So junior high. Of course, Sheridan was like me; she didn’t like anybody giving her ultimatums, so she basically told them where to go.

  “I don’t know why you keep speaking to them,” I said.

  Sheridan shrugged, unfazed as she kept tapping on her phone. “They’ll get over it,” she said.

  “I don’t care whether they do or not.” But I did care about Bryce, and he was straight making me mad.

  Sheridan caught me glaring back at Bryce again and took my arm, leading me away. “That’s who you don’t need to be letting see you mad. Whatever y’all arguing about, he’ll get over it. But in the meantime, rule number one, never let your man see you fazed. Thirsty chicks are so not the business.”

  Sheridan was right. I followed her into the cafeteria without looking back.

  We got our lunch trays, then sat down at our table, with our friends, Chasity and Ava. They weren’t completely in our clique, but we did let them visit from time to time.

  “What’s up, Divas?” Ava said.

  “Doing what we do,” Sheridan replied.

  “Being fabulous,” I said, finishing her sentence.

  Everyone laughed as we sat down and began eating. We talked about who was doing what with whom, whose girlfriend busted her boyfriend, who was flunking out and a bunch of other gossip, until finally, Chasity and Ava stood.

  “It’s been fun, but we gotta run,” Chasity said.

  “Yep, killer test next period,” Ava added.

  They waved goodbye and Sheridan and I finished up our meals.

  “Hey, I talked to Valerie,” Sheridan said as she pushed her empty tray away.

  “How’s she doing?” While I hoped that I never saw the psycho who’d tried to kill me last month, I did feel bad about how everything went down with her. She’d started working with me at Rumor Central, and, in some kind of whack attempt to be my friend, she’d shared a little secret about Sheridan—that Sheridan’s mom had given up a baby for adoption to keep the pregnancy from hurting her career. Of course, what was I supposed to do with some good dirt like that? I aired it on Rumor Central. At the time, I didn’t know that Valerie was the baby Sheridan’s mom had given up. Needless to say, Valerie was livid. Her parents were furious, and she got into major trouble, including Sheridan’s mom temporarily pulling her anonymous trust fund. Valerie tried to get revenge on me by stalking me to try and keep me from discovering her identity. Luckily, Sheridan stopped that lunatic just before she tried to kill me. Valerie’s parents had moved away with her, but Sheridan was keeping in touch with her.

  “She’s okay,” Sheridan replied. “I just think she and her parents are happy that my mom decided against taking away her money.”

  I took a final bite of my salad, then pushed my tray away as well. “Do you ever wonder if she would’ve been a geek if she’d grown up with you?”

  Sheridan shrugged. “Not sure. It might’ve been kinda fun having a sister.” She started playing with her leftover food, and I could see sadness all over her face.

  I could tell she was getting down, and I had enough to bring me down with the way Bryce was acting. So, I flashed a huge smile at her and said, “I’m still your sister.”

  She smiled back at me.

  We talked about some more random stuff, then Sheridan said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you those were some cool pictures you uploaded to Instagram.”

  I shook my head. “Girl, I didn’t have anything to do with that. That’s all Jayla. She’s been working for us for less than two weeks, and the girl has done more than t
he entire publicity team at Rumor Central.” The Instagram pictures Sheridan was talking about were some behind the scenes candid shots the station’s photographer had taken the other day at Jayla’s request.

  Sheridan rolled her eyes. “That girl must have no life. All she does is sit up and promote you.”

  “It’s her job now. And she likes it. Who am I to knock it? Plus, it’s paying off. Her blog post got picked up by Seventeen magazine’s website.”

  “Wow.”

  “So, say what you want about her, but Jayla is all right by me.” I laughed.

  By the end of the day, I was just all too ready to go home. I was glad to have the day off from the station, because I’d been working a grueling schedule, and today I was just going home to veg out in front of the TV.

  Sheridan and I had just walked outside after school when I saw Jayla standing by my car.

  “Jayla?” I said, surprised.

  “Hi, Maya!” She grinned widely as she waved.

  Sheridan didn’t speak as she folded her arms and looked at Jayla like she was crazy.

  Jayla came bouncing toward me. “I tried to call you.”

  “Yeah, I left my phone at home today.” I was still trying to figure out what in the world she was doing at my school.

  “Well, I just wanted to let you know about a few things I had in the works, and I was getting you set up on Pinterest and I needed your passwords.”

  “What you need her password for?” Sheridan said, stepping to the side of me.

  I laughed. “Down, girl. How is she going to update and upload my stuff if she doesn’t know my password?”

  Jayla just grinned at Sheridan, then handed me a piece of paper, and I wrote the password down. “But you really could’ve just called,” I said as I handed the paper back to her.

  “I tried. And we really need to get the photo gallery up and running.”

  “Well, you wasted a trip because I use the same password for almost everything,” I said, pointing to the paper.

  “It’s not a wasted trip because, remember, I talked about getting photos of you at school. So I just want to get some pictures of you talking to your friends on campus.”