You Don't Know Me Like That

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  “What kind of drama?”

  I thought about not saying anything, but Kennedi was my girl. If there was one person I could trust to never say anything, she was that person. “Well, apparently he got arrested in Seattle or something. His boys got with some groupies, and the girls claimed they were raped. Tried to involve J. Love and everything. But he wasn’t even there.”

  “Dang, but I can imagine he always got some kind of drama going on.”

  “But I just love the fact that he trusted me enough to share that with me.” Just talking about J. Love was giving me butterflies all over again.

  Kennedi leaned across her bed. “That is so totally cool. How old is he?”

  “He’s twenty-one.”

  “Oh, my, God. Your mom is going to kill you.”

  “That’s only, like, four years older than me.”

  “Okay, tell that to your mom. Does he know how old you are?”

  “He didn’t ask, but he knows I’m a senior in high school.”

  “Well, if he ain’t trippin’, I ain’t trippin.” She laughed.

  “Anyway, J. Love invited me to his album listening party next weekend, so you have to come down.”

  “Oh, you know I am so there,” she said excitedly, before adding, “So, what does this mean for Bryce?”

  “Bryce hasn’t bothered to call me, so it means Bryce . . .”

  “. . . Is officially history,” she said, finishing my sentence.

  I chuckled, but I felt a twinge in my heart. “Maybe we’re just taking a break for a minute, and I’m testing the waters.”

  “You know Bryce is all that, but he’s like you, spending daddy’s money. So, I say give J. Love a shot. Shoot, you guys could be some kind of power couple, like Beyoncé and Jay-Z.”

  “You’re sure right about that.” I glanced at the clock. “Okay, go back to sleep. I have to do some research for this story I’m working on. I didn’t get anything done yesterday.”

  “You have me wide-awake now.”

  “Well, go back to sleep.”

  “Ugh, fine. Bye.”

  I hung up the phone. I was sure she’d be back out in no time, but me, on the other hand, I was too excited to sleep. But I really needed to focus. I had an interview tomorrow with the stars from Twilight, and I hated to admit that I hadn’t seen any of the movies in the series. I just wasn’t into vampires like that. But the one thing Tamara made clear, when it came to the entertainment portion of my show, I needed to know what I was talking about. And that meant watching their movies. So they’d sent me over a copy of Twilight 732, or whatever number they were on now, and so I needed to get to watching.

  I popped the video in and got comfortable on my sofa. I don’t know how much time had passed, but the next thing I knew, my mom was tapping me on my shoulder, and the credits were rolling.

  “Maya, what are you doing?”

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, stretching. “I guess I fell asleep watching this movie.”

  “Since when did you get into vampires?”

  “I’m not. It’s some research I have to do for the show.”

  She walked over and turned the TV off. “Well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. I got a progress report from your chemistry teacher.”

  I groaned. As much as I loved the new age, I wish we could go back to the days when they sent stuff in the mail and you had a chance to get it and hide it before your parents saw it. “Mom, I’m going to pull the grade up.”

  She looked at me sternly. “You’d better, because I told you, the only way I’m supporting this TV show thing is if you keep your grades up at school, and from the looks of things, you’re not doing a very good job.”

  “I’m working on it, Mom,” I said.

  “Maya, if you flunk this class, your teacher said there’s a chance you might not graduate.”

  “She’s just being dramatic.”

  “Maya, don’t play me for a fool, okay?” my mother said.

  “I told you, it’s not that serious. I’m going to do well in that class.” That was a bold-faced lie. I didn’t know how I was going to pass that class. Since Valerie had left, I hadn’t had much help acing this class.

  “You’d better,” my mother warned. “If you want to keep digging up dirt, you’d better.”

  I let out a long sigh. Between this class, calculus, and a stupid English informative research paper I had to do—and I had no idea what I was going to do that paper on—I was slowly sinking into a big hole as far as school was concerned. I needed to figure out something and figure it out fast.

  Chapter 10

  My mom was right, I thought as I looked at the computer screen. An F on my chemistry exam would completely screw me.

  My phone rang, and I logged off the website where we checked our grades. I didn’t want to chance my mom popping back into my room and seeing that I was also failing calculus.

  “Hey, Jayla,” I said.

  “Hey, Maya. I was just seeing if you had had a chance to look at the Pinterest page?”

  “No, not yet. But I trust you, though,” I said. “You’ve been doing an awesome job.”

  “Well, I like doing this stuff. I’m about to get back to work on the website.”

  “Do you ever do anything for fun?” I asked. “Because every time I talk to you, you’re working.”

  She laughed. “This is fun to me. I actually like working.”

  I wanted to tell her I loved my job, too, but geesh, I did have a life outside of work. But since I needed her, I kept my mouth closed.

  “Okay, well, I’ll check it out. I won’t be able to do it today. I need to study for this stupid chemistry test. I hate this class.” I blew a frustrated breath.

  “Oh, you’re not doing well in it?”

  “No.” I paused. “You wouldn’t be any good at chemistry, would you?” I wasn’t trying to get a tutor or anything, but I definitely could use someone to just do my work for me. It’s not like I’d ever actually use chemistry again.

  She chuckled. “Hardly. I’m good at techy stuff. But I hate chemistry.” She hesitated again. “But . . . I am good at grade changing.”

  “What?” She had my full attention now.

  “Well,” she said, slowly, “this is just between you and me, but . . .”

  “Will you say it already?” I said when she stopped talking.

  “At my old school, right before the grading period ended, I would go in and change the grades right before the report cards printed,” she admitted.

  “Change the grades? How? How in the world are you getting into the school’s system?” I didn’t know how that was even possible. She might’ve been able to get away with that at her bootleg public school, but I definitely didn’t see her being able to do it at Miami High. We had state-of-the-art everything, and I’m sure that included security systems.

  “You said it yourself, I’m a technological genius.”

  “Ummm, well, you know the system at my school is top-notch.”

  “Never met a system I couldn’t crack,” she said.

  I leaned back in my chair and considered what she was saying. Could I actually let her change my grade? I thought about that F and how I really didn’t have time to study. Of course, I could.

  “Wow, you mean, I wouldn’t have to sweat chemistry, and I could still get an A?” I finally asked.

  “I would probably shoot for a B. You don’t want your mom getting suspicious.”

  “Good looking out. I might just have to take you up on that offer.”

  “Okay, just let me know.”

  I hung up the phone in awe. When it came to computers, was there anything that Jayla Cooper didn’t know how to do? That girl was a beast. I was just glad to have her on my team.

  Chapter 11

  I was floating on cloud nine. I’d finally made my way through the Twilight series, so I was prepared for my interview. Now that I knew Jayla could fix my grade, I wasn’t stressing over that chemistry test anymore. And J. Love had taken me
out to see comedian Mike Epps last night, so yesterday had been a good day.

  Now, I could focus on my show before dinner with J. Love again tonight. He was trying to squeeze in as much time with me as possible before he hit the road. Even though he’d be back for his party this weekend, he made no secret about how much he was feeling me and how he wanted to spend as much time with me as possible. I was loving every minute of it.

  My assistant, Ariel, poked her head in my office. “Hey, are you ready?” she asked. “They’re ready for you on the set.”

  “Cool.” I grabbed my scripts and headed out to the studio. While I’d prepared for the Twilight interview, I was mostly excited about today’s main gossip story. One of the stars of Basketball Wives Miami was creepin’ with a married movie star, and she and the wife had gotten into a big fistfight, and both women had been arrested. They’d managed to keep it out of the news, but they couldn’t keep it from me. I was about to blow their story up. I probably should’ve felt bad, but I didn’t. I was no longer selling out my friends. I didn’t know these chicks, so, oh well.

  I headed onto the set, did my thing, then called it a day. I was ready to see what J. Love had in store for us this evening. He was leaving in the morning to go perform in Dallas and wanted to do “something special” before he left.

  “Hey, Maya. Can I talk to you for a minute?” Tamara said on her way to her office.

  I wanted to protest, because I was trying to get out of there since it was already seven o’clock, but I followed her anyway.

  “Hey, Jayla,” I said, when I noticed Jayla sitting in front of Tamara’s desk. “You’re working late.”

  “Oh, it’s not that late,” Jayla said.

  “Sit, sit,” Tamara said.

  “I have somewhere I need to be.”

  “This will just take a minute.” She smiled in Jayla’s direction. “I was just complimenting Jayla because she, well, I’ll let her tell you.”

  Jayla turned toward me, her face lit up with excitement.

  “Well, today, the fan club hit our two hundred thousandth member.”

  “Wow,” I replied, taking a seat. “We were just at twenty thousand people a few weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, that was before Jayla worked her magic,” Tamara said.

  “Dang,” I said. I definitely had to give Jayla her props. This girl was off the chain.

  “How did you do it?” I asked. I mean, I know I was the real reason for the boost, but she still had to have done something.

  “Well, we’ve been trending a lot. That sparks interest in the Maya Morgan brand and that gets people talking and gets them over to all your social media pages. I made it easy to join the fan club by just clicking a tab on each page.”

  “I do have a question, though,” I said. “If you build all these people on social media, what happens to the actual Rumor Central website?”

  “Oh, that’s the beauty of it all,” Tamara said. “It all goes hand in hand. It’s all about driving traffic from one site to the other.”

  “Yeah, we don’t want to leave everything in Facebook, Instagram or Twitter’s hands, because if they shut down, then what? ” Jay la added.

  “That’s right,” Tamara chimed in. “Jayla showed us why we want all roads to lead right back to Rumor Central.” She looked at Jayla in admiration.

  I had to agree with Tamara. I didn’t know where Jayla had come from. I was just glad that she’d come, because with her touch, my fabulous life would never be the same.

  Chapter 12

  My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. I stood in the middle of the hallway, mouth open. I wasn’t the only one shocked. Sheridan, Chastity and Ava, had all stopped midsentence when they saw what I was looking at.

  “Hey, Maya,” Jayla said, bouncing over to us.

  “Jayla, what are you doing here?” I asked. “It’s the middle of the day. Why aren’t you at school?”

  “I’m at school.” She grinned widely. “I’m a student here.”

  “Since when?” I balked.

  “Since yesterday. I transferred here.” She said that like it was no big deal.

  “Excuse me? What do you mean you transferred?” I looked at her in disbelief. What kind of person just up and transferred in the middle of the semester?

  “Who is this?” my friend Ava said.

  Sheridan was the one who answered. “She works for Maya.”

  “So now your staff has to go to school with you?” Chastity asked.

  I was too dumbfounded to even respond. I couldn’t believe this.

  Sheridan stepped closer to her. “Are you following my girl?”

  “Oh, no, it’s not even like that,” Jayla protested, trying to keep a smile on her face. “I don’t know if you’d heard, but they found asbestos at my school, and they had to move all the students. They allowed some of us to choose any school in the area. I was already in the midst of transferring when I met you,” she said to me.

  “I didn’t even know they let people transfer in to Miami High,” Chastity said.

  “They only do that with scholarship students and people who are stupid rich,” Ava said. Her eyes made their way up and down Jayla’s body. “And I doubt that she would be in the stupid-rich category,” Ava added with her nose turned up.

  Jayla didn’t seem fazed. I had to shake myself out of my stunned trance.

  “That’s just really convenient, isn’t it?” Sheridan said, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m a little confused here,” I said. “Why didn’t you mention that you were transferring?”

  “I didn’t see why it mattered,” Jayla said.

  Was she serious? “You didn’t see how it mattered?” I repeated. My girls were standing on both of my sides. I know we looked like we were ganging up on Jayla, but she needed to give me some answers.

  “What’s the big deal?” Jayla asked.

  “The big deal is she doesn’t like obsessive freaks following her around,” Sheridan snapped.

  Jayla put both hands on her hips. If Sheridan was scaring her, she didn’t show it.

  “I’m not a freak, and I’m not obsessive. I’m just good at my job. And my transferring here didn’t have anything to do with Maya. But if anything, I’d think she’d be happy.”

  I couldn’t understand why Jayla hadn’t mentioned that she was transferring before. But her being here wasn’t the only thing that had my mouth on the floor. It was what Jayla was wearing.

  “Like, ewww,” Chastity said, just now noticing her outfit. “Are you seriously wearing a T-shirt with Maya’s face on it?”

  “Yeah.” Jayla looked down at her shirt, pulling it out for everyone to see. “I had them made. We give them away to Maya’s fans. Would you guys like one?”

  “As if.” They burst out laughing.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Ava said.

  “Ummm, I’ll pass, too,” Chastity added.

  I wanted to laugh because they were like me. They wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a celebrity’s T-shirt, especially if that celebrity was someone you knew. That was lame with a capital L.

  “Okay, okay, just chill,” I said, jumping in before they started drawing attention. “So you transferred here,” I said turning back to Jayla. “That’s cool, but ummm, the shirt? So not feeling it.”

  She actually looked hurt. “You don’t like the shirt?”

  “What do you think, genius?” Ava snapped. I held out my hand to quiet her.

  “No, I love the shirt,” I told her. “I really do. It’s just something about having you wear it around school. Let’s just not.”

  She hesitated. It was obvious she was disappointed. “Okay, I won’t wear it again,” she finally said. She pulled a jacket out of her bag. “I’ll just put my jacket on over it.”

  All of us stood and watched as Jayla put the jacket on and zipped it up.

  “Much better,” I said.

  She stood there awkwardly for a minute, then finally said, “Well, I
’m not trying to get in your way or anything. In fact, my best friend goes here; that’s the real reason I chose this school. So that’s where I was headed, to meet her.”

  “Who is your best friend?” Sheridan said, like she didn’t believe her.

  “Maggie Long.”

  “Who is that?” Ava asked.

  “Is that that scholarship girl, the freshman?” Chastity said.

  “Yeah,” Jayla replied. “That’s her.”

  “Your best friend is a freshman?” Ava asked, not bothering to hide her disgust.

  Jayla nodded. “Yeah, and?”

  Chastity coughed and muttered, “Loser,” under her breath.

  “I’m gonna leave you guys alone,” Jayla said, sounding all sad. “Sorry, Maya, if I freaked you out. I thought you’d be cool with it.”

  I gave her a tight smile as she walked off.

  “And the freak of the week award goes to Maya’s new publicist,” Chastity said after Jayla rounded the corner.

  “She’s not my publicist,” I protested. “She just does my social media stuff.”

  “She’s your number one fan,” Ava sang.

  They laughed some more before Sheridan finally said, “Seriously, Maya, you don’t see anything creepy about this?”

  I shrugged. “She may be a little strange, but I can’t help it that she thinks I’m fabulous and you guys don’t recognize all this fabulosity.” I did a little twirl. I was trying to lighten the mood, but I was serious, too.

  “Oh, my, God. What were we thinking,” Sheridan said in a high-pitched fake voice.

  Chastity pretended to clutch her pearls. “We are so sorry, Your Highness. I mean, can we pretty please get some T-shirts of you so that we can walk around with your face on our boobs? Pretty please?”

  Ava clasped her hands together excitedly. “And while we’re at it, we should get some sweatbands, headbands, and glasses that say Maya Morgan.”

  “Ooooh, great idea,” Sheridan said. She pointed to her behind. “And I’m going to get ‘Maya’ on this butt cheek, then ‘Morgan’ on this butt cheek.”