Friends & Fauxs Read online

  After wrapping up her calls to an array of family, friends, and fauxs, Lydia picked up the phone again to make the call that really mattered: to her boss. “Keith, it’s Lydia,” she chirped. She was propped up on the sofa by her rapidly inflating ego and a hefty cushion of self-righteousness. She was on top of the world; ICP would finally stop treating her like a glorified secretary-cum-babysitter and give a diva the respect she deserved.

  “What’s up?” her boss asked, brusquely. She pictured him on his cell phone languishing in the never-ending 405 traffic jam, trapped in his blue-black Mercedes convertible, slowly creeping from his mini-mansion in the Valley into L.A. The pricey sports car had probably never even met third gear.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know,” she jested. Even though it was only 7:30 a.m., he’d be the only executive in Hollywood who wasn’t already buzzing about the Oscar nominations. Today was the day that studios, actors, actresses, and those in “The Business” worked for all year. “Gillian Russell? Oscar nomination?” Duh?

  “Of course I know that our client received an Oscar nomination.” He sounded annoyed that she’d called and interrupted his slow crawl to work.

  “You mean my client.” She loathed the way a C-list client was “hers,” but the second there’s a glimmer of success, the same client suddenly became “theirs.”

  Keith sighed as though he were being forced, at gunpoint, to deal with an unreasonable eight-year-old child. “We all realize that you are the primary publicist on Gillian’s account, but let’s be clear, she’s the company’s client. Not yours.”

  His arrogant, condescending tone really pissed her off. When Lydia initially brought Gillian to the agency, they weren’t the least bit interested in an unknown black girl without super-light skin, extra-long hair, or a hefty boob job. It was Lydia, and Lydia alone, who’d fought for the actress. “If it weren’t for me, Gillian wouldn’t even be at the firm,” she reminded him.

  “Now, Lydia, we’ve all brought in clients. That’s what we’re hired to do.”

  Though she didn’t like his tone, she bit her tongue and swallowed her pride, at least for now, but once she was walking red carpets around the world with her client it would be on!

  “Speaking of clients,” he continued, “where is Gillian? We need to schedule a press strategy meeting ASAP. Being nominated is one thing, but winning is quite another, and the right press build-up is critical.”

  “She and Brandon are yachting the Riviera,” she answered off-handedly. She was already imagining her outfit for the Oscars.

  “When does she return?”

  “I’m not sure,” Lydia admitted.

  “Well, I strongly suggest that you find out. For all you know, they could be schmoozing with ICM, and you know none of these agencies are above poaching an Oscar-nominated client.”

  Gillian and Brandon had made it pretty clear that this was their downtime and that they didn’t want to be disturbed. But that was before the Oscar nomination. “I’ll get right on it,” she said, suddenly worried. She’d worked too hard to let someone else cash her lottery ticket.

  Chapter 3

  Reese Nolan sat in a dazed stupor staring openmouthed at her fifty-inch plasma screen TV, just barely comprehending the fact that her good friend Gillian Tillman had just been nominated for an Oscar. Not a Soul Train, BET, or Essence Award, but a damned Oscar! Perhaps familiarity did breed contempt, because, even though Gillian was beautiful and did have some talent, as far as Reese was concerned, the girl wasn’t that good. She didn’t know whether to be happy for Gillian, or to simply curl up and cry for herself, and for the good ole days before Paulette’s untimely death.

  Reese, Gillian, Paulette, and Lauren had been the perennial “It” girls in Manhattan. Reese missed those carefree days of partying like rock stars, being photographed by paparazzi, envied by women, and desired by men. Reese had been the most popular of the foursome: the super-gorgeous, designer-clad wife of NBA superstar Chris Nolan. Lauren was the prima donna, naturally beautiful, trust-fund rich, and always elegant, while Gillian was the bohemian, a successful model with impeccable style and an intoxicating exotic appeal. Then there was Paulette, the mover, shaker, and dealmaker, who made one deal too many, which had led them both to the bottom of that rocky ravine.

  Reese’s phone blared, halting her bumpy ride down memory lane. Reluctantly, she picked it up. “Hello,” she managed.

  “Hey, girl. Did you hear the news?” It was Lauren, sounding like a hummingbird high on happy juice. Lauren was one of those lucky people seemingly forever dipped in gold.

  There was no use pretending not to know. By now, everyone in Hollywood did. “Yes, and I can’t believe it,” Reese said, trying to infuse a little enthusiasm into her own voice.

  “I am so happy I could scream!” Lauren sounded as if she had been nominated. Reese supposed that it was much easier to be genuinely happy for other people when your own world resembled a heaping bowl of cherries.

  “Me, too,” Reese said. She chided herself for hating and tried to remember that she was lucky to be alive, have financial—if not emotional—security, and most importantly, to have her son.

  “I have to get to L.A. right away so we can celebrate.”

  “That sounds good.” Even though Reese wasn’t in the mood for a celebration, getting together with Gillian and Lauren did sound like a good idea. They hadn’t done that since Paulette’s death two years ago. Maybe it would bring some long-awaited closure for them all. But on the other hand, it was Lauren’s grand idea to get together for Paulette’s baby shower that had been the catalyst for the tragic accident.

  It was just like Lauren, Reese thought, to insist on planning a shower, even though Paulette was unmarried, and wasn’t telling anyone who the father was. Regrettably, she didn’t have to. The fact that Reese had blurted it out after a few too many glasses of Champagne would haunt her forever. She vividly remembered the vicious argument that ensued. Sweet little Lauren went straight for the jugular, viciously ripping open painful family wounds, sending Paulette running hysterically from Brandon and Gillian’s house. Reese could close her eyes and see Paulette jump into the driver’s seat blinded by tears, and, as if from afar, she saw herself jump in along with her. Sometimes the rest would come to her in the form of a waking nightmare: Mulholland Drive twisting and turning, Paulette losing control of the car, and that terrifying plunge over the edge in a fit of twisted metal, deafening impact, and rocky, wooded terrain. The rest was both history and celebrity folklore.

  Unconsciously, Reese ran her finger along the barely visible but jagged line that trekked across her left cheek; an unwanted souvenir that even her hard-fought millions and Hollywood’s best plastic surgeons couldn’t erase.

  “Gotta run,” Lauren chirped, “Gideon and I have a sunset to catch.”

  “Where are you, by the way?”

  “We’re in Cape Town, leaving for Paris in the morning.” Lauren made it sound as if they were hopping the subway from Soho to Midtown.

  Great, Reese thought. Gillian was chilling on her husband’s monster yacht on the French Riviera, and Lauren was jetting around the world with her hunky photographer boyfriend, and here she was lying in bed alone in L.A. How pathetic. This was certainly not the life she’d envisioned while plotting, planning, and scheming her way from Queens to Beverly Hills.

  Still, things could be much worse, she realized. After all, she did manage to wrangle a handsome fifteen-million-dollar divorce settlement from Chris, in addition to thirty-five thousand dollars a month in child support. After buying and decorating her ten-million-dollar house in Bel Air and investing most of the rest with a financial planner, she used the more than generous child support to cover all monthly expenditures; after all, what seven-year-old needed thirty-five thousand dollars a month? Luckily Chris was good about not questioning how she spent the money.

  “Mommy, do I have to go to school today?” asked Rowe, who had climbed into Reese’s lap.

  “Of
course you do. Don’t you still want to grow up to be a fireman?”

  The cute little boy nodded, solemnly. He was tall for his age and very athletic, just like his father.

  “Well, firemen have to be smart so they can figure out how to fight those nasty fires and drive that big red truck.” Reese tussled his hair and lightly pinched his cheeks.

  “But I don’t feel good,” he pouted. He laid his head on her chest.

  Was this a ploy to avoid school and hang out with her for the day, or was he really not feeling good? Reese wondered. For the last few days he had seemed tired, and his normally toast-colored complexion did seem a little sallow, but when she felt his forehead, there was no sign of a fever.

  “I’ll tell you what. If you go to school, we’ll stop for ice cream when I pick you up after soccer practice. How’s that?” Normally, he wouldn’t dream of missing soccer practice. He was the team’s star, and Reese loved watching her little man run up and down the field with such confidence and ability, again, just like his father.

  At the mention of ice cream he brightened a little. “Okay,” he reluctantly relented, and then trudged off to his room to get ready for school.

  Reese picked up the remote and changed the channel, wishing that she could change her life as easily.

  Chapter 4

  The land of movie stars, Botoxed brows, and fancy cars was worlds away from the natural beauty of Cape Town, South Africa, a magical place where time stood still once the sun began its seductive descent into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Vibrant strobes of color unimagined by Pantone, and vivid streaks of light that Van Gogh could have never dared to create, converged to make each sunset a magnificent one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

  Sweet sighs of contentment eased past Lauren’s lips, as did Gideon’s teasing kisses. The word blissful came to her mind. That, Lauren realized, was the best way to describe her post-Paulette life with Gideon, at least most of the time. The two lovers had traveled the world, establishing an easy and fluid bohemian existence, far and away from Lauren’s controlling mother, Mildred, her scheming ex-husband, Max, and her own troubling demons, which still clung to her like an odorless vapor, proving that it was much easier to evade flesh and blood than to escape your own haunted thoughts and regret-filled dreams.

  Not a day went by that Lauren didn’t think of her cousin Paulette and her own involvement in Paulette’s death, however tangential. True, there was plenty of blame to go around for the devastating car crash that took Paulette’s life and that of her unborn child, beginning with Lauren’s sleazy ex-husband, who’d been carrying on a torrid affair with Paulette and was the father of her bastard child. Lauren’s last words to her ill-fated cousin were nasty, bitter missives, fired off after discovering the affair and the paternity of the expected child, whose very shower was the inauspicious occasion at which this fight occurred. A shower that had been organized and paid for by Lauren herself!

  When she could stomach the count, Lauren realized that her first mistake was marrying Maximillian Neuman III. She allowed her mother to call the shots when it came to choosing and marrying her own husband, just as she’d let her call the shots for most of her life. After careful scrutiny, Mildred selected Max to be her lawfully wed son-in-law because he fit the profile that she’d created: he was tall, light, and handsome; he had an Ivy League education and was an up-and-coming lawyer who was quickly making a name for himself in the right Manhattan legal and social circles. Ideally, she would have preferred for him to have family pedigree, but fortunately the Baines-Reynolds family had plenty of that to go around, since they boasted four generations of wealth, position, and the right complexion; though, these days, the last counted for far less. In any case, Mildred had led Lauren down the aisle like a little lamb to slaughter.

  Lauren’s second regret was not being sensitive to the insidious family politics surrounding skin color that had begun generations ago, when her great-great-grandmother, after being raped by the slave master, saw the high yellow baby appear between her black-as-coal legs, and instantly saw her ticket to the promised land. And so it was. The master freed her and the baby and even freed her other black children and her husband. He didn’t stop there, either; he educated them all and thus began the steep climb of the Baines dynasty. From then on they married only other “similarly situated” blacks, so when Priscilla, Lauren’s grandmother, had Mildred and Paulette’s mother, June, and June emerged from between her snowy white thighs the color of soot, a legacy of favoritism and rivalry was born right along with her.

  During their senior year of high school, to add insult to injury, June, who was the darker and hence less-favored Baines daughter, somehow managed to lure the judge’s son, who had already been earmarked for Mildred, into her clutches. This was an unforgivable breach of hierarchy that tore asunder any closeness the two sisters had shared. Disgraced, June ran off with a common day worker and was promptly disowned. She returned nine months later with Paulette, who’d suffered the wrath of color discrimination, snobbery, and bad breeding ever since.

  While June bore her cross silently, Paulette meticulously harbored and nurtured deep resentment toward Mildred that by default spilled over onto the picture-perfect Lauren. Her resentment and insecurities were unintentionally fed and fertilized by Mildred, who never let Paulette forget that she was a resident of the other side of the family tracks.

  Lauren, on the other hand, played it safe, and kept her well-coiffed head buried in the sand, feigning oblivion to the insidious family politics that ate away at her cousin, and foolhardily believed that she could pretend it didn’t exist and that she therefore would not have to deal with it.

  While sleeping dogs may lie, and some may never kiss and tell, revenge is best served cold, all of which Lauren soon discovered. When Lauren found out about Paulette and Max’s affair and the pregnancy, the two women fought bitterly; it was an explosive argument that resulted in Paulette’s tearful and hysterical drive down the Hollywood Hills, made tragic by a cut brake line, as well as the cutthroat curves of Mulholland Drive.

  Lauren’s guilt was immense. Shortly after the funeral she left the country with Gideon and had not once looked back.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Gideon whispered, in between the trail of kisses he eased along her throat, while stroking her hair and holding her close.

  She could feel him swelling against her thigh; a knowing smile courted the edges of her lips. “Haven’t you heard? The dollar is worthless; I’m not even sure if the penny even still exists,” she teased.

  He rolled over onto one side and dug deep into his cargo pants, extracting a rand, South Africa’s currency. “Okay, what about a rand?”

  “Last time I checked it was seven to one on the dollar. Totally not worth the price of my thoughts.”

  “Okay what about a kiss. I mean a real kiss,” he said, as he rolled back above her, pinning Lauren with his piercing gaze.

  “Now you’re talking,” Lauren cooed, squirming invitingly beneath him. Their connection, as it had been since they met, was impenetrable.

  Their lips met as though they had been handcrafted to fit snugly together, and the way they licked, sucked, and devoured each other was a fait accompli. Lauren loved his weight on top of her as they kissed and the contours of his well-cut muscles against her softness. Best of all, she savored the heat that radiated from the throbbing length of muscle between his legs. Gideon never failed to make her pant, which eased her legs open in invitation. No RSVP was ever required.

  Gideon pulled away, leaving her breathless. “What’s on my baby’s mind?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” she said, as she pulled at his zipper, ready to get the party started.

  “We’ve got the rest of our lives. I just want to hear that you’re happy, that’s all.”

  “If I were any happier, I’d explode.”

  “That’s exactly what I was waiting to hear.”

  After removing the rest of her clothes, he covered her body in so
ft wet kisses, lingering on her taut nipples, licking, teething, and sucking them until lazily trading one for the other. Meanwhile his hand traveled south, to a tropical land that he knew all too well. As his fingers probed and explored, Lauren moistened and massaged them with her muscles, communicating to him in a language that he understood instinctively. Gideon answered her plea by easing his thickness between her legs, conquering her wetlands.

  They made love, hungrily, giving it good, and getting it even better. Nothing was held back. Flipping over, Lauren rode him until she felt the tightness that always preceded her orgasm. It lingered in her groin for a while, then did a teasing radiant dance that spread the magic through, down, and around her hot sex. She closed her eyes and saw vibrant strobes of color and vivid streaks of light. Then she heard deep moans, primal groans, and unintelligible sounds that all came together in a soaring duet. Lauren and Gideon held on to each other as the sun completed its seductive descent into the depths of the ocean.

  Blissful, yeah, that’s what it was, blissful. Lauren eased into unconsciousness with a smile on her face, and just a whisper of unease hovering overhead.