Is the Bitch Dead, Or What?

by Wendy Williams

  “Yes, let's talk about you coming back,” he said. “Better yet, let's talk about you not leaving. Okay, so you had a fight with Ritz. But what's back in Florida for you?”

  Tracee didn't want to dredge all of that drama up again. She just wanted to sit there with Randolph. She was so near to him, and she now could really see his face. She knew he was handsome, but he was really handsome up close. Most men had hair bumps, or a crooked tooth somewhere. This man had no flaws— or least none that Tracee could see. Randolph sat there, waiting for an answer.

  “My house is in Florida,” she said. “And I have a few things to take care of with that. Part of my life is there.”

  Randolph looked at Tracee's face as she spoke. He wanted to take in everything about her. He loved the way she smelled, but there was no expensive “scent” lingering from her. It was just her body chemistry, and he couldn't explain it, but it smelled so much better— so much better— than anything he had ever smelled from a bottle.

  He ran his hand across the side of her face, tucking some of her soft curls behind her ear.

  The place where his hand touched her face left a searing hot spot. It was like electricity shooting through her body.

  Tracee knew immediately that she had it bad for him. She was trying to tell him what happened earlier that evening, but she couldn't remember anything she had said once he touched her hair.

  Tracee stood up. “Randolph, can I get you something to drink? I have water and I have… water.”

  He burst out laughing. “Thanks. I think I'll have some water.”

  Before she was able to get up and go get the water, Randolph reached out and grabbed her hand.

  “Trace, look, I want to just say that I don't want you to leave. I have more of a bond with you than I've ever had with anyone. You can't go back to Florida. Not yet. I'll get the water. You just sit and relax and think about it.”

  Randolph went to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. He handed her one as he settled on the step right below her.

  “Rand, you're making this very tough for me,” Tracee said.

  “Good! Now stay.”

  “I want to go and just clear my head. I feel like I've been through a battle and I need to get better, get strong again. I lost my best friend— twice. I am going to lose a woman who is like a mother to me. Maddie doesn't have much time left. I know that. How brave she is. And she loves Ritz so much— so much.

  “Then there is Uncle Cecil. Seeing him breaks my heart. He's in the middle of it all. What a good man, what a strong man. It makes me want to strangle Ritz, to see how callous and immature she has been to them.

  “Then there is a murderer out there somewhere, who may try to kill Ritz again. It's too much. I just need a little break,” Tracee said, as tears started burning her eyes.

  She didn't realize how much of a bundle of raw nerves she was. Her Christian walk was getting tougher and tougher these last couple of days. She got up from the steps and went down to the couch, where she put her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Randolph sat down on the couch next to her and pulled her over so that her head rested on his lap. He watched a tear fall into her right ear, and while he wished he could do something to make her feel better, he knew the best thing to do was listen.

  Neither of them spoke. Tracee looked up at Randolph, and he looked at her. The quiet between them was long but not awkward— it was a beautiful, comfortable silence. The feelings they had for each other lingered in the air, certain and understood. Tracee reached up and gently guided his mouth to hers. She kissed him lightly.

  Randolph could taste the salt as he kissed her eyes before letting his tongue part her lips gently. Tracee kissed him, forgetting everything that pained her soul. She didn't remember when they stopped. She seemed to doze off and float into a place of peace.

  Later, when she opened her eyes, Randolph was behind her on the oversized sectional, holding her, hugging her. She had never felt more secure.

  At three in the morning the phone rang, waking both of them. Tracee recognized the number from the hospital.

  “Hello?” Tracee knew the familiar voice, and there was something terribly wrong with it.

  “Tracee, this is Uncle Cecil. Maddie's gone, Trace. Mad-die's gone.”

  32

  Ritz had Jamie running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

  “Jamie! Get me my diet Pepsi! I need it now!” she yelled from her basement studio. “I also need more pillows. I need more pillows!”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. She was thisclose to quitting for the third time since she started working with Ritz. The contempt for her boss was overflowing. Jamie was grateful for the promotion to assistant producer and the regular paycheck. She was grateful for the opportunity to learn so much. But she was getting tired of being treated like a peon by Ritz. And being at Ritz's place practically twenty-four/seven was wearing very thin on Jamie.

  However, there was a part of her that was okay with keeping so busy. At least she didn't think about Derek.

  “Jamie!” It seemed like a constant rant coming from Ritz, who seemed to need something every second. Jamie was waiting for Ritz to start ringing a bell to beckon her.

  She brought down the drinks and the pillows and set up the computer so that Ritz could communicate with Aaron and the studio. Jamie also made sure that all of the ringers on all of the phones were turned off. Ritz was going to sound like she was in the studio even if she wasn't. There would be no distractions.

  She had the television, tuned to CNN Headline News, on mute. She kept that on for breaking headlines. Ritz wanted to make sure she was on top of everything. If the world blew up, she would know and immediately let her audience know.

  Jamie did a test with the studio to make sure that Ritz's voice levels were perfect and to make sure there was no feedback, which could be really distracting. It was two minutes to showtime. It had felt like two eternities since Ritz Harper was on the air, and she was nervous.

  “Let's rock and roll!” she screamed into her headset before her theme music started. Ritz was a bundle of excitement.

  On Air.

  “I mean, whose side are you on, Jen's or Brad's?” It was a cheesy question, Ritz knew. It was an old and tired topic, too. This she also knew. But it was one that Ritz could guarantee brought some calls once she put her spin on it. She needed to get back into the flow with her audience, so she decided to take an easy path and work her way in slowly the first hour. She had a trick up her sleeve for hour two that would definitely make headlines. But for now, it was Jen and Brad.

  “Oh, this is so tired,” Ritz continued. “Are we still talking about this? Who cares, really? I definitely don't. But I've been away for a while and you all haven't had the pleasure of getting my analysis of the whole affair. So get your pens and some paper, and Mother is going to break it all down for you right now and tell you what really happened. And what's great about this is that it's a lesson for all you women out there.

  “Okay, ready? Jennifer Aniston never wanted to have a baby with Brad Pitt, because she knew somewhere deep inside that he was a low-down, dirty cheat who couldn't keep his wanker in his pants for more than twenty minutes. I will list his girlfriends— the women who came before Jennifer Aniston. You will need a couple sheets of paper for this. Okay. He dated Robin Givens— remember her, Mike Tyson's punching bag… I mean wife? That gives him a little extra credit, because it shows that he's an equal-opportunity screwer. He went out with Gwyneth Paltrow (the two starred together in the movie Seven). He bedded Jill Schoelen, who was his costar in some unmemorable movie called Cutting Class. Nine months later he was on Juliette Lewis, another costar in another lousy NBC movie called Too Young to Die. The strangest thing is that whomever he dated he started to morph into. He starts to look like his girlfriends.

  “Juliette Lewis was going through this ‘goth,' freakish look, and Brad looked weird, just like her. When he was married to Jen, his hair was ashy blond, like hers.
Now it is

  Angelina Jolie dark brown. I find this a little odd, but hey, to each his own, right?

  “He also dated Julia Ormond, his Legends of the Fall costar. Then he met and married Jennifer, then he met, screwed, and had a baby with his Mr. and Mrs. Smith costar, Angelina Jolie.

  “Now, I understand why Jennifer Aniston got with Brad. Ladies, can I get a witness? And all you ‘how you doin's' out there, holla! He is the sexiest man in the world— of any race or ethnicity. Tell me you haven't seen those naked pictures of him in Playgirl?! Yummy. Okay, okay… he ain't packing like the brothers. But I suspect that there is more ‘there' than meets the eye. I have seen things go from dud to ‘whoa buddy!' and surprise the hell out of me before. I think Brad Pitt is in that category. But to tell you the truth, just looking at him and that freaking perfect body makes me not really care whether he's packing or not. Um, we're going to have to go to commercial or a song or something while I get me some ice water. And I'm not drinking it, either!”

  Aaron took his cue, played “Ay, Papi Chulo!” and started a commercial set.

  Ritz smiled to herself. She was in her element, getting back in the game. She would prefer to be in the studio, but at least she was on the air again. She didn't know whether she would be rusty, whether the audience would be ready for her to return. There were a lot of unknowns. But the display on her laptop computer that was loaded with “assistant producer software,” giving her a direct link into the studio's computer, showed her that the audience was still there. She hadn't even asked a real question and every line was lit. Her adrenaline was pulsing through her body. Being on the air again was better than any drug or any man she had ever put in her body.

  She was getting pumped up for the bombshell she was going to drop in hour two. She wanted to take her audience by surprise. It involved a rapper and his wife. It was a story that came to Ritz simply because she was Ritz. People in hospitals, nurses and even doctors, folks who worked in hotels, waiters and hostesses in restaurants— were all her informants. She was able to get the dirt on just about anybody, because people wanted to be in Ritz's good graces. She realized she didn't need Chas as much anymore; she had more than ten million Chases spread out over thirty-plus states.

  One of her informants gave her a nice, juicy tidbit that nobody knew. Ritz was back. She was back and more explosive than ever. She had gotten a tip about a Grammy-winning singer who was checking into a health spa, but it was actually rehab. The music world hadn't had this kind of scandal since they found out that Whitney was on crack—er, um, cocaine (because “crack is wack!”). This multiplatinum singer, who had endorsements with the Disney company, was known to be a bit eccentric, showing up on the red carpet in outlandish outfits. Now Ritz was going to tie her strange behavior to cocaine abuse.

  Ritz also had more dirt on Hardcore, the former hot rapper who used to be one of Tracee's artists. Ritz had outed him last year and ruined his career. The worst thing for a hardcore gangster rapper was to be rumored to be gay. Now she had him linked up with another famous rapper. It was so juicy, Ritz could hardly wait until Wednesday to drop that bomb.

  Or maybe, I'll save this until Friday, she thought. Give them something to talk about over the weekend.

  No thought was given to Tracee. Ritz wasn't trying to think about anything but her mission ahead— to be back on top.

  Jamie was trying to settle in. She spent most of the time in the room Ritz had for her. It was a beautiful bedroom, bigger than her own, with the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in, but Jamie wasn't comfortable there.

  Ritz appreciated the company. She felt safe having someone in the house. But Jamie was very standoffish. She was sad. Ritz would ask her about it, maybe. Actually, she thought more about Jamie's boyfriend and hoped he would stop by some night to see her. She didn't know how she would do it, but Ritz had to have Derek again.

  After another successful show went off without a hitch, Jamie retired to her room after asking if Ritz needed anything. Ritz was exhausted. The adrenaline of being back on the air had carried her over the last few days, but it was all catching up with her.

  “I don't need a thing, Jamie,” Ritz said. “Just some sleep. I'm turning the ringer off on the phone. I don't want to be disturbed. I'm going to be out for the next twelve hours.”

  “Okay, see you tomorrow,” Jamie said, closing Ritz's bedroom door behind her.

  The knock was so hard, it jolted Ritz out of her sleep.

  “What the fuck!” she said, looking at her clock and seeing that it was a little after three in the morning.

  The knock came again.

  “Yes!” Ritz screamed. “What the fuck is the matter?!”

  Jamie cracked the door.

  “I am sorry to bother you, but it's your uncle. He's on the phone,” she said. “He needs to speak with you.”

  Ritz grabbed the phone next to her bed.

  “Uncle Cecil?” she said, hearing the click on the other end as Jamie hung up the phone in the guest room.

  “Ritz? Ritz?” he stammered. “It's your aunt. She's gone.”

  Ritz was stunned. She knew her aunt was sick, but Ritz never imagined her dying— especially not dying before she had a chance to see her one last time. Ritz had been meaning to get by to see her again. She was going to go earlier in the day, but she was all caught up with getting back on the air. She was caught up with her life. She figured she would have time.

  Ritz meant to have a heart-to-heart with Aunt Maddie. While they had reconciled, there was still so much more to say. And she knew Aunt Maddie wanted to talk to her about something, about Randolph. About her father.

  But the truth was, Ritz didn't really feel like talking— not about that. She also didn't like seeing her aunt like that. She didn't like how weak Maddie was, how sick she was. After spending so many weeks in the hospital herself, Ritz just didn't want to go back there— not even for her aunt. But it was over now.

  “Uncle Cecil, I'm sorry,” said Ritz. “Don't you worry about a thing. I'll be right there. I will be right there, Uncle Cecil. I'll take care of everything.”

  Ritz hadn't driven since she got out of the hospital, but she found her keys on the island in the kitchen, started up her Aston Martin, and headed to the hospital. She would take care of everything. Aunt Maddie would have a queen's send-off. Ritz was not going to spare a single expense.

  33

  Ritz sat in the front pew, wearing the fiercest black Moschino dress she could find with such short notice. Actually, Chas found it, pulling a favor with one of his stylist friends who worked at Saks Fifth Avenue. It was her first appearance in public since the shooting, and while it was not the way she envisioned her public debut, Ritz wanted to make sure she represented herself well. She expected the newspapers and television outlets to be there in droves. And they were— with reason.

  It had been quite a week for Ritz. She kicked it off with her first week back on the air. Through a tip from a listener, Ritz found out that the wife of Phaze One, a giant in the rap world, who crossed over to make hit movies and even a successful run in a television sitcom, had been diagnosed with cancer. It was such a big secret that family members of Phaze

  One's wife were unaware of her condition. But Ritz Harper knew, and she put it on blast. She attempted to sound concerned for the woman, who was a beauty in her own right and a top model before she married Phaze One. Ritz sounded really sympathetic when she talked about the “poor woman's hair” falling out.

  “That chemotherapy just ravages the body,” she said with a pang of recognition, as she thought of her own aunt suffering the same fate. The irony. But Ritz wouldn't let it go. This was one time when perhaps her own circumstances would call for her not to go where she was going. But once again, her desire to be the baddest bitch alive made her ignore the obvious.

  “The doctors say she has less than six months to live,” Ritz continued with her monologue, directing Aaron to play sad music in the background. “Phaze One, I hear
, already has a replacement waiting in the wings, though. Hmm. Now, that's really sad.”

  That was when she went too far. When Ritz came back from the break, the studio notified her that she had a call waiting for her. It was Phaze One.

  “Oooh, goody,” Ritz said with glee. “Put him on!”

  “But, Ritz, I don't know about this,” Aaron said. “He sounds pretty angry.”

  “That's even better!”

  Chas, who was in the studio, couldn't help but smile. That damn Ritz is too much! he thought. But he was loving every minute of it. He forgot the adrenaline rush that went with what she brought to the table. No one else was like Ritz. No one.

  Aaron looked at Chas, his last line of defense. And Chas gave the nod to put Phaze One on the air.

  “Boy, you better be quick on that button,” Chas said to Aaron. “I know we are going to need every one of those seconds on that six-second delay with this one. You better not miss a beat, Aaron.”

  “I got this! I got this!” Aaron said.

  Ritz welcomed everyone back.

  “And I hear we have a special guest on the line. Phaze One, welcome to the Ritz Harper Excursion. First, let me tell you how sorry we are to hear about your wife,” Ritz said, putting on the sweetest voice she could muster.

  “Bitch, miss me with all of that bullshit!” he said. Aaron was able to bleep out the “bullshit!”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?! You are talking about a woman who has a family and children. Do you not give a fuck who you ruin?! What is up with you, bitch? What is your problem?!”

  “I'm sorry, Phaze One, I don't understand. How did I ruin anyone by reporting the truth? Your wife does have cancer, doesn't she?”

  “And why is that any of your fucking business?”

  “Well, you're a public figure. And people are concerned. They want to know.”