Lights, Love & Lip Gloss

by Ni-Ni Simone

  “The sooner you can get this god-awful weight off and we can get you back on the runway and onto the covers of all the fashion magazines where you belong . . . You were born to be in front of the camera . . .”

  Still, some of the models I’d seen since being here looked like crack whores in couture. Many of them stood over six feet tall. They were needle thin with sunken cheeks and protruding collarbones, speed racing off of caffeine and nicotine. Most of them, ice queens, shot daggers of icicles at me as I was led through the sea of miserable haters to my next photo shoot. From what I’ve overheard while waiting for casting calls among models vying for the same shoot, campaign, etc., many of them were snorting lines of coke and popping uppers to stay wafer-thin and to keep up with the grueling hours that went along with being a high-fashion print-ad model.

  “Oh, my darling London. I am so proud of you!” My mother had bubbled over with joy in the backseat of the stretch Benz during the ride over here at six o’clock this morning. “You are going to be the next hottest thing. Sei bella, mia cara Londra!” She beamed as she stroked the side of my face, telling me how beautiful I was. “You are absolutely perfect.”

  I almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of that word. Perfect. The perfect oxymoron, if I’d ever heard one. There was nothing perfect about me. Nothing perfect about this world I’d been thrust into.

  No. There was definitely nothing perfect about this life.

  If it were, I’d be pencil thin instead of curvy like a dangerously winding hillside. I’d have ant-size breasts instead of the melon-sized jugs that fit perfectly in a 34 C-cup. I’d have the derrière of a wood plank instead of a bouncy booty that snapped necks and had a mind of its own, commanding attention without much effort.

  “For the love of God, London, why did you have to ruin your body . . . You just had to go and screw up everything I’ve worked for . . . No one wants a fat, ugly, old-looking girl on their runway . . .”

  While most models craved bee-stung lips, mine were already naturally plump, ripe, and kissable. Although they hadn’t been kissed in two weeks. Still, my beauty was a blessing and a curse. A double-edged sword.

  I’d been longing for the day my mother would look at me with the same pride beaming in her eyes as she did when I was a preteen on the runway. Before the sudden weight gain. Before the setback, as my mother called it. Before the swell of my breasts and the roundness of my hips morphed my body into that of an Amazon. A statuesque brick house.

  I was thirteen when I first graced the cover of Vogue Italia. Seven months later, I was swelling like an angry river, bursting out of my size zero, quickly ballooning to a size four, then six, then eight.

  “You’re nothing now. You’ll never be anything . . . At the rate you’re going, you’ll never make it on the runway. You’ll only be good enough to shake and bounce for rap videos. . .”

  Those were more of her cutting words to me, on many occasions. That is how she viewed me. That is how she felt about me. And although I knew she loved me, I also knew that love, her love, came with unrelenting conditions. And most times with unbearable consequences.

  No, there was no room for imperfection when you had a mother like Jade Obi Phillips, who expected nothing less than perfection. The perfect P’s, according to my mother, were: Poise. Posture. Position. Then tack on the perfect image, the perfect body, the perfect skin, the perfect set of teeth, the perfect partner, and the perfect station in life. Follow this mantra, and you were guaranteed the perfect life, according to the world of Jade.

  Yes, my mother loved me. But she’d always love the perfect me more. . .

  “London, darling. . . smile . . .” My mother’s voice drifted over toward me as the photographer tried to have me flash a toothy grin with my head slightly tilted to the right while one foot was lifted off the floor in back of me. Her tone was light and airy but laced with a tinge of attitude as she stood behind the photographer, like a backseat driver, trying to coax me, coach me, and get on my last damn nerve.

  I forced a tight smile. I felt a headache pounding its way into the center of my forehead. But I had to get through this. Had to get this finished, the sooner the better. “Blow a kiss into the camera . . . Hold the bottle up closer to your cheek . . . Give me attitude . . . Now lick your lips and give me Pink Heat, doll . . .”

  I cringed. Doll? How cheesy!

  The photographer, speaking in his thick Italian-accented English, was dangerously handsome for a man in his thirties. Tanned and built like an Adonis. But he was a horny toad who winked and licked his lips on the sly every chance he got! I simply rolled my eyes. Or pretended not to notice. Look but don’t touch!

  I tried to stay focused, tried to steel myself for the dazzling whiteness of the camera’s flash. But I couldn’t. My mind kept swinging back and forth between Justice—the one true love of my life, whom my parents despised . . . to Rich—my supposed bestie, who I hadn’t heard from since I’d gotten here and who had not kept one Skype date with me for whatever reason . . . to Anderson—my parent-approved boyfriend who was refusing to take my calls because I couldn’t and wouldn’t choose between him and Justice. And to think I had kissed him. That I had lifted up on my tiptoes and pulled his face down to mine in the middle of a dance floor at his fraternity’s campus party and was kissing him, my tongue slipping into his wet mouth. And he was kissing me back. And everything was heating. Everything was melting. And I was caught up in the flames. God, I hated him!

  I hated him for everything he was. Smart. Articulate. Handsome. Thoughtful. I hated him for being a good kisser. Hated the way his strong arms felt around me. Hated him for taking my mind off of Justice, my off-again on-again boyfriend. The only boy I’d ever loved. The only boy I’d ever given myself to. The only boy who’d ever had my heart. And I hated Anderson for making me feel messy and sexy at the same time; for making my mind replay his hands wandering all over my body when I should only be thinking of Justice.

  I had cheated on my man. So, yes, I hated my faux boyfriend, Anderson, for managing, with one kiss—okay, okay, three kisses—to ruin my life. I was a cheater.

  And speaking of Justice, why haven’t I heard from him? I have gotten not one call or text from him in almost four days. Four days! Four fricking loooooong excruciating days of not hearing his voice or seeing his handsomely rugged face on FaceTime or Skype was killlllling me!

  And I had my mother to thank for my misery.

  In less than two weeks, she had managed to turn my whole world upside down, inside out, and every which way in between. She’d literally stripped me of my life. And she had no damn care in the world.

  “Londra, fare l’amore per la fotocamera,” Luke shouts in Italian, suggesting I make love to the camera. Ohmygod! How vulgar!

  I sighed.

  My mother shot me a scathing look that read Do. Not. Try. Me. You had better pretend this is where you want to be.

  Before I could put on my mask and get with the program, my mother asked the photographer and his crew if she could have a moment alone with me. To motivate me, she claimed.

  “What in the world is wrong with you, London?” she snapped when she thought everyone was out of earshot.

  “I want to go home.”

  She blinked. “For the next two weeks, this is your home. Get used to it.”

  I pouted. “I miss my friends.”

  She scoffed. “Trust me. Those spoiled little girls back at Hollywood High aren’t losing any sleep over you. Their worlds are going on without you. As a matter of fact, I bet you haven’t heard from any of your so-called friends since you’ve been here. Have you?”

  I folded my arms and turned away from her. I was done. However, my silence only encouraged her to continue her babbling.

  “London,” she hissed, grabbing me by the arm and turning me to her, “what would you rather do, huh? Hang with some loudmouth attention whore, is that it? Rich will have to buy her way out of school because she’s been raised to be a mattress for the richest fool
who’ll have her. The only thing she’ll ever be good for is performing Cirque du Soleil acrobatics in some boy’s bed, having babies, and carrying razors under her slithering tongue—”

  I snapped my neck in my mother’s direction. “Mother, do I talk about any of your friends, huh? Oh, wait. You don’t have any.” I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t care what Rich does with her life. That’s not my concern. She’s my friend.”

  My mother laughed in my face. “In this industry there is no room for friends, my darling daughter. Friends stab you in the back. This is a cutthroat business. You have enemies and allies. Nothing more. Do you think I made it as far as I have, being concerned about having friends? No. I made it to the top of my game by knowing the difference between friendships and alliances. Trust me. Rich doesn’t know the first thing about being a friend. That girl is nobody’s friend. And she’s definitely not yours, darling. So the sooner you get that through that luscious head of yours, the better.”

  I sucked my teeth. “I don’t care. I want to go home.”

  “And do what, huh? Become some double-chin piglet with ankles the size of ham hocks, wobbling off to some godforsaken factory job? You want to be some big biscuit-eating, dimpled-butt oaf with saggy air-bag breasts, like your father’s side of the family? Would you rather scrub toilets for a living, is that it, London? I am trying to help you build a legacy. Not help you piss your life away on some two-dollar pipe dream of doing God knows what else other than what you were destined to do.”

  For a moment I had . . . Absolutely. No. Words. Was she effen serious?

  She continued, “This is your life, London. So you had better get used to it. Now, if you don’t want this life, then speak now so I can make arrangements to have you shipped off to England to boarding school. Because, make no mistake, my darling daughter. You will not be returning to Hollywood High. Now pick a door. And choose it very wisely. Because the choice you make today will be the one you will have to live with. Now, be the darling I know you can be. Make your mother proud. Give me what I want, London, or I make the next two years of your life a living hell.”

  I blinked. Dear God, what have I done to deserve this? Have I sinned that bad?

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to stomp. Wanted to pound my fists. Wanted to kick. Have a full-fledged tantrum. Wanted to defy every last one of my mother’s beauty rules and have a pig fest, eating up everything in sight. What I wouldn’t have done to kick off my heels and flee and never look back. What I wouldn’t do to be able to hide out in my suite and sit cross-legged on my king-size Baldacchino Supreme bed amid cake crumbs and smeared bowls of Chunky Monkey ice cream.

  I’d do anything to be at the Saddle Ranch on Sunset Boulevard, sinking my teeth into a big, juicy T-bone steak. Better yet, what I wouldn’t do to be back at Muddy Moments, a run-down hole-in-the-wall in San Diego, with Rich and her future ex-boo, Knox, and Anderson, sucking down on a platter of their infamous honey-coated hot wings and a slab of ribs. And I didn’t even eat anything off of a pig.

  Yes, yes, yes! I’d kill to scarf down a family-size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a bag of Oreos . . . then I’d beg the evil fat gods to spare me from gaining an ounce. I’d boldly do all of those things then I’d post pictures of my lips slathered with chicken grease and rib sauce and dusted with doughnut powder all up on Instagram.

  My mother wanted perfect. I’d show her a perfect mess! And for the grand finale, I’d give her my perfect escape.

  “Well,” my mother huffed impatiently. “I’m waiting. Now, what’s it going to be, London, the runway or boarding school? The clock is ticking.”

  I swallowed, then begrudgingly replied, “The runway.”

  She fussed with the big curl at the end of my bang that swooped along my jawline. “I knew you’d see it my way. Now go take a moment to get your thoughts together. And when you come back out here, you had better be in the mindset to serve it to the camera. Do I make myself clear?”

  I clenched my teeth. “Perfectly.” I briskly walked off as she stood there saying something slick and crazy in Italian about me being a selfish, ungrateful brat. Whatever.

  One of the many assistants swarming around the photo shoot rudely thrust a large white envelope at me as I made my way toward the makeshift lounge area. She said it was sent via courier. Curious, I stared for several seconds at the envelope with its typed address label, wondering who’d sent me mail. I turned it over, pulling the tab and opening it. Inside was a manila envelope with a set of large eyes elaborately drawn in black ink on the front of it. On the back in red ink the words FOR YOUR WEEPING EYES ONLY was written across the seal.

  WTH? I reached over for a fingernail file someone left on the table and slit open the envelope, pulling out the items inside: photos.

  I blinked. OMG! What the fu . . . ?

  I glanced at the anonymously photographed images of the nude chick in the on-all-fours pornographic poses. There was a tattoo of a colorful butterfly just above her booty crack. I blinked, blinked again. Ohno ohno ohno . . . I felt my stomach lurching as I stared at the guy’s hand on the chick’s naked booty cheek. Right on the webbed part between his thumb and forefinger was a tattoo of a small black dagger with red drops of blood dripping from its tip.

  I screamed, crumpling the pictures tight in my fist.

  It was Justice’s hand!

  Fiona Madison is everywhere everyone wants to be—and

  she knows just how to keep frenemies, haters, and

  admirers guessing. She keeps it cute and knows how to

  turn a party out no matter how tough things get at

  home—or how lonely she really is. The only relationship

  a guy can have with her is BWB (Boo-With-Benefits).

  Anything more is a major not-going-to-happen. . . . Until

  someone Fiona never sees coming is suddenly too close,

  understands her all too well—and is turning this diva’s

  life upside down...

  Diva Rules

  by Amir Abrams

  Coming in May 2015

  Turn the page for an excerpt from Diva Rules . . .

  1

  Diva check. . .

  Hey, hey now! It’s Diva Roll call . . . Are you present?

  Rude, check...

  Bitchy, check...

  Spoiled, check...

  Selfish, check . . .

  Overdramatic, check, check...

  Scrrrrreeeech! Hold up. That is not what this diva is about. No, hunni! Being a diva is all about attitude, boo. It’s about bein’ fierce. Fabulous. And always fly. It’s about servin’ it up ’n’ keepin’ the haters on their toes. And the rules are simple.

  So, let’s try this again.

  Fiona’s my name. Turning boys out is my game. Fashion’s my life. Being fabulous is my mission. And staying fly is a must. Oh, and, trust. I serve it up lovely. Period, point blank. At five-seven, a buck-twenty-five with my creamy, smooth complexion, blonde rings of shoulder-length curls, and mesmerizing green eyes I’m that chick all the cutie-boos stay tryna see about. I’m that chick with the small waist and big, bouncy booty that all the boys love to see me shake, bounce ’n’ clap. I’m that hot chick that the tricks ’n’ hoes at my school—McPherson High—love to hate; yet hate that they can’t ever be me.

  Like I always tell ’em: “Don’t be mad, boo. I know I give you life. Thank me for giving you something to live for.”

  Conceited?

  No, hun. Never that.

  Confident?

  Yes, sweetie. Always that.

  No, boo. I don’t think I’m the hottest thing since Bey-oncé’s “Drunk In Love” video. I’m convinced I am. Big difference. Snap, snap! Don’t get it twisted.

  Now who’s ready for roll call?

  Always fly, check...

  Always fabulous, check...

  Always workin’ the room, check...

  Always snappin’ necks, check, check...

  Always poppin’ the hips ’n’ turnin’ it up, che
ck, check...

  Wait. Wait. Wait. Let’s rewind this segment alllll the way back for a sec. Yes, I keeps it cute, all day, every day, okay? And, yes, I know how to turn it up when I need to. I’m from the hood, boo. Born ‘n’ bred. But that doesn’t mean I have to be hood. No, honey-boo. I’m too classy for that. Trust. But know this. If I have to let the hood out on you ’n’ introduce you to the other side of me, it ain’t gonna be cute. So don’t bring it ’n’ I won’t have to sling it.

  If you wanna check my credentials, just ask the last chick I had to beat down. She’ll gladly show you the stamp I left in her forehead, okay?

  Soooo. Moving on. As I was saying, I’m from the hood. Lived on the same block, in the same house, all my life. I know these streets like I know the back of my hands ‘n’ the curve of my hips. They can be mean ‘n’ dangerous ‘n’ ohhh, so exciting. And, yeah, the streets might be praising me, but they ain’t raising me. So I’m not about to serve you some effed up tale about a chick being lost in the streets, eaten ’n’ beaten alive. No, no. I’m a hood goddess, boo. That chick the wanna-bees bow down to ’n’ the lil thug daddies worship. But, trust. This ain’t no hood love story. So be clear.

  No, hun. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon hanging from my pouty mouth, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream, either. That doesn’t mean I can’t want more than what I already have. And, yeah, a chick dreams about getting outta the hood. Traveling the world. Bagging a fine cutie-boo, or two, or three, who I can call my own. And being filthy rich. One day I will be. Trust. But for now, that doesn’t mean I can’t wear the illusion like a second skin. And, trust. I wear it well, boo.