Truth or Dare

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  “So, you got me covered?” I asked my cousin.

  He blew an exasperated breath. “You know I got you, but I don’t want to hear any flak when I tell you to do something for me,” he warned.

  “Of course you won’t,” I said. Yeah, right, I really wanted to say.

  “A’ight, I’ll be by the station to pick you up after I get this taken care of.”

  “Thanks, cuz,” I told him.

  I hung up, did a few more things around my office, and was just about to go talk to Tamara when I bumped right into Evian in the doorway of my office.

  “Maya,” she said, giving me a fake air kiss. I didn’t return it.

  “Evian, what’s going on?” I looked around. “What are you doing back here? We don’t have another interview, do we?”

  She laughed as she looked to her left, then her right. “Oh, just searching around, seeing which one of these”—she leaned in and looked inside my office—“I want for my office.”

  “Excuse me?”

  As if she needed to make sure I didn’t miss a word, Evian looked directly at me. “Tamara told me to just pick a room.” She looked directly at me. “Any room. And I’m kinda sorta feeling yours.”

  “You got me messed up,” I found myself saying. “If you think you’re moving in to my office, you’d better think again.” Why would Evian even need an office? Surely, she was just saying something to get under my skin.

  “Now, now,” Evian said, wagging her finger. “Don’t get testy. I don’t like your office anyway because it’s facing the west. I need sunshine coming in to my office.”

  “Why are you even getting an office?” I asked.

  “Oh, you hadn’t heard?” she said with a huge grin. “I need an office because I’m getting a show.”

  The look on my face must’ve told her that I had no idea because she continued with her cheesy grin. “They told me they’d be discussing it with you. I’d think you’d be happy for me, but Wade—”

  “Who is Wade?” I asked, cutting her off.

  She giggled again, sounding like a stupid broken mechanical doll. “Oh, I’m sorry. You know him as Mr. Hampton, the station manager. Well, Mr. Hampton had some fabulous ideas for my show.”

  “Really?” I folded my arms and glared at her. “So, Wade is giving input into your show?”

  “Yep,” she said, excitedly. “I’m so looking forward to all the stuff they have planned for me.”

  I paused, then said, “Evian, you know I don’t have a beef with you, so as your friend—”

  “Oh, you’re my friend now?” she said, cutting me off.

  “Yes, as your friend,” I stressed, “I feel that I need to warn you that this is a rough business. It’s only so long your kidnapping crisis will be front-page news.”

  “Oh, I know that.” She waved me off. “But I also have many other talents and now that I have my own show, the world is about to see. What’s the matter, Maya? Are you feeling threatened?”

  That actually made me laugh. “Why in the world would I feel threatened by you?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me,” Evian replied. “I was just wondering what it was about me that made you feel so insecure.”

  I faced her. “Trust and believe, I am not insecure. I see you up in here and I know what you’re doing.”

  She glanced at me, losing her smile. “Tell me, Maya, what am I doing?”

  “You’re trying to parlay your fifteen minutes of fame into a career, but there was a reason Miami Divas got cancelled. It’s because you other broads were boring.”

  “Wow,” Evian said. “Us ‘other broads.’ ”

  She stepped closer to me. “Well, let me tell you something about this broad. This broad knows how to play the game and yes, I milked my kidnapping crisis as you said, for all it’s worth and”—she looked at a piece of paper that I just now noticed she was holding—“ judging by my new contract, it’s worth a lot.” She leaned back and looked in my office again. “On second thought, maybe I’ll tell Tamara that I do want this office after all.”

  “Girl, bye!” I said.

  The day she got my office would be the day Martians invaded the earth. It just wasn’t happening.

  “Well, I would love to sit here and continue to listen to your little jealous rant.”

  “I am not jealous of you.”

  “Call it what you want.” She shifted her Birkin bag to her other arm. “But I must go. Hair and makeup are waiting for my promotional photo shoot. Holla at your girl,” she said, using my tag line for my show as she strutted off.

  I swear I felt like taking my Louboutin off and hurling it at the back of her head.

  Instead, I made a beeline to Tamara’s office. These people were on some kind of special drug if they were seriously considering letting Evian have a show, and I was definitely about to let them know how I felt about that outrageously stupid decision.

  Chapter 21

  “Maya, what are you doing?”

  I ignored Kelley, Tamara’s secretary, as I marched straight to her door. “You can’t go in there. She’s in there with Dexter.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, not breaking my stride. “She’s always in there with Dexter. But it’s cool because I need to talk to both of them.”

  I flung the door open before Kelley could get out of her seat. She should’ve known by the look in my eyes, I was on a mission, and nothing, or no one, was going to stop me.

  “Well, come on in, Maya,” Tamara sarcastically said as she looked up from her computer. Dexter was sitting in front of her desk, his legs crossed, looking like a fashion reject in his super-tight skinny jeans and neon yellow T-shirt.

  “What’s up, Maya?” Dexter said with a smirk.

  I ignored him and turned to Tamara. “Is it true that Evian is getting her own show?”

  The two of them exchanged glances, and that gave me my answer.

  Tamara pointed to the chair next to Dexter. “Maya, have a seat, please.”

  “I don’t need to have a seat.” I folded my arms defiantly. “Is it true that she’s getting her own show?” I repeated.

  Tamara looked at Dexter like she wanted him to jump in. He diverted his eyes so she looked back at me.

  “Yes, she is,” Tamara admitted.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” I yelled. “So you guys are really buying into this scam she has going?”

  “We don’t think it’s a scam,” Tamara said. “She has a unique story.”

  “No,” I retorted, “she had something bad happen to her and she’s trying to capitalize on it.”

  Dexter shrugged. “Whatever. So are we. The bottom line is, the girl is good.”

  “No, the girl is trying to parlay a tragedy into fifteen minutes of fame,” I corrected.

  “And it’s working,” Dexter added. “The show she was on was one of Rumor Central’s highest rated, and she’s one of the most talked about people on TMZ.”

  “Really?” I said. “Nobody outside of Miami even knows who Evian is.”

  “I beg to differ,” he said, taking a magazine and tossing it on the desk in front of me.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s an article featuring Evian,” he said.

  I picked it up. “Oh, my God, this is People.”

  “Exactly,” Dexter replied.

  I stared at Tamara. “Evian is in People magazine?” I asked her. Yeah, I was definitely salty about that. I hadn’t even made People magazine.

  “ ‘Her harrowing story,’ ” I said, reading the headline. “Oh, give me a break! Like she’s the first girl to ever get kidnapped.”

  “She is one of the few celebrities to get kidnapped and live to tell about it,” Tamara said.

  “She’s not a celebrity,” I snapped. “She’s rich, yes. She hangs with celebrities, yes. But she’s not a celebrity.”

  “When you were on Miami Divas, did you consider yourself a celebrity?” Tamara asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  “No b
uts. She is a celebrity and her story is interesting.”

  I couldn’t believe Tamara, as smart as she had appeared to be, was falling for Evian’s game.

  “So, what will you do when the novelty has worn off?” I asked. “When nobody’s interested in Evian’s story any longer?”

  “Good careers are built on stories of the moment. That’s when you capitalize on them. Of course, we know we can’t hype this up forever. This is just to jumpstart things,” Tamara said.

  “Right, we don’t expect to ride it out forever,” Dexter added. “But we need to hop on the wave and ride it till it fizzles.”

  “So, you’re going to build a whole show around this foolishness?” I was still trying to wrap my mind around everything.

  “Evian isn’t the same person that was on Miami Divas. She has spunk, and now”—he tapped on his phone and held it out for me to see—“she has five hundred and twelve thousand followers on Instagram.”

  “What?” I said, snatching his phone. I only had five hundred thousand followers. How in the world had she surpassed me?

  “So, we think now is the time to capitalize on her notoriety. Build a show around her,” Tamara said. “And I don’t understand what the issue is. It’s not in competition to your show. It will be a completely different type of show. It’s a reality show, following her day-to-day life. Think Jersey Shore or Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but with a twist because she’ll go behind the scenes of her celebrity friends’ homes.”

  My mouth dropped open in disbelief. It’s not like she hung with Kanye, vacationed with Beyoncé. Really?

  No amount of words could convince me that this was a good idea. “So, you’re really going to go through with this?” I asked.

  “You didn’t want her on your show.” Tamara shrugged, like this was all my fault. “So, we had to find a fit for her and we think this is perfect.”

  “Plus,” Dexter added, “it’s already done. We start filming next week.”

  “If Miami Divas didn’t work, what makes you think this will?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  Tamara picked up a stack of papers and dropped them back on her desk. “These Q ratings, they tell us what’s hot and what’s not. And Evian is hot. So her show, All American Princess, debuts soon.”

  I wanted to threaten to quit. Tell them either her or me. But number one, I was under contract and number two, if they called my bluff, I’d be sick. So instead, I just said, “Well, let me go on record as warning you that you are making a big mistake and when it flops, I’ll be the first one there to tell you I told you so.”

  I turned and stormed out the room.

  Chapter 22

  I was still fuming from my conversation with Tamara and Dexter, not to mention Evian’s cockiness. I didn’t know why she was so full of herself because I knew she didn’t think she was going to push me out of my place as the go-to chick at WSVV. I don’t even know what her stupid show was going to be about, but I knew it wouldn’t hold a candle to Rumor Central.

  Since Miami Divas was canceled, Evian must’ve taken some type of personality classes because she had definitely upped her game a notch, but she still wasn’t in my same category.

  “I think you should just let it go,” Kennedi said as she lay across my bed, flipping through a magazine. Kennedi had just gotten in town a few hours ago and I’d literally spent the whole time complaining about Evian.

  “No, this isn’t sitting right with me,” I said as I paced back and forth across my bedroom. “I don’t want this chick to think she can get to me.”

  Sheridan shrugged. “Just let her have her fifteen minutes of fame. Her show isn’t going to compete with yours anyway.”

  “Duh,” I said, looking at her like she was crazy. “I know that, but I don’t understand how she can blow up like that almost overnight, all because she was kidnapped.”

  “Unh-unh,” Kennedi said. She sat up on the bed. “The more I think about it, something about this isn’t passing the smell test to me.”

  Both Sheridan and I stopped and turned to look at her.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. Kennedi was usually the skeptical one, but she was often right on point.

  She turned up her lips. “I don’t know, it’s just all too convenient if you ask me. Think about it.” Kennedi crossed her legs and got in her thinking position—the one where her mind got to churning as she was trying to figure something out. “So this girl, who just literally faded into nowhere, has now popped back on the scene. Why? Because she was kidnapped. A kidnapping where she wasn’t hurt, they didn’t get any money, and then you, of all people, just so conveniently happened to discover her.”

  “It wasn’t convenient,” I said, trying to figure out where she was going with this. “I had to go digging, remember? We couldn’t find her.”

  “Yeah, but somehow, Shay miraculously just happened to locate her. I mean, how hard did you really have to dig?” Kennedi asked. “Think about it. Did you ever see a GPS tracer? No, you just took her word. And who goes up to a drug-dealing kidnapper’s house in a foreign country without a second thought? Somebody who’s not really scared, that’s who.”

  I stopped. I hadn’t thought about that.

  “Like I said, just too convenient,” Kennedi replied.

  “So what, you think this was some kind of setup or that Evian staged her own kidnapping?” Sheridan asked.

  She shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But I am saying that something just doesn’t seem right, and if I were you, before I went throwing in the towel, I’d figure out what it is.”

  “Oh, trust, I’m not throwing in the towel,” I said.

  Kennedi lay back down. “I would just try to figure out what’s going on.”

  “And how do I do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She started flipping through her magazine again. “You said Evian’s brother’s assistant was quite nosey. Why don’t you go talk to her?”

  “Yeah, right. If she works for them, no way she’s going to give up any information.”

  “Aren’t you the queen of getting information from people?” Sheridan asked.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Well, then get on your job,” Kennedi said, waving her hand like she was tired of talking about this.

  “Kennedi is right. If anybody can get that woman to talk, Maya Morgan can,” Sheridan said.

  I thought about what they were saying. Something didn’t seem right and I needed to do exactly like Kennedi said and start digging. I was going to start with that assistant, but I knew I needed to play it real careful because Evian’s family wasn’t one to be messed with.

  Chapter 23

  I sat in my car, parked outside of Javid’s corporate offices, hoping that Delana wasn’t one of those workaholics who grabbed a sandwich at her desk and worked right through her lunch break. I’d called her office yesterday and her voice mail had said she was out to lunch from twelve to one, so I’d skipped my own lunch, trying to catch her as she left, but she’d never shown.

  Still, I’d come back today, determined, that sooner or later, she would have to leave the building. I knew I was messing up because I’d gotten a text from Sheridan that we’d had a pop quiz in fourth period. Oh, well. There was nothing I could do about it now.

  I pushed aside thoughts of how much trouble I was about to be in at school and glanced at the clock, trying to decide how much time I was going to give Delana today before I called this whole idea a bust. As soon as I looked down, I noticed a redheaded woman bounce out of the front door of the office building. I’d had to Google Delana to see what she looked like and thankfully, there was one picture online. (Like seriously, though, who only had one picture on Google?) Thankfully, there was no mistaking that bright red hair.

  I hoped that Delana wasn’t going to run errands through her whole lunch break and that she was actually planning to sit down and eat somewhere so that I could talk to her. But I was prepared to approach her wherever I needed to. Now, I didn’t know e
xactly what I was going to say to her. But if I was lucky, maybe she’d get to rattling on about how Evian hadn’t really been kidnapped, or had paid off the kidnappers or some other story.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as Delana turned her little Ford Focus into the Chick-fil-A restaurant, whipped into a parking space, then made her way inside. I gave her a minute, and then I followed her in. I stood behind her and watched her order, before getting a lemonade and side salad.

  Delana sat over in the corner and pulled out one of those sappy romance novels (she looked like one of those die-hard Harlequin readers).

  I acted like I was passing her table to go find somewhere to sit and eat, but I stopped in front of her and said, “Delana?”

  She looked at me, confused.

  “Hey, girl. How are you?” I asked with a big, cheesy grin.

  “I’m fine. And you?” She smiled warmly, even though it was clear she had no clue who I was.

  “I’m Maya, I’m a friend of Evian’s. I met you at one of their company functions,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said.

  It was almost kinda funny because I’d never met this woman before, but she was smiling and nodding like she was recalling our meeting.

  “Are you eating alone?” I asked.

  “Well, ah . . .”

  I sat down before she could finish. “Good. I hope you don’t mind me sitting here, joining you. I’m just going to wolf this down because I only have about ten minutes.”

  That seemed to put her at ease. I guess she felt she could give me ten minutes because she closed her novel.

  “I just left Evian,” I said. “We had a major test today. I finished mine early and came to grab something to eat.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I still didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but something about this woman told me if there was some dirt to be known, she knew it. But I knew I needed to play my cards just right.

  “I sure do love your hair color,” I told her. “Did you dye it?”

  She grinned proudly as she fluffed her big ringlets. “Girl, no. I was born with this natural head full of red hair.”