Fortune & Fame: A Novel (2 page)

“We’re still in preproduction right now,” Rachel said with her eyes still on the camera. “We’re trying to figure out everything about the show. Of course, I’m the star, but the producers are still trying to determine who will be in the supporting roles.” Rachel grinned and her eyes peered into the camera as if she was trying to see into everyone’s living rooms.

Silly woman! She didn’t even know that she was supposed to be looking at Shaun, not at the camera.

Shaun shifted, taking two steps to her right as if she was trying to get Rachel’s attention. But Rachel wouldn’t turn her head. “Well, we’re excited,” Shaun finally said, speaking to the side of Rachel’s head. “We’ll be watching. By the way, Oprah hasn’t released the name of the show yet.”

“Oh, it’s a secret,” Rachel said, then batted her false eyelashes.

Jasmine hoped that a couple of those lashes would fall right into her eye! Blind her right there on TV.

“But we will announce it soon,” Rachel added.

“Just make sure you come back here and tell us first.”

“Definitely,” Rachel said.

“Thank you for sharing this with us.”

“Thank you for having me.”

Jasmine shook her head. That was what . . . a two- to three-minute interview? And that swamp pony had never once faced Shaun. How was she supposed to carry a show? There was no way that Oprah had ever spent any time with Rachel or else there wouldn’t be a show. How had Rachel pulled this off?

To the camera, Shaun said, “Who’s the latest Hollywood couple to adopt a baby in Africa? We’ll be right back with that story after this break.”

Jasmine grabbed the remote, pointed it at the television as if it were a weapon, and clicked it off. The moment the screen faded to black, Jasmine opened her mouth and released a scream that shook the bricks of the Upper East Side building
where Mae Frances lived. And as Jasmine shrieked, Mae Frances howled with laughter.

“Ugh,” Jasmine growled as she paced in front of her friend. “I just cannot believe this. Rachel is going to have her own television show.” She spoke as if she was trying to convince herself that this was a fact. “This cannot be happening to me.”

“Well, this is gonna happen, unless you’re thinking about shutting it down.”

Jasmine slowed her steps. “Yes! That’s what I need to do. I need to shut it all down before Rachel becomes a star. Because can you imagine what she’d be like if that was to happen?” Jasmine shuddered. “There would be no talking to her. No.” She shook her head. “She cannot have that show.” But then Jasmine paused and tapped her forefinger against her chin. “Wait a minute. Maybe I shouldn’t shut it down. Maybe what I need to do is get on that show.”

“You want to be on the show with Raquan?”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said, this time, ignoring the way Mae Frances had made up yet another new name for Rachel. She couldn’t focus on that while this idea was still forming in her mind. “First, I have to find out what’s really going on because Rachel is such a liar, she could have made this whole thing up.”

“Well, you’ve told a few lies in your lifetime, Jasmine Larson,” Mae Frances said, calling her by the name she’d been using from the first day they’d met. “So, maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to call that buffoon a liar.”

“My past sins have nothing to do with this. This is all about Rachel. I have to get some information. But how?” She took a few more steps, then stopped. Her eyes settled on her friend.

Mae Frances.

The two had been friends for more than eight years, since weeks after Jasmine had moved to New York. And if there was one thing that Jasmine had figured out during that time, it was that Mae Frances knew everybody in America, and beyond
this county’s shores. That meant that Mae Frances surely knew Oprah.

Jasmine sat down next to her friend on the sofa. “You can help me.”

“How?” Mae Frances looked at her sideways.

“You need to call Oprah. You’re friends with her, right?”

Mae Frances crinkled her nose like she smelled something bad. “Did I ever tell you I was friends with Oprah?”

Jasmine’s shoulders slumped. This was unbelievable. There was someone that Mae Frances didn’t know? “I thought you knew everybody.”

“I do. But Oprah ain’t everybody. In fact, she’s nobody to me.”

“Well, Oprah’s the person I need for you to know right now because I have to get on that show with Rachel,” Jasmine whined like she was about to throw a tantrum. She surely would if she couldn’t find a way to contact Oprah.

“Well, if that’s all you need to do, we don’t need to be talking about Oprah.” Mae Frances pushed herself off the sofa. “ ’Cause I can make a call right now and get in touch with the person who’s in charge of everything that has to do with Oprah.”

Jasmine blinked like she was trying to clear her thoughts. “If you’re not friends with Oprah, who are you gonna call? Gayle?”

“Gayle King? Please. She might run one or two things here and there, but I’m talking about the real Negro in charge of Oprah and her business. I’m calling Stedman.”

Now, Jasmine’s eyes were wide. “Stedman Graham?”

“You know another Stedman?”

“Oh, my God, you know him?”

“Yeah,” Mae Frances said in a tone that sounded like it was no big deal. “Stedman’s the reason why Oprah and I aren’t friends.”

“Because of Stedman?”

“Yeah,” Mae Frances said with a little chuckle. “He’s one—” She glanced over at Jasmine, who was staring at her with wide eyes, and Mae Frances cleared her throat. “Let me just make this call. Stedman will get you on that show.”

Mae Frances turned toward her bedroom, and Jasmine followed. Suddenly, Mae Frances stopped, making Jasmine bump right into her. She faced Jasmine. “Where are you going?”

“With you. I wanna hear what Stedman’s going to say.”

“Excuse you . . . but this is a private call. You don’t need to know what Stedman says to me as long as he says yes.” Mae Frances walked into her bedroom. “I’ll be out when I’m finished.” She closed the door, and Jasmine’s mouth opened in shock when she heard her friend click the lock.

Jasmine folded her arms and stood in the middle of the living room, stunned. She should have been insulted, but how could she be? Mae Frances was about to hook her up!

“Oh, yeah,” Jasmine said as she plopped back down on the couch. It wouldn’t take Mae Frances more than ten minutes to work it all out. Jasmine Cox Larson Bush was about to crash Rachel’s party.

She laughed as she thought about the look on Rachel’s face once she heard the news that she wasn’t going to be the only First Lady of reality TV.

There was a new First Lady in town. And this one had class.

G
et it. Got it? Good.”

Rachel Jackson Adams frowned, knitting her eyebrows together as she studied her reflection in the floor-length mirror. “No,” she mumbled, then said, “Google me, hun.”

She shook her head, trying to keep her frustration from overpowering her. “No. That doesn’t work either.”

Rachel took a deep breath, wagged a finger at her reflection, and said, “I’m about to situate the situation.”

“What in the world are you doing?”

Rachel spun around to see her husband, Lester, standing in the doorway of their massive bedroom. He was sweating profusely. Why her husband continued to go running in this brutal Houston heat was beyond her.

“I’m trying to come up with my catchphrase,” Rachel replied.

Lester walked in and began removing his T-shirt. “Your what?” he asked.

Rachel sighed. She was really not in the mood to explain Reality TV 101 to her husband, but she knew he wouldn’t get it
any other way. “My catchphrase,” Rachel said, walking over to her husband. She leaned in to peck him on his lips, but backed up when she noticed just how sweaty he really was. “Every reality star has a catchphrase. Like Sheree says, ‘Who gon’ check me, boo?’ Tamar says, ‘
Bomb.com
.’ Mama Dee says, ‘In that order.’ ”

“Who are these people?” Lester asked, looking confused.

“From the popular reality shows.”

Lester released a small chuckle as he walked into the bathroom, stepped out of his shorts, grabbed a towel, and began wiping his face. “See, I can’t with you today. I will never for the life of me understand why you watch that foolishness.”

Rachel jabbed a warning finger in his direction. “Don’t judge me, Lester. Me ‘watching that foolishness’ is why I landed my own show.”

He wiped himself some more, then wrapped the towel around his waist.

“Well, I still don’t support that,” Lester said, heading to his closet. “I am head of the American Baptist Coalition. The last thing I need is to have my wife on TV looking crazy,” he called out from the walk-in closet.

Rachel rolled her eyes. She liked her timid husband better, the one who let her run all over him. But Lester was feeling himself now that he’d gotten a little power as president of the ABC. Beating the esteemed Hosea Bush had given him some “oomph” and made him a little cocky. Add to the fact all the flak he’d caught because of her behavior this past year, and now he was trying to get all caveman on her. Well, he’d better recognize. She may have evolved from the slash-your-tires preacher’s daughter. But she was still a forge-her-own-path preacher’s wife.

Lester walked out of the closet holding a dress shirt and tie. Rachel couldn’t help but notice it was his Valentino tie. Hmph, when she first met him, he didn’t even know how to spell “Valentino”!

“Number one, I’m not going to be on TV looking crazy. I’m too classy for the trashy.” She smiled. That had just come to her. She would definitely have to use that phrase.

Lester didn’t bother trying to hide his exasperation as he laid his shirt and tie on the bed. “Is there even such a thing as classy reality TV?”

“If there wasn’t, there is now,” she replied.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said. “I worked out and ran two miles, so I know I’m real tart right about now.”

Working out. Something else the new and improved Lester had started doing. Rachel followed him into the bathroom.

“So, you’re not behind me on this?” she asked, her arms folded across her chest.

Lester inhaled and turned to face her. “Rachel, you know I try to support you. But I just don’t understand the need to do this show.”

She released a long sigh. She’d already had this conversation with her father, Simon, who was completely against her “airing all her business.” Now here Lester was giving her a hard time. This had been a dream come true that had fallen into her lap. No, Rachel and Oprah weren’t exactly the best of friends. But Rachel’s friend Melinda, a former reporter in Los Angeles, did just get hired as OWN’s vice president of programming, so when she shared the good news with Rachel, Rachel had suggested her reality show. Melinda had set up a meeting and Oprah loved the idea (which was a shock in itself because of the disaster Rachel and Jasmine had at the
Oprah
show last year). But the reality show—
The First Lady
—had been fast tracked and here they were. It was divine intervention.

“Lester, it’s not like I went out looking for this. It fell into my lap and I would be a fool not to take advantage of this opportunity,” Rachel protested. He didn’t need to know that she
had
actively pursued her own show.

He leaned in and turned the shower on. “As long as this
doesn’t make us look bad. No fighting, hair pulling, and all that other stuff.”

Rachel had to convince Lester to get behind her on this. She didn’t want to go to Atlanta, where they were filming, if her husband wasn’t completely on board. She
would
go, but she didn’t want to.

“Of course not,” Rachel said. “It’s not like I’d get caught up in some mess like that anyway.”

He smiled. “Don’t act like it’s beneath you.”

“See, why’d you have to go there? That’s the old me. I don’t fight. Anymore. I’m above that. You’re always talking about spiritual growth, but you don’t want to believe that I’ve grown spiritually.”

He leaned in and gave her a big kiss. She ignored his pungent smell and let him kiss her. “I believe you have, honey,” Lester said. “I’m just concerned.”

“I’m serious, Lester. This is a great opportunity and I plan to take full advantage of it.” Rachel had put her foot down when Lester first said he’d been called to preach. But ultimately he’d called her bluff and did it anyway. She’d caved that time, but there would be no caving this time. Not where Oprah was concerned.

“I just can’t believe Oprah gave you another shot,” Lester said.

“She knows all of that drama wasn’t my fault. That was straight Jasmine.”

“Why are you putting all the blame on Jasmine? I thought you two were girls.”

“We are. Kinda sorta,” Rachel replied. “I mean, since I lost my mother, it’s great to have a mother figure like Jasmine in my life.”

Lester laughed. “Mother? Really, Rachel?”

Rachel frowned. “You’re right. Grandmother.”

Lester laughed as he stepped into the shower. “Some things
will never change,” he said over the running water. “I thought you all were over taking digs at each other.”

“We are. But you know, with Jasmine, you just never know. You have to keep one eye open. Like Ephesians 24:7 says, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ ”

Lester paused and frowned like he was thinking. He leaned his head out the shower. “Rachel, that’s not in the Bible. And Ephesians only has six chapters.”

“I know, baby. I was just testing you. You know I was raised in the church. I know all the bible verses.”

Lester laughed as he leaned back under the water. She could tell that even though he wasn’t feeling this reality show idea, he wasn’t going to fight her on it, which was a good thing because that was one battle he would not win.

Rachel made her way downstairs just as the front doorbell rang. She peeked out the window and saw her best friend Twyla’s car. There went her peaceful evening. Rachel’s brother, David, had taken Rachel’s sons—Jordan and Lewis—to a baseball game and Twyla had taken the girls to a ballet performance at The Ensemble Theater. Now Rachel was going to have to listen to Brooklyn’s exciting recap for the next hour.