Caught Up in the Drama

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

  He shot Maya a skeptical look, then glanced down at his clipboard. A second later his expression changed.

  “You’re good,” he said, stepping aside to let me in. I walked through, and Maya quickly followed. He stuck up his hand. “They wit’ you?” he asked me.

  I nodded, and he stepped aside.

  “What?” Maya said as she sashayed past him, giving him the hand.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Tangie said, all boastful now, bumping me with her hip. “I need to be hanging with you.”

  “Whatever, Tangie,” Maya said.

  The club was unlike anything I’d ever seen. The place was filled with people everywhere. Toya and Tangie quickly headed to the bar. “I know they’re going to get their drink on,” Maya tsked. “You want something?”

  “Ummm, I guess I’ll take a Coke.”

  “A Coke?” Maya looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Yeah.”

  “You want some rum in that?” she asked.

  My eyes grew wide. “Rum?” I had tasted some of my cousin’s strawberry daiquiri one time, but I definitely had never had a drink like a rum and Coke. “Ummm, you do know I’m only seventeen, right?” I asked. Maybe she thought I was older. I didn’t want to seem like a prude, but I didn’t want her getting mad at me because she thought I was older than I actually was.

  “And? I’m only twenty,” Maya giggled. “Besides, I ain’t your mama. Shoot, this is a party. We’re supposed to be getting our drink on.”

  Suddenly I felt very uncomfortable. I mean, I knew a lot of people at my school who drank, but I wasn’t one of them. I remembered this girl who had come to our school freshman year. She was badly disfigured; her face was all burned up. She’d shown us pictures of when she used to be a teenage beauty queen. One night she’d gotten behind the wheel after drinking. She’d had a horrible car crash that had left most of her body burned. Since I didn’t ever want to put myself in a position like that, I stayed away from liquor. That had never been a problem, because the other Good Girlz felt the same way I did.

  “Naw, I’m gonna pass,” I finally said. “Just Coke.”

  “Suit yourself.” Maya shrugged. “Me, I’m about to get my party and my drink on!” She snapped her fingers to the music as it thumped throughout the club.

  I took a seat at a corner table. Everyone looked like they were having the time of their lives, but I couldn’t help but wonder what in the world I’d gotten myself into. In a space crowded with people, I felt all alone.

  That feeling didn’t fade over the next hour. My new “friends” had abandoned me, and I was bored out of my mind. I’d joined Maya and Tangie for a minute, but they’d disappeared. Maya had gone off with some up-and-coming rapper, and Tangie was flirting with every man with pants on. They’d only come and found me when they hadn’t been able to get into the VIP section.

  Now I sat up here alone watching them party like crazy.

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” the waitress said as she came over to me again.

  “No, thanks,” I said, shaking my head. I’d already had three Cokes. I started thinking about what Alexis, Jasmine, Angel and even Tyeesha were doing. I just as quickly shook the thought away, though. I needed to get away from thinking about the Good Girlz. As far as I was concerned, the Good Girlz didn’t exist anymore.

  “So, you wanna tell me why a beautiful girl like you is sitting up here by yourself ?”

  I smiled as I turned to greet the person talking to me. “Hey, Sisco. I was wondering if you were coming.”

  “Of course I’m coming. It’s my birthday party.”

  “I guess you’re right.” I laughed.

  “So why aren’t you dancing with your girls?” he said, motioning to Maya and Tangie, who were now standing on top of a table dancing.

  “They’re not really my girls,” I replied, shrugging.

  “Oh, I forgot,” he said with an exaggerated frown, “you’re one of them sweet girls. They’re probably a little too fast for your taste.” He licked his lips as he looked me up and down.

  I smiled without responding. The last thing I wanted was to get caught up in the middle of some “he said,” “she said” mess.

  “Yo, B, gimme a minute,” he said, motioning to the bodyguard that was always at his side.

  B immediately stepped back, almost fading into the darkness.

  Sisco scooted in close to me. At first my heart skipped, but then I started to feel uncomfortable. He was a little too close.

  “You know, you have a beautiful voice,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  He surprised me as he took a finger and ran it along my thigh. “And I like this whole innocent thing about you,” he said, leaning in. “You know with me being out on the road and stuff, I get tired of the groupie-type chicks.”

  “Oh, no, I’m definitely not a groupie.” I was trying not to stiffen up under that finger.

  “I know, that’s why I’m feeling you.” He leaned back, looked me up and down again, then said, “Not to mention, you fine as all get out.”

  His compliments were flattering, but the way he was looking at me was making me uneasy.

  “So, how does it feel to be twenty-one?” I said, trying to get his gaze off me.

  He shrugged nonchalantly. “Like it did to be twenty.”

  “At least you’re legal now,” I joked, motioning to the bottle of Moët champagne he had in his hand.

  “So? I could drink this even when I wasn’t legal,” he said arrogantly.

  I was kind of shocked, because I had always thought Sisco was one of the good guys. The more I thought about it, though, the more popular he got, the more he seemed to take on this gangsta persona. I wondered if everything he did was an act.

  “Sisco, are you from around here?” I decided to steer the conversation to more neutral ground.

  “Right here. Right now. That’s what I want to talk about,” he said, scooting closer again.

  “I was just making conversation,” I said, scooting away.

  He closed the distance once again. “So, what you think about the video?” He moved a strand of hair out of my face. With him so close, I could smell the strong odor of liquor. He had to be pretty drunk.

  “You, know, about that,” I said. I had been trying to get up the nerve to talk to him about his failure to ask Mark to delete that final scene, but I’d been too scared. Now he’d given me the perfect opening. “I thought you said you were going to talk to someone about taking out that scene.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  He shrugged again. “Oh, well, guess I forgot. But what’s the big deal? I think the scene was hot.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Before I could continue, Sisco leaned in and kissed me hard. It caught me off guard, and I immediately tried to push him off me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What you want me to,” he said, grabbing my shirt so hard that it ripped at the neckline. “You ain’t gotta play innocent with me.”

  I pushed him again, a lot harder. “Get off of me, boy!”

  “Innocent and hard to get.” He stood, violently grabbed my arm and yanked me up out of my seat. “Come on, girl, let’s get out of here and go back to my place.”

  I jerked away. “What part of ‘I’m not going with you’ are you not getting?” My voice was loud, and several people turned to look at us.

  He turned mean. “Look, I’m tired of you chicken head girls leading me on, then tryin’ to act like you don’t know what you’re doin’.” He grabbed me and pinned me up against the wall.

  “You’re hurting me,” I whimpered. His hands were squeezing my arms so hard that I knew it would leave a bruise.

  B finally walked over to us. “Yo, dog, you a’ight?” I was the one pinned up, so why was he trying to see if Sisco was all right?

  “I’m straight,” Sisco said, letting go of me.

  “Well, I�
��m not.” I was shaking, and I wanted to go home.

  “Hey, you need to chill,” B said. “My man don’t want no drama.”

  “Are you for real?” I cried. “Did you just see what he did?”

  Just then a security guard from the club came over. He wasn’t Sisco’s pal. “Miss, are you okay?”

  “No,” I said, glaring at Sisco. He looked like he was daring me to say something.

  “Yo,” B said, stepping up to the guard, “my man and his girl just had a little beef. They’re good.”

  The guard checked with me. “Miss?”

  I really wanted to say something, but everyone was standing around staring at me. They’d seen what he’d done, and they were all looking like I was the bad one.

  I finally let it go. “I’m fine.”

  The guard hesitated.

  “Man, she said she’s straight,” Sisco said.

  The guard, still looking unsure, finally walked off.

  The crowd slowly dispersed. Sisco leaned in and whispered in my ear, “You cool after all. You sure you don’t wanna come back to my place?”

  “Leave me alone,” I muttered.

  Sisco was offended, but he shrugged. “Cool. See you at the shoot tomorrow.” He blew me a kiss, then turned to his bodyguard. “Yo, B, find me another freak to take home.”

  B immediately scurried off and left me all alone, feeling as low as I ever could imagine.

  27

  Camille

  After Sisco left me at the club last night, Maya and Tangie came to do something I’d heard referred to as “spin control.” I don’t know if someone had put them up to it or if they’d just decided to do it on their own, but they immediately started trying to convince me that Sisco was drunk, he hadn’t meant anything, and I needed to get some tougher skin if I wanted to make it in this business.

  The thing was, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to make it in this business anymore.

  Maya had told me I’d be a fool to walk away, because I was going to be the hottest thing that had come out of Houston since Beyoncé. When I told her I couldn’t appreciate Sisco referring to me as a freak, she told me he hadn’t meant anything by it. That was just the way he talked.

  “Hey, Camille,” Taraji said, walking into my dressing room. We were about to shoot a promo for the Hip Hop honors. “Look, I heard what happened last night, but you need to just let that ride. Sisco didn’t mean anything. Those cameras are out there for this promotional shoot, and they’re expecting to see you at Sisco’s side with a smile on your face. So that’s what I’m gonna need.”

  “But—”

  “But grow up,” she snapped. The sympathetic tone she’d had when she’d first walked in was gone. “This is the big leagues now. Just suck it up and keep moving.”

  I wanted to scream at her. When had it become okay for Sisco to be such a jerk? Was anyone going to call him on what he’d done? Somehow, I seriously doubted it.

  “Look, Sisco is sorry.” Taraji handed me a clipboard. “If you can just sign this, saying that you recognize it was all a big misunderstanding, he’d like to give you this.” She handed me an envelope.

  I slowly took it. “What’s this?”

  A flicker of doubt appeared in her eyes. “These papers are just, you know, because people are always trying to sue him.”

  I looked confused for a moment, then reached down and opened the envelope. Inside was a check for five thousand dollars. “What in the world? Are you trying to pay me off to sign those papers?”

  “No,” Taraji said a little too quickly. “That’s your payment for today’s appearance.”

  I stared at the check. No one had said anything about me getting paid for this appearance today. I mean, I had money coming from the actual video shoot, but I wasn’t expecting that for another two weeks.

  “We need to get moving,” Taraji said briskly, handing me a pen. I looked back and forth between the papers and the check. Five thousand dollars was a lot of money. Maybe Maya and Tangie were right. Sisco had been drinking, and he’d just gone a little overboard.

  Taraji smiled as I took the pen from her. Don’t ask me why, but I felt like I was selling my soul to the devil.

  I tucked my check safely away in my bag and headed to the set. Sisco arrived at the same time that I did. I half expected him to apologize, but he didn’t even acknowledge me.

  The photographer had just begun positioning people for the shoot when I noticed Mark, the director, huddled over in a corner, talking with some executive-looking person in a navy suit. My eyes widened in horror when I realized who else they were talking to. My mother!

  “Where did this trash come from?” she shouted. I cringed when I saw what was in her hand. She was waving a copy of Insite , the newspaper with my photo all over the front. “My child will not be degraded like this! I know you still haven’t changed that video. Let me remind you that she is not of legal age! Don’t make me sue everybody up in this room!”

  “Mama!” I was horrified.

  At the mention of suing, the man in the navy suit turned a deep red and started nervously fidgeting with his briefcase.

  “I told you I was not playing with you. You might not have called me back, but I know you got my message.” My mother wagged the paper at Mark. “You get a retraction in this paper. And either they cut that crap out or the video comes off the air now!”

  Sisco, who had stopped to take in the commotion, finally stomped over to them. “What’s up, Mark?”

  The director looked extremely flustered. “I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with this,” he kept repeating.

  “Well, somebody’s going to deal with it,” my mother said.

  “Look, old lady, don’t come up in here on my set trippin’,” Sisco said.

  My mother stopped her rant and stared at him like he’d gone stone-cold crazy. “‘Old lady’?”

  “Yo, you heard me.”

  “‘Yo’? Is that how your mama taught you to talk to someone, Crisco?” my mother hissed.

  “It’s Sisco,” he said, not as sure of himself now.

  I wanted so bad to say or do something, but I was frozen in place.

  My mother wagged the paper in his face. “Let me tell you something—”

  Sisco knocked the paper away. “Somebody better get this b—” Before he could finish his sentence, my mother had taken her purse and swung it as hard as she could, knocking Sisco upside the head.

  “I know you were not about to fix your lips to call me out of my name, you disrespectful little ingrate!” She continued to pummel him with her oversized purse.

  I stood there, dumbfounded, not believing the scene that was unfolding in front of me.

  Sisco, who was acting tough a minute ago, was covering his head and screaming, “Stop! Get her off me!”

  His boys, who usually had his back, were cracking up laughing. Even B, the bodyguard, was laughing.

  “All y’all disrespectful,” my mother said, finally stopping her attack. “You think you’re going to corrupt my child? Not as long as there’s breath in my body!”

  “Mrs. Harris, will you calm down?” the navy suit—wearing man said.

  “No, I will not calm down.” Her chest heaved up and down as she tried to catch her breath.

  “This is ridiculous,” Taraji said, finally speaking up. She spun toward Mark. “I told you all getting some high school girl was a bad idea, and look at all the drama we’ve had since we brought her on board.”

  I was shocked, because my mother never got this worked up about anything. But I guess the video, the tabloid, and now being disrespected by Sisco had pushed her over the edge.

  “Camille, get your stuff and let’s go,” she demanded.

  “But, Mama—”

  “Did that sound like a request to you?” she snapped. “Now I hadn’t planned on acting a fool, but this little ingrate wants to call me outta my name.” She glared at Sisco and held up her bag in warning. “Whew, you lucky I know Jesus, or else I’d
be sending you to meet Him.”

  “Camille, I think it’s best if you leave,” Taraji said. “For good.”

  Sisco had pulled himself together and was now looking like he wanted to punch someone. As everyone stared at me and my mom, I thought about all that I had sacrificed. I’d lost my dignity, my boyfriend and my friends. And for what?

  “You know what, Taraji?” I finally said. “I couldn’t agree with you more. I do need to leave.” I headed out the door after my mother.

  28

  Alexis

  Everything inside me told me this wasn’t the answer. But at this point I didn’t know what else to do. When Angel was pregnant, she ran away from home because her mother was planning on giving Angelica up for adoption. The road trip to find Angel had landed us all in a bunch of trouble. But she’d returned safe and sound, and her mom had ended up not giving the baby up for adoption. So, if you really thought about it, her plan had worked. That’s why I couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, if my mom and dad freaked out about me coming up missing, they’d see that breaking up was not the answer.

  I called Tyeesha to leave her a message, since neither Jasmine nor Angel had cell phones. I didn’t want them worrying about me.

  “Hey, Tyeesha, it’s Alexis. I need you to tell Jasmine and Angel not to worry. I’m okay. You guys will just have to trust me. Hopefully, I can explain everything later.” I hung up and began putting my plan into action.

  I’d worked everything out. I had called my old friends from St. Pius, twins by the name of Mari and Marlee. They’d graduated last year, but they were the only ones I still kept in touch with. They were going to meet me at the Galleria Mall.

  I had driven my car to the mall. I was going to leave it in the parking garage. That way it would blend in with the rest of the cars. I didn’t want to have someone spot it and call the police or something.

  After parking, I made my way inside the mall. I was supposed to meet the twins in front of Starbucks at two o’clock. Of course, they were late, so I killed time by window shopping in nearby stores. Once I spotted someone I knew from high school, and I turned so she wouldn’t see me.